#7.5 “Action” Review

WARNING: Okay, you know the drill. If reading spoilers isn’t for you, I suggest you read this after you watch the episode.

Wow, this episode was fantastic!

Well, let me qualify that: it was terrific except for the continuing inexplicable nature of Lana’s behavior, but more about that later.

This episode was written by Caroline Dries, writer of some previously better than average and a couple of the top episodes of the series, “Cyborg” and “Nemesis” among them. Actually, I went back and reread my review for that episode and it reminded me of how good that episode really was.

This episode has multiple layers of meaning like that one did, Caroline is very good with double entendres, and I don’t mean that in a sexual innuendo sense… Very often she writes lines that could very mean something entirely different than what the speaking character apparently intended or what the other person in the scene thinks it means.

She writes some of the best dialogue in the series, although I’m not sure this episode comes close to perfect in that. Some word choices were a bit odd, but that could very well be due to actor flubs of the lines, and not her writing of them, so it’s hard to pin all those on the writer.

What was perfect was the mix of action with some terrific character advancement. The pace was excellent with increasingly rising stakes for Clark which came along with some terrific act break cliff-hangers.

Also, this episode finally showed us where Lionel had gotten to after being dragged out of the river in the season opener. Some of Lana’s motives have been revealed. She’s clearly lying to Lionel, yet I’m not sure that everything has been completely explained just yet. How exactly did she engineer Lionel’s capture and captivity from her hotel in Shanghai and why?

Was it just revenge or was it for some other reason? Was she still worried Lionel was going to hurt Clark? I don’t believe that Clark has explained to her how Lionel came clean to him after her apparent “death,” although I still don’t totally buy his altruism anymore than I’m totally buying her being evil. After all, Lionel’s the person who viciously brained his captor after Lex freed him.

Also, I think Lois is right: no one goes to bed Satan and wakes up Oprah. Something is going on with Lionel just like there’s something going on with Lex. But the opposite is true, no one goes to bed Oprah and wakes up Satan either so I think there is something else going on with Lana. I hope we learn what that is soon.

It’s an interesting, yet scary, phenomenon that Caroline tapped into for this episode. A crazed fan taking the online debates too seriously is probably not outside the realm of possibility considering all the crazed real life fans that have gone to exactly that kind of extreme in the past. Look at what happened to actress Rebecca Schaeffer, killed by crazed fan Robert John Bardo because her career choices didn’t match his idealized vision of who he thought she was.

Although having the Warrior Angel movie shoot at the farm isn’t probably the wisest decision Clark ever made, not if he wants his secret identity to remain a secret, the inside humor here was well worth the contrivance. All the nods and winks to the fans, and fandom wank that happens were, all by themselves, probably worth at least a couple of points.

Smallville, at times, does treat canon very poorly so Caroline using canon trampling as a plot point was a fun choice. Smallville writers have the advantage of nearly 70 years of comic lore to use so they can pick and choose which versions of the comic canon to mine for story ideas. Then there are also the films and previous TV incarnations (both live action and animated) to add into the mix.

So, it’s probably not a huge surprise that some fans hate the choices the Smallville Powers-That-Be have made over the show’s seven seasons. The debates can get very heated at times. It’s a fun that Caroline pointed to that and gave us a story where online fan forums played into it. It’s no accident that the crazed fan wanted to off Lana so Clark could finally accept his destiny when some fans online have been saying exactly that about Lana for years.

As Lex said, “In the comic book world, when you’re destined to save mankind, you’re destined to be alone.”

But, and Clark doesn’t know this yet of course, in the DC Comics universe Superman isn’t destined to be alone: he’s destined to be with Lois and, for some, that can’t come soon enough. Being alone is a long-time fear of Clark’s, stretching all the way back to the first season. So mining that fear is a powerful storytelling device, but the dramatic irony is that we know that it’s (at least for the near future) a baseless fear. Clark isn’t destined to be alone, but he is destined to leave Lana.

