#8.6 “Prey” Review

NOTE: I’m going to reveal major plot points in this review, so if you try to avoid that before seeing the episode maybe you should watch the episode before you read this. Just come back when you’re done.

I wasn’t sure what to think of this one the first time I watched it. It actually took several viewings before I figured out I liked it. While there were some problems, on the whole I really liked the episode.

Two of the show runners, executive producers Kelly Souders & Brian Peterson (“Bizarro,” “Hidden,” “Reckoning,” “Promise,” “Blank,” and “Phoenix”), wrote this episode and the reason I wasn’t sure whether I liked it at first wasn’t because it was poorly written. For most part, this script was very capably written.

No, I think I didn’t like it much at first because it was just unexpectedly dark after the fairly humorous previous episode. Smallville hasn’t shied away from getting dark, especially in the last two or three seasons, so that fact that it was dark wasn’t really a problem. I actually like dark, at times, but it just seemed so out of place to follow “Commitment”, which was so much lighter in tone. Maybe a palette cleansing story in between the two might have been called for… It did seem to improve on subsequent viewings, so I’m thinking it was the juxtaposition.

I really liked how they wrote Clark in this episode. He’s getting better at his “job,” being the savior of Metropolis and becoming more confident and “Supermanly,” but he’s letting the superhero gig take over his life way too much. He’s letting the drive to protect others cloud his judgment.

It’s a testament to Clarks resolve to tackle his new role as much as he possibly can, but listening to the police scanners at night while trying to save Metropolis one criminal at a time is probably not the best way to handle things.

John again was right in that not even Clark can save everyone, but ever the optimist he’s still going to try. I loved Clark’s line where he said that the moment he believes he can’t save everyone, is when he stops trying. That was Superman right there!

The Martian Manhunter was also right when he told Clark that he risked discovery if he kept up what he was doing. Eventually someone’s going to see, and it probably won’t help that Jimmy is taking it upon himself to figure out who the super secret Good Samaritan is. It’s probably only a matter of time before someone sees his face, no matter how careful Clark is…

Clark is risking his secret coming out by helping so many, but what else can he do? Of course he needs to be cautious, but he hasn’t yet figured out how to hide his identity while saving people.

Going from the trailer for next episode shown at the end of this one, it looks like we won’t have to wait long before this will come up again then. I’m glad it’s looking like they are maintaining more continuity from episode to episode and that the excellent continuity in the first few episodes wasn’t some kind of fluke…

Another thing that was very good about this episode was that we got to see more of Davis’ true nature. We’d only had very brief and enigmatic hints of Davis Bloom’s menace up until now. There was only a brief shot of his sometimes boney eyebrows in “Plastique” and there was that comment where Davis had suggested that he had things he was hiding back in “Toxic.”

In this episode Davis disclosed to Chloe that he’s had black outs, then it turns out that he also had been acting a bit suspiciously lately. Clark discovered his stash of gruesome photos of victims and John had brought up the fact that Davis was the first person to arrive at several of the crime scenes. Something is definitely going on with him. Despite the fact that the kid from Chloe’s group had been responsible for at least some of the murders, the final shot of what is apparently that nun’s missing crucifix in his ambulance indicated that he’s not as innocent as everyone had been led to believe.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned in any previous reviews this season that Davis Bloom is really Doomsday, a villain from the comics who had killed Superman. (Of course Clark got better – they’re not going to kill Superman for real…) Doomsday is an important villain because he’s apparently the only creature in the universe that can kill Clark without getting an assist from Kryptonite.

Of course, there are some differences between this version of Doomsday and that one. This is Smallville after all, so that was probably to be expected.

To start with this Doomsday being raised by humans (albeit badly, bouncing from foster home to foster home) is a complete switch. He was enormous in the comics, much bigger than Superman (like two or three times bigger), and he had jagged boney protrusions that extended out from dozens of points of his skeleton. There is no way the giant and horrific looking comic book version of Doomsday could have ever passed for human. And he wasn’t. In the comics he was basically a Kryptonian (albeit from a different species than Clark’s) modified through genetic experimentation to become a living killing machine.

Davis, in stark contrast to his monstrous comic counterpart, is a very nice looking man who is actually shorter than Clark and at times shows a very human vulnerability. He not only acts human, most of the time he looks completely human too. While he seems to be an alien, he clearly doesn’t have the same Kryptonian yellow sun-based powers as Clark. Davis was able to draw blood from himself without any problem.

I guess we’ll see how exactly they explain who (or what) Davis is later, and why the DNA matches didn’t throw up more red flags (his blood and skin should have obviously come from an inhuman source). Once they explain the particulars of his origins, maybe that will all make more sense.

