#7.3 “Fierce” Review

WARNING: I must advise you that this review is spoilery. You should probably wait to read this until you’ve seen the episode if you like to avoid that kind of thing. Although, this time I’m not sure you should even bother unless you like Smallville’s brand of dramatic irony.

Well, well, well…

I guess they can’t all be awesome. The season has started out so well, I guess they had to break their streak sometime but with the third episode? With this? Yikes….

This is the episode where Clark finally finds out Lana is alive and the show should have been awesome from start to finish, with everyone bringing in their A game. Yet here, everyone seemed off somehow, especially in the first part of the episode.

The story wasn’t great to begin with, after all, so maybe it’s not surprising things started out rocky. I mean, the beauty pageant was an obvious ploy to show off some beautiful bodies, Laura’s especially. Good for her that she gets an excuse to show off how fit she is, I’m sure she works hard to stay that way, but it would be nice if scribe Holly Harold had actually had a stronger story to better justify doing that.

Not that a lot of good things didn’t happen. They did. We saw some great stuff. Clark showing Kara how to control some of her powers was actually funny. Added to that, the scene did show Kara that she doesn’t know everything when it comes to Kryptonian powers. I loved it when Clark got splattered with the blown up watermelon.

Another good thing was that we got to see Lex actually protect Kara, but only for his own devious purposes. However is this Lex being super-powered-friend-obsessed all over again like he was with Clark in seasons past? Has the show been going on so long they can’t possibly think of something new for Lex to be obsessed with? It seems so been there/done that…

Oh, well. His zeroing in on Kara is ominous, however, and hints at some very interesting complications for the Kryptonian cousins later on in the season.

Clark was being a bit of a hypocrite about Kara trying to fit in by doing something to stand out, he was the captain of the football team after all, but still…. I’m not sure how anyone, not even a teenaged girl, might think that winning a beauty pageant would help her fit in.

Why would a girl from a technologically advanced civilization really find the idea of a beauty contest appealing? Maybe the cult of beauty that’s so prevalent in our society wasn’t “in” back on Krypton. Perhaps doing something so vapid, hedonistic and exhibitionistic was a novelty she couldn’t resist, but they never really explained her reasoning aside from tying to “fit in.”

For Clark it was easy to see why he went out for the team. Playing football equaled acceptance. In many towns across America, believe me (I live in one) when I say football is almost like a religion. And fitting in is something he wanted so desperately his whole life but even more so after he found out he wasn’t even human. Playing football well would go a long way to making him be completely accepted. And it’s something he’d wanted since the Pilot.

However, for Kara, where is her need to fit in coming from? She’d been stuck in stasis, not wasting her best years like she’d claimed. She hadn’t aged at all in the intervening 18 years since the meteor shower. What years got wasted? Why is becoming a beauty queen something she “missed out” on while stuck at the bottom of the reservoir?

She’s an alien and doesn’t need to accept it, unlike Clark. She’s talked to him about him not being human or really fitting in more than once in fact. So, how does this girl go from lecturing Clark on not really being human or ever completely fitting in to trying to fit in herself through something as meaningless as a Beauty Contest? I’m not sure that the “trying to fit in” explanation totally makes sense.

Anyway, I guess Kara did actually do something useful because of the contest. She found the Kryptonian artifact because of it and that certainly opened a huge new storyline. Where the heck is the Kryptonian that has been hanging around for the last 100 years or so waiting to be rescued?

And they’ve never really covered just how it was that Kryptonians had been able to come and go to Earth anyway and yet only three (well, five if you count alien Ken & Barbie from “Arrival”) have survived that weren’t in the Phantom Zone when Krypton was destroyed.

That subject is probably one best not too closely examined and yet here they are introducing what could be one huge plot hole they’re digging themselves into. I hope it makes more sense than the is-he-evil or is-he-good Lionel plot-line from last season that I still don’t really get…

Another thing that doesn’t make sense in this story is the key Kara had for the Talon. Why, exactly, would anyone give Kara (a brand new employee that doesn’t “technically even work here yet”) a key so she could lock up?

