I
don't know if you are aware, much less whether
you would really care, but I'm trying hard to
be as spoiler free as possible. Up until now,
I had only allowed myself to read the official
descriptions and view the episode trailers.
But, I'll have you know that given the bang-up
job that you have been doing with the Official
Descriptions this season, I'll be avoiding them
from now on. Lately, they've simply given too
much away, especially the way you wrote the
one for this episode.
I
have heard that the producers aren't at all
responsible for the descriptions and have no
say in how they're written. I've heard that
you are actually a marketing flack based at
the network that doesn't actually work directly
with the Smallville series producers or writers.
If
true, that makes sense. I mean the Official
Descriptions are often incredibly inaccurate.
You often misrepresent facets of the story and
at times even get the names of original characters
completely wrong. Other times, you include very
specific details that possibly got left on the
cutting room floor. Just reread the part of
the description above that covered Chloe's "Ace
Reporter" status, for an example. Did anyone
say anywhere she was an Ace in this world?
But
that wasn't the biggest problem with this one.
No, what got me so peeved about how you wrote
"Apocalypse's" Official Description
was that once I started watching the episode,
I realized Clark had no idea where he was or
what had happened to him. Yet, in the Official
Description you had said that Jor-El had arranged
Clark's trip into an alternate reality.
When
I had read that, I had thought (wrongly) that
Jor-El would tell him, sorta like Guardian Angel
Clarence told George Bailey that he'd never
been born in "It's A Wonderful Life..."
However, it was pretty clear right away that
Clark hadn't a clue how he'd gotten there.
It
wasn't until Brainiac had "killed"
Clark in the Alternate Universe and Clark woke
up in the barn that he finally realized something
else was up other than him having impossibly
survived Brainiac murdering him as an infant.
It was only then that Clark had known what anyone
who'd read the Official Description already
knew: that it was Jor-El who had been responsible
for the alternate universe he had found himself
in.
That
made me really annoyed because I had suddenly
realized that the "reveal" to Clark
that dear old Dad had been behind the AU had
probably been intended to be a surprise. I'm
almost positive from how the episode played
out that we (the audience) were originally supposed
to learn about Jor-El creating that Alternate
Universe the same time that Clark did. That
would have made that moment a lot more powerful,
but you including the fact that Jor-El was behind
it in the Official Description ruined that.
But
actually worse than that, I think I have a pretty
good idea of what might be going on with Kara
and what had happened to Brainiac when Kara
had "destroyed" him. I know that because
of a major spoiler that you had revealed in
the Official Description for the Season 7 finale,
which I seriously regret having already read.
I
should have heeded Craig's warnings about a
major spoiler being in the description, but
silly me. I was expecting something a lot less
profound. No way did I think you were stupid
enough to actually release *that* important
of a spoiler in an Official Description.
I
don't know how any of the producers/writers/actors/crew
feel about the copy you write that ends up as
the "Official Description." However,
the way this one and the one for the season
Finale, "Arctic,"
were written definitely deflated the power of
the episode's surprises. I suspect that they
might not be happy about it.
I
am officially disgusted with you, The CW Official
Description writer, or writers, or whoever you
are.
Someone
should buy you a freakin' clue so that you do
a better job next season.
Sincerely,
–
C.M. Houghton, aka "triplet"
Ahem...
Anyway,
this episode was almost completely awesome and
I'm very glad of it. It's so good, that it actually
washed the
travesty that was "Sleeper" out
of my brain. Given how much I didn't like "Sleeper,"
that's probably a minor miracle right there.
I'm
so glad it was that good mostly because it was
such an important episode. And it wasn't important
just because it was the 150th episode or just
because that Tom Welling directed it. No, it
was important because it was a key turning point
in Clark's series long character arc. He learned
one very important lesson here.
The
scribes Al Septien and Turi Meyer had penned
a storyline that picked up a thread that been
present in the show since the Pilot: Clark's
ongoing guilt over how his arrival on Earth
had harmed so many. It's something that has
come up time and time again, especially given
all the meteor freaks that have caused so much
death and destruction throughout the entire
series. The meteor strike clearly wasn't his
fault, he was a toddler at the time, but he's
never really let it go. In a perfect world,
in the real world, the guilt he feels over things
he couldn't control is something Clark probably
would have gotten over a very long time ago.
