#5.21 “Oracle” Recap & Review

NOTE: If you haven’t seen this episode yet, what the heck are you doing reading this first? Go watch it! Otherwise, be aware that I’m going to spoil it big time….

Recap:

Clark gets a surprise birthday party and gets a card his father had written out before he’d died. It includes baseball tickets. Clark goes to the graveyard to visit his dad’s grave and is shocked when Jonathan shows up. Jonathan tells Clark in order to save the world, he has to kill Lionel.

Clark tries to convince his Mom that it was really his dad but she’s not buying it. Clark tells her how he saw Jonathan before and since that was real, maybe this is too. Martha doubts Jonathan would order murder. Lois runs into Lana at the Talon and she offers to listen to Lana talk about her problems. Chloe is unconvinced that Lionel has done anything that warrants murder. Lionel confronts Lex about Fine and his working with the virus. Lex denies doing anything wrong and leaves. Lionel collapses in pain, his eyes completely white. He frantically jots down something and this time we see it’s in Kryptonian.

After breaking into Lionel’s office, Chloe discovers Lionel has scheduled meetings about a “weapon.” Clark thinks he’s the “weapon.” Lex confesses to Lana what he’s been up to with Fine and takes her to the lab. He shows images of the ship that show Fine essentially disappearing. Lana tells Lex about the aliens’ weakness. Martha comes home to a phone message from Lionel. He says he really needs to tell her about something Clark needs to know. Martha turns to find Jonathan in the living room. He tells her that Clark must kill Lionel or Lionel will “drown you all in your own blood, just like he did me.” Jonathan disappears, leaving Martha confused. He then watches her from the window before he morphs into Fine.

Martha tells Clark what happened. Clark explains that Lionel may want to use him as a weapon. Martha doesn’t agree but tells Clark that Lionel may have had something to do with Jonathan’s death. Fine tells Lex he’s feeling left out of the loop since Lex was supposed to update him on the vaccine’s progress and didn’t. Lex says that he has doubts about Fine’s real agenda and pulls kryptonite on him. It doesn’t work. Annoyed, Fine asks Lex where the vaccine is while holding a finger (which has morphed into a sword) against Lex’s throat. Chloe tells Clark that Lionel had phoned Jonathan. The last call came only an hour before Jonathan’s death and had probably originated from the Kent Farm. Later, Lionel tries to explain what happened but Clark doesn’t listen. Yet, he hesitates to take Lionel’s life. ‘Jonathan’ arrives and Clark is torn between Lionel’s denials and his father’s insistence that Lionel die. Clark suddenly blasts Jonathan with his heat vision. He declares “you’re not my father” before Jonathan throws a tractor on top of him. He grabs Clark and tells him that he could kill him but can’t since he still needs him. Fine-as-Jonathan is immobilized by the white-eyed Lionel’s presence. Lionel, now a kind of anti-Fine, destroys Fine with a touch. Once his eyes return to normal, Lionel doesn’t remember anything.

Clark explains to Lionel that Fine isn’t a kryptonian, he’s a machine. Lionel shows Clark the pages he’s been writing… Oddly, Clark can’t read them so he shows them to Chloe, who scans a page to help her find any patterns. Lionel tells them the pages are all related to the virus work Fine and Lex have done but he doesn’t know how or where the lab is. Chloe says that Lana might… Clark goes to Lana’s dorm room and she catches him rifling through her stuff. He convinces her to tell him where Lex’s lab is. Fine is amazed that Lex went behind his back to mass-produce the vaccine. Lex tells him he just wanted to protect his people from the epidemic Fine was planning… Fine takes a vial of the vaccine and injects something into it, turning the clear fluid black. He puts the vial into an injection gun and tells Lex that he only needed one dose of the vaccine. He grabs Lex’s arm and injects him with the changed vaccine. Lex collapses and Fine destroys the lab. Clark shows up, too late, as Lex wakes up.

Lex is given a clean bill of health just before an angry Clark shows up. Clark and Lex have their weekly fight, this time about Fine and Lana, before Clark leaves in a huff. Lionel goes to see Martha and confesses he was probably to blame for Jonathan’s death. She’s shocked. He tells her that he hopes she can forgive him someday. Lex and Lana talk before Lex accidentally cuts himself. The cut heals immediately. Lois consoles Clark about the break up with Lana. Chloe gives Clark a copy of the three symbols that were most common in the writings. Clark reads it. “Zod is coming.”

Review:

With a story written by Neil Sadhu & Daniel Sulzberg, whose previous effort was penning the far less effective Lucy, scribe Caroline Dries’ sophomore teleplay for Smallville (she’d previously written the wonderful Cyborg) was terrific. The story was great out of the gate. The tease was wonderful and truly teasing. My kids actually said “Whoa” out loud as the show went to the commercial break… that was fantastic. The end-of-act cliff-hangers were also extremely strong. So much so that my 13 year old son, who is a very casual viewer of Smallville (he sometimes doesn’t watch the entire episode), stuck with it to the end. I think that says more about the strength of this episode’s hooks than almost anything else I could say.

Probably the only real flaws in this script were its contrivances.

Why had Clark assumed the “weapon” Lionel was having those meetings about was in fact him? While I can understand Clark’s paranoia about being sliced up in some lab, aside from Simone in ‘Hypnotic’ he’s never been controlled by anyone. So why was that the first thing that popped into his head? Clark’s assumption wasn’t motivated by anything in the story itself and seemed forced.

And just why was it that Clark couldn’t read the Kryptonian Lionel wrote but Chloe could somehow work out the patterns? Was it just because Chloe needed an excuse to have a loft scene at the end with Clark? The explanation of how she accomplished that seemed a bit thin, as well. Perhaps Clark could have accomplished the same results speed reading the mounds of pages instead. It was a great reveal on the “Zod is coming” thing at the end, but the plot points that brought us to that cliff-hanger were contrived…

Aside from that, the story was pretty strong. Caroline did a good job juggling the various plot lines that the episode dealt with. I’m not totally sure if this is a writing thing or an editing thing or some combination, but the action seemed to flow well from one scene to the next. When Smallville has a lot of stuff going on like this episode had, sometimes it can get choppy and with this episode it just wasn’t.

John Schneider made an excellent reappearance in the show playing Brainiac-as-Jonathan. He’s always been one of the stronger actors on the show but Jonathan never gave John a chance to really stretch his acting muscles much. The Jonathan-centric episodes were very few and far between, so him playing Fine’s take on Clark’s father figure, this must have been a treat to play. This episode was a terrific one for him as an actor and I’m so glad he was back in such a good episode.

I’ve gotten to be a James Marsters fan so I love it whenever Fine appears in the show. He certainly didn’t disappoint in this outing. James portrays the casually evil Brainiac with such flair. I loved the smug smile he had when he was watching Martha through the window. He was playing her and Clark big time. James’ scenes with Michael Rosenbaum’s Lex were fantastic.

Fine played Lex perfectly. He catered to Lex’s conspiratorial nature and wasn’t at all surprised when Lex tried to go behind his back to do something that wasn’t in the plans. I don’t know how yet that altered vaccine changed Lex but Fine went through a very convoluted series of steps to get to where he could alter the vaccine and inject it into Lex. Since this is a two part episode, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that whatever that injection did to Lex will come into play in a big way in the season finale and may even affect events into next season. I’m looking forward to seeing just what else Lex will be able to do besides heal quickly. This will be a very, very long summer if this episode is any indication of the kind of events we can expect from the season finale, ‘Vessel.’

Michael was awesome in this episode… Lex was playing Fine, or tried to, and Michael portrayed the changing motivations of Lex very well. Lex was alternately over confident, smug, scared, resolved and shocked. I loved how floored he was when Fine got the upper hand… Michael played all the emotions expertly and with his usual grace.

Tom Welling was especially terrific in this episode. He got some thankless contrivances to play as Clark stumbled through the episode a bit, but he perfectly portrayed Clark’s confusion when torn between Lionel and his ‘father.’ He also had some nice moments when trying to deal with Lana’s new relationship with Lex even while he was trying to protect them both from Fine. Tom did an excellent job playing Clark’s changing emotions in the mansion scene with Lex and took Clark believably from concern for Lex’s safety to self-righteous anger to wounded puppy….

DP Glen Winter shot another beautiful episode. Only in Smallville would evildoer’s secret labs be so gorgeously lit. I loved the lights patterns on the floor and the high contrast ratio (the very sharp shadows) that dominated the scenes in the lab. Awesome.

Not the best episode ever, but I gotta love any episode that has such evil goings-on happening with poor Clark caught in the middle. That helped it at least half a point or so, anyway…

4.5 vials of vaccine out of possible 5.

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