Lower Decks

Smallville returns with a bit of an appetizer before the show presents us with the first 2-hour movie next week.  It’s another heavy Oliver-centric episode, where we learn how Oliver gained the skills to become the Green Arrow.  There’s some Clark stuff in there as well, but “Disciple” is another episode of the Green Arrow Show.  If you don’t mind that, it was pretty good.

At some point, Smallville’s writers decided that Clark wasn’t enough to hold the show.  Or, maybe, that they wanted to do a Green Arrow show, but they didn’t think that it would work on it’s own.  Because, since Justin Hartley was added to the cast, there have been a lot of episodes that based around Green Arrow.  From the Tess/Oliver flashback episode last week to this year’s Speedy and Roulette episodes, there have been episodes that centered mainly on the Emerald Archer.

I’m not complaining.  As I’ve said several times, I realize what the writers are trying to do with Oliver.  He’s the closest thing that Smallville will ever get to Batman, and they’re trying to take advantage.  He connects Clark to the world of Superheroes, and he’s an intriguing character.

The funny thing is that, this year, Oliver seems to be leading his own show moreso than being a part of Clark’s.  Clark, Lois, Tess, and Zod seem to be having one show about Kandor and a cute relationship, and Chloe and Oliver seem to be doing another show about Watchtower and the Justice League.  A lot of things that Oliver is doing (training Speedy, for instance) has absolutely nothing to do with Clark.  Even Chloe seems to be on Oliver’s side moreso than Clark’s (more on that in a minute).  At the very least, she’s moreso Oliver’s sidekick.

And this isn’t a bad thing – I just find it interesting, particularly when they do an episode like this.  Where it almost seems like Clark is shoehorned into the climax since, you know, it’s his show.

The plot revolves around the return of Oliver’s mentor/teacher, who is seeking Oliver’s help.  He does it in a funny way, though, by shooting Lois and Chloe and kidnapping Mia (Oliver’s new protege, Speedy).  He feels he’s lost a step, and the only way to die honorably is to have his former student (Oliver) kill him.

Because, it seems, after his island adventure with Tess that we saw last year, Oliver got caught up in an ancient Celtic cult of archers.  It’s where he honed his archery skills, under the teaching of Vortigan.  But Vortigan’s questionable methods drove Oliver away, even though Vortigan claims that Oliver has a darkness in him that will someday consume him.

And we’ve seen a bit of that.  Apparently it doesn’t take much to send Oliver into a tailspin (just the idea of being chased seemed to send him towards the deep end), and I’m glad we didn’t see that since we just got out of a very long arc of Ollie feeling sorry for himself.  If “Roulette” wasn’t the end of the “sad Oliver” story, hopefully this episode is – he’s able to fight his demons and re-establish his teaching of Mia.

The rest of the episode revolves around Zod, who’s continuing to work with Kal-El to try and get his powers back.  He notices (accurately) that Clark is hesitant to do much that would give the Kandorians their powers back, and by the end of the episode, it seems that Zod is already growing tired of the “buddy-buddy” friendship attempt.

But I’m not really sure what Zod is trying to pull.  He thinks that the humans will hunt the Kandorians if they ever find out they’re aliens.  And the only way to protect themselves is to get god-like powers?  It doesn’t seem right, particularly since it would be so easy for them to blend in with the humans – especially since, from what we’ve seen, powerless Kryptonians are virtually impossible to distinguish from humans.

Clark’s right to play it safe – the powered-up Kandorians would almost certainly decide to rule the Earth if they got the chance.  And I know that even without the assistance of the dark future we were shown before the hiatus.  The problem is that Clark doesn’t seem overly concerned with the Kandorian’s efforts to try and get their powers back, apparently assuming that such a thing is impossible.

Zod does meet Lois, however, and he even gets her to wear a Kryptonian necklace.  Lois doesn’t think much of it, but Clark warns Zod by the end of the episode that she’s to be left alone.  It’s another mistake by Clark, I think, because now Zod knows that Clark would be really hurt if anything ever happened to Lois.  He might have powers, but now Zod knows that Clark’s not completely invulnerable.

And, at the end of the day, that’s about it.  If you like Oliver’s story, it’s a pretty solid episode.  Otherwise, it doesn’t really do much to advance the story.  Things have certainly gotten pretty bad between Clark and Chloe, though, as they have another argument about what each of them should be doing.

And I’m really not sure whose side of the argument I agree with.  On one hand, I think Chloe should be able to stretch her wings and contribute in any way she can.  On the other, I agree that she’s lashing out at people more often than we’ve ever seen, and she’s definitely giving in to a darker side than we’ve seen in a while.  Watchtower Chloe is a pretty interesting character, but I’m hoping to see more of the good old Clark/Chloe partnership that was so important earlier in the series.

I’m sure most of you know, but next week is the two-hour Smallville movie entitled “Absolute Justice” – featuring the Smallville versions of the Justice Society of America.  It’s getting a lot of hype, and I’m pretty excited about it.  Should be a great episode, and I’ll have a review up next week.