I
think that the events in this episode will help
him to finally do that. That is important because
I think this guilt has a lot to do with why
Clark's rejected his "destiny" up
until now. Let's hope they don't drop that little
piece of character development the way they
dropped Clark's promise to never stop watching
Lex. He only kept that promise for the rest
of the episode before he let him go to Zurich
to get open that safe deposit box in the very
next one.
I
hope they don't forget this lesson and Clark
goes back to feeling guilty about things he
had little or no control over. If they do that,
I think whatever faith I have left in the Smallville
writers will be completely gone.
Anyway,
I think the way Turi and Al had structured this
episode was brilliant, despite the unfortunate
"official" spoiling of the major reveal
in the fourth act. It was similar in some ways
to how they'd setup "Labyrinth," actually.
They presented Clark with ideal happily-ever-afters
for his loved ones: his parents, both still
alive, had a son; both Chloe and Lana were blissfully
happy in new relationships; then he found Lois
where she belonged, at the Planet, a Pulitzer
Prize winner. Even Jimmy seemed happy and content
with his job.
Everyone,
it seemed, indeed had been happier without ever
having known him and he was glad, as he would
be. Clark has always put the happiness of others
ahead of his own and he was reassured that his
decision to let Brainiac win was the right one,
despite the fact that he had somehow escaped
death so he could witness their happily-ever-aftering.
Then, as Al and Turi tend to do so well, they
turned the screws on Clark a lot tighter.
First
Lois gets arrested by Kara, who it turns out
hadn't been improved at all by Clark dying as
a baby. And then Clark finds out Lex is the
President and that the meteor strikes (and the
resultant meteor freaks) still happened. After
rescuing Lois, he discovers more detail that
shows things are even worse than he'd thought:
Lex is a madman who is poised to launch a nuclear
war. Then, as if it couldn't get any worse,
he discovered that Milton Fine is Lex's Chief
of Staff and is close to his goal of wiping
the Earth clean of humanity.
Clark
is horrified and angered to find out that life
really is NOT better without him than with him.
He became resolved to try and fix what he could.
He was confused about why he hadn't just disappeared,
but he was going to make a go of getting things
back on track even if it killed him. And well,
it did.
He
came out the other end of the events in the
Alternate Universe (AU) alive and more determined
to do what he could to make the future better.
What he had said to Kara about not looking to
the past to fix things showed a remarkably more
grown up attitude toward his place in the world
than he'd previously shown.
Although
I loved this episode and found few problems
with the script, I thought it was a bit unrealistic
that Lex would be quite that crazy especially
since I thought they'd established that it wasn't
really Clark's fault that Lex has turned out
the way he did. At least Clark finally realized
that in "Descent." However, seeing
that this AU was Jor-El's perception of how
things might have gone wrong without Clark,
maybe that makes sense. Even though the Artificial
Intelligence that is Jor-El is not really a
person, he is the "impression" of
Clark's birth father so it might be logical
that he would have a bit of an overinflated
view on how Clark fits into the world.
I
like the nods to comic and film canon from this
episode. In the AU world Kara, the head of the
Department of Domestic Security for Lex, went
by the name Linda Danvers. That was one of Supergirl's
secret identities in the comics. Also, in the
AU world Lois and Clark "meet cute"
by bumping into one another at the Planet, very
similar to the way they did in the first Superman
movie. Then Jimmy was back to wearing his signature
bow tie like he does in the comics and in all
of the films, including the newest one.
I
loved how swept off her feet Lois was by Clark
as well. They've shown her to be a sucker for
men with hero complexes, which also goes along
with comic canon (she's dated just about everyone
else in the comics at one time or another before
she ever dated Clark). So that line about her
having more heroes exiting stage left than a
Greek tragedy was very funny.
