Other rumors include ABC canceling Flash Forward after its first season but renewing V for a second year. Also, NBC has officially renewed Chuck for a fourth season. The CW previously announced that it was renewing Supernatural and The Vampire Dairies as well as Smallville. FOX announced earlier that Fringe would be returning for a third season.

CBS has yet to decide whether to renew Medium or Ghost Whisperer.

I’m not sure why the show needs to treat Lois and Clark like such a big deal.  I realize that “Lois and Clark” are the ultimate “super-couple” – but the relationship was building for a while.  I’m not entirely sure it needs to have episode after episode devoted to it.  They’re together, yes, but do we need entire hours devoted to each step that they take?

At the same time, we get to experience Chloe and Oliver’s relationship for the first time.  And as much as I’ve wanted to see the two of them “hook up,” I think the way they’ve done it was just awkward.  I think they wanted to make allusions to it and then shock us with the revelation that they were at the bed and breakfast.  But, at the end of the day, it came out of nowhere.  And I just think it was handled poorly.

So, hopefully, this is the last time they’ll devote so much time to all of this, especially since there are only a few episodes left in the season.  Lois is with Clark, and they’re happy together.  Oliver and Chloe are together, and they’re both over their respective crushes on Lois and Clark.  Now let’s move on.

The real meat of the story dealt with Zod, who got his powers at the end of the last episode.  Now that he has what he wanted, he wants what Clark has – the respect of the entire world.  Because there’s no doubt that Zod feels that he’s now superior to Clark – it’s just a matter of taking the rest of what Clark has.

And I”m still unsure of what Zod’s true motivations are.  Does he want to rule the world?  Does he want the safety of his people?  Does he want revenge on Kal-El?  Because I really don’t think it’s been illustrated, and it seems like he’s indicated a desire for all of those things in the past.

Zod spends most of his time in the episode with Tess, who still seems like she wants to have her cake and eat it too.  She discovers that Zod has his powers, and she reveals the ability to weaken the powered Zod when he attacks her.

Intrigued by Tess’ ability, the two sleep together, but they still keep their distance.  Zod wants to know what makes Kal-El so special to the people of Earth, and Tess refuses to give anything that would hurt Clark.

It’s an interesting dynamic, especially since almost every member of the cast now knows Clark’s secret.  There was a day when no one knew it, and now the only person out of the loop is Lois.

So Tess is doing her best to save Clark, but she’s not doing a whole lot to stop Zod.  I really wonder what she’s trying to do, as well.  Because I’m not sure she can have it both ways – if she’s going to save Clark, Zod has to be stopped.

And at the end, it seems like Zod is going to imitate the Blur – at least via Lois.  He asks Lois to dig up stuff on Tess, which should make things interesting once things are all put into motion.

Before I finish, I should probably mention the DC guest star – the Silver Banshee.  I’m not very familiar with her character, and I think it could’ve been done a little better.  The little flashes that indicated that someone was possessed worked, but when they put Erica Durance in the full makeup, it looked a little silly.  Throw in Erica’s “decent” Scottish accent, and I thought it could’ve been a little better.

And I also wanted to mention the fact that the writers actually broached the “super-sex” subject.  I thought it was odd that they did that, but the explanation almost makes sense.  There are things that Clark has to do in his normal life that he has to control (shaking hands, for example), and it makes sense that he could do that in all aspects of his life (even the private ones).

Although it’s a little odd that such a thing would be part of Jor-El’s “training.”  I’m also find it a bit odd that Clark’s “training” hasn’t really been mentioned, outside of that line.  What the heck did Clark learn, other than how to have sex with Earth women?

All in all, it was just a decent episode.  The Zod stuff was easily the best part of the episode, and it was probably the C-story (after the “love square” stuff and the Silver Banshee subplot).

Although, as the season winds down, I’m sure Zod will take a bigger spot on the main stage.  As he should.

Clark has made a lot of bad decisions in the name of “doing the right thing,” and he does it again in this episode.  It’s a bit disturbing because I thought that was the whole point of last season – Clark looking too deep for the goodness in people and realizing that some people can’t be saved.  And it seems like Clark is doing the exact same thing here with Zod.

And, like I said last week, I’m not entirely sure why Clark is so loyal to his father.  He knows that Zod is evil, and he’s already fought/destroyed him in another incarnation.  And yet a clone of his father, who Clark never even met (and hasn’t really even gotten along with for most of his life), tells Clark to “save Zod” and Clark risks the world to do so?  It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

Because you have to think Clark considered the idea that Zod would get his powers from his blood?  After all, Clark knows virtually nothing about the Kandorians, their DNA, or their powers, and he has no idea what would activate or de-activate them.  And as soon as Clark used his blood to heal Zod’s wound, I knew what it would end with.

