Smallville Minicaps / Season 10, Eps. 5-8

The Smallville season 10 minicaps has someone new running Watchtower, so we apologize for any late replies to your comments.

Stewart here…

Clark managed to avoid getting beamed up to wherever with Zod and the Kandorians, but still has a lot more problems to deal with on Earth. There’s the warnings of a great evil coming, and Jor-El feels Clark isn’t ready to fight it. Then there’s a shady government guy who’s tagging and monitoring superheroes. Then there’s Chloe faking her death and going into hiding. Then there’s Oliver revealing he’s Green Arrow to the public. Then there’s Lois knowing Clark’s secret unbeknownst to him. Then there’s the anti-vigilante push starting to simmer. And even then, there’s the Lex clone that Tess is secretly raising. Man, here’s hoping this round of minicaps gets him a break.

“Isis”

Lois discovers a trinket from her trip to Egypt, which possesses her with the spirit of Isis (the goddess, in case I need to distinguish which “Isis” I mean). Clark and company realize they need to stop Isis before she resurrects her lover, thus bringing hell onto Earth. So once all that’s taken care of, Clark tells Lois the truth about him being the Blur, which is met with a “yeah, kinda figured that out a while ago”. Well, her reaction is a bit more joyous than that, but still, finaaallllllly.

For an extra laugh, try imagining this still with the theme to Cheers playing over it.

–Tess turns out to be pretty helpful this episode in uncovering info on Isis and handling “Cat Grant”. She’s so helpful, she gets promoted in Team Clark from “not entirely bad person” to “not entirely bad person in charge of Watchtower” (hey, the Team’s running low on tech geniuses to hire for that job). Of course, I wonder how that promotion is going to be hit once Clark and Oliver discover Tess is secretly raising that kid Lex clone.

–Speaking of young Alexander, he seems to be having some rather frequent growth spurts. And mommy Tess is reading him Peter Pan (a selected read in the “Cat Grant” Book Club) for bedtime.

–Seriously, “Cat”, you really suck as an investigative journalist. You can’t take photos fast enough, you don’t back up the incriminating photos you do have, and you stabbed Lois in the hand. And that stabbing happens after Tess laughs you out of her office for saying Lois is the Blur.

–Fun fact: the dagger of Teth-Adam is a reference to DC Comics’ Black Adam, who once married Isis in a pivotal arc in the weekly comic series 52, and may soon be portrayed in a future DC film by Dwayne Johnson.

–Oliver’s response to all this Isis shenanigans: “Just another Friday night in Metropolis. Who’s ready for the weekend?”

“Harvest”

Clark and Lois go out of town on assignment (and to iron out that whole “I’m dating an alien superhero” thing they got going on), and get stranded in a small town. Unfortunately this town has gone all Children of the Corn, except the Corn is blue kryptonite, and the two of them are about to be sacrificed. While our dynamic duo is out on their not-so romantic getaway, Tess is discovering raising a young Lex clone is hard work, especially when it’s aging at an accelerated rate and being driven by Lex’s paranoid memories. So, she decides locking up little Lex to speed age to death sounds like a way better idea. Yeah, this does not bode well.

And this is the reason I didn’t try self haircuts as a kid.

–Lil’ Lex mentions Tess is trying to redeem herself by saving him, but — minor spoilers for the rest of the season — says she doesn’t know everything about her. That she doesn’t, bald boy.

–Lil’ Lex also, like original Lex, has an unhealthy obsession with Clark, that “S” symbol, and with having a clean dome. Of course, Lil’ Lex self-shaves his hair off instead of losing it to a meteor shower.

–By the way, the meteor shower that opened the series ended up creating a cult lead by the leader of a congregation who was mourning the loss of his daughter in said shower by sacrificing innocent women every year since. Yikes. Just yikes. And leave it to Lois to crib Ezekiel 25:17 from Pulp Fiction to cement an escape.

–Oh yeah, before I forget, Clark and Lois finally have sex (hey, that dark future from last season didn’t happen, so it doesn’t count), and from what I can tell, Lois doesn’t die from the experience.

–Lois: “Why are we never somewhere romantic when he takes his shirt off?”

“Ambush”

Now that things are going unbelievably great for Clark and Lois, It’s time for Clark to say hi to daddy General Lane and Lois’s little sis Lucy as they invite themselves over to the Kent farm for Thanksgiving. While Clark is getting grilled by Lois’s family ala Meet the Parents, Flagg is making moves to take out the general, who’s advising on a new anti-vigilante bill. The surprise here is Flagg wants daddy Lane dead because he thinks the anti-vigilante bill is too extreme, but would still like superheroes to be in charge of things. Well, considering the bill passes, things aren’t going to get better for the gang. Oh, and did Clark just ask the general for his daughter’s hand in marriage?

“We’re gonna do this the easy way, the hard way, or the Scanner way, Mr. Kent.”

–Oh hey, the Talon gets blown up! And the insurance on it doesn’t cover a missile strike, so guess who has to move into the Kent farm for the foreseeable future?

–Lest we forget, Lois is still a bit peeved at Lucy for all that “lying, thieving, and almost getting Lois killed” a few seasons back. And Lucy’s accidental helping of Flagg target the general sure wasn’t helpful, but things seem okay between the Lane sisters now, so no biggies, I guess.

–Clark’s failed response to the General’s list of chores: “Like scrubbing the bathroom tile with a toothbrush?” “That’s number 17 on the list.”

See?

–That was a pretty fun and playful scene with Lois and Clark’s post coital morning. Also, Lois is still alive after that, so things are good there. I mean, that would have been a pretty dark teaser if it wasn’t.

–Tess’s response to Oliver’s gradual acceptance of the new Watchtower hostess: “I was beginning to think the best I could do was frenemy.”

“Abandoned”

Clark, Lois, and Tess take a stroll down memory lane to make some emotional and surprising revelations about themselves. For Clark it’s about his birth parents and a talk of reassurance. For Lois, it’s a series of old tapes from her dying mom that provide some closure. For Tess, it’s that she lived in an orphanage run by a gooey on the outside, insanely evil on the inside “Granny Goodness”. And also, Tess is Lionel Luthor’s abandoned daughter. Um, well, that’s not entirely bad news, right?

Some guys pay a lot of cash to reenact this scenario is all I’m saying.

–So yeah, the other half of Lois and Clark, Teri Hatcher, appears as Lois’ late mom.

–Lutessa Lena Luthor? Really hitting the nail on the head too hard, are we with that name? This does put Tess’ attempt to fix the Lex clone in a far more twisted perspective, doesn’t it?

–Granny’s grown-up “girls” have a thing for skimpy clothes and Freddy Krueger finger gloves, forged with a kryptonite fire pit, of course. And yes, this is the same “Granny” who saved Tess last season, so question answered definitely here. Also, Granny has allies in Godfrey from “Supergirl”, and club owner Desaad.

–Little quick how Lois managed to figure out how to get to the Fortress, but hey, you can do that in a final season, I suppose.

–“Clark Kent and karaoke? Isn’t that one of the signs of the apocalypse?”

NEXT TIME: Clark has to save Oliver and Aquaman from a ruthless anti-vigilante plot in “Patriot”, its a switcheroo when an evil Clark (as in Clark Luthor) from an alternate dimension arrives in “Luthor”, our heroes pay a fatal cost in trying to rescue Lois in “Icarus”, and Clark and company get help to escape a virtual reality prison from a long absent friend in “Collateral”.