NOTE: Major spoilers and plot twists are revealed in this review! Don’t say I didn’t warn you…
Recap:
Lex has a mansion invasion by two people who are apparently Sheriff’s deputies. Lex’s minion gets killed but Lex manages to escape to his new panic room. The panic room’s lines of communication are cut off so Lex is trapped. The deputies want to know where the ship is. Clark and Lana fight again and he discovers she’s been helping Lex “research” the space ship. Jonathan is suspicious of all the money that Lois has found to pay for a campaign media blitz.
Lana gets nabbed by the evil deputies. Clark and Chloe talk about Lana working with Lex. Chloe declines to get in the middle when, in desperation, Clark asks her to “spy” on Lana for him. She gets a call from the sheriff’s department telling her about Lana’s abandoned car.
The bad deputies threaten Lana’s life to get Lex to come out. He comes out but Lex and Lana manage to escape to the safety of the panic room. However, not before Lex gets shot. Clark talks to the Sheriff about Lana’s car and finds a GPS transmitter in the wheel well.
The goons turn up the heat, literally, on Lana and Lex. He confesses to her that the ship is missing and she’s upset about having been lied to again. Sheriff Adams shows just in time to get fatally shot!
Jonathan confronts Lois and she tells him she got the money from Lionel. Livid, Jonathan storms out. Chloe manages to track down the transmitter and discovers it was purchased by a former Sheriff’s deputy. He had been nearly killed by the Kryptonian villains and was obsessed with the ship. Lana gives herself up to save Lex’s life and agrees to lead the deputies to the ship. Martha tells Jonathan that she’s the one who took the money, not Lois.
Discovering the deputy’s obsession with Lex and the ship, Clark realizes he must have taken Lana to the mansion. Clark finds Lex unconscious there. Lex tells him where to find Lana and Clark saves her life. However, he has to lie again about what it was exactly he did.
Jonathan decides to pay back Lionel, turning his campaign contribution into a loan by selling off unused Kent Farm acreage. Clark catches Lex and Lana hugging. He confesses his worry to Chloe that he’s losing Lana. Chloe wisely points out if he wants to spend the rest of his life with Lana he’ll have to tell her the truth.
Review:
Initially, I hadn’t been all that excited by this episode. I had been so anxiously awaiting next week’s 100th episode I hadn’t really thought about this one too much, so I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. The episode was exciting and provided a lot of forward movement to several storylines to boot.
I haven’t been a huge fan of writer Steven S. DeKnight’s work up until now. His previous efforts have been uneven, to be honest. I absolutely loathed “Ageless” but “Onyx” was near brilliant.
This is probably his best work since “Onyx,” it had more successful bad guys than “Mortal” anyway (have I told you lately how much I hate weird psychic twin stories?). The story actually touched on several plot points from previous episodes which proves you can have a story that is more or less stand alone without ignoring what happened in previous weeks.
For example, I loved Lex’s speech about the dream he’d had in “Lexmas” and it was terrific that several characters referred to the traumatic events in “Arrival.” Something like that SHOULD have a long lasting effect on people. And I don’t know if it was scripted (and thus DeKnight’s idea) but the truck that Clark crashed in “Splinter” sitting in the driveway was also a nice touch. I had wondered whether that crash had been part of Clark’s hallucinations or real, it’s nice to see that cleared up. DeKnight managed to slip in all those references to previous events without them feeling contrived.
This was really a terrific episode for Michael Rosenbaum. Lex finally had the guts to show her how much he cares for Lana and yet still has the nascent evil-doer thing going on. For example, saving Lana wasn’t the only reason he had stepped out of the panic room: he also wanted to destroy the wireless scrambler the bad guys had installed. He still has his own best interests at heart at the end of the day and the way Michael played both sides of Lex in the scenes with Lana was wonderful. Michael has produced probably the most complicated live-action Lex Luthor ever. He is a total joy to watch each week.
Kristin Kreuk has proven yet again that she’s more than just a pretty face. Lana’s ire at Clark’s continued seemingly inexplicable avoidance of intimacy seemed better motivated than some of her previous arguments with Clark. Her explanation of why she is so interested in the ship, and her confusion at why Clark didn’t want to talk about it, was a great moment for her. She did an excellent job.
Tom Welling was fabulous in this episode. I laughed out loud at how Clark worked out the way to distract the guard at the hospital… Super-shake. That was a more subtle and funny way for Clark to use his powers to get something done. It doesn’t always have to be about ripping doors off of their hinges or setting things alight with his heat vision. It was funny and a nice creative solution to the problem and I loved how Tom played that scene. Clark is also in a very sticky situation with Lana. He is petrified that Lana won’t take learning his secret very well and yet he knows that he can’t keep lying to her either. Either way he could lose her and Tom perfectly portrayed Clark’s growing desperation in trying to deal with the dilemma.
John Schneider and Annette O’Toole were both fantastic. John is really doing a wonderful job with this story arc and Jonathan’s resolution to do things his way. The look on Annette’s face when Clark said he was looking forward to the campaign being over was priceless. I also loved Martha’s confrontation with Jonathan after she confessed to taking Lionel’s money.
Allison Mack’s Chloe continues to get some of the best one-liners in the show and I thoroughly enjoy watching her show her off her terrific comedic timing each week. I loved how she wistfully said “Damn, I wish I could do that” after Clark sped off to find Lana. The way she delivered that line was laugh-out-loud hilarious.
Camille Mitchell was wonderful in her final performance… I have a soft spot in my heart for her abrasive corn pone Sheriff and her campy over-acting death scene was totally in character. I’m sad to see her go.
Production Designer David Willson made a beautiful panic room for Lex and Director of Photography Glen Winter lit that set wonderfully. Sleek, elegant and dramatically lit that set was very Lex.
The special effects for this episode were fantastic! The “Clark-Time” effect when Clark was zipping in to save Lana as the bomb went off looked great. I am amazed sometimes what they manage to do on a TV show budget.
All in all, some dubious choices aside, this was a terrific and wonderfully exciting episode and I give it four missing Kryptonian space ships out of a possible five.
Note: The views of Triplet don’t necessarily represent the thoughts and feelings of everyone at KryptonSite. Send her feedback.