But maybe that’s the Man of Steel’s greatest weakness – that he has too much faith in the good in people.  And maybe it’s a weakness that he can’t overcome – maybe even one that he shouldn’t overcome in fear that Superman would no longer be the unstoppable force for good.  It just sucks that, in the context of this character, we don’t really see him overcoming his past mistakes.

Particularly in this case, where unleashing a powered Zod on the world could, literally, destroy it.

But it certainly sets up the final quarter of the season pretty nicely.  We have two powered Kryptonians with a collection of groups on the side with varying loyalties.  Let’s examine a couple of them before we move on.

Let’s start with the Kandorians.  We know that most of them are (or have been) loyal to Zod.  He led them on Krypton, helped save them from death, and has been leading them on Earth.  Due to Clark’s role as a protector / emissary on Earth, some of the Kandorians have jumped ship to Clark.  But knowing Zod’s masterful ability to manipulate those around him, you have to think Zod can reclaim any or all of them. 

Especially when you consider that Zod can now present the “anything Clark can do, I can do better” argument.  Zod has military-level fighting skills, military-level strategic skills, and considering his flight ability, a greater control of his Kryptonian powers.  If the Kandorians are simply looking for the more powerful protector, Clark doesn’t really stand a chance anymore.

But in some kind of battle royale, the Kandorians are probably just innocent bystanders (like regular humans).  It will be interesting to see if Zod tries to get the rest of his people their powers, or if he was simply interested in getting powers for himself.  Now that he knows that Kal-El’s blood is the key, we’ll see if he tries to use that chip.  If the Kandorians all get re-powered, all bets are off.

Then there’s Chloe and Oliver.  We confirm that the two of them are in some sort of relationship, but it’s done awkwardly again.  Two episodes ago, Chloe and Oliver had a moment, but Oliver had been drinking at the time.  Then we have a love-based episode where Chloe is by herself on Valentine’s Day, making us wonder if something is actually happening.  Then we get some flirtation from Chloe, while Oliver is simply interested in finding out what happened to his money.  And they spend the episode in some kind of battle over power/control.

So are they in a relationship or not?  We’ve never seen them kiss, and Oliver really doesn’t show a whole lot of interest.  They openly disagree with each other, openly lie to each other, and they display a lack of trust in each other.  If they’re in a relationship, it doesn’t seem to have a strong foundation.

Anyway, Chloe tells Oliver that she’s been shifting money from his estate (borrowing, she says, not stealing) to create a cache of kryptonite-based weapons (like we saw in the dark future).  By the end, Oliver hides the weapons from Chloe, and they both agree to keep it secret from Clark.

It’s a little disappointing that Chloe is back to not trusting Clark, especially after a few episodes where it seemed like things were getting better.  So either Chloe is manipulating Clark when it seems like things are good, or Chloe is simply being written inconsistently.  At this point, I think both are likely possibilities.

Although like I’ve said above, I can’t really blame her.  It does seem like Clark is favoring the Kandorians over humans, and he does show an odd preference of his own people over the people that raised him.

If some kind of big battle, we know that Chloe and Oliver would be against Zod (and probably also against the Kandorians).  But since they’re not letting Clark in on the plan, you can’t really say they’re siding with him either.  You have to think that the Justice League will side with Oliver over Clark, especially since they’ve already sided with Oliver once before.

Which is similar to Checkmate.  We know that Amanda Waller re-activated the Justice Society in preparation for some upcoming “apocalypse.”  It’s unknown what she knows about Zod, Clark, or the Kandorians, but now that she has a kryptonian blood sample, you have to think she knows now.  Waller’s “suicide squad” will likely also be against Zod and the Kandorians, but they’ll probably be their own group.  So probably separate from Clark and the Justice League.

Then there’s the Justice Society.  Just like with the Justice League, it’s unknown if they’ll be back, but Smallvillehas been pretty good in the past about getting people to come back later in the year if they’re needed.  Waller thought they’d be important, and maybe they will be.  We’d likely just see Hawkman and/or Star Girl, since they were the only two to survive the “Absolute Justice” two-parter, and they’d probably side with the Justice League as well.

If they could do some kind of battle royale, it’d be really cool.  I’m not sure how it’d work on TV (or if it’d simply be too many people to work), but I think it’d be really cool if we got the Justice League and Justice Society vs. powered Kandorians with Clark as the X-factor.  It sounds like a really cool series finale, but with rumors that Smallville will likely come back for a tenth season, that might not work out.