No matter how they explain it, Davis has apparently started to mindlessly murder just like the comic Doomsday. His murder spree ratchets up his potential menace several notches. Clark should have reason to worry, even if he realized who and what Davis is, but of course he doesn’t know the nature of Davis’ threat to him yet.

The dramatic irony in that is excellent. Waiting for the other shoe to drop makes for nail-bitingly good TV. It’s one of the things this show does best.

The increasing danger Davis poses to Clark seems to be building and, what is probably worse for Clark, Davis is becoming suspicious of Clark. Davis turning things around on Clark in this episode, even implying that he’s doing something underhanded by sneaking around crime scenes, is terrific. It creates increasing stakes for Clark and foreshadows the adversarial relationship the two men will share.

I loved that both Clark and Davis talked about their being on a “watch” or a “shift” to Jimmy, although Clark referred to himself only obliquely as he talked to Jimmy about the mystery Good Samaritan. They consider their jobs be to be one of protector or guardian, like cops on a beat. Each in their own way, they are both on watch to protect the citizens of Metropolis.

Clark wants to be that protector, and is starting to do that job. He just has trouble keeping it all in balance so he’s not doing it completely right yet.

On the other hand, Davis thinks he can also be a hero, but it will be an impossible aspiration for him. The tragedy of Davis’ story is that he doesn’t yet know the truth of what he will become. It was heart breaking to see how torn up Davis is by the very thought he might be a murderer, and yet he is. Worse than a murderer, he is a monster.

In a way, I find it significant that the new executive producers had to get two people to replace Michael Rosenbaum’s Lex Luthor as the show’s bad guy. It’s a testament to how profound an impact that character and that actor had on the show.

It’s always been a show about Clark becoming the man who becomes a hero, but at the same time it had also been about Lex turning into the villain. So, now Michael’s gone and we have two villains to replace him. Replacing Michael Rosenbaum would take nothing less, I suppose. It’s a compliment to Michael and how important his portrayal of Lex was, but it’s also very, very smart.

Both Tess and Davis are extremely well played by attractive, physically capable young actors who, like Michael, have serious acting chops. The two characters together rise to the level of menace that Lex had, but in a lot of ways they add more.

Each, in his or her own way, is like Lex. They’re like two sides of Lex, the fallible human and the unrepentantly monstrous.

Tess is like Lex in a lot of ways. In her ambiguity, Tess is like Lex. She’s evil in some ways and good in others, but she isn’t fighting an inner demon the way that Lex had. Her back-story is more complex than I would have thought it originally, but she’s still more or less sympathetic (like Lex had been) even though she can do bad things. Tess actually wasn’t in this episode except by proxy with her assistant acting on her behalf (nice touch to keep the Injustice League storyline going). However, even when she’s not in the episode they’ve done a good job continuing to build up her character and showing how capable (and appropriate) a successor to Lex she is.

On the other hand, Davis is like Lex in really only one way, but it is the most important one: he’s a villain who doesn’t want to be one. Like Lex did, Davis fights an inner demon. Like Lex, he has to struggle hard to be good and was born to be bad. However, unlike Lex, the dark side Davis fights isn’t something emotional or figurative, his inner demon is literal.

Davis isn’t fighting a dark nature born out of some innate character flaw he has because of having an unhappy childhood or a completely dysfunctional family. He does evil because he’s an actual monster. Lex maybe had a chance to choose a different path that might have saved him, but he blew it and instead gave into the dark side of his nature and ended up taking the path toward evil. Although his painful childhood and mean father didn’t help him, Lex became a bad man mostly because of personal choice.

Unlike Lex, however, Davis has no choice. Whether it turns out that he was created to be what he is (like his comic counterpart) remains to be seen, but there likely is no escaping his nature. Jimmy described him nearly perfectly, a “monster.”

It’s tragic and touching that it pains Davis to even think that, yes, he is a murderer. Yet he kills, and will keep on killing, because he apparently can’t control it.

I don’t know if they’re going to have Davis kill Clark like the Doomsday did in the comics, (or rather, have Davis “kill” him, like Doomsday did in the comics). I’m not doing spoilers as you no doubt might be aware, so I have no idea what the plans are. However, just knowing that Davis is uniquely equipped to murder Clark with his bare hands and loses control at the drop of a hat makes the possibility a very real one.

This storyline adds some serious gravity to the tension that is building in the show. I can’t wait to see where they’re taking this storyline. No matter what happens with it, the culmination of this particular conflict is surely going to make for some great TV.