Now that I’m on the subject of the Talon, why would Clark let his newly discovered Kryptonian younger cousin work at a place that Lex owns? Especially a girl whose powers are not entirely under control? Given the history between Clark and Lex, that doesn’t make much sense. He’s probably going to be drinking a lot more coffee in the Talon now she’s his employee.

Oh, and another thing. Why is Chloe living in the Talon with Lex as her landlord? With what happened last season with Lex using her Mom in his experiments and the three hour commute to Metropolis, that’s probably asking for a lot of suspension of disbelief on the viewers. Oh, I guess Metropolis isn’t three hours away anymore and people conveniently ignore Lex’s ownership of the Talon if they need a place to work or stay. Or is it because Smallville doesn’t have the budget to build new sets?

You know, sometimes continuity really stinks on this show.

All that said, parts of the script were terrific. I love it when Lex is evil and he was just that, and perfectly so. What Holly wrote finally had me convinced Lex is a man truly looking in Kara for possibly his last shot at redemption. He lets Lana get away with murder and millions of his dollars. He also convinces the government man that Kara was just a dream and that he should look elsewhere for clues to the occupant of the missing spaceship. He even gives the guy three years worth of test results of illegal human experimentation to help throw him off the trail. It’s clear he wants to protect Kara very badly and will even risk jail to do it.

When Lex confronts Kara about her rescue of him, she is believably scared and yet Lex seems sincere that he thinks that “this time” he can be saved from his own evil nature. Maybe it’s possible Kara could do that, but not at the price of telling him the truth. Certainly, Clark will warn her about Lex and she’ll be wary of him. Why would she trust Lex enough to tell him everything he wants to know? The dramatic irony is so juicy.

We know Kara won’t succeed in saving Lex anymore than Clark did; simply because she won’t trust him enough to tell him her secrets. He is destined to become the evil nemesis of her cousin so ultimately there is no saving Lex.

However, it’s wonderful of Lex to still want a chance at redemption. He’s not going to get it, of course, but his fruitless pursuit makes him a far more complicated Lex than what we’ve seen elsewhere. He’s not the real estate scamming buffoons Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey delivered in their feature film turns as the iconic villain. Smallville’s Lex Luthor is far smarter and far more complicated than that and he’s part of why the show is as enjoyable as it is.

I had originally thought Lex’s quest for redemption silly, only a contrivance to delay the inevitable for yet another season. However, this script gave Lex’s pursuit of redemption more depth and even added some menace to it. That’s a hard sell and Holly made it work for me even after the first two episodes failed to deliver that so I think that’s saying a lot.

Also, the later scenes between Clark and Lana were fantastic. The last one at the fair was wonderful for exactly the same reason that Lex’s and Kara’s was. The dramatic irony of it… Wow. Now that she’s a free woman and Clark is no longer in danger, all Lana wants is to grow old with him; even as Clark himself begins to see that particular future maybe isn’t even possible. It was a heartbreaking and beautifully written scene.

Holly took what many might have thought a trite, freak-of-the-week “filler” episode and made some beauty come out of it. That’s probably not an easy thing to do. Maybe her next episode will have some more meat for her to work with. I can only hope, but she made this one rise above its mundane plotline.

Tom Welling was excellent, as usual, but still the first scenes between him and Kristin seemed flat. At first, I couldn’t really figure out why. Maybe the fault lies in the editing. There were several scenes that made the trailer that didn’t make the final cut. Clark said in one of the trailers that they’d found Lana’s body and she had assured him that she’s real, for example.

