"Lazarus" Review!

Written by C.M. Houghton ("Triplet")

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NOTE: This review will spoil you, so read no further if you don't want to learn important plot details before viewing the episode.

FOREWORD:

One thing: I'm going to do things a little differently this year. I've been having some problems getting reviews out in what I consider a timely matter, so something had to give. In the past, I'd tried so hard to give a thorough critique for all cast members if I could. However, going into such detail is time-consuming, requiring many more re-watches of the episodes than I currently have time for and it probably also got repetitive. As much as I normally wouldn't mind saying 'Tom was awesome' each and every review, I would bet people might be tired of seeing me write that each and every time.

I will be folding the acting mentions in with the first part of the review which deals with the story and writing. That seems to be what would make the most sense to me, and it worked pretty well for me. However, even doing that in this review, shortening the writing time down considerably, I still didn't get this in much sooner than had been normal the last year or so. It's just my free time has been severely curtailed by my real-life responsibilities and I just didn't have as much spare time as I would have liked. I hope that's going to get better as I get back into the swing of things, but FYI.

As for my thoughts as we embark on this last season on "Smallville" going into its tenth, I have very mixed feelings. I adore the show, as most of my regular readers are probably aware, but I also think it's time for the show to end. It seems like Clark has overstayed his welcome a bit. I mean, he's all but become Superman on the show, only missing the glasses, flight, the suit and the name.

Yet, I think what they've done is logical in a larger sense. His strength of moral character and his resolve to do the right thing seem right in line with where he is in the comics, but he's less certain about himself in the show than Clark is in the comics. Superman isn't perfect, he makes mistakes all the time, but he's the epitome of a confident man. In "Smallville" Clark hasn't quite gotten there yet, so there is still some growth that can happen for him.

Now that they know that for sure this is going to be the last season, I'm really looking forward to seeing exactly how they will wrap up this series. I hope you are too and come back often to read my thoughts on what they give us this last year. Going from this episode, they're off to a pretty good start.

REVIEW:

This episode, written by scribes Don Whitehead & Holly Henderson, started out perfectly. It opened with a nearly flawless recap of important events from the previous nine seasons, while keeping it relatively short. Tom Welling, now fully an Executive Producer on the show, saying the introduction at the end of the recap montage was perfect, "...and now: the Final Season of Smallville." I felt so excited after hearing that, but it's sad too. I adore this show and it is truly bittersweet coming into this final season. Tom had an excellent delivery of the short line, giving what he was saying a sense of finality, and his voice had a nice tone.

After that the tease, starting with Clark's near-death experience, was also terrific. Lois' pain at seeing Clark essentially dead was heart-wrenching and Erica played that perfectly. While his near death experience was a bit odd, it acted as a good lead-in to the rest of the episode.

It's strange that after thinking about how lacking in confidence Clark is in the show, he showed a lot of confidence in his confrontation with Jor-El. He was so sure of himself and then Jor-El shot him down, asking why Clark deserves a second chance. Hard to be a hero if your father figure doubts you are up to the task.

That's Kryptonian tough-love, Jor-El style, but I liked how that led into Lois pulling the blue-kryptonite dagger out of Clark and letting him heal in the morning sunlight that was peeking through the clouds. I loved that Lois' suspicions about Clark being the Blur were confirmed by his almost miraculous recovery, Erica played that moment perfectly as well. Later when she was in the archive room with him, her not-so-sly ploy of 'losing' her pen that helped him get the information he needed from the file cabinets was humorous. It is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for when Lois figured out he was the Blur at the end of 'Salvation.'

Both Tom and Erica played the comic relief perfectly. That was so cute and this sort of thing should make for some good comic relief over at least the first part of the season, although I hope Lois doesn't wait too long before she tells Clark about knowing his secret. He should have known she'd figure it out when he kissed her, she knew he hadn't been Oliver way back when he was disguised as the Green Arrow in 'Hydro,' but if this gets too drawn out it could get old. Right now I'm looking forward to what Lois will do to try and cover up the fact that she knows.

I'm a bit confused what exactly had happened to Oliver and why he was taken and tortured, although Justin Hartley was awesome in that scene (even if I thought his apparently being naked was a bit over the top), it almost seemed like Oliver wasn't the real goal. The questions he was being asked by the man who took him weren't that vital, according to the credits he was Rick Flag (a member of the Suicide Squad under Amanda Waller, I know because I looked Flag up online), which makes him taking Oliver that much more interesting. Ted Whittall was an excellent choice for the part of Flag, by the way. He plays the stiff, no-nonsense military-type perfectly.

