Smallville 10.21 "Finale"

[emeraldstag]

"And now, the series finale of Smallville .... " CHILLS. For Chloe to start the final season and Clark to end the series, a perfect bookend to Smallville with its two longest appearing characters.

Leading up to the finale, with the seeming prominence of the wedding and the eventuality of Lex's return I began to expect that Tess would not make it to the wedding. AND i was right! The sad thing was that Clark seemed to be the only one to remember/care but also where the fuck was Emil? They keep this guy around, put him in the freaking hangover episode and yet they can't throw him in the finale? It's a shame that the show is reduced to having a wedding party of four people that is usually relegated to vegas quickie weddings not weddings planned for a good time now.

Lois's family couldn't make the wedding? C'MON. Some guy is walking Martha down the aisle? Also I didn't get a good luck at the minister/reverend but it almost looked like the general from CHUCK. LOL. But anyway, back to Tess. It disappointed me that all signs pointed towards her demise because of Brian and Kelly's determined focus to force the square peg of Smallville into the circle hole that is the supposed agreed upon rules of the Superman Mythos ignoring the fact that the comics were Superman originates has literally dozens of universes and even different histories for the main Superman. It's been annoying since their takeover in S8 but I've dulled my reactions to their revisionist history to try to enjoy the other aspects of the show.

So I would have loved to see Tess stick around and be watchtower or even run the Daily Planet but that can't happen because a watchtower person doesn't exist and Perry White needs to be running the DP. *rolling eyes* That also goes for Lionel. I was thinking it would be a crazy world to have Lionel back but you know what? He isn't around either so the B&K axe fell again.

I was really surprised by how little of Lionel there was in the finale, and how they quickly swept over the whole Darkseid meeting Lionel before at mentioning quickly that Lionel had said no and refused Darkseid ( which is bizarre in its own right). I was hoping there would be a Luthor family reunion between Lionel, Lex & Tess before it all hit the fan.

And then there's Lex, and the "magic" creme that apparently erased his memories. Which is not only ridiculous, but also a stupid deus ex machina twist that completely ruins the point of Smallville as a series. It was Lex's experiences with Lionel and the betrayals from Clark whenever he chose to protect his secret instead of helping Lex that turned Lex into the evil man he was in S7. To have all that gone would take away the obsession Lex had of why he survived the accident that started everything and would probably still have an urge to do good.

BUT NO ... Lex isn't supposed to know who Superman is so B&K's axe fell on his memories. Didn't like that at all. After a great scene with Clark where the chemistry was still there and I almost hoped Lex was going to help Clark become Superman (he sort of pointed him in that direction) and then the scene with Tess .. who in his mismanaged ways was trying to save her from becoming like him ... HOW CAN YOU GET RID OF THIS GREATNESS? SIGH.

Darkseid was disappointing and I really wish the show had decided to drop that story and focus on the Luthors, instead we get a little of both and are left feeling unsatisfied. When the first appearance of the Darkseid essence popped up on the show I immediately knew that they got scared from the Doomsday feedback and that the show would never have a corporeal version of Darkseid. Which is unfortunate because I didn't mind the Doomsday costume that others apparently hated, what I hated about Doomsday was the too brief battle, because that five seconds of street brawl was really awesome and I would have liked a little more.

But that leads to Smallville finales and for the most part being anticlimactic of late, outside of the Zod battle in S9 it has been just that (S8 Doomsday Quickie, S7 Clex embrace with collapsing Fortress) and now with the brief Lionel!Darkseid who was less than menacing and looked like a walking zombie out of Sweeney Todd/Sleepy Hollow/some Tim Burton movie. The only redeeming value was Clark finally discovering his ability to fly and how he zoomed through Lionel!Darkseid. It didn't escape the creepy factors of a) he impaled Lionel and b) the remembrance/memories moment between Clark and Jor-El in the Fortress that somehow took place in an out of body experience while he was battling Darkseid - while cool it made no sense.

And then how quickly the oncoming Apokalips was settled along with the turbulent Air Force One, I was disappointed that there wasn't a scene with Superman bringing the plane down safely and Lois announcing him as Superman and that there wasn't a close-up scene with him grasping Apokalips like in Superman Returns and New Krypton.