As far as the actual plot went, I thought the villain was pretty interesting, and I liked how they tied it all in with Metallo.  We already knew that the Kandorians were experimenting on humans to try and get their powers back, and it was a nice bit of continuity to have that come back and haunt them.

Although, again, I don’t really understand what was supposed to be happening in the final “fight”.  I realize that the doctor had absolutely zero chance to fight Clark, but the last fight was extremely awkward.  Was the doctor intentionally killing himself, or did he accidentally electrocute himself?  It was another strange ending to an episode, and it brings up the question on when the last time Clark actually fought someone one-on-one.  It feels like it’s been a really long time.

The last thing I wanted to talk about was Zod and Lois.  It seems like Zod has gotten into Lois’ head, and it will be interesting to see what his endgame with her is.  Is he simply trying to get into Clark’s head, or does he actually want to take Lois for himself.  It happened when Zod came the first time, when LexZod took Lana for himself.

You have to think that it would be the ultimate revenge on Clark to have Zod controlling the world with Lois by his side, whether or not Zod actually cares for her at all.

So now we have a month off before Smallville returns in early April.  Just a few episodes remain, and things are setting up for an interesting end to the year.

I think the show knows that it can never be Lois and Clark.  It can never have an actual episode where Clark proposes to Lois, and they’ll never be able to really put Erica Durance in a wedding dress.  And since they still want to do those things, they have to do stuff like this.

Or maybe they realized that it was Valentine’s Day, and they needed to do a theme show.

Either way, the episode didn’t really need to happen.  Because I don’t think anything was really gained from having Lois act like a 1950s housewife.  The final scene between the two effectively RESET buttoned any progress made in their relationship (even simply moving in together).  Even the Chloe stuff didn’t do a whole lot because I don’t think she’ll be any more focused on Clark than she was before.

It was an excuse to make a Clark and Lois 50s relationship happen.  It was an excuse to have a Chloe/Lois argument where a lot of boundaries are taken down.  And it was an excuse to have a Chloe/Tess girl fight.  Nothing more and nothing less.

And what’s really disappointing is that they hint at this Chloe/Oliver relationship, and then immediately have a romance-based episode.  And not only is there no mention of anything from Chloe (who is alone on Valentine’s Day), but Oliver doesn’t even show up.

It’s honestly one of the more frustrating things about Smallville – you never know if something from one episode will carry over into the next.  One tease might never end up going anywhere, and even if it does, it’s often ignored.  It’s like the writers’ room is made up of two factions that have no idea what the other side is doing.

Not that the episode was completely valueless.  After a few weeks with no progress on the Zod front, we finally get back to that story.  It turns out that Zod has been cranking out his towers at a frantic pace, and they’re nearly built.

In addition to that, Clark is apparently still upset about Jor-El’s death.  This is almost a mirror of the episode where Clark is going around trying to avenge Jonathan’s death, except this doesn’t make as much sense.  Jor-El died a long time ago, and Clark hasn’t mentioned it once since it happened.  Maybe Chloe mentioning it early in the episode opened up the wounds, but it just seemed really odd.

And the attachment to Jor-El is a bit strange since Clark never even knew him.  And the fact that it wasn’t really his father.  Clark’s father died on Krypton – it’s a “young clone” that was killed on Earth.  Why Clark would suddenly care so much about the death struck me as odd.

But Zod is about to build his tower, and everyone seems to be focusing on how to take advantage of it.  Zod, of course, wants his powers.  Some of the other Kandorians are following Clark’s plan to get them all new lives so they can fit in on Earth.  Clark doesn’t seem to have a plan for the tower at all, focusing on the passports and drivers licenses.  Chloe just wants to destroy the tower to avoid the dark future where she’s killed.  And Tess wants the tower built so that Clark can rule the Kandorians and “show mercy to the Earth.”

Got all that?

It’s funny that Clark has allowed the towers to be built in the first place.  He seems content on keeping the Kandorians powerless, and he’s doing the right thing in trying to get them acclimated to their new home.  But Clark also knows that the towers give the Kandorians their powers, and he knows that it takes away his.  He even says it to Tess later in the episode, and Tess’ ignorance to that fact is also illustrated.

So Tess was actually allowing the tower to be built to protect Clark and protect the Earth.  What was Clark’s excuse?

And you might say, “What was Clark supposed to do about it?”  And my answer would be that Clark ends the episode by destroying both towers with his heat vision (in an awkward post-9/11 moment, I must say).  So if he’s willing to do that, he can also try and stop the towers before they’re built, right?

Especially since he likely caused collateral damage when the towers collapsed.  Say nothing of the press conference that was happening immediately below.

And, honestly, I haven’t understood Clark’s motivations the entire season.  He knows that Zod is bad, and he knows that he’s conspiring behind Clark’s back.  Just like with Davis last year, he knows there’s no saving the good side of Zod – so it basically means that Clark learned nothing from last year’s arc.

