Structural Blow Out: Forsaken
Written by Hope

I am Brian Peterson and Kelly Souders' biggest fan. Sincerely, I am- I am quite possibly the only Smallville fan who will proudly say that I enjoyed their "Nocturne." See also "Skinwalker." Everybody else got on the bandwagon with "Prodigal," and have mostly been on the bandwagon ever since, with an especially vibrant surge of love as of "Phoenix."

Unfortunately, Peterson & Souders are ending S3 on a low note- for them, but just an "eh" note for the season as a whole. "Forsaken" not the worst episode of the year. I can comfortably say without seeing "Covenant" next week that that prize goes to Ken Horton for his abysmal piece de merdement, "Whisper," and no, I'm not going to stop beating him over that anytime soon. My TV screenwriting boyfriend, Mark Verheiden, had to wear the chaps for a year over "Dichotic," and as indicated by the title "my TV screenwriting boyfriend," my feelings for Verheiden are just a little schmoopily biased.

But I digress, which seems to be the overall theme of "Forsaken," and thus it's appropriate for this review. This episode was all over the place and the structure was a mess. Peterson & Souders stepped out of their "Outsider makes waves in Smallville" comfort zone, and couldn't quite pull it together as a coherent whole. Interestingly enough- for me anyway- is that in spite of the poorly-weighted acts (Pete's storyline started too late, Chloe's storyline was an incohesive mish-mash of various season three mythos signposts, Lex's storyline was ploddingly linear, Clark's storyline was ineffectual, and Lana's storyline was static, picking up steam only when she fought back against Emily,) it still wasn't an unenjoyable episode to watch because Peterson & Souders, better than almost anyone on this show, write really good characters.

Though the story as a whole didn't gel, each individual scene shone. These were touchstone moments, the hours and minutes that change everything: Lana's let herself be somebody else's girl likely for the last time; Chloe finally does the right thing with the truth and throws herself right into the fire, Lex and Lionel have dropped the pretenses and bared their teeth at once, and Clark is still trudging along, desperately selfish and stupid until he realizes, just a little too late, how selfish and stupid he's been. I imagine that's a theme we're going to see played out to its fullest next week, and I look forward to it.

I didn't mention Pete in that paragraph, but there was no need to. Don't get me wrong, Pete's scene with Lex, and his final scene with Clark, were both word-perfect, but Pete served entirely to cough up exposition and to play Greek Chorus this week. I think it's a sad testament to how badly this character has been used since the beginning, that his final storyline didn't start until the middle of Act III, and conveniently ended in the middle of Act IV.

It was a nice bit of work to have Lex and Pete share a scene together; I know I enjoyed that momentary glimpse of a future where Mr. Ross may well be Mr. Luthor's running mate (though that stint in Belle Reve is going to be hard to explain to constituents, I'd think.) It's a sorry thing that the character was wasted because he had a lot of potential, and I'm going to miss Sam Jones III. He had a great, wry delivery, and wonderful chemistry with Allison Mack and Tom Welling; I'm sorry to see him go.

Emily was suitably creepy, with those dead, gothbaby eyes and girlish mannerisms to her voice, and it's a nice nod to the ubercanon of the comics world that her phase ability was explained both in a way that made sense for Smallville science and for the general DC universe. After all, Wally West- doing business as The Flash- can also walk through walls if he gets his molecules going. (Don't you feel better knowing that Wally could put his hand through somebody's chest wall, but is too busy kicking back and throwing flirty looks at Hawkgirl to bother?)

The childish reasoning and rage written into the character was wonderful; that simplistic approach to friendship didn't change one bit, but the nice recall to the way Clark reacted to her when she was still physically small, compared to the way he reacted when she was physically large was well put. She was, unquestionably, dangerous. She needed to be stopped. However, she was still very much a victim, and Clark responded to her in "Accelerate" that way. It was so easy for Clark to forget that when faced with an adult Emily, and there's a compare/contrast in there for the way he behaves with Lex.

Clark cannot and should not shoulder the blame for the wicked things Lex has done and will do all on his own (because let's face it, Lex is not a saint. He wasn't a saint from the day he walked into Smallville; I'm pretty sure Clark had nothing to do with Lex embezzling money from LuthorCorp for a particle accelerator, nor for Lex opting to drug Dom and dump him in the trunk of a car as an expedient solution to an annoying problem,) but Clark is fully responsible for the shoddy way he's treated Lex- accusing him of wrongdoing at every turn, refusing to apologize even when apologies were due, keeping a secret *about* Lex *from* Lex, not to mention the multiple instances of head trauma. For all the bad things Lex does, Lex was still in many cases the victim of circumstances, and Clark never gave him any quarter even when he should have. The enemy Clark makes of Lex, he made by his own deeds.

I'm sure all of these splayed threads will be woven together for the finale; this was a necessary episode, and not a bad episode to watch, but overall, it's not Peterson & Souders' best work. I was blown away by "Phoenix," but merely entertained by "Forsaken," and I wish I had a better note to end the season on with this writing duo, because like I said- I'm their biggest fan, and I like to say nice things about them. Hopefully I'll get another chance next year.

Screenwriting: C-
To Watch: C+

Next Week: Meanwhile, in Jeph Loeb's Superman/Batman, issues 8 and 9... oh wait, I meant next time on Smallville...

Note: The views of Hope don't necessarily represent the thoughts and feelings of everyone at KryptonSite.

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