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Friday, February 19, 2010

Smallville 9x14 - "Persuasion"



ROLL CALL:

SUPERMAN! CHLOE SULLIVAN! LOIS LANE! TESS MERCER! ZOD! THE GREEN ARROW! (Not this week)
Special guest mentions:
MARTHA KENT! LUCY LANE! GENERAL SAM LANE!

The preview for this week's episode made it seem like a throwaway comedy episode, but Lois' comedic subplot aside, "Persuasion" was packed with a surprising amount of Smallville awesomeness.

In no particular order:

*Clark heat visioning the Solar Tower. That was some spectactular Super-arson he committed. Considering the dark future they're aware of was just hours away from happening, Clark finally did what he had to do and brought that tower crashing down. Clark went crazy with the heat vision this week, encircling Tess in a circle of flame earlier in the episode. Clark was strutting around like quite the bad ass all episode.

*Tess and Chloe lay the smackdown on each other. I'd read in an Allison Mack interview last week that a Tess v. Chloe fight was coming but I had no idea it would be tonight, and it was surprisingly vicious. Broken glass, broken beer bottles, falling through tables, punches to Chloe's face vicious. I had no idea Chloe could even fight. Logically, she couldn't beat Tess in a fight and she pretty much got her clock cleaned until Clark Supersped Tess away, but bravo to the fight scene.

*Kryptonian funeral. We found out it was one of Zod's female underlings who killed Jor-El a while back so Zod executed her. This lead to the first time a Kryptonian funeral was ever presented live action outside of the comics. It was pretty cool-looking. The musical choice during the funeral was pretty sweet too.

*Lois' wedding dress dancing. Erica Durance was kind of in her own comedy world this episode, under Kryptonite hypnosis into trying to be the perfect woman for Clark. She moved into the Kent Farm, got dressed up in 50's clothing (why would she think Clark would like that?), put on Martha Kent's wedding dress, and called Martha, her dad, and sister, and announced she was marrying Clark.

*Emil Hamilton "relaxing" when Clark ordered him to, complete with plopping on the couch with a beer. Lois even served Clark a beer when she cooked him dinner. I don't think Superman and alcohol have ever shared the screen since evil Superman was drunk in a bar in Superman III.

There was the usual stuff that didn't make sense, like how Chloe was able to get to where Clark trapped Tess in the wall of fire so quickly to use green Kryptonite to shake Clark from the hypnosis.

The distraction of Tess in a bubble bath aside, her conversations and relationship to Zod have never made much sense to me, no matter what explanations they give.

I'm still not clear on what Clark is doing with the Kandorians. He's trying to get them to integrate into human society, but Zod says he wants to join them, sometimes Zod says he wants to lead them, then Clark says he wants to lead them somewhere... I'm with Chloe: Sticking them all in the Phantom Zone sounds like the best option.

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