And at the end of the season, we’re going to have a “I should have done something sooner” scene with Clark.  And, yes, Clark.  You should have done something sooner.

All in all, it was nice to get back to the Zod storyline.  Now that the tower is destroyed, I’ll be interested in seeing Zod’s counter-move, and I’m glad this happened early enough in the season to allow such a counter-move.

But outside of that, the episode was just lame.  Hopefully, next week will be an improvement.

When I first read about this episode, I didn’t really know what to make of it.  The whole comic book convention setting worried me because it seems like the writers like taking little jabs at the fans, especially considering that Clark Kent is usually the most critical of “fanboys.”  And then there’s the whole “kid becomes a superhero and turns bad” idea – which is both cliche and a little easy.  And following up last week’s “Absolute Justice”, I was hoping for something a little more concrete.

And what happened was a little surprising and yet a little disappointing – the whole Warrior Angel thing became more about Chloe than anything else.  And while I absolutely love the focus on Ms. Sullivan, I feel like they left some things on the table that could’ve made it really cool.

I’ll start with the bad – I’m not entirely sure that it was necessary to bring Zatanna into the mix for this episode.  I’m not complaining about the Super Guest Star because I feel like it’s something that needs to happen on the show all of the time.  The problem is that it isn’t going to happen all the time, and that means that these guest spots need to mean something.  And I’d rather someone like Zatanna show up as part of a super-team-up than a B-story.

Because, honestly, the whole Warrior Angel thing didn’t have to be Zatanna-based magic.  It could’ve happened a number of ways, and it seems like Zatanna was just forced in there for convenience.  Again, don’t get me wrong, I love when DC characters are included..I just think, if this is her only appearance of the season, we could’ve had something cooler.

Then there was Warrior Angel himself.  With all of the connections between Clark and Warrior Angel, I was almost certain that we were going to get some kind of confrontation between the two.  Whether Clark and Warrior Angel were going to fight Devilicus alongside each other or Clark was actually going to fight Devilicus/Warrior Angel, I thought it could be a cool finale for the pair.

Instead, Clark never even sees Warrior Angel.  It’s actually Zatanna who defeats him, and Clark only sees Alec in his kid form…never in his adult one.  And while I’ve basically given up on the idea of having a decent super-powered fight on the show, they didn’t even try it this time.

Outside of that, I was pleasantly surprised.  The comic book stuff wasn’t overdone in my opinion, and there weren’t really any shots at the fans that I was expecting.  It would’ve been nice to have a Justice Society reference (even just as a costume on someone random), especially since it just happened a week earlier, but I wasn’t terribly upset about that.

Like I said earlier, this episode was mostly about Chloe.  She’s the first one who’s saved by Warrior Angel, and she immediately moves to recruit the new hero onto her team.  She doesn’t know that Warrior Angel is just a 12-year-old kid, and it’s a little funny as Alec is completely oblivious to her romantic advances.

What I really liked, however, was the continuing idea that Chloe needs to have some fun.  It was nice to see her outside of her serious and/or angry modes, simply enjoying herself.  We’ve heard people tell her that so many times this season, and it’s nice that they actually followed through with it.

And, in an interesting connection, the actor playing Warrior Angel has actually been seen before.  If you remember two seasons ago, Smallville had an episode where Clark saw a version of Earth where he never existed (“Apocalypse”).  In that episode, Chloe was happy and engaged to a young man…played by the same actor who played Warrior Angel.  Because of the age difference, it’s obviously not supposed to be the same character, but it’s funny that they used the same actor for two characters Chloe was interested in.

But things do end up on an interesting romantic note for Chloe, who returns to the Watchtower to find Oliver doing some shooting practice.  One thing leads to another, and the next thing you know, Oliver is softly helping Chloe fire an arrow into the screen.

It’s obviously a hint that the two could become a couple, and it’s one that I really think could work.  Chloe and Oliver have been working closely for a long time now, and I think they’d be pretty great together.  It’s just a bit odd because there hasn’t been any indication that their relationship has been anything but platonic up until now.  We’ve seen a couple of intimate scenes between them (most recently in “Roulette”), but nothing to really tell us that they’re anything more than friends.  Interesting.

I also found it odd that Oliver was drinking.  I thought he’d basically admitted that he’s an alcoholic – shouldn’t he be avoiding alcohol?  And especially the idea of drinking by himself?  I realize that he’s young and rich, but that doesn’t mean he has to have a drink every night – right?