As much as I loved those parts of the episode, the parts I didn’t like had to do with Chloe and the Isis Foundation and how Chloe dealt with the possibility that one of her “kids” was the murderer. Chloe was one, not too long ago, that would have gladly grabbed up a torch and pitchfork to hunt down and expose a suspected murdering “meteor freak.”

She now has a different perspective, so I can understand Chloe maybe taking exception to Clark’s natural and understandable suspicions. However, does it make sense for her to actually accuse him of starting a witch hunt?

I don’t see that. I can’t understand Chloe accusing Clark of hatred on that profound a level. She knows him better than anyone. She knows that Clark doesn’t hate and is more humane than most humans. Maybe Clark went over the line. Maybe he was obsessed, but he wasn’t on a witch hunt. Far from it.

Clark wanted to find the killer to keep anyone else from dying on his watch. His investigation wasn’t because he was trying to stir up angry mobs or incite riots, like Chloe had suggested. Chloe accusing him of doing that was out of character for her. She should know Clark better, so that part of this episode seemed contrived.

The way they’ve written Clark, and how Tom Welling plays him, he takes caring for the city as a personal responsibility. It’s not just some social obligation of the powerful to care for the weaker to him. This isn’t Clark practicing a Kryptonian brand of Noblesse Oblige. Yes, he wants to protect the people of the city and it isn’t simply because he can, or should, it’s because that urge to protect and care for others is part of who he is. Clark is a hero, and that’s what heroes do. I like that idea was reinforced in this episode, despite Chloe’s disagreements with Clark on how to handle the situation.

There were a few flubs in the dialogue. For a couple, I’m not sure whether some were an actor’s problem with misstating lines or the problem was with how the line was written, but since it’s hard to know for sure, I’m going to have to blame the writers (sorry Kelly & Brian).

For one thing, the kind of radio that Clark was listening to is a scanner. They’re not called ‘blotters,’ but Chloe said that Clark was listening to “droning blotters.” A police “blotter” is actually a written record of a day’s calls at a police station…
I have a feeling that might have been Allison’s mistake and that she misspoke her line, rather than the writers’ mistake. Or at least I hope that the writers know the difference between a blotter, a written record, and a scanner, which is essentially a radio – but it’s hard to say since I don’t have a copy of the original script.

Tess’ assistant, the unnamed woman who had menaced poor Randy the Shadow Killer at the end of the episode, said something weird. She said that the nun’s missing crucifix was made of onyx. Yet, the cross in Davis’ ambulance looked like it was made of wood. Onyx is a type of stone…

That call that had come in when Jimmy and Davis were in the ambulance had said, “All units, we have a 411 in progress at the corner of Liberty and 8th…” There was no indication in dialogue exactly what the heck a “411 in progress” was, Davis only explaining to Jimmy that it was the reason he was there…

Curious, I looked it up. Or, maybe I should say that I had tried to look it up. I found police scanner codes, but there were none that I could find that was a ‘411.’

I looked for something close and a 415 is a disturbance, a 311 is indecent exposure, but those aren’t right… Maybe it’s an inside joke or maybe it means something different to Canadian police, but seeing that a 411 isn’t anything other than a number you can call for information annoyed me.

Another thing that annoyed me was some of the episode actually didn’t make much sense. Scenes actually looked like they’d been swapped around, like maybe their order had been changed.

For example, the episode had started in the Isis Foundation with Chloe’s support group. Chloe was in the same suit in the tease as she wore later at the start of the first act when talking to Clark in the Planet.

In that scene, after Chloe leaves, Clark starts helping people. That sequence of saves ends with the murders at the Ace of Clubs, where of course he didn’t save anyone. After Clark talked to John about the killer maybe being very fast, Clark rushed back to the Isis Foundation. When Chloe sees him, her first line of dialogue seems out of place. “You missed soda and cookies…”

I was like, ‘What?’

That line made it sound like she hadn’t just seen Clark at the Daily Planet and that her support group had just broken up moments before, instead of earlier in the evening. Adding to the confusion, as Clark and Chloe talked one of the kids, it looked like Jesse (the kid with the MP3 player in the tease), was in the background filling out the sign-up sheet like the group had just ended.

So, maybe the support group scene had originally been intended to happen after the massacre at the Ace of Clubs, but they had changed it so it had happened before it…

Another thing that seemed to indicate scene order had been changed after the fact, was the confusing time changes in act five. That final scene between Davis and Chloe was during the day and Davis looked like he’d just come from an award ceremony. There was a small award box that sat on the table next to his beer and he wore his dress uniform. She wore the same shirt, with a jacket over it, which she had worn in the previous daytime scene with Clark. Both scenes seemed to happen the same day, during daylight hours.

