SMALLVILLE Minicaps / Season 9, Eps. 20-21 and Season Nine Highlights

The Smallville season 9 minicaps has been brought to you by Body by Zod. Kneel before Zod, do ab crunches before Zod…

Stewart here…

This season, Clark started a bit of a special project: to help the displaced Kandorians (well, clones of Kandorians to be fair) find a home of their own on Earth. But, there was a snag in the Kandorians’ leader, Zod. He wanted his people to rule over humanity and because of this, went a little bit nuts. Like “accidentally killed his wife and unborn child and then lied about it to jump start the domination of humanity”. So, Clark has to contend with a small gaggle of people with his super powers, while finding a mythical kryptonian artifact, the Book of Rao, that could have the power to stop this.

Before I forget, Checkmate is in ruins, the mysterious Red Queen is still out there, and Lois and Clark are out of jobs. Soooo, that just about covers it. Let’s see how this season ends…

“Hostage”

Clark gets interrupted looking for the Book of Rao at the Kent farm, first by Lois, and then by the arrival of Martha Kent and her new suitor…Perry White! Turns out Perry and Lois get interested in finding the connection between their two big stories: the Book of Rao. But, Maxwell Lord is also looking for the book too and imprisons Tess to get answers. Oh, and Martha’s the Red Queen. Sorry I buried the lead there.

“Don’t you make light of my cooking!”

–I’m trying to figure out how Martha Kent became some big player in the intrigue of Checkmate, but that seems as pointless as figuring out how she knew about what the Book of Rao does to kryptonians.

–Nice little twist with Tess’s imprisonment being a mindgame of Lord that only becomes clear to her when Oliver gets brought in, saying he loves her. Hey, um, Lord’s dead after that phone call, right? Not that the “Red Queen” minds.

–Perry managed to get Lois and Clark’s jobs back, which was nice of him. He owed Clark, after all.

–That Book of Rao thing can remove the Kandorians from Earth, but will also remove Clark as well. Well, that’s quite a pickle.

–Perry White’s recollection of the 90’s: “Those were my fuzzy navel years. I blacked out most of that decade.”

“Salvation”

So, we’re at the season finale, and as usual, we get cliffhangers. Clark decides to use the Book of Rao to remove the Kandorians from Earth, even if it means he’ll be taken too. And even as Clark manages to convince the Kandorians to abandon Zod and leave Earth, Zod has one more trick up his sleeve. So where does everyone stand? Well, Lois may have figured out who the Blur really is, Oliver’s been captured by someone, Chloe’s stuck at Watchtower, Zod gets beamed up to wherever the Kandorians went to, but not before Clark takes a blue kryptonite dagger to the gut (which saves him from being beamed away from Earth) and plummets off a building into…well, there’s one more season left, so take a guess how that might turn out.

“You leave someone alone in your secret arctic fortress, and this happens when they use the stove!”

–Awww, Ma Kent made a superhero costume for her son. Isn’t that sweet, and he should probably wear that for…nope, not for another season.

–By the way, don’t expect that weird Dr. Fate-narrated dream of the future to come to pass shortly.

–The conference call with all the heroes (well, not Aquaman, but we’ll see him next season, but Cyborg was there) was okay, if feeling slightly detached as most mass Skype calls tend to be.

–Seriously, Tess, it would have been easier to just finish that job on Zod with those kryptonite brass knuckles. Then you wouldn’t have ended up as a seriously dead burn victim. Although, there is that old lady waiting outside your hospital room that might be helpful for your current condition…

–What do you think Oliver meant by his attackers being “not Kandorians”?

Lois Lane as Sarah Palin.

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

BEST EPISODES: “Metallo”, “Kandor”, “Pandora”, “Absolute Justice”

WORST EPISODES: “Crossfire”, “Escape”

BEST METEOR FREAK THIS SEASON: Well, Metallo. Guy has a meteor rock heart in his chest.

LESSONS CLARK LEARNS THIS SEASON: Shunning your friends and loved ones doesn’t make you a better hero, and when trying to run a group of your own, make sure there’s not a Zod in it.

WHY YOU SHOULD HATE LANA LANG: Well she’s gone, so you don’t have a reason. But she’s been unusually quiet in doing anything, so why doesn’t she call?

WHAT HAPPENS FREQUENTLY IN METROPOLIS: Property gets graffiti burned into it. That stuff is hard to cover by insurance.

WHO SHOULD CLARK HOOK UP WITH: Lois. Why are we still having this conversation? Have you not learned anything from all of these minicaps?

HOPES FOR SEASON TEN: FLYING!

SEASON NINE ANALYSIS: Considering the choppy season before it, season nine of Smallville was a considerable step up. Free of a lot of the long running arcs of the series’ last few seasons, we got to see more sides of this universe in things like Checkmate and the JSA. And we finally got some major hook-ups this season, like Clark and Lois, and Chloe and Oliver. And all of this was under one of the best adversaries this series has brought us: Zod.

The way Zod is used in this season was far more complex than any version of the character. You could almost sympathize with him, until as expected, he became a threat that needed to be stopped. As good as this season was, there was some concern over whether this would be its last (it certainly wasn’t getting cheaper to produce), but Smallville was renewed for one final season. And there, Clark Kent’s journey from farm boy to hero would reach its final leg…

I just don’t see what you mean by Christ metaphors in Superman…oh. Nevermind.

NEXT TIME: We start the final season of Smallville minicaps as Clark deals with new threats (and one with a familiar face) in “Lazarus”, Clark’s saving of a new deskmate at work proves to be problematic in “Shield”, Kara returns to face a threat she thinks Clark won’t be able to in “Supergirl”, and Clark and Lois attend their high school reunion with another familiar face in “Homecoming”.