As far as everything else goes, it was all pretty generic.  Zatanna kisses Clark to try and give him some form of perspective, and Clark brushes her off to keep things going strong with Lois.  It was a nice little story, but it wasn’t much to write home about.  And, of course, the writers took advantage of the comic book theme and got Lois into a sort of “Xena” outfit.  No surprise there.

All in all, it was a pretty solid episode.  I wish there’d been a reference to the whole Justice Society event, but at least the goodwill between Clark, Chloe, and Oliver remained.  And the mention of the Red-Blue-Blur was nice, although I was sort of hoping that Clark would consider going back to those colors again.  He was just wearing black in honor of Jimmy, right?  Shouldn’t it be about time to go back to Superman colors?

Next week’s episode looks a bit cheesy, but hopefully they can give us a strong B-story to override it.  Otherwise, it might be one of those episodes that falls on it’s face.  Let’s hope it isn’t.

I’d like to say that I’m glad that the Martian Manhunter got his powers back in this episode.  I realize that’s not really the point of the episode (and it’s an odd way to lead off), but it just felt really weird that John sacrificed his powers to save Clark last year…and it was never resolved again.  Like the death of Lex (more on that in a second), it just felt wrong for the series, and I’m glad it’s been fixed.

Of course, I’d feel a lot better about things if the show actually carried through some of the things it talked about in these episodes.  Everything seems to be building to the final scene, where Oliver, Clark, Chloe, and John decide to spend time together…just as friends/family.  Several times, it’s alluded to the fact that the Justice League is so hard to get a hold of, and it seems like Chloe and Oliver (as the leaders of the League) vow to do something about it.

Unfortunately, though, I’m not really sure that’s going to happen.  It’d be really cool if, at least a couple times a year, the Justice League did show up on the show.  Maybe not all of them every time (particularly since the League is growing), but it’d be cool if they were all solid guest stars.  Particularly since it’s not really clear what the rest of the League is supposed to be doing while Oliver and Clark are busy in Metropolis.

And it made me kinda wonder if this episode shouldn’t have been a season finale – there’s even a chance, with a bit of tweaking, that it could’ve worked as a series finale.  Because Clark and company learn a lot here, and it feels like the stakes have been kicked up.  And if we just get another freak of the week episode where Clark and Oliver and Chloe are all doing their own thing next week…what was the point?

But let’s not worry about that right now – let’s focus on the movie itself and let the rest of the season map itself out.

I really loved how much Chloe was featured, and I love that she’s taken such a big role in the universe.  You can just see how much Oliver and John respect her, and it’s great to see that she’s able to keep up with all of these epic heroes.  It was a bit strange that she and Clark were on good terms so quickly (especially since, even last week, they were fighting), but it was great that they were able to team up again.  I wonder if the goodwill will continue beyond these two episodes, though.  I hope so.

But let’s talk about what everyone wants to talk about – all the guest heroes.  On center stage were Hawkman and Doctor Fate, and I thought both were handled pretty well.  I’ll admit that I don’t know a whole lot about either character, but I thought each worked in the context of the series.

One of the great fears coming into the episode was whether or not the costumes would look cheesy.  After all, most “costumes” on this show have been updated/altered to make a bit more sense in a realistic world, but these people were going to try and look like their comic counterparts.

And, yes, I felt like Fate looked a bit ridiculous at times, but I didn’t think it was particularly over the top.  And I agree with the producers that they needed to favor authenticity over realism in this case, and I think they did a great job with what they’re working with.  Much better than last year’s Doomsday if you ask me.

We also get glimpses of several other heroes, including Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, and the Flash.  It would’ve been nice if we could’ve seen some of these heroes in action (they aren’t even allowed to use Flash’s name – it’s part of the same embargo that made Bart Allen be called “Impulse” in the Justice League episode), but it was still cool to see them.

One of my concerns was how the Justice Society would fit in with Smallville continuity – after all, the first few seasons did a pretty solid job of explaining that Smallville was unusual for it’s super-powered crowd.  If there were “metahumans” and superheroes already, Smallville wouldn’t have seemed so strange.  Besides the fact that if the Flash were well known, Bart Allen’s ability wouldn’t have intrigued Clark so much.

The writers are able to skip around this fact with the simple idea that the Justice Society kept themselves hidden – kinda like Clark has done.  And it really is a great way of doing things – you get a great sense of history without really affecting the show’s continuity.

Although one thing did bug me about that.  Hawkman mentioned that the “museum” was closed forever (implying that it was open at some point) - and it seems to be the same building that served as the Justice Society’s headquarters.  Later scenes seem to imply that the headquarters doubled as a museum (with all their weapons on display).

If that’s the case, was it supposed to be a JSA museum?  And if that’s the case, who was supposed to be visiting this museum…especially if the JSA was this big secret that no one knew about – not even the “current” superhero team?