If what's left of the Suicide Squad is following in Waller's footsteps and wants to learn who the Blur is, Flag's main goal was to force Oliver to reveal information on the Blur, then Chloe giving herself up to them (in that trade for Oliver) is not a good idea. If she reveals any information to the Suicide Squad about the Blur, even unintentionally, then it could pose a risk to Clark and his secret which is something she wouldn't want to do. Maybe something else is going on, but I'll be interested in seeing where that is going especially since she put on Dr. Fate's helmet.

The whispering voices had said at one point that she wasn't chosen, which would imply her using the helmet wouldn't be good for her, but what are the other implications for her because of that? Did she learn more than she had admitted to when talking to Clark and Dr. Hamilton? It seems like that maybe she had, especially with how Allison played that scene. It was a very well done scene by her, by the way. So, I'm very interested in seeing where that storyline is going, but it's a shame she was in the episode so little.

I was glad to hear Terrance Stamp's voice again, I don't think we heard much from him last year, but the parts of the story with Jor-El were extreme. I know that Jor-El has never exactly been a touchy-feely kind of parent, even as an Artificial Intelligence presence in a cave or up in the arctic, but this time his brand of Kryptonian tough-love has probably gone over the top. I'm not sure I like Jor-El again making Clark feel guilty for something that wasn't his fault, or to trying to make him feel unworthy, or even trotting out that old line of his of Clark ruling Earth 'with strength.'

Yet, it's the addition of that line, about Clark ruling humans with strength along with that line about not being the true hero Earth needed, made it seem that there is something more going on than it would appear on the surface. I'm not sure the AI Jor-El would need to push Clark this hard and be so hateful in order to get him closer where he needs to be, but I suppose I understand the writers' and producers' reasoning behind it. If Clark didn't have a goal to fight for, something he needed to struggle to achieve, a point he needed to prove to himself and the world, and rising stakes to have to deal with, then it would make his journey this last season a pretty boring one.

Yet Clark having that 'darkness' inside him seems a bit out of character. I suppose his moral center has been a little out of whack lately, but murderous? I'm not sure I buy that, however Clone-Lex pointing this out was useful, I suppose, since it helped hammer home to Clark that he's got another weakness aside from Kryptonite.

However, he's never really done anything very bad (aside from burning down that building last year, but he was altered at the time). I'm not sure I completely buy Clark seriously thinking about, much less trying, to kill Clone-Lex for just belittling him and telling him he's only being a hero because he's around to clean up messes he made, no matter how creepy Mackenzie Gray played him.

And Clark trying to kill Clone-Lex seemed like a non-proportional response because it wasn't in line with the level of offense that brought it about. I just don't see Clark reacting that strongly to someone only insulting him. Although I did love how Tom played that entire sequence of scenes with Jor-El, Tess and Clone-Lex. (And Cassidy Freeman did an awesome job playing Tess in this episode, especially in the scene with Clark. She appeared so vulnerable, she was awesome.)

Still, I'm surprised Clark thought that beating the Clone-Lex was the same as beating the real Lex: he shouldn't be that naïve. Especially since I'm sure it isn't going to be that easy to beat the real Lex (if he should actually make an appearance this season) as it was his doppelganger.

And it was too easy to beat Clone-Lex, the worst Clark did to him was attempt to throttle him and then he died. It was a bit anti-climactic, but I suppose the show more than made up for it with the saves Clark performed right after that.

Yet, what Clark talked about to Jonathan was right: he did do some pretty dark things last season, he wore black for a reason, so maybe he does have some room for growth. I guess we'll just have to see how all that goes, but given how the episode ended (showing that Lex is still around, even if only via his young clone living with Tess, his major foe for the season – Darkseid – having arrived, along with Clark realizing his goal – becoming Superman – even if he hasn't learned to use that name yet) this all makes sense. This made the episode be a good launching pad for the rest of the season and sets the tone of the season ad sets the stage for Clark to become the hero he was meant to be.

Before I saw this episode, was torn on Jonathan coming back, but his scene was handled well. I had mixed feelings about John Schneider before he left the show, but this time Jonathan didn't come off as holier-than-thou jerk like he tended to do before. Maybe it was how it was written, or how John played him, but the scene (bolstered by John's up-front, frank portrayal of Jonathan) gave Clark some much needed emotional grounding.

Jor-El tends to push all of Clark's buttons, so talking to his adoptive father seemed to have helped Clark put everything into a better perspective. Tom played that part of the scene very well, he had Clark as so desperate to do the right thing but confused why Jor-El couldn't see the good things he'd done. I suppose we can't expect Jor-El to be reasonable and understand that Clark's good deeds more than balance out any mistakes he'd made, but if he was then there would be little conflict and the show would be boring.