What’s more interesting is that Lana seems to see the necessity of that now. She finally sees how Clark is being held back by her. However she wants him badly enough to stay for as long as she can, happily in denial about what the future holds.

I suppose I can sorta see how Lana’s evil-doing with Lionel might be, in some way, tied to that denial. She wants her revenge against Lionel and Lex but knows if (or when) Clark finds out, that he won’t understand so she’s lying about it to Clark.

While I’m not sure I bought the entirety of the Lana storyline here, I can’t accuse this episode of ever being boring. Clark made some fantastic saves and there were some terrific nods to his future.

I especially loved the scene where Rachel (guest star Christina Milian) was rehearsing lines with Clark and it, at first, seemed like she’d learned his secret. That was perfect and very well could be lines that Clark and Lois could someday say to each other. Added to that the scene made Clark flustered, which Tom excels at portraying with his wonderful comedic timing.

One thing that I didn’t notice myself, especially since I know next to nothing about Silver Age era Superman comics, was the terrific use of an old Lois Lane alias, Sadie Blodgett. It’s from the issue #13 of “Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane” from 1959! Someone else pointed it out on a forum I frequent, I’m not smart enough to even try looking that up! That’s reaching far back into the Silver Age to get the name. What an awesome, and very subtle, touch!

While I loved all the hints about Clark’s tight-wearing future, the cape at the end actually made me sad. The way that it was shot by Director of Photography Glen Winter made it very clear, even to the sometimes clueless me, that by leaving the scarlet cape hanging on the fence Clark was walking away from what he’s meant to be. He walked away from his “destiny” because of his love for Lana.

That’s something that’s not going to stay that way. I do want Clark and Lana to be happy, truly happy, for at least a little while before it’s clear the relationship cannot be sustained. However, despite the fact that they are finally together, they haven’t even kissed yet.

As sweet as the moment was after Clark flew… uhm… lept off that building to save her, it wasn’t enough. It’s been established that Clark basically fell in love with the girl next door the first day he laid eyes on her.

They have this life-long love for each other and they don’t know that Clark isn’t destined to stay with Lana. Not to be crude, but it makes me wonder now that they are finally together, why aren’t they doing it like bunnies?

Maybe Lana wants to, she certainly dropped enough hints this episode that might hint she’s frustrated. I’m perplexed by their almost platonic relationship and I hope they explain that soon.

Overall this was a fun episode, but it had a dark underbelly. Yes, there was a movie-within-the-show wink-winks going on, but they also had crazed fan nearly killing an actress and Lana. However, apparently sweet Lana had been holding Lionel against his will with an animal trap closed around his hand. Ouch. Again, it was not as fluffy and (largely) innocent as Fierce had been, but this episode I think proves how much I look forward to one of Caroline’s episodes.

Tom Welling was awesome in this episode from the first frame to the last. My favorite scenes were the loft scene with Rachel and the save of Lana.

In the loft scene, Tom showed off his terrific comic timing. He acted badly so believably that it was funny. Tom is so cute when Clark is flustered and he played that so well. Probably my favorite scene of Tom’s in this episode was when he saved Lana. He zoomed down, in what apparently is at least a partly powered feat, turned and caught her. As he held her, Tom made Clark seem so calm and sure of himself. Even though he wasn’t really flying, true controlled flight is still out of his reach at this point, his calm, confident look seemed to comfort Lana. She was safe in his arms even as they continued to fall. The only other time I can think of Clark doing that was last season in Crimson before he took Lois on that super-leap to Ollie’s apartment. He looked like Superman both there and here. That was truly awesome.

Michael Rosenbaum was fantastic this episode. There are signs his newfound goody-two-shoes-ishness is just a front, after all he didn’t try very hard to stop his dad from beating his captor to death. Lex is still looking into Kara and I’m not sure he seems convinced by the back-story created for her by Chloe. What is he going to do once he finds her? From how Michael is playing it, it’s becoming clear she isn’t his savior. She’s another mystery to solve but when he find her, will he treat her as a threat? Lex is still scary and Michael plays that beautifully.