I also found it a bit odd that, at no point, do Hawkman and company reach out to the other JSA members.  I realize that this couldn’t be a battle royale, but it seems like Hawkman is more concerned with leaving the rest of the team alone than actually protecting them.  Particularly since they didn’t seem to have any idea that Icicle was working alone.

Anyway, I’m a thousand words in and haven’t really mentioned the plot.  Let me do a really quick summary.

Chloe is contacted by a former superhero (the Star-Spangled Kid) who tells her that her team is in danger.  Before she can do anything, she’s thrust into a dumpster, and a super-powered brawl takes place.  When the dust settles, the hero is dead.

After another hero (Sandman) is killed in a similar way (killed via an ice weapon), Clark, Chloe, and Oliver begin looking into what’s happened.  It turns out that both dead people belonged to a team that was imprisoned decades earlier, and Clark moves in to try and protect the remaining members.

Not before long, they stumble upon the truth – that everyone that was arrested was a superhero, part of a secret team of heroes called the Justice Society of America.  And while our heroes are investigating the deaths, Hawkman, Doctor Fate, and Star Girl (the Star-Spangled Kid’s protege) work on their own.

Eventually, the two teams clash.  The Justice Society members think that the Justice League is young and careless, while the Justice League is eager to prove that they have what it takes.  The biggest clash comes between JSA leader Hawkman and de facto leader Green Arrow – who don’t like each other one bit.  It’s great to see the chemistry between the two characters, and I loved every scene between the two.

It turns out that the villain after the old heroes is Icicle – a villain with cold-based powers – who is looking for revenge for the defeat of his father at the hands of the Society.

Eventually, the two teams (and the Manhunter) find a way to work together, and they save the day.

What no one else finds out is that Icicle is actually the pawn of  a larger game – run by the mysterious Amanda Waller.  She’s a leading agent of a group called Checkmate that was responsible for the imprisonment of the heroes in the first place.  And at the end of the episode, we get three interesting revelations about Checkmate.

1. The whole scheme was designed to get the JSA out of hiding and working with the new group of heroes.  Waller claims that she’s getting the world ready for the coming apocalypse.  Maybe she means Apokalips?

2. Waller is creating the Suicide Squad.

3. Tess Mercer is a member of Checkmate, subservient to Waller.  It’s unknown how long she’s been a member.

The Checkmate stuff is really cool (I loved all the Cadmus stuff on Justice League Unlimited, also featuring Waller), and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with it.  Amanda Waller is a really interesting character, and I’m glad she’s finally made her way to Smallville.

So, all in all, the episode really advances the storyline.  We’ve been slowly building to Clark as a leader of other heroes, and we’ve also seen Chloe and the League take more prominence in things (although, again, the heroes are always off-screen).  Hopefully, some of the advice the characters receive actually goes to heart.  Especially Chloe trying to get out of the Watchtower every once in a while.

A couple final things – one good and one bad.

I mentioned Lex earlier, and Doctor Fate seems to indicate that Lex is alive.  Whether or not they actually get Michael Rosenbaum back (and I’m hoping they can before the show ends), I’m glad that they at least left that door open.  Lex is such an important character to the Superman mythos that they can’t leave him dead for too long.

As far as the negative goes, I felt it was a little odd that Icicle was the sole villain in the episode.  He seemed to be pretty powerful, but even Waller admits at the end of the episode that it was a bit ridiculous to assume that he could take down the whole JSA by himself.

Particularly since the main problem with defeating Icicle was simply finding the guy.  Star Girl was almost able to handle him by herself, and the heroes, once teamed up, defeat him really easily five on one.  I wish a better villain had been used, just because it would’ve added a bit more danger and drama to things.

Although that also might have washed out the heroes a bit.  It was really great to have two full hours for this because it really gave the guest heroes a chance to shine.  Even Clark takes a backseat to give the JSA people time for themselves (he really doesn’t do much, even when fighting is required, in either part).

In conclusion, I thought it was really well done.  I’m glad the producers gave the writers enough freedom to do the Justice Society right, and I couldn’t have been more happy with the results.  A great television movie, a great event, and a great job.

And, hopefully, something great to build on.

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.

In addition, Smallville will air a 2-hour movie on February 5th (same time/channel).  “Absolute Justice” was written by Geoff Johns (who wrote last year’s “Legion” episode), and it will bring the Justice Society of America to Smallville.

We’ll, of course, have reviews of all the remaining Smallville episodes right here at Lower Decks.  We hope you’re looking forward to the return of Clark Kent!

