8.11 OSCK Review: Legion comes to town and Smallville still doesn’t quite fly

Review by Baudyhallee- OSCK Moderator

Well, it’s midseason. And baby, it’s cold outside. If we thought Lois Lane was out in the cold in Season 7 (quote from Millar), then, baby, it’s gonna be downright frigid for the next four episodes (counting this one).

The next four episodes are . . . Return to Season 7 (and not the good part, APOCALYPSE). Lois and Jimmy have been exiled to Star City because . . . that’s right, the greatest power in the Smallville universe has returned. Lana. Blahna. The Pink Squirrel. The Whore Whisperer. (yea, I just made that one up – but it fits) Pink Kryptonite. The Black Death.

Geoff Johns, architect for the Superman side of the DC comics universe thru 2010, wrote this episode. He was very excited about it because he was bringing in his ‘babies’ – The Legion of Superheroes. That’s why the episode is called LEGION. He also was excited about the villain he was able to use. I think he was talking about The Persuader – unfortunately for us, Mr. P only got to stay for less than 2 minutes, probably only 1 of airtime. Very disappointing.

SV had the perfect CGI from SLUMBER to do the Time Trapper but who knows how these things get started and accomplished. Like Jon Favreau (director of Ironman) says, “Hollywood is just high school with money.”

The only saving grace for the episode (besides Tom Welling) was it’s director, Glen Winters. Great work. The FOS is a bite to film in – they have to keep moving stuff around for each shot and the special effects were stellar.

Ratings for Season 8 have been growing steadily and higher than most of the Season 7 episodes until ABYSS (episode 9), but BRIDE (episode 10) seemed to recover somewhat. Clark Kent at the Daily Planet working across from Lois Lane