I
also liked the symmetry of Lois asking Clark
out for a drink in both the AU world and the
real one. That second time was a really nice
touch too... I'd like to think that Lois has
true affection for Clark, despite her sometimes
snarky attitude toward him. It was really nice
to see her support at this time of crisis for
him and I'm glad Clark was so comforted by it.
I
LOVED Brainiac's line about not being in Kansas
anymore as a way to explain why Clark's powers
weren't working in the Red sunlight of Krypton...
That was completely awesome.
I
also liked the continuity of the episode. It's
nice when they bring back past recurring characters
like Sheriff Adams (Camille Mitchell) even in
what effectively are cameos.
Oh,
and I loved that Clark is not really the Big
Dumb Alien anymore, "Sleeper" aside.
He's using his own brain power to figure things
out for once. He depended less on Chloe's Superhuman-Google
abilities in this episode. Thank Goodness. I'm
glad someone in the writer's room has heard
that Clark is supposed to be smart.
Al
and Turi have again turned in another wonderful
script. The act breaks were all terrific, they
had some nice comic relief moments and they
had escalating stakes throughout the entire
episode up until the final cliffhanger with
Kara lying in a puddle of spilt milk on the
Kent kitchen floor. What a great script.
Actor
and Director Tom Welling did a remarkable job
with all that was asked of him. Not only was
this a far more action packed story than the
other episodes he'd directed previously, he
also had a lot more screen time than he'd had
in either "Fragile" or "Hydro."
Those episodes were essentially "filler"
which aired in non-sweeps months (April 2006
for "Fragile" and January 2007 for
"Hyrdo"). They were fairly Clark-light
and they just weren't important episodes, in
and of themselves.
While
they had been very important to Tom as he stretched
himself a bit and tried to do something new,
and he did it very well from the start, but
they arguably hadn't been all that important
to the show as a whole. The show could afford
to indulge their lead with directing those.
Yeah, they were still episodes of a network
TV show that probably cost a lot of money to
produce, maybe millions, but how much really
was at stake? The risk was relatively minimal,
all things considered. However, those episodes
were clearly not in the same league as "Apocalypse."
With
giving such an important episode to Tom, it
shows that they have a lot of trust in Tom as
both an actor and a director. Not only is it
an important episode for his character, moving
Clark past a seriously huge hurdle in his journey
to Superhero-hood (the lasting guilt over how
he may have negatively affected others), it's
the 150th episode, a huge milestone for the
series, and it aired during the most important
sweeps month of the year. Tom had a lot of pressure
he needed to handle for this episode, so I'm
not sure how anyone else could have done it
all as well as he did.
With
all of that to consider, it's amazing that this
episode was such a clean one for him both as
an actor and a director. He was again amazing
as Clark, who went through an incredibly difficult
story arc in this episode, and he did an amazing
job as director as well.
I
would say probably his only failing in this
episode came as the director. I didn't like
how poorly Kara was portrayed in this episode.
She hadn't been played Kara much differently
in this episode than she had in any other. However,
I'm not sure how much of that was Laura Vandervoort's
fault and how much was Tom's as the director.
I will probably never know the answer to that
for sure, but all the other actors turned in
nearly perfect performances so I have to think
that most of the fault lies with the actor than
the director in this case. I'll talk more about
that later when I get to the acting.
I
did love the visual touches in this episode.
I loved the way the Lois rescue was staged and
I loved how Jimmy's playing with his camera
turned into Point-of-View shots in the show.
I also liked all the low angle shots and point-of-view
shots... It was especially noticeable in the
final scene of the Alternate Universe. When
Clark got shot and laid on the floor of the
library, the camera was on his level for a lot
of the scene. They had shots of him as he lay
there from a camera shooting from the floor,
and then when Brainiac started taunting him,
the angle seemed to be just reversed and we
saw Milton Fine from Clark's perspective. It
was really well done. It's scenes like this
that made the camera work feel far more dynamic,
and more mobile, than is usual for Smallville.
As
an actor, Tom's excellent comic timing as an
actor also helped the Lois and Jimmy moments
be more humorous than they would have been otherwise.