I’ll be honest – I’m usually a sucker for this type of episode.  I’m typically drawn in by these alternate futures where people are allowed to take on different roles than we’re used to.  Because, for the most part, the writers aren’t afraid to take risks and do stuff that wouldn’t be allowed otherwise.

It’s like ”Course Oblivion” from Star Trek : Voyager, where we’re shown an alternate version of the Voyager crew on a doomed mission to save themselves.  Slowly but surely, each member of the crew is wiped out until nothing is left.

It’s the same thing here.  Over the course of the episode: Chloe kills Tess, a Kandorian kills Chloe, Zod kills Clark, and a swarm of Kandorians (probably) kills Oliver.  Metropolis is mostly destroyed, and the only hope in saving the world is changing the past.

None of those things would be possible in a regular episode, but in this type of show, you can see the consequences of certain actions.  It’s a bit cheesy because the audience knows that the “reset button” is coming, but it’s still a lot of fun to watch extraordinary plot lines unfold.

As far as this episode goes, I really liked the way things went.  The episode begins with Tess kidnapping Lois to access her memories of the future.  It’s finally revealed that Lois travelled one year into the future with the Legion ring, and she sees a world where Zod has regained his super powers, taking away Clark’s in the process.

I’m not really sure how the towers are supposed to give powerless Kryptonians their powers back, but I guess it doesn’t really matter in the long run.    All that matters is that the world is being run by Zod, and Clark is powerless to do anything about it.

It seems that, without Lois, Clark was forced to take on Zod by himself.  And, for whatever reason, Clark wasn’t able to defeat the general before it was too late.

I’m not really sure I understand what was supposed to have happened there.  Before the tower was built, Clark would’ve had all the advantages over the Kandorians, and he should’ve been able to physically dominate Zod in any kind of fight.  Clark never really elaborates on anything, other than the fact that “he made a lot of mistakes.”  I’m guessing there really isn’t an explanation, but it’s the whole reasoning behind his decision to reveal himself to Zod…so I wish we knew what all he did wrong.

Zod captures Lois and Clark, and he’s about to execute them both when Chloe and Oliver show up to save the day.

And that was a really cool part of the episode, as a group of soldiers attacks the Luthor mansion with kryptonite-based weapons.  And I have to admit, as ruthless as Chloe was, she was a total badass.  I’m guessing that Allison Mack had a lot of fun with this episode.

Lois and Clark bond a bit more in the future, possibly explaining why Lois has grown more attracted to Clark this season.  Future-Clark is more outwardly heroic (but also more vulnerable), and I’m sure it shows Lois a side to Clark that he usually tries to hide.

The funny thing is that, despite everything, Clark still tries to keep his secret from Lois.  I suppose Clark wants to make sure that Lois is kept in the dark, just in case the plan succeeds, but it just seemed odd that everyone agreed to keep the secret.  Because, at that point, the world was destroyed – why would it even matter that Clark’s an alien?

By the end of the episode, all the major characters are sacrificed in an attempt to get the Legion ring back to Lois so that she could return to the past and save the world.  I have to admit that I was pretty surprised when Zod stabbed Clark with the Kryptonite dagger.  I really didn’t see that coming, although I probably should have.

Although it brings up the question – if Clark is stabbed with a Kryptonite weapon, doesn’t he simply need to remove it?  Because we’ve seen Clark shot with a Kryptonite bullet, and as soon as he removed it, his super-healing kicked in.  I suppose he could still die if a vital organ was hit, but it just seemed like something that shouldn’t really work.

And, in the end, Clark decides that the best way to deal with Zod is to come at him as a friend.  Using his knowledge of the alternate future and his father’s wish for him to save Zod from himself, Clark shows up to Zod’s command post.  But instead of being angry, Major Zod orders his troops to kneel before Kal-El.

That was a really cool scene.  Just the sight of a legion of Kryptonians kneeling before Superman is an awesome sight, and I’m really glad it was included in the episode.

That being said, I’m not really sure how a Clark/Zod friendship will work.  Obviously, Zod is going to try to continue to build his tower, and I wonder how Clark will react to that.  Is there a chance that Zod could actually be a good guy, or will they go down the same road as Lex?  I guess we’ll find out when the show gets back in a few weeks.

Before I go, I wanted to point out a cool continuity nugget.  The equipment that Tess uses to hack into Lois’ memories came from the Summerholt Institute that was featured in Smallville‘s first few seasons.  It’s just a throw-away line, but it was nice to see a connection to the early years of the show.

That’s it for now.  Smallville has reached its winter break, and I will see you all when it returns in January.

For the most part, I’ve always thought of the Wonder Twins as a bit of a joke.  I mean, think about it.  One of them can turn into an animal and one of them can turn into different forms of water.  What are they really going to offer to someone like Superman.