Although, I think I can see why they changed it. Even though I’m a writer, I can see the power of scene can be enhanced if little or nothing is said. You have to trust the actors can do their job and, if skilled enough, a lot of things can be conveyed without the actor even saying a word. Most viewers are pretty smart so you shouldn’t have to always spell it out. However, maybe if some of that part had been kept in Clark’s caution in those first two scenes would have made more sense.

Anyway, Tom is so cute when Clark’s embarrassed. He needs to do movies after Smallville is over and, rumors of his potential involvement in the Justice League movie aside (he does deserve to wear the suit on the big screen, in my opinion), I really think that someone should put him into a romantic comedy as soon as the show is done. He’s definitely got the comic timing for it… His scenes with Laura were terrific. He played the humor just right as well, but there was still a nice hint of pathos.

Clark’s final scene with Lana was likely one of the most pivotal in the series, although I’m not sure it really looked like it. Lana and Clark are finally together at last, with no secrets and lies creating barriers between them and yet there was this realization from Clark that maybe that’s not enough. Clark still loves Lana, Tom made that clear the way he played the scene, but he seemed unsettled. It seemed to me, that without him really saying so, that Clark is happy to be with her but has finally realized that maybe it’s just not possible to grow old with her like she wants. Tom played that bittersweet realization perfectly.

Kristin was also a bit off early on in the episode, also likely because of the editing of the scenes. However she, like Tom, had done better in the later scenes. Her scene with Lex was strong and surprising and Lana’s final scene with Clark was terrific. I’m not sure she’s quite back to where she was at the end of last season, this is really her first full episode back, but I’m looking forward to seeing where they go with this newly empowered and more emotionally fulfilled Lana.

Laura Vandervoort was wonderful, but still a bit rough. She does the pouty-younger-sister bit pretty well, but I wasn’t totally sold on the scenes where she had to display stronger emotions. Like when she was upset by what that one “weather girl” said to her about her needing more than just help with her make-up. Girls can be cruel to each other and such catty comments can be very hurtful, but Kara didn’t really seem all that upset by it. She did better in the later scene when Clark had gotten hurt and she saved him, so maybe she’ll keep on improving.

Michael Rosenbaum was terrific as Lex. It helped that his quest for redemption was more strongly written this week. It enabled him to make that better motivated. Lex’s scene with Lana was terrific, he seemed sincere in wanting Lana’s forgiveness yet there was a hint of menace at the end when he asked about Clark’s cousin. Then in the later scene with Kara, Michael was awesome. He started to get angry, pointing out that he knew it was her that ripped the roof off of the car, and then he pulled back and told her it was okay. He tried to reassure her, he wants her help but all he needs is her honesty in return. It’s not something he’s going to get, so the menacing last line about wondering whether she’s a savior or a warning is a meaty one and was impeccably delivered by Michael.

Allison Mack seemed more into this episode than the first two of the season. Chloe is still in a bit of a funk because of the pressure that the new editor is putting her under and her worry over maybe going crazy like most meteor-infected people seem to do. Perhaps it’s understandable she would worry about that, her mom was “crazy” because of the meteor shower so maybe her time is coming. It’s ironic that Jimmy told Chloe he’s now convinced how crazy some meteor infected people can get now that Chloe’s one. Allison played that painful moment flawlessly.
It was nice to see Aaron Ashmore back as Jimmy but I’m not sure I’m buying the appeal he has for Kara. He’s cute, in a dorky sort of way, but flame-generating hot? I don’t think so, but who am I to judge who other people find attractive? I liked that Jimmy was like his comic book self here, so hot on the trail of a scoop he doesn’t think about the consequences and needs to get his butt saved by someone of the superhero persuasion.

I think I’ve talked about this episode too much already, for a less than so-so episode, so I’m not going to go into details about the David Moxness’ photography or Caroline Cranstoun’s costuming. They were both quite good.

While close to being dreck-filled standard freak-of-the-week fare, there were some good things to come out of this episode so I’m going to spot it a point and give this episode 3.5 mysterious Kryptonian medallions 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.