I love what Kristin’s doing with Lana this year. She continues the growth she showed last year and is making Lana probably the most interesting person on the show right now. Kristin has turned Lana into a strong woman, yet still vulnerable somehow. At times when she was in the loft with Lionel, Kristin played Lana’s vulnerability so well it was evident even though her dialogue didn’t really show that. She was putting more into the scene than was there on paper and that’s not always easy to do. So, I’m enjoying what Kristin is doing with her character even if I’m not really sure that I like where Lana seems to be going.

Chloe was back to her more normal Clark side-kick self this episode and I’m glad. I missed her helping Clark and Allison is looking good! She’s slimmed down some and I like that her make-up isn’t as dark as it’s been the last few episodes. As a character, she also seems brighter as well. Despite the break-up with Jimmy, she seems happier and it’s good to see. I like Chloe and I don’t like to see her unhappy for long and I think that makes Allison happier as an actress as well.

I LOVED Erica Durance in this episode. She looked great in that power suit and she was doing some terrific investigative reporting, even if she didn’t get very far on the Luthor-secret-hideout story. Erica does prickly very well and her scenes with Michael Cassidy’s Grant Gabriel were terrific. Erica is playing Lois as amused by his growing fascination with her, but not quite swayed enough to his side yet to actually start dating him.

Speaking of Grant, Michael Cassidy’s playing him as gruff yet charming. That’s not an easy mix to carry off, I like him more each time I see him.

I liked the bad guy, Ben, a lot. Played ably by guest star Christopher Jacot, he was clearly insane (he so deserved to go to Belle Reve) but there was some depth to the way Christopher played him. His best scene was the apartment scene where he was on the web cam. He was clearly troubled but still wasn’t a one note performance. It’s nice when the relative nobody guest star out-acts a stunt casting guest star like Christina Milian.

Christina was okay, but only just. She’s very pretty but somehow I don’t buy her as movie star material. She was far too bland. A trite, spoiled-rotten-brat stuck-up movie star cliché would have been far more fun considering the storyline, especially if she had somehow become nicer and less stuck up after meeting Clark. She had zero character arc, so either that’s the actresses fault for not exhibiting a change over the course of the episode or the writer didn’t create an engaging enough character. I actually like Caroline’s writing and I don’t think she’d make that mistake, so I’m going to have to blame the actress.

Returning to the show after his summer Broadway gig was done (he played Man in Chair, a non-singing part, in the musical “The Drowsy Chaperone.”), John Glover’s The Magnificent Bastard is finally back! The way he beat that woman to death so viciously was shocking, yet so in keeping with Lionel’s character. I love the way he laid it all out with Lana in the loft later. She’s in his sights and that’s not a good place to be and John did a terrific job delivering that menace believably.

Directory of Photography Glen Winter is also back in Vancouver after apparently shooting a film in Scotland this summer. From a peek at his IMDB page, it looks like he’d recently wrapped “Stone of Destiny” with Director/Writer/Actor Charles Martin Smith since it’s now in post-production. I’m always happy to see his name in the end credits so I’m glad he’s back. He shot another beautiful episode. It was dark in all the right places and he shoots dark so well. I loved the closing scene where Clark walked away and the camera craned down to get a low angle on him with the cape fluttering in the breeze. It was a gorgeous shot and it made me sad.

The Special Effects were terrific, I loved Clark’s save of Lana near the end, as I have already said, but Lionel pulling his hand free of the steel trap was too much. A few seconds is all we needed, not the nearly half a minute that we saw. Yikes, but that was hard to watch.

Caroline Cranstoun’s costuming was terrific. I loved Lois’s power suit. It was perfect.
All in all “Action” was almost a perfect episode, yet somehow I’m not sure I want to give this a 5. I’m not sure why. I haven’t given a 5 yet this season and I had two by this time last year.

As for this episode: I’ll just have to grade it on a bit of a curve. It’s close to perfect so I’ll spot it half a point or so just on general principles since I loved Tom being Supermanly so much. I give this episode 5 Rare Warrior Angel #1 issues 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.