Then there is the whole suit aspect of Superman that I was hoping to see and I was disappointed with just how much of it was CG, even when he was in space, they did only a closeup and a floating CG cape behind him. Since the suit was brought to the Fortress it was clear that it was the Superman Returns suit with a brighter red cape, but then I noticed during the finale when Jonathan handed the suit to Clark that it looked markedly different from the one that had been incased. And while we never got a full body costume pose - I was hoping for one either just as he changes for the first time or at the end after saving either the plane or standing next to the Planet globe - Tom did at least where the top of the suit which was made clear when he opened his shirt at the end of the finale for that iconic shot. And it looks different from the SR shield for sure, so they did decide to do their own suit (top) which I am glad about.

Going into the finale I had stayed fairly spoiler free for the most part. It was hard to do all season with many excited people on both twitter and tumblr sometimes unintentionally spoiling but for the finale I was even better at staying away despite the barrage of promo photos that kept popping up on websites. I only saw the SPACE Canada promo and mostly because INDEFIANCE was so excited about it. That said, the only part of the promo that I dreaded was the scene with Chloe and the child because of the clear Chlollie implications.

And my fears were proven right in the finale, that the boy was most likely Oliver's (CLEARLY YOU ARE SPENDING YOUR TIME GROOMING HEROES CHLOE) but I was hoping that maybe the boy's name would be Clark in the way that comic!Lana&Pete's son is named. But it was the promo that made me realize why Chlollie was getting the support of B&K that it did. It's because it involves CHLOE and OLIVER, two characters who were not part of the Superman mythos before Smallville and that way they could do whatever they want with them. They put Oliver with Chloe to appease the fans of hers that feel like she needs to be hooked up with someone, but at the same time they still throw in their B&K twist of lining things up with the bigger DC picture by not showing Oliver in the future moments to imply that he has possibly moved on to other women and other relationships like the womanizing, having kids with other women character he is in the comics.

The funny thing is that i imagine the Smallville epilogue will give fans plenty of opportunity to write their own futures for the characters a lot like how after Superman Returns a lot of fics were written to "fix" things. I was disappointed that neither Lana or Pete were mentioned or seen in the finale (outside of memories) and what was up with future Lois needing glasses too? That was cute when she would wear it instead of Clark but both of them feels like a bit much. Her glasses and that damn tan overcoat of Clark's need to go.

Two last positive things I had about the finale were the surprise appearance of Jimmy Olsen played by Aaron Ashmore who played the REAL Jimmy Olsen. I was happy for the actor who I wished had been able to stick around and not get put in that idiotic Davis/Chloe triangle and could have been Clark's little buddy since he knew the secret ala Superman/Jimmy. Also a little woo to hearing Michael McKean's voice yelling in the DP as Perry White. Nice little touch to the "proper" big picture future that B&K scripted.

The other positive note would be the fantastic presence John Schneider brought to the show as he played Jonathan Kent one last time. You had to give a little in realism but i loved the idea of ghost Jonathan that was there all the time and Martha could see him but after the premiere Clark stopped seeing him. That scene in the loft was glorious and I swear that shot of the three of them turning towards the loft window felt like a moment from the early days of Smallville. I had planned to use that shot for this review but the iconic shirt pull overruled my decision.

In the end, it's sad to think we'll never see these characters again or these actors together again but I did find this tribute video to be fantastic and something I wish I'd thought up but would never have been able to do as well. The finale did give me some writing ideas that I'd love to touch on in the future and I hope that the fandom continues exist even past the show because I still have some fic writing in me for these characters. I've made some great friends through this show and i hope we all will come together behind another fandom once something sweeps into our lives but I doubt it will ever be like Smallville. it was a once in a lifetime type show that I doubt will be repeated anytime soon when it comes to a show that in itself became iconic to the IP it was adapted from so much so that tweaks from the show were accepted into changes to the IP (intellectual property).

I'm sure there is more that I missed, but that is all I have to say. Blogger's unfortunate downtime on thursday ruined a series of top 10 posts I had planned to post here and there but I hope to use the next week once things are fixed to get to posting them. I had fun thinking out the results and I just want to embrace the essence of Smallville no matter the quibbles I have with the B&K era of the show.


ETA: One last gripe that I forgot about ... what happened to the league of heroes that were supposedly keeping watch so the wedding could go off without a hitch? You'd think the fact that they couldn't contact watchtower or anyone would have alerted them and brought them coming.

AND one last awesome thing. Greg Beeman, a well known Smallville director and the director on the last hour of the finale wrote this fantastic blog post about the show and the finale and he also included TONS OF SET PICTURES. ♥