Smallville, however, makes them almost cool.  Their version of Zan and Jayna are a pair of siblings that are obsessed with the Red-Blue Blur.  And with their powers combined, they fight the good fight in the name of their hero.

The only problem is that…they kinda suck at it, and it’s giving Clark’s super-persona a bad name.

I thought it was a pretty interesting way to do it.  In today’s world obsessed with facebook, twitter, and celebrities, you know that the Blur would have a following.  And while they never really state how the Twins got their abilities, you’d think that super-powered fans would try to lend help in their own way.

But the best part of the episode, at least for me, was how much Clark and Chloe have grown up.  Chloe’s done a great job of growing into her own, and I’m firmly convinced that Tom Welling would make a fantastic Man of Steel.

Let’s start with Chloe.  This season, she’s really taken charge of her life.  No longer restricted by a crush on Clark, a meteor power, or a love triangle with Doomsday and the fake Jimmy Olsen, she’s simply able to use her hacker skills to help her best friend.  And, in this case, she’s able to use a lot of the lessons she used with Clark to help Zan and Jayna.

In the end, I hope to see the two of them again.  And what’s funny is that, along with the hacker she stole from Tess, Chloe seems to be putting together her own little B-team Justice League.

And I’m not sure if it’s intentional or not, but there’s still a bit of a dark side to Chloe.  Even here, she threatens the Wonder Twins with virtual death in order to convince them to stay away.  It will be interesting to see if that continues the rest of the season.

As far as Clark goes, I thought he was very Superman-esque.  The final scene with the Wonder Twins plays exactly the way I imagine it would in a Superman series.  Tom Welling has a very powerful on-screen presence, and I completely believed him as the type of personality that could command other superheroes.  It’s too bad that Welling seems to be against the idea of being Superman because I know he’d be fantastic at it – either on this show, a spinoff, or a movie.

As far as the rest of the episode went, we learn that Lois’ apocalyptic dreams have led her to therapy.  In her dream, she and Clark are very sexual, there’s a giant red sun in the sky, and Clark has a very noticeable scar.

From what we’ve seen of her dreams, it seems like Zod’s plan will be to turn Earth’s yellow sun into a red sun.  It would even the playing field between Clark and the Kandorians, allowing for the former to get hurt and the latter to take over the world.  We should learn more about her visions soon, but that seems to be the big picture so far.

After a blunder by the Twins that is blamed on the Blur, Lois is assigned to write a story about it.  Mad that he hasn’t called in a while (Clark claims it is to protect her since Metallo attacked her), Lois decides to investigate the superhero’s recent sloppiness.  However, when Clark finally calls her as the Blur, his voice-altering equipment briefly fails and Lois hears his real voice.

It’s the second time that Lois has learned the secret (once in an alternate reality), but it’s funny how quickly she’s accepted it both times.  It’s almost like she has seen it coming but couldn’t really put the pieces together.  For some reason, I’ve always thought that it should come to a surprise to Lois that Clark is Superman, but they haven’t gone that angle yet so far.

I thought the subplot with the district attorney was a bit strange.  The whole thing kinda smelled of Harvey Dent, and I’m not really sure it was played off very well.  We’ve never seen or heard of this character before, and he didn’t seem all that menacing.  Lois’ little speech was nice, but I find it hard to believe that people would turn against the Blur so quickly.  This isn’t Batman we’re talking about…no matter how much it seems the CW wants him to be.

And in the end, after the fake Harvey Dent tries to kill her, Lois is convinced (with the help of her therapist) that she’s simply combining her infatuation with the Blur with her feelings for Clark. 

The end, however, was a strange nod to the comics.  In an effort to make himself look different, Clark pulls out the old glasses and shows them to Lois.  And instead of finally embracing the classic Clark Kent look, Lois takes them off and the pair kiss.

And it seemed like the writers’ way of telling us that this is their own story.  That their Clark Kent doesn’t need to wear glasses because their Superman isn’t going to come out publicly.

And, honestly, I think it’s okay.  Clark’s been working in this manner for the entirety of the show, and honestly, I don’t think the glasses would work at this point.  People would be able to put Clark Kent and Superman together, and it just wouldn’t work.  So maybe the glasses (an odd disguise in the first place) are outdated, and that’s what the writers are telling us.

That being said, it would’ve been nice to see them incorporated into the show.  I don’t think the glasses make Tom Welling horribly ugly, and I think people would like it if they moved in that direction a bit more.  But this is their show, and they’re doing things their own way.

And in a lot of ways, Smallville is putting its unique stamp on the Superman legacy.  And if that’s what’s happening, I think they’re doing a solid job.