#5.19 “Mercy” Review

NOTE: If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read any further. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Recap:

Lionel is riding in the back of his limo when it stops suddenly on the train tracks. A masked man appears in the in-car monitor. The man forces Lionel to win a game of Hangman before he’ll let him out of the car as a train approaches. Lionel manages to get the puzzle solved and is let out just as the train smashes into the limo.

Clark tells Chloe that he doesn’t want to tell his mom about Lionel knowing his secret because he doesn’t want to worry her. Chloe convinces him he needs to tell her since Martha might be in danger if she doesn’t know. Lionel suspects Lex had something to do with the attempt on his life but Lex denies being involved. Lex is concerned about the threat to Lionel hurting the company, but Lionel says he can handle it. Clark tells Martha about Lionel knowing his secret. She tells Clark about Lionel helping her with the blackmail attempt that revealed the video of Clark surviving an explosion. She says she can handle Lionel and leaves for a fund raiser in Metropolis that he will be attending. Lionel has a security tech check his office for bugs but he doesn’t find any. Lionel is attacked by the masked man and gets knocked out with a hypo to the neck.

Lionel wakes up in a small metal room where there are burners under the floor. He has to balance a pair of heavy buckets filled with flammable liquid in order to get out before he gets burned alive. Lana gets annoyed that Lex has been avoiding the fact they kissed. He says that he was waiting for her to bring it up. She leaves when Lex gets a call about Lionel’s disappearance. Lionel barely manages to balance the buckets before the room goes up in flames. Lionel finds Martha trapped in a large glass tank.

Lionel must solve another puzzle to save Martha’s life as water starts pouring into the tank. Clark gets a call from Lois about Martha not showing up at the fundraiser. Clark and Chloe meet up with Lex when they try to find Lionel to ask him about Martha. Lex tells them that Lionel is missing too. Clark finds an electronic bug in Lionel’s office and Chloe says she can use it to trace the signal back. Working together, Lionel and Martha figure out the puzzle is an anagram. Chloe finds the source of the signal and Lex takes Clark over to the building in his Porsche. Their tormenter forces Lionel and Martha into an elevator that has been rigged to fall and has a gun loaded with a single bullet in it. If neither Lionel nor Martha uses the gun to kill the other, the elevator will fall killing both. Lex and Clark go to the apartment where the signal originated and find a monitor that shows them Lionel and Martha trapped in the elevator. Martha can’t bring herself to kill Lionel so he tries to kill himself to save her life for Clark’s sake, who is a “special boy.” However, the gun left by their tormenter wasn’t really loaded. The monitor cuts off and Clark frantically talks to Chloe over the phone. The tormenter, Lincoln Cole, comes to taunt Lionel. Chloe tells Clark that she knows where the video originated, he disappears but that doesn’t seem to surprise Lex at all. Lionel pleads for his tormentor, who turns out to be the security tech that had checked his office earlier, to save Martha and apologizes but elevator drops anyway. Clark runs to the rescue and gets there just in time to save them. Lionel sees Clark catch the falling elevator but ambles off in a daze.

Clark and Martha talk about Lionel and he tells her that they can’t trust Lionel. Martha points out that they don’t really have a choice. Lex confronts Lionel about what he said about Clark and that he finds it hard to believe that Lionel was able escape without Clark’s help. Lionel denies that Clark had anything to do with it and says that Clark is just a simple farm boy. Clark meets with Lionel, who greets him as Kal-El. Clark asks him how long he’s known. Lionel says it’s been since he touched the stone that helped Clark build his fortress of solitude. Clark asked why he hasn’t done anything. Lionel says that he wouldn’t reveal Clark’s secret to the world because it would change his destiny and hurt Martha. Angry, Clark warns Lionel that despite his mother’s belief that Lionel has some good left in him that he needs to stay away from her or he’ll regret it. Clark strides out just before Lionel collapses in pain and frantically writes something down.

Review:

Wow… this episode was better than I was expecting from the trailer, like “one of the top episodes of the season” better.

Scribe Steven DeKnight delivered one of his best episodes to date. Despite my suspension of disbelief getting stretched to the breaking point on Chloe’s extremely high level computer hacking skills, I don’t think I had a single problem with the writing in this episode. However, even Chloe’s computer-hacking superpower can perhaps be forgiven as a necessary (and time saving) contrivance.

The tease was fantastic and the pace throughout the show kept up the tension really well. I loved the scene between Lex and Lionel. It was funny that while Lionel thought Lex was talking in double entendres, Lex was really just talking about Chess.

I also loved the “games” that Lincoln Cole played with Lionel. The tasks that Lionel was given were highly character revealing. Lionel was stripped down, both literally and figuratively, and the Magnificent Bastard became extremely vulnerable for once. Lionel also explained a lot.

Lionel’s contradictory and inexplicable actions since the season premiere now make sense, for the most part. He has helped Clark from afar over and over again yet also plotted a hostile takeover of Luthorcorp and tried to sabotage Lex’s senatorial campaign. Lionel knowing Clark’s secret, trying to protect him and being in love with Martha explains a lot but I don’t think it explains everything. Why was he pressuring Jonathan with images of Clark’s superhuman heroics? If he wanted to help Clark and cared for Martha, why hurt Jonathan that badly? Hopefully that part of it will be explained later…

I liked the more subtle than usual nods to Superman’s future. Martha talking about “truth, justice and the American way” and Clark agreeing that they were “words to live by” was just too cute.

It’s fascinating that Lionel has seemingly abandoned Lex in favor of Clark. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. Maybe the rift between the former “best friends” will come in part thanks to Lex’s father loving Clark more than Lex.

John Glover was totally awesome in this episode. Lionel went from the height of Magnificent Bastard mode to adept bargainer trying to negotiate his way out of a bad situation to a hopeless wretch to a man totally astounded to have escaped the ordeal alive… What an amazing arc for Lionel to go through and John totally sold it. I’m not sure a lesser actor could have made the changes that Lionel went through believable, but John did.

It’s such pleasure to watch him work with Annette O’Toole as well. They’re both such charismatic actors. Annette said in a recent interview that she loves to work with John and it shows because their chemistry is amazing. However creepy it might be for Lionel to hook up with Martha, especially given what he’s done in the past trying to learn Clark’s secret, the way it’s being played is fantastic. I can’t wait to see where they’re going with the storyline.

Speaking of creepy: Lex seemingly has an agenda, but will Lana find out just how bad he really is? I don’t think she will discover the truth about Lex this season, after all where would the tension and drama be in that? However, I like what I’m seeing so far. Kristin and Michael have chemistry and their scenes sizzle. It’s a more adult relationship for Lana and from how well Kristin is doing with this new storyline that she seems to enjoy playing it. Michael also seems to be having a great time with the new relationship for Lex.

Tom Welling’s Clark was very Supermanly in this episode. This was a very Lionel- and Martha-centric episode, so Tom wasn’t in it much. However, he made extremely good use of the screen time he did have. I especially loved the final scene where Clark confronted Lionel. Tom perfectly played Clark’s growing fury at what he saw as Lionel’s manipulation of his mother, culminating in Clark threatening the Magnificent Bastard. It was positively chilling. The way he physically intimidated Lionel and his voice dripped menace was amazing….

Guest star Ian Tracey was perfectly cast as Lincoln Cole. He had a seemingly innocuous appearance yet his voice was so rich… In a role that required the actor to act most of the show with a mask over his face, being able to convey his intent solely with his voice was vital. He did an excellent job.

The episode was beautifully photographed by Barry Donlevy and wonderfully designed by James Philpott. The rooms and elevator where Lincoln put Lionel through the games were all wonderfully creepy and industrial looking. Barry did a great job lighting the sets and locations so that feeling was reinforced. I also loved how Barry filmed the scenes in the monitor. His use of a wide angle lens somehow made the mask-wearing Lincoln seem much more menacing and creepy than he was already was.

I think the only problem I had technically with the show was where Clark broke through the wall before he rescued Martha and Lionel… The way the wall broke and one piece was knocked out perfectly seemed more like something that a cartoon Clark would do in Superman: The Animated Series rather than something Smallville’s live action Clark would do. Smallville doesn’t usually do cartoonish effects, so that totally broke my suspension of disbelief.

Aside from Chloe’s unbelievably good hacking skills and the less than successful Clark-breaking-through-the-wall effect, this episode was close to perfect. It had a great character revealing story that was also exciting and seemed to help the series build up to what I hope will be a huge cliff-hanging season finale.

4.5 falling elevators out of a possible 5

Note: The views of Triplet don’t necessarily represent the thoughts and feelings of everyone at KryptonSite. Send her feedback.