It was weird he was drinking a beer while on duty, but weirder was the fact that the next scene, the one between Clark, John, and Jimmy, was at night. For that scene he wore a blue t-shirt, but in the previous scene he had worn red. So, I had assumed that scene took place on a different day and it took place at night.

Then, the final scene, a short one with no dialogue followed another apparent night scene with Tess’ assistant, but we go back to see Davis climb into his ambulance during the day. So, was it the next day? If so, why did he wear that dress uniform and carry that award box? It looked like it had originally followed the scene between Davis and Chloe. The show is normally told in a very linear fashion, this happens and this happens and that happens, etc. If there are flashbacks or the rare flashforwards, they usually put up a title, so I have to assume that there were probably a couple of days elapsing in that sequence going from the switches from day to night and back, but it didn’t seem like that from how it was presented. Any sense of how much time had elapsed during the course of this episode was completely lost.

I don’t know whether they changed some stuff during filming or in post-production in the editing bay. I’m not sure what was going on behind the scenes, but I wish I did. Maybe the apparent change in scene order might have helped the story in ways it’s hard for me to see without reading the original script, but it was because of things like this the episode didn’t really flow well.

This episode may not have been perfect, I seriously hate Chloe busting Clark for being correctly suspicious (as it proved out to be that he was at least partly right) and the apparent moving around of scene order, but Kelly & Brian did some awesome advancement of several key plot lines. The episode also was exciting, had escalating stakes throughout for all characters and had some seriously kick-ass act break cliff-hangers. I especially loved how the third act ended, with Chloe saying the skin under the victim’s nails was Davis’ right before he asked Jimmy if he was ready to catch a killer. AWESOME! I love a good cliff-hanger to end an act. Overall, it was a success on the writing side.

Okay, it’s getting to that point in the season where I have less and less to say about the actors. Not sure why that is, but it tends to happen after a long run of original episodes airing.

This slight case of reviewer’s burnout is also the primary reason why this review is coming so late. I just couldn’t figure out what to say about the actors, so I sorta gave up trying. I’m probably not going to say much profound here about anyone. This review is already freakishly long, so that’s probably just as well.

Anyway, to the acting:

How is it possible that Tom Welling gets more wonderful each and every episode? You’d think after eight seasons that he wouldn’t have anything new left to show us about Clark, but he somehow manages to keep his performances fresh. He was terrific in this episode.

Probably my favorite parts were the scenes he had with Phil Morris. Clark was defending himself a lot, but the way that Tom played it was perfect. He made sure that Clark didn’t come off as whiny or petulant. Tom instead played him as resolved and certain of the course he was taking, even though in the end it turned out to be the wrong one.

Other scenes I liked were the ones with Chloe. Allison Mack and Tom have a wonderful chemistry and it’s always a joy to see them have scenes together. I thought he was particularly effective in the final scene with Chloe where Clark apologized.

Allison Mack annoyed me at times with Chloe’s holier-than-thou defensiveness, but that was more the nature of the lines she was given than her performance of them. She, as usual, did a wonderful job as Chloe. However, some of her business was more than a bit awkward. (Business is the stuff actors do to keep their hands occupied while delivering their lines.) More about that in the director’s section, since I think the director guides the blocking (and thus the business) more than the actor does.

I think probably the best scene she had was the one at the end between Davis and Chloe. I liked how Allison had Chloe react when Davis had asked her if had been Jimmy she’d been talking about when she said that she believed in someone like Davis only once before. When she said no, and became thoughtful, it was clear that Chloe was thinking of Clark. It was touching she felt that way about Clark, that it was easy believing in him.

Aaron Ashmore was charming as the earnest Jimmy. He was a bit annoying at times with not letting the story of the secret Good Samaritan go, but that was perfect for the role and the story. He did a wonderful job.

Sam Witwer did so much better this episode than he did in “Toxic.” This episode was a better showcase of who Davis really is than that episode was. Sam did a remarkable job at revealing the pain and confusion that Davis goes through when he realizes that he wasn’t there to help people, but apparently was there to hurt them.

As gratuitous as the shower scene might have felt, I don’t think it was. Sam was essentially nude in that scene, yes, but Davis was naked and defenseless in more ways than one. It showed his vulnerability as a character and I think helped Sam show Davis’ raw emotions and reinforced how powerless he is in fighting his inner nature.