I'm not sure I like Lex building himself a bunch of clones to help mask the fact Michael Rosenbaum isn't coming back any time soon (if at all), but I guess they made the most of a bad situation. If they can't bring Michael back, why not make some high-strung nutty guys that sort of look like Michael Lex's 'clones?' Mackenzie Gray did a fantastic job being creepy as Lex's twisted clone. His portrayal of Lex was set apart from Michael's, yet there were hints of Michael's version of Lex in there too.

I adored the dual-saves Clark did. Managing to save Lois and the people who would have been killed by the falling Daily Planet globe was awesome. I especially liked how iconic Clark looked as he held the globe up on his shoulders. Personally, I think he flew. He seemed like he sped up at one point, but maybe the Visual Effects people meant to leave some wiggle room for speculation there.

As for the teases of what's to come, I'm curious about that little bit of vindictiveness shown by Lex's smallest clone when he burned that toy. It gives the little guy, nicely portrayed by Jakob Davies, a bit of an edge: Alexander's clearly not the cute and cuddly little boy he appears to be.

And I'd like to know how Granny Goodness, the person who had likely been the one responsible for Tess' rescue at the end of 'Salvation,' ties into Darkseid coming to Earth and Lex working to give himself a bunch of spare parts. How exactly did Tess get healed? If Alexander was right and it was Lex's technology that helped to heal Tess, why did they do it? How are the Suicide Squad and Rick Flag going to feed into all of this? The writers answered some questions in this episode, but posed more that should help them build one hell of a good season.

It wasn't perfect, but it was a overall well-crafted script. It was entertaining, had good rising stakes for everyone and helped build some suspense for upcoming episodes.
I'm not sure I have anything much to say about Kevin G. Fair's directing, it was for the most part solid, but I had a couple of issues. And I don't know if these issues are more an editing problem than it was simply a directing choice, but a couple of scenes seemed a little off to me. For example, I wish a couple of scenes would have shown more of Clark's reactions rather than Chloe's or Lois'. For example, when Clark was starting to come around while he lay on the street, the camera lingered too long on Erica. That bothered mostly because I wanted to see what Clark was doing. It was frustrating.

And in that archive room scene Clark saying 'Lucky for me that it was right on top of these files' completely came out of the blue. It seemed like there were some lines that had probably gotten cut out there. Clark's line was not a good response to Lois coming up from under the desk. Maybe they should have looped Lois saying something to better cover the missing dialogue (if that was why that happened, that is). And the shot on the lighter that Clone-Lex dropped shouldn't have lingered so long, it sort of ruined the coolness of the shot to see how they achieved it (by shooting up through a pane of glass). You could tell that the lighter hit a pane of glass. These problems make me suspect the director didn't get good shot coverage, or maybe they ran out of time or money to fix those problems, but I may never know.

I adored the way Director of Photography Randal Platt shot the episode. I couldn't find credit for him shooting a "Smallville" episode before, but his credits list him as being a second-unit DP on dozens of episodes of the show and he has shot other TV shows.

He's done a few movies and even shot the 2005 version of "The Fog" that Tom Welling was in. That film had some beautiful photography, even though the story had left a lot to be desired. Randal performed his job just as excellently here. The dream sequence, the dual-save sequence, most of the final act (especially the scene with Jonathan and Clark) were all gorgeous. The use of slow motion, combined with graceful tracking shots, was beautifully done as scenes in the final act played under the mournful song from VAST, "One More Day" (previously heard in "Smallville" back in the 7th season's 'Veritas').

I think my only issues with the design work on the episode may not be directly related to a particular design decision, but it's not clearly a writing decision either so I'll put them here at the end:

First and foremost, the Suit: I HATED IT in "Superman Returns" and they bring the same one to this show? Was that a decision the producers made or the designer or some jaded Warner Brothers executive trying to salvage something out of that train wreck of a film? I could probably write a Doctoral Dissertation on all the reasons I loathed that movie, but the suit is near the top of the very, very long list of problems I had with it.

The t-shirt neckline simply looks stupid, for one, the shield was way too small for another. I prefer the more open neckline of the suit that Christopher Reeve wore in his movies. The one Dean Cain wore in "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" was too shiny, perhaps, and the colors maybe a bit too saturated (the blue was very blue), but that also had a more open neckline. The thing is, a big guy like Tom Welling will likely look better with a more open neckline. He's got broad shoulders and a deep chest. I'm not sure what they got will look good on him, especially with a cape tucked into a high neckline. He's got a long neck so maybe he can carry it off, but so does Brandon Routh and it certainly didn't look good on him. Thing is, I'm not sure that suit as they had it in the film would look good on anybody.