SMALLVILLE Minicaps / Season 4, Eps. 21-22 and Season Four Highlights

Smallville season four minicaps is graduating and blowing this popsicle stand, along with its titles too.

Stewart here, and be warned of spoilers within…

Well, we’ve spent all season dealing with all this drama over these kryptonian artifacts and everyone wanting them. And what has happened in between? Well, Lana’s boyfriend Jason seems to be not quite a good guy anymore; Lana had to deal with being possessed by her witch ancestor; Lionel got out of jail and tried to go legit; Lex is obsessing over the artifacts; Chloe and Clark had to deal with Lois Lane; and before I forget, most of our group is graduating shortly. Before you decide to send over a graduation present and prep an after party, best to read on to see how this season ends…

“Forever”

Who wouldn’t want to relive high school? Well, no one, probably…but Chloe and Lana don’t have much of a choice as they get stuck in a recreation of Smallville High by an obsessed teen on the eve of graduation. Also, Jason and Genevive take the Luthors hostage to get their artifact back, and like most Luthor family outings, it ends with blood and pain. I guess the lesson here is not to poison someone’s mother, especially if her son is slightly unstable. Oh, and apparently making an entire high school inside a factory in Kansas is pretty easy.

Sniff. Goodbye Wall of Weird. Goodbye Torch. Sniff. I need a tissue.

–Seriously, this Brendan guy had that much time on his hands to keep track of a high school being built in a factory? I mean he’s worried about his future prospects, but damn, he had a career in production design if he put his mind to it as opposed to kidnapping students and freezing them if they misbehave.

–Boy, Jonathan is really defensive about Clark going to college closer to home. I mean, would I be complaining if my super-powered son wanted to still do some farm work? Probably not.

–Remember when I commented way back in season one about that meteor freak who froze people, and how it seemed lame that we didn’t see any people shatter like ice? Well, Brendan heard my response, and answered with a girl’s frozen severed head breaking into pieces. Then, he decided to trump that with his iced over body doing the same.

–Jason takes a tumble into the river after getting shot by Lionel and Genevive’s off to deal with Lana.

–Lois’ discovery of the place where the fake school is: “How cliché. An abandoned warehouse.”

–“Judging from the fact I lost all feeling in my hands ten minutes ago, you have a curious definition of collaboration, Lex.”

–And say goodbye to the Torch and to the Wall of Weird from here. Sniff.

“Commencement”

It’s season finale time on Smallville, and things get messy for everyone from minute one when Lana, under possession by her ancestor Isobel again, runs one of the artifacts through Genevive’s chest. Then there’s the ominous dream Clark has about something “coming”. But, who cares about all that, because its graduation time! And we get a proper send-off for Smallville High’s graduating class in another meteor shower that gets the town evacuated! Too bad everyone we know gets trapped in the middle of the whole thing, in various degrees of peril.

What “peril”, you may ask? Well, there’s Jonathan and Martha being held hostage by Jason at the farm before it gets hit with a meteor, Lana survives a helicopter crash to find another alien ship crash landed in Smallville, Lionel gets put into a coma thanks to one of the artifacts, and Lex (and possibly Chloe) get stranded in the caves thanks to his obsession to find said artifacts. Clark doesn’t get to see all of that though, because after Clark gets the three artifacts together, he gets zapped into the arctic where…well, that’s a question best answered next season.

“Hey, I did the same thing with a dog and two friends. So, the ratio of jinxing people by shielding you should even up with you.”

–So, Isobel just wanted to kill Genevive to find peace? Ok, sure, I guess. Also, Lana’s mystical tramp stamp disappears when Genevive croaks. So, facing possible murder charges, but losing an unwanted tattoo and being possessed by your ancestor? Not sure about the trade-off.

–Did we really need the whole 24-style ticking clock thing for the meteor shower? I vote “no”.

–Hey, Jason’s alive (albeit blood drenched and muddy), and he comes back just in time to get flattened by a meteor (we don’t actually see that happen, but let’s put it this way: he doesn’t come back for season five). And he died not knowing his mom got killed by his former girlfriend. Tough break for you, Jason. Good thing Jensen Ackles got a longer lasting job than this show.

–Lois plans to go on a trip to find her sister Lucy. Also, she had a nightmare once about a guy in a red cape, and fears being a journalist next to the most bumbling reporter. Little on the nose, aren’t we, Smallville producers?

–The meteor shower is a good excuse for some stuff exploding, like a gas truck driving through a deserted highway for…some reason. It does however give us that return of Clark from his kryptonite induced sleep time to keep that random kid from getting pulverized.

–I wonder how Chloe is going to explain what happened in that cave to Lex. Oh wait, she can’t, because…we’ll get to that next time.

–A great Lionel snark line: “For a woman who didn’t have a heart, Genevive Teague sure had a lot of blood.”

So before we leave season four of the Smallville minicaps, let’s take a look at the best and worst that we’ve seen this season:

BEST EPISODES: “Crusade”, “Facade”, “Onyx”, “Commencement”

WORST EPISODES: “Facade”, “Recruit”, “Blank”

BEST METEOR FREAK THIS SEASON: Alicia gets a two-peat this time, and unfortunately like our last two-peater, Tina, she won’t be getting a three-peat on account of her also being dead.

LESSONS CLARK LEARNS THIS SEASON: Black kryptonite brings you together or rips you apart, try to avoid getting attached to a crazy woman and elope in Vegas, and magic does hurt.

WHY YOU SHOULD HATE LANA LANG: She’s having an affair with an older guy who works at the high school, is “the chosen one” or something (I don’t know since the season finale renders that point moot), and doesn’t like people keeping secrets from her, and yet she keeps secrets from everyone else.

WHAT HAPPENS FREQUENTLY IN SMALLVILLE: Being possessed by your ancestors, Lionel Luthor, or by vapid teens.

WHO SHOULD CLARK HOOK UP WITH: Chloe. I know what you’re thinking: why not Lois, you ask? Clark’s still in that “I’m not sure I can be near this person regularly” phase.

HOPES FOR SEASON FIVE: Well, if you keep it at this level, we should be fine, minus any Lana possession storylines.

SEASON FOUR ANALYSIS: After the drama of season three, its nice to see a slightly more light-hearted season this time around. The inclusion of Lois Lane into the mix certainly added some needed levity and humor to things, even if explaining why she would still hang around in Smallville got a bit foggy. The whole kryptonian artifact quest of the season did have some nice turns, and Lana’s part in it was fine. And of course, like most episodes of Smallville, there were some meteor freaks, but those have been petering out gradually enough to focus on other superpowered threats.

Also, we finally got out of Smallville High this season, and in a pretty spectacular way. But with that, we have to bid adieu to the Wall of Weird and the Smallville Torch, and with it, a tumultuous four years that probably made any surviving member of that class want to take lithium for the rest of their lives. Sure it’s a bittersweet end to that part of the show, but on the other hand, what’s going to happen to our graduating class now? Or more importantly, will Clark be spending the rest of the summer in the arctic?

“Dude, warn a guy before you drop him into the middle of the arctic!”

NEXT TIME: Starting the season five minicaps of Smallville, Clark has little time to enjoy his new arctic digs before some new super-powered people in the meteors start causing trouble in “Arrival”, Clark is powerless when super-powered baddies take his family hostage in “Mortal”, Clark needs his powers (and probably his life) back to save Smallville from a nuclear missile in “Hidden”, and Lois meets a man who can live underwater in “Aqua”.