That scene was very powerful. I liked that I could see the moment when Davis realized that none of the blood he was washing off was his. The horror and devastation he felt was heartbreaking. Later, Sam also did great in the scene with Chloe in the morgue and then in the scene at the Isis Foundation… He seemed so lost and vulnerable. However, when Clark confronted Davis in the hospital corridor, Sam played Davis as angry and defensive and showed a hint of Doomsday’s menace. It was an amazing performance from Sam.

Phil Morris was terrific as John Jones, the Martian Manhunter. He was a solid presence in the episode, making John the voice of reason for Clark. Although he gave Clark a lot of advice, he wasn’t being sermonizing. I thought he kept the right balance and made it clear that John was just giving advice to a younger peer, instead of coming off as condescending. I really liked his final scene with Clark and Jimmy. Phil was almost channeling the character he played on Seinfeld, Jackie Chiles. It was funny and perfect. Jimmy was being a pest and was undeterred by the skepticism of other policemen he’d talked to. John’s smarmy alter ego, if that’s where they’re going to be going with him, is perfect.

Director Michael Rohl had previously directed “Hypnotic,” “Bizarro,” “Trespass,” “Arrow,” “Hero,” and “Fanatic.” That’s not the best resume. I really liked a few of those episodes, but there are also two of my least favorite in the series in that list, “Hero” and “Hypnotic.” His CV is definitely a mixed bag, sorta like this episode. Probably my main problem with the episode was the strange apparent shuffling of scene order (I had talked about that in the writing section, but to be honest I’m not sure whether the director or writers were more to blame.)

The other thing was some of the strange business that Chloe did. A long time ago, back before the invention of sliced bread, I was an acting student in college before I transferred and changed majors to become a film student.

To be honest, I probably wasn’t all that good (I got better grades in my writing classes), but let me tell you that I know from experience acting is not as easy as it might seem. When I was learning I was surprised that one of the things that can trip you up most is the simple stuff, like figuring out what to do with your hands.

Allison is an experienced actress, she’s been acting since she was a kid, so she actually makes it look easy and natural. So, I’m a bit perplexed why the business in the Isis Foundation scene with Davis seemed so awkward and staged. The way she took off her jacket and flung it aside, then gestured at Davis, then later the way she snapped closed the laptop and pointed at Davis all seemed too practiced. While the actions, by themselves, weren’t necessarily “bad” acting, they were broad enough they broke that fourth wall and reminded me of the fact that she was, indeed, acting.

She did fine the rest of the episode and her business is usually very good (not being overtly noticeable as “acting”). So, I’m going to have assume that the staged and unnatural feel of it was the fault of the director, not Allison… I’m thinking he was not quite in synch with Allison’s take on Chloe in this episode.

DP Barry Donleavy did a beautiful job. The overhead shot of Clark’s spinning chair was wonderful. The camera spun and craned down as his wind stream caused some of the debris on his desk to scatter onto the floor… That was awesome. I also loved the way he filmed the shower scene and the high contrast photography of the morgue scene was terrific.

Melanie Williams continues to dress the cast very, very well. I loved the rust colored shirt Tom wore most of the episode and Allison looked terrific.

I’m not sure who writes the copy on prop newspapers, but maybe whoever is in charge (I’m thinking either Production Designer James Philpott or Property Master Aleya Naiman) should make sure they do a grammar check, not just a spell-check, before they spend the money to print anything. In the scene between Tess’ minion and the kid, she threw the paper down in front of him. The camera showed it briefly, but I was able to pause my iTunes copy of the show and it was clear enough to read. That story on the Shadow Killer had one particularly funny typo.

One part of the article had described the first set of murders. Apparently the crime had been gruesome since the writer described the impact on the town this way: “The grizzly scene instantly sent shock waves through the community.”

Unless a humongous brown bear had been hanging around the murder scene that should be ‘grisly’, not ‘grizzly’…

I might be the only person in America who caught the typo, but I just have to laugh at that… I hope it was intentional joke, if it was I laughed at it so good job! However, if it wasn’t one, they really should be more careful about that kind of thing. In a world armed with a pause button and high resolution copies of the show, whether they’re on iTunes, DVD or BlueRay, the devil is in the details.

Oh, did I say how much I love that Smallville is now on iTunes? It’s so much easier to use than my TiVo and far more convenient! I can look at the episode while working on my review at the same time. I still watch the episodes live and record them on my TiVo, but the iTunes copy is so much better!

It’s far faster and easier to find a particular scene. The crew might not be as happy since the credits are far easier to read on iTunes than they are on my non-HD TiVo, so I can now mention more of the crew members by name. That may or may not be a good thing, depending on what I’m talking about.

This episode’s writing and direction wasn’t perfect, but it was exciting and the acting was terrific. I give this episode 4 onyx crucifixes 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.