The opening scene once again has the “You can’t go hang with murder camper guy!” that immediately switches to “Oh it makes total sense to hang with murder camper guy!” dilemma. It’s vastly out of character, it’s ridiculous in the face of current politics, and to set it as a premise in a show like this makes Frank Miller’s Superman looks relatively anti-authoritarian by contrast, and that boy was a stooge designed to look like Reagan for a reason. The problem with this, thereby, is that it means that they’re just there so Sam Lane can be present in the show, which is a Bad Reason, and it then makes no sense to make Clark and Lois both continual advocates for a fascist occupation. The tech has helped, but the tech requires no ground presence at all. And yet, not once in this show has it been shown that those boots on the ground have done a single thing to mitigate a single Kryptonian act that I can recall. The idea they’re trying to sell, I suppose, is that boots on the ground are good to stop, say, a Morgan Edge, or a Leslie Larr. They’re called cellular phones, and I am told by every show on the air that you can just stick a tiny dot in your ear and hear another person speak, the technology is so advanced. Superman can bring any technology to Smallville, and we humans now have the ability to communicate via satellite. ![]() Let’s talk a little bit about the DoD and their continued presence in Smallville, shall we? Firstly, what is their purpose? To protect the populace? Nothing a human army can do is even remotely comparable to what Superman does. Somewhere Jensen Ackles has his hackles ackled. “Teague” Hardware closing is a deep cut, man. The thing that went through my internet-addled head, though, was “So you’re telling me even when I’m dying, I gotta hear ads for what I want and who I should be?” (I know, it’s programming, but still, it’s unintentionally funny.) Like, I mean, come on, guys, he flew to the sun, he’s agreed to do it, show a little faith, huh? “YOU ARE THE ERADICATOR!” “BE THE ERADICATOR!” He hears voices in his head, and they’re very on the nose. There was an inadvertently funny moment at the beginning of the episode, when Morgan is sitting there on the cusp of the sun (for three weeks, apparently, jeeze). Ridiculous premises couple with beneficial character moments and good action sequences to make, well, what? A show, certainly, but the final analysis of that will have to come out through the writing here, so let’s get to it. I say this because it’s hard to imagine the same person who decided that it makes sense for a military to occupy a town for a month and have Lois and Clark defend it would have the talent required to make that subtle quiet moment where Derek’s Mom calls Lois to task for not understanding what losing a child means as a character moment. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it had been goofed with a lot in the writing, or that two distinct personalities warred over what the episode “was.” We can’t know, but that’s how it feels. ![]() ![]() The first, that arbitrary drama push the worst episodes of the series thus far labored under, and the second the keen character insight and craft of the better episodes. ![]() It seems like two creative impulses drove this episode. Written by: Max Cunningham & Brent Fletcher
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