Smallville: Arctic
Smallville’s Seventh Season Goes Out With A Whimper
Photo courtesy of The CW/Michael Courtney
May 20th, 2008 - For seven years, Lex Luthor has been seeking the truth about aliens, the meteor shower, and Clark Kent. For the latter part of this season, he has been dangerously close to the secret of Veritas, a secret society created by Lionel Luthor, Virgil Swann, the Queens, and the Teagues. Through this recent search, Lex has been edging closer and closer to the identity of the Traveler, whom the audience knows to be Clark. The revelation of this fact to Lex seemed like it would be a climactic moment, not just for this season but for the entire series (overlooking the time a few seasons ago when Lex found out but then had his memory erased). Instead, Brainiac posing as Kara tells Lex that he knew all along that Clark was the Traveler. Then the show cuts away from the scene.
And that’s it. Lex has been extremely suspicious of Clark, but has also believed that he is just an ordinary farmboy at times. Clark hiding his true secret from Lex has been a constant of the show since it first began, and Lex’s ultimate discovery in this episode felt extremely anti-climactic. In fact, the entire scene at the Fortress, while tense and well-acted, was a letdown. If for no other reason than, despite the fact that the episode title is “Arctic,” we don’t get to the Fortress until 54 minutes in. Lex’s confessions that he loved Clark like a brother, and that it is his birthright to control the Traveler due to all he has suffered were heartfelt, and made you sympathize for the villain of the story, but this scene would have benefited by being longer and more fleshed out. And why couldn’t Clark super-speed at Lex and knock the device away? Did it make him weak like Kryptonite? Considering the magnitude of this device, we were given very little information about its nature. Nor did we find out why Lex’s planes were disappearing in the Arctic Circle, or how he was able to survive the trip.
And while I’m on the subject of disappointing climaxes, the Clark/Lana storyline was ended extremely abruptly and impersonally. Lana knows that she’s holding Clark back, but why did she decide to break it off now? What happened to her while she was under Brainiac’s control? And how could she be so cold to dump a man she claims to truly love on video? And when did she have the time to record her break-up speech and burn it to DVD? Do they have a lot of video equipment just lying around in this asylum? The way that Lois comforted Clark after he had his heart broken was a nice attempt at foreshadowing their future relationship, but it felt inappropriately timed.
The Kara storyline also wasn’t given much clarification - Kara is stuck in the Phantom Zone, and Brainiac was posing as her. Then why did Brainiac, in his Kara disguise, pass out in the kitchen after returning to Smallville? And why couldn’t he use the device himself instead of giving it to Lex? If a Kryptonian couldn’t use it, it shouldn’t matter to him, as he is a machine and not a true Kryptonian. Yeah, I’m geeking out, but these are fairly big plot holes that are not given enough screen time to be addressed.
Which is frustrating, given how much screen time is given to Chloe, Jimmy, and Lois. These characters are an integral part of Clark’s world, but the “Lois gunning for Lex” story went nowhere, and the “Jimmy as Lex’s slave” story went exactly where you’d expect, only extremely slowly. In a season finale such as this, much more emphasis and time should have been devoted to the arcs of the main characters. Clark’s fight with Brainiac was entertaining, but also over far too quickly. The extremely smart Brainiac should have been able to foresee that despite Clark’s morality, he would have no problem destroying a machine, but for some reason he could not, and Brainiac was disposed of fairly easily.
All in all, this episode was an extremely disappointing end to what could have been a great arc. Season Eight already has several strikes against it, with the departure of executive producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar and Kristin Kreuk and Michael Rosenbaum not returning as regulars, but I was optimistic that the seventh season would at least be able to end on a high note. Unfortunately, the show focused far too heavily on plot points that weren’t nearly as interesting as those of their main characters, and what was left was a shell of what the finale could have been.
Alan’s Score: 3.4 out of 10
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