#7.1 “Bizarro” Review

WARNING: I warn you that this review will be more spoilery than usual. So, if reading anything spoilery bothers you, you will need to wait to read this until after you’ve seen the episode.

Reviewer’s notes:

One thing I have to start out saying is that this season I will be doing one thing very differently.

I will be avoiding spoilers.

You learn one thing too much and it ruins the episode, like last year me learning about Lana’s “death” in the season 6 finale, “Phantom.” I’d mentioned it in my review at the time that I felt like it had spoiled my enjoyment of the episode. I had said in a very flip comment that I was going to go spoiler-free but I hadn’t really done that. Over the summer, I had fallen back into old habits and learned a thing or two about “Bizarro.” Most early stuff was so general I didn’t mind it, like the fact that Supergirl would be showing up. However, when I learned specifics like Kara saving Lex from drowning and Chloe waking up in the morgue… I decided enough was enough and that my promise to become a spoiler-phobe that I had made in the “Phantom” review should be one I stick to…

This year, I decided that I wanted to try to see if not finding out specifics, not finding out too much, might help me enjoy the episodes more. Right now, for any future episodes I’m keeping to only to the official descriptions, trailers and director’s cuts from the CW website. Although, I have to say the recent change in the video player on that site doesn’t play well on my computer. I’m not sure why they changed it to begin with since what they did isn’t an improvement. It’s harder to find the clips you want and it’s locked up my Internet Explorer more than once, actually, and it’s not like I have an ancient computer either. I hope they improve the usability of that.

The Review:

This episode started out with a better than average “Previously on Smallville” montage. Wow, what a way to sum up the season 6 finale! It was less than a minute and a half long, but it gave an excellent overview of what had gone on before. I don’t know who does that (The director? The editor?), but whoever did it, did an awesome job. The music was marvelous in that as well, it helped build the tension toward the beginning of the episode.
Also, the new credit sequence was terrific. I love the new scenes they chose to reflect each character, but why has Michael been moved up to the second lead in the show, Kristin Kreuk now being third? Does this mean that Clark and Lex’s animosity toward each other will come more to the forefront this season? If it’s true that Michael won’t be back next season, if there is a next season that is, then making the relationship between Clark and Lex more important this season is probably a good thing.

Anyway, back to the episode: “Bizarro” answered almost all of last season’s cliff-hangers but brought out questions of its own.

Going into this episode, writers Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson had their work cut out for them. They had a lot of things to wade through before they got to the meat of the story. Although the tease was only three minutes long, it set up the episode perfectly. It showed the escalating peril that Clark, Lois, Chloe, and Lex were all in. Clark having to worry about being murdered so Bizarro can take over his life; Chloe close to death, trapped with Lois in the crumbling remnants of the dam; Lex in a car that had washed away in the flood when the dam broke.

And wow, what a great job Entity had done with the breaking dam! That was really cool and then when Clark evaporated the flood with his heat vision! All of the Special Effects shots in the tease were terrific. Sometimes watching Smallville is like watching a one hour movie. What an enjoyable 3 minutes!

While a bit choppy at times, not all the scenes flowed well as they went from one to the other, in the episode itself the writers had effectively covered all of the cliff-hangers left at the end of last season’s finale. At the same time they had setup things still left explore the next few episodes: the extent of Chloe’s power, Lex’s arrest for Lana’s murder, the revelation that Lana had somehow survived the car explosion, Kara showing up, Lionel getting pulled out of the river by an unknown person, and Clark’s growing resolve to come to terms with who he really is.

I also loved how important sunlight was in this episode. Not only did it weaken Bizarro, but it strengthened Clark. The importance of sunlight for Clark hasn’t been effectively addressed in the series. They’ve made passing references to it, of course. Clark reviving in the sun after being so sick from Kryptonite exposure in last season’s “Nemesis,” for example, but it hadn’t really played a major part in any episode except for season 3’s “Perry.” I love it when they make things like that from the comic mythos an important plot point in an episode. For the most part it was a terrific beginning to the season.

The only thing that bothered me about this episode is I don’t think that redemption for Lex is a good thing. Hadn’t Lex pushed aside any goodness he’d had left last season when he manipulated and ruthlessly toyed with the lives of others, including a woman he’d loved? I don’t think the addition of that plot point was solely Souders’ and Peterson’s doing, mainly because it came off so lame. I don’t think their hearts were in it and that showed. Bizarro said it best, “Redemption doesn’t suit you, Lex.”

Tom Welling had a lot to do this episode. He essentially had two parts to play and did an excellent job portraying both of them.

Tom’s Bizarro-Clark was a revelation. He wasn’t just another version of the lust-puppy-Red-K-infected Clark with poor impulse control that Tom had portrayed in previous episodes, like last year’s “Crimson,” because Bizarro-Clark was not Clark. He was truly villainous and without a conscience. Bizarro-Clark not only killed just because he could, he also seemed to enjoy it. It’s hard to portray that sort of pathological lack of a conscience without taking it over the top. He had just enough of the crazy murderous intent without making it campy, so Tom had played the balance very well. And I loved how his voice was deeper than Clark’s and he seemed to hold himself differently. It helped underscore the differences between the two men.

As Clark, I loved the more tender scenes with Chloe where he was trying very hard to deal with his grief about Lana’s death. He was brave and vulnerable sometimes in the same scene. Tom had been very effective in both parts and if Bizarro does show up again, I will be a very happy Tom Welling fan. This was an enormously enjoyable performance from Tom.

I’m not sure I’m buying Kara-as-guardian-angel for Lex. Unfortunately, I don’t think Michael Rosenbaum is either. Lex’s new-found redemption in the wake of the miraculous save by the new Kryptonian do-gooder in town seemed contrived. Michael, unfortunately, didn’t effectively sell that. His performance in the scenes where Lex talked about that were flat and unconvincing, although I thought his speech about missing Lana was excellent. He had tears in his eyes and it truly seemed like Lex mourned Lana’s loss. Also, the looks on his face as was just about to drown, and then saw the angelic-looking Kara, were wonderful. He conveyed so much without saying a word…

Maybe not selling his new found salvation is just another beginning-of-the season slump for Michael. Last year he also started out slow. I hated some of what he did in the early parts of the season, “Sneeze” was a good example of that, so maybe he’ll get back into his usual lovely Lex-style evilness before too much longer. This was a decidedly mixed performance from Michael.

Allison Mack had her moments, but I’m not sure she was totally with it in this episode either. The scene in the morgue wasn’t her best work ever, and I think it needed to be. I didn’t feel like she’d been traumatized at all by waking up in a refrigerated coffin-like drawer. I think being trapped inside that would be the special guest star of most people’s nightmares for decades… However, it seemed like Chloe’s level of weirded-out-ness was no worse than having had just woken up on a stranger’s bathroom floor after a bender. The crying after she’d found out about Lana’s death I wasn’t totally sold on either, although I thought that scene was more effective for her in general. Hopefully, she’ll be back to her Chloe awesomeness in the next episode.

Director of Photography, David Moxness, delivered a wonderful episode. I think the sunbeams were helped out by Entity a bit here and there, but the way he shot the episode to emphasize the golden color of sunlight was terrific. Also, the ending shot of Lex in prison, with the alternating light and shadow was breathtaking! What a beautiful moment! It not only looked good, it implied Lex’s struggle with his dark side in a metaphorical sense. One moment he was in light, the next in dark… Awesome.

Overall, probably not a perfect episode but it set up the first part of the season so well I have to let it slide on couple things and grade it on a curve. 4.5 shiny silver bracelets 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.