However, probably his best scene acting-wise
was the ending scene with Lex.
The
way that Tom played that, I could see that Clark
was torn. Lex had been offering to get help
with the world's best doctors and scientists
if only Clark would give him some clue about
what had happened to Lana. Of course, Clark
knows exactly what had happened to Lana and
he lied to Lex about it, but he really had no
choice. Yes, perhaps the lie was at the expense
of Lana, but he couldn't tell Lex. Clark couldn't
confirm Lex's suspicions about his true origin,
the danger is just too great. Clark knows he's
already close to figuring out his secret. Tom
played Clark's emotional turmoil perfectly and
the last shot of Clark as Lex walked away was
extremely powerful...
He
was awesome as the lead and he had a lot more
to deal with than normal because of his extra
workload in this episode. Although it was not
a perfect outing for Tom as a director, I can't
complain too much. It was another strong outing
for him from both sides of the camera.
Michael
Rosenbaum was fantastic as a crazy President
Lex Luthor. Again, I think it would have been
so easy to turn this AU performance campy, like
it would have earlier have been in "Fractured,"
but Michael managed to do crazy things (like
wanting to blow up the world in order to rebuild
it) and still play it like Lex thought it was
the most sane thing in the world to do.
And
that's probably how, as an actor, that you should
play it. I mean, to Lex in that AU annihilating
the world was the sane thing to do. He wouldn't
have perceived it as crazy, so Michael played
it straight as it was the right way to play
that. No maniacal cackling or rubbing his hands
together...
Probably
Michael's best scene was the one at the end
between Clark and Lex. He went there to try
and get Clark to slip-up and maybe reveal more
about himself. After the events in "Descent,"
it seems that Lex is suspicious about Clark,
maybe even already suspecting he knows something
about the Traveler. Michael made it clear that
although the scene seemed to have Lex showing
compassion (at least outwardly) toward Clark
and Lana, that Lex's real intention was more
complex and far less altruistic than that. He's
closing in on Clark's secret and didn't mind
tormenting Clark over Lana to try and manipulate
him into revealing the truth.
As
a side-note:
This
review is going to "press" after the
shocking (or maybe not so shocking) news that
Michael Rosenbaum won't be coming back next
year. It's scenes like this, and the great episodes
this year where Tom and Michael have had such
wonderful moments together, that makes me already
mourn his loss to the show.
Yes,
I am an unashamed Tom Welling fan. Anyone who
reads these reviews would know that, but I'm
also a Michael Rosenbaum fan. The show won't
be the same without him. After all, the hero
isn't as heroic without a compelling villain
to fight.
Michael
Rosenbaum has added an incredible amount to
this show and is a major reason it has been
so successful. I hope there is still hope left
that Michael can be persuaded to return at least
for part of next year. If Michael's resolved
to never return, I'm sorry because I will miss
seeing Michael dish up possibly the best, and
definitely the most complex, Lex Luthor portrayal
ever.
I
absolutely adored Erica Durance in this episode.
Lois was different than her normal self. While
Clark didn't seem to have a huge impact on the
course her life took, she was still going to
end up a reporter at the Daily Planet, but Erica
still made subtle changes to Lois. Erica played
her as more self-assured, cockier, and bold
enough to hit on a guy she'd literally just
bumped in to.
I
liked her reactions to witnessing Clark's powers.
Instead of getting freaked out or scared, she
gave Lois a sense of awe and wonder. It's reminiscent
of when Lois was on Red-Kryptonite back in "Crimson"
and saw Clark do impossible things.
I
also liked her reaction to Clark needing to
change. Despite the danger to the world, and
the high stakes of Clark and Lois' mission to
stop the launch, she still tried to get a peek
at the cute guy changing clothes in the next
room. It was adorable. However, my favorite
part of the episode from Erica was the final
scene between Clark and Lois. She had Lois be
sympathetic and supportive the best way she
knew how. It's funny that her way was to take
Clark out for a drink and Erica played that
choice as perfectly sincere and honest. What
a wonderful performance.
|
Allison
Mack's Chloe didn't have a lot of screen
time, but she definitely knocked it out
of the park whenever we saw her in this
episode. She played Chloe as passionate
and desperate in the opening barn scene
with Clark. She had Chloe nearly in tears
at the very thought that Clark wouldn't
listen and make the biggest mistake of
his life in deciding to remove himself
from the world. What a great moment for
her as an actress and for Chloe as a character.
Later,
it was clear that Allison had gotten the
memo that Chloe was supposed to be different
in the Alternate Universe because she
really was. Allison made Chloe seem blissfully
happy. Chloe is never that happy in the
real world. Makes me wonder why the writers
think that knowing Clark is so tough on
her... But, in any case she was wonderful.
|
|
Aaron
Ashmore's Jimmy was terrific. He was different
enough in the AU world for me to see the changes
in him, but it was like he was less friendly
or less concerned about pleasing others. He
was willing to let Lois go to prison without
trying to help her, despite the part he played
in her "crimes." I don't think that
the real-life Jimmy would do that...
Unfortunately,
I think Laura Vandervoort has finally reached
the limit of her abilities. I don't know what
she was thinking, but playing Kara as essentially
the same, just dressed more like an adult, was
totally a bad move. Kara wasn't that much different
in the AU world without a Clark than the real
one with him in it.
The
thing is, I don’t think she'd been written
like the same old Kara. There was a hint of
a colder, meaner Kara when she had confronted
Clark in the hallway. She said that she had
been sent there to kill him and then she got
furiously angry that he was still alive... She
tried to hit him and ended up smashing the granite
column in the hallway she had been so furious.
That fury was forgotten moments later.
She
played Kara as whiny and petulant when she should
have been badass and as smooth as silk about
it. She was raised by Lionel Luthor and was
competent enough at doing bad deeds that Lex
made her the head of his secret police. I don't
buy Kara being that from how Laura played her.
Not at all. She was the weakest part of an otherwise
stupendous episode, which is a shame. She should
have taken this opportunity to show what else
she can do and yet she chose to do everything
exactly the same. She showed us absolutely nothing
new about Kara at all. What a wasted opportunity
for her as an actress and for her character's
development.
|
This
review will get posted after the show
has stopped production for the year so
nothing I say will affect the rest of
the season. Her status is apparently up
in the air, but if Laura comes back I
hope she takes my comments to heart, learns
from her mistakes, and tries harder next
season. With Lex likely being completely
gone along with Lionel, and Lana only
coming back for a handful of episodes
next year, Kara will probably have more
screen time. If she's returning, I'm seriously
hoping that Laura will be up to the task.
James
Marsters wasn't really in this episode
long as Brainiac, but every moment was
pure gold. I loved how he played with
Clark at the end of the AU and again in
that scene on Krypton. He's just so casually
evil. He acted as if killing an infant
was the same as putting the baby to sleep.
Awesome.
|
|
The
photography was terrific. Glen Winter shot this
episode and he always does a great job and this
was no different.
One
moment I loved was when Clark woke up in the
barn. The shot faded up from Black on Clark
as he was just waking up, but the short was
from above with Clark shown upside down... As
Clark stood, the camera rotated and pulled back
and tilted up to follow him as he stood. I don't
know how difficult a shot that is, or whether
it was hand-held or whether it was on some kind
of crane, but it looked great.
At
the end of the AU world, when Fine walked toward
Clark as he lay on the floor, the shot was from
Clark's Point-of-View and the camera tilted
up to show the ceiling of Lex's Luthor mansion
office. It reminded me a bit of some similar
low angle shots in "Citizen Kane."
That reinforced Clark's powerlessness. What
a great shot.
The
Alternate Universe also had a softer, more romantic
feel, but back in the real world the light and
photography got harsher and clearer. That was
a terrific choice.
This
is about as close to perfect as an episode can
get, so I can give it nothing less than 5 Brain-Interactive-Constructs
out of a possible 5.
Note:
The views of Triplet don't necessarily represent
the thoughts and feelings of everyone at KryptonSite.
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"Apocalypse"
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