#10.9 “Patriot” Review

NOTE: This review will disclose important plot details. If you’re a spoiler-phobe, read no further until you’ve seen the episode. You’ve been warned.

Written by John Chisholm, this episode wasn’t exactly a happy tale. Yet, I think it was a necessary story to tell in this part of the season. Like ‘Supergirl,’ this episode is needed to help form part of major story arcs for the season that involve Darkseid and the Suicide Squad. Yeah, it’s dark, and there is some friction amongst the heroes on Clark’s ‘home team,’ but I think the episode was the right thing to do because of its concept.

It makes sense that the jingoistic attitudes by otherwise smart and reasonable people like Lois’ father in previous episodes like ‘Ambush’ had escalated into a new-type of unforgiving and militant McCarthyism. The Vigilante Registration Act is just a symptom of the larger problem of fearing the heroes who help simply because they can. The extreme suspicion of the heroes exhibited here makes sense and it seriously ups the stakes for everyone.

The story getting more serious is a good thing, yet this episode had some basic problems that made me scratch my head. I actually got confused at a couple of points at what people were talking about. For example, people kept talking about how hard Clark was to get hold of and yet they never showed that he was hard to get hold of. Not one person tried to call him.

The first scene with Clark and Dr. Hamilton, Emil he said something to Clark about going on some secret missions around the world meeting his cousin, or something. In the next scene, Lois gets a box of chocolate from (I assume) Clark and says to no one ‘I miss you too.’ I assume, again, referring to the missing Clark.

Then later Lois complained to Emil that Clark wasn’t returning her calls. Yet, the show never had Clark talk about these missions nor had Lois try (and fail) to get hold of him. I don’t think that Lois saying she misses him and then trying to cover up with Tess (even though Lois hadn’t yet realized she doesn’t need to) by saying Clark is on jury duty is the same thing as showing us he’s gone. Instead, we just get characters talking about Clark being gone or being hard to get hold of and several close-up shots of her Windows phone.

They had needed to do more to show why Lois got so desperate to find him. Her frantic worry, and any potential peril to Clark, just wasn’t setup well so it almost negated the attempts in the episode to raise the stakes for Clark and Lois. It probably didn’t help that they weren’t even in the same scene together until late in the episode. I didn’t have any problems understanding the situation, once the characters talked about it, they just needed to show us rather than have the characters talk about it.

As nice it was to see Alan Ritchson again, he did seem to do a more capable job than in his previous forays as Arthur Curry, I don’t know if Arthur’s part of the story was all that successful. Elena Satine is beautiful, but she came off as cold and was nowhere close to how she was described in this episode (passionate and fiery).

I think all of these problems were thanks to a basic flaw in this episode. It’s one no writers for this show should be guilty of doing: telling rather than showing.

It’s screenwriting 101 freshman-level coursework stuff. I can see for expediency-sake doing that sometimes and I don’t always mention it when they do this for just that reason. At times it can be quicker (or cheaper) to have character talk about something rather than filming it, so I can understand a show doing it now and then. However, the problem here was that it had happened over and over again.

Even when they had chances to insert some action, the writer defaulted to having the characters talk about things. There was WAY too much expository dialogue. Alessandro Juliani is normally terrific as Emil Hamilton when it comes to delivering what seems like pages of expository dialogue, but even he couldn’t say all that exposition without it seeming like an information dump. Then as Arthur moved to help Clark deal with the threat to Oliver, what does Mera do? She goes for a swim and then belittles and then shocks Lois instead of being proactive to protect her husband.
Keep in mind that this was right after she had been talking to her husband over his headset about the danger Oliver was in. So, Green Arrow is ‘off the grid,’ her husband’s life is in danger and Mera can think of nothing better to do than go for a swim, walk around nude and get catty with her husband’s ex-girlfriend?

In what world does that make sense? Why wasn’t she still talking to her husband, giving him help and support as he moved to try to help Oliver?

And did she disrobe only so Lois could speak that one line about her having a lot to reveal (after disclosing she was married to AC)? That was a questionable choice because that line wasn’t really all that funny.

Maybe it would seem more logical if I could see the point of the scene. For me, I don’t think there was one, aside from making Lois feel more insecure and defensive about her relationship with Clark and to objectify a very attractive guest star. I don’t think I’ve read a single comic with Mera in it, but as far as I could tell from what I found online Mera doesn’t have nudist tendencies. So, the titillation seems to have been the main reason for it, unless the show really wanted very badly to have dolphins in more than one scene.

And what the heck was Tess talking about to Clark in that scene right after that? What alloy sample had Tess examined? Where had Clark gotten it? I have to assume he got it from that facility that he was at with Arthur. Yet, if it was so important, why not show Clark taking the sample instead of having Tess talk about it? Why did he grab the sample to begin with? It wasn’t brought up again, not even in their little meet-up at the end of the episode. So, that little bit came completely out of the blue and then went absolutely nowhere.

And despite the growing stakes they don’t show anything that had happened to AC, then all of a sudden he was hanging by his wrists in that facility telling Oliver he must have been tracked. Couldn’t they show us Wilson’s men tracking him? Where’s the ticking time bomb? Couldn’t they show something of the danger he had been in to help build the tension? Even a hint of the peril would have been better than the nothing we got.

Even the confrontations at Wilson’s secret facility in Alaska were all way too talky and anti-climactic. Oliver and Arthur were captured seemingly only because the show needed them to be tortured. However, that didn’t make any sense since no one asked them any questions while they were being tortured. Oliver was dunked into that tank with Wilson out of the room. We never saw the person who had pushed that button to dunk him, so I suppose that person left since when Wilson hit that button later to drop Oliver into the tank he was the only other person in the room.

The two men being shirtless in the scene really made it seem like Elena Satine wasn’t the only person being objectified in this episode. The scene seemed to be mostly an excuse to have two very fit bodies be beautifully photographed while the two characters were in peril.

Then the way that Clark and Mera were trapped was oddly passive. They just stood there letting the gates trap them in those corridors.

In addition, as a defensive measure against the vigilantes that Wilson was hunting, that wasn’t really all that logical. So, what was the plan? Wilson’s had meant to lay in wait for one of the vigilantes to show up and hope they had the time to capture them? I don’t think beings that are stronger and faster than a normal human should be depended upon to stand still long enough for Wilson to hit that button.

Also, the kryptonite seemed to affect Clark more at the beginning of that confrontation scene with Wilson than it had at the end. I thought the affects were cumulative (the longer he’s under the influence of kryptonite, the worse the affect is). Even if that wasn’t the case, why wasn’t Clark seriously hurt getting caught in a massive explosion after being weakened by kryptonite? Maybe he healed after that, but if he was hurt and had to heal, we should have seen that affect on him.

Some of these problems almost seemed like things were missing, either cut in editing or not filmed. According to references that one of the producers made on twitter, apparently they had to rework some scenes or not film them because they had run out of time. That certainly explains a lot, especially with story elements that didn’t make a lot of sense, but it doesn’t explain everything.

Even if some of the logic problems could be explained away or excused, the dialogue was sometimes downright awful. The metaphors and witty one-liners were all too over the top. The football or sports metaphors got so contrived they didn’t really even make sense anymore. The actors didn’t seem to believe it either. At times it felt like a lot of the actors, Tom included, didn’t buy the dialogue they were speaking and made it come off as more contrived because of that. And as cute as a one or two references to water or aquatic life would have been normally, to have constantly brought up fins or streams or waves or whatever just got old.

Another thing about AC and his wife: why does Clark need lessons from them on how to deal with Lois? As ardently as Arthur loves his wife, they really didn’t seem all that lovey-dovey, so I’m not sure how good those two were as teachers. If she was such a good ‘co-captain’ why did she go for a swim when her husband’s life was in danger?

As for their passion, they mostly just talked about how much they loved each other. Yet in the episode that devotion and passion was never demonstrated. Physically, they barely touched and they barely looked at each other. There was one sort of a lame hug after Arthur saved Mera from those heat-lamps and later they held hands as they left the Kent farmhouse. Is that a passionate relationship?

While there were a lot of problems with this episode writing-wise, there were some things I really liked. I did like the scene between Lois and Slade Wilson a lot. I loved the Suspect wall: it was like something from a “CSI” or a “Law & Order” episode. It was a nice touch and visually showed which heroes had been identified and which ones hadn’t been.

I also liked Lois’ and Tess’ interactions in this episode. Tess trying to figure out whether Lois knows about Clark in the bullpen and later in that elevator was terrific.
I also liked how resolved Clark was to do the right thing. He led his team, even though this performance was probably Tom Welling’s weakest this season.

This episode is the second one written by John Chisholm, he had previously written ‘Checkmate’ for the show. I’m not sure I can figure out why some of the things were done that I didn’t like in this episode, but he had generally done a better job with last season’s outing. If he gets another gig with “Smallville,” I hope it’s a better indication of what he’s capable of than this one was.

Tom Welling directed this episode, but aside from it being a beautifully shot and (mostly) capably acted episode, this really isn’t his best work. In the past I honestly believed he helped an episode that seemed trite or hackneyed become more than what it was, with this episode I don’t think he helped this script at all. There were logic problems throughout the episode, things I believe a director should have been able to either minimize or completely avoid, but that wasn’t done here. Since they had apparently had to make some last minute changes, maybe Tom did the best he could with what he had to work with. With all of those caveats, this clearly wasn’t his most consistent directing effort.

Yet there were some striking visual moments. The opening shot on the brass sculpture of the eagle was gorgeous, for example. And I liked some of the setups very much, like the shots of Oliver as he was being water-boarded in that dunk-tank. So visually, this episode was strong. I just wish some of the other details had been as finely tuned.

Also, his performance was uneven. Maybe this episode proves that Tom is only human after all. This was a long first run of episodes, but there were times Tom just seemed tired. Hopefully, if he does have another chance to direct this season he will be able to sidestep some of these problems.

While I wasn’t wild about the story, Cinematographer Michael Wale did shoot some terrific looking scenes. The opening scene with the General and the nighttime scenes at the aquarium were standouts. I’m not sure the point of including the dolphins in those scenes was since they didn’t do anything for the show’s storyline, but those scenes were gorgeous.

Costume Designer Melanie Williams usually does a stellar job, but there one huge logic problem in the costuming. When I took another look at that first scene with Mera, Clark and Oliver, I noticed that she wore the short-sleeved wet suit with a green bikini underneath it. In the next scene we see her in she’s wearing that same wet suit, but was otherwise naked under it. So, not only did she take time off from helping her husband find Oliver, she changed clothes. Why? Just so she could shock Lois by disrobing? It made no sense.

I have to say it was a beautifully shot episode, everyone looked awesome, and the sets and costumes were looked terrific, but the script was way too short on action.

This was far talkier than an episode with Oliver, AC and Clark working together should have been and at times the story had little logic to it. I hate to do this since this episode had such a great concept and was directed by Tom Welling, but it was poorly executed so I have to give this episode 3 secret superhero prison facilities out of a possible 5.

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