NOTE: If you don’t like reading reviews that contain spoilers, you’re reading the wrong review. Please, go watch the episode and come back when you’re done.
This episode is the sophomore directorial effort of Smallville Director of Photography, Glen Winter. While not as successful an episode overall as his previous effort at helming on “Cyborg,” which I rated a five, it was still arguably one of the better ones so far this year.
Scribe Holly Harold produced an extremely strong script in “Fallout.” The act break cliffhangers were fantastic and the A, B, and C stories tied together far better than average. Lana and Lex vied for control of Brainiac’s power-cell even as (over in the main storyline) Raya and Clark dealt with the Phantom Zone escapee, Baern, who also wanted the power core. All the while Jimmy added critical support in the C story. It was beautiful how well the three storylines intersected and played off of each other.
Lex and Lana’s scheming and growing distrust of each other is an interesting twist. I suppose it was only a matter of time considering it’s Lex that Lana’s dating, but the deterioration of the relationship adds a great deal of friction to their scenes. As the relationship goes along it’s hard to discern exactly why Lana is still in it, but it makes for some dramatic TV nonetheless.
An interesting complication of the Clark/Lana/Lex triangle was that Clark finally confided something to Lana. He showed her the photo of the technical schematics of the power cell when she asked what he was really after. More interesting still was that it didn’t look like she was going to fill Lex in on what Clark showed her. Maybe Clark has discovered that he can trust Lana with at least some of his secrets after all. There is a lot of irony in that…
However, Clark trusting her even that little bit is a sign that they will probably find a way to become friends despite the bitter break up of their romantic relationship. I’m relieved, personally. It was looking like they would never become friends so even a little hint of their future friendship was nice to see.
I’m really sorry they decided to kill off Raya (Pascale Hutton). I liked her character a lot and thought she still had things to show Clark, but I can see why they did it. In a literary sense, she’d done her job: helping Clark to better understand his place on Earth. She gave him a different view point on his role in the world his parents had sent him to. He’s been too deeply mired in his own problems for too long to understand the bigger picture. Raya helped Clark gain some badly needed objectivity.
The only problem with the script was that Jimmy’s over-enthusiastic naiveté was probably laid on a bit thick. I found it hard to believe that a smart woman like Chloe would actually be charmed by her boyfriend making some downright stupid moves. Directly confronting Lex about possible conspiracies without any real facts to back it up isn’t a good move if you want to live to see your next birthday. Why she only smiled at him indulgently after she found out about that was inexplicable. It was probably because he unknowingly helped Clark a great deal, but still…
Clark’s scene at the end with Martha was one of the most important single moments in the series. I don’t think it had ever been brought up what it was exactly that Clark had lost when Krypton was destroyed. What he’d lost was more than just his “heritage” or even the more abstract idea of a “home world.”
Clark lost his home.
Clark lost his family.
As well loved as he is, being the Last Son of Krypton is tragic. Clark really acknowledging the finality of that fact for the first time helped him to finally embrace his “otherness.” That is something he has never done before and it was a necessary step for him to finally accepting his destiny.
The scene showed that Clark is determined to do what’s right, no matter what. In that steely resolve to accept his destiny, regardless of the cost, Clark showed that he is the man that will one day pull on tights and save people simply because he can. He saves people simply because it’s the right thing to do. His quiet determination to fight evil as he held the shield that symbolizes his family, and will symbolize what he will become, was a powerful moment.
This is what the whole series is building toward. The decision to carry on with his training and accept who he is and what he’s destined to do was a pivotal one in Clark’s series long character arc. What a great moment in the series and it was beautifully written.
Aside from an ever-present scowl, the lack of a definitive difference (either vocally or physically) between when Bow Wow (Shad Gregory Moss) was Baern and when he wasn’t. The lack of a noticeable change severely strained my willing suspension of disbelief. More effort should have been made to help Bow Wow sound and act differently than… well… Bow Wow.
Aside from Bow Wow, helmer Glen Winter did an excellent job pulling strong performances from his actors.
Tom Welling keeps getting better and better. The early scenes between Raya and Clark were great, he was having fun racing with her and it was a pleasure to watch Clark enjoying his powers. Clark doesn’t do that often and Tom looked like he was enjoying playing that.
Tom performed the final scene between Clark and his mother perfectly. He portrayed it so matter-of-factly, with just a hint of angst, and with a quiet resolve which kept the scene intense yet still low-key enough that it didn’t go over the top. It would have been so easy to become heavy handed with the importance of the moment. His understated performance in that scene had just the right tone. Anything more and it would have seemed forced; anything less and it would have diluted the moment’s power. He played Clark’s epiphany perfectly.
Kristin Kreuk is coming more and more into her own as an actress. I’m not sure I totally like where Lana is going as a character, her growing duplicity when it comes to Lex’s scheming is a bit worrisome, but I think it’s great that Kristin is tackling the character arc so ably. She’s believably playing a far more complicated Lana than we’ve ever seen before.
Michael was terrific in this episode. In the scene with Jimmy, Lex was downright scary yet he started out dealing with Jimmy in such a benign fashion. By the end of the scene the menace was clear and he faultlessly played that change in intention. It gave me chills. I think Michael’s getting past whatever it was that caused him to fall short of expectations in earlier episodes in the season.
Aaron Ashmore’s Jimmy was humorous in this episode, even though parts of his storyline were a bit hard to swallow. Aaron and Allison Mack have a very nice chemistry so I always like the scenes they have together.
In addition to helming this episode, Glen Winter photographed it. The scenes in the darkened fortress and the nighttime scenes in the mansion were especially well done and atmospheric.
Usually, I don’t mention hair or make-up but they, or one of them anyway (which one I’m not sure), made one pretty obvious mistake in this episode. In the final scene between Lex and Lana, Michael’s head had a visible five o’clock shadow. It totally pulled me out of the scene…
Despite some missteps, the director, cast and crew delivered an extremely strong episode.
4.5 Brain-InterActive Construct power cores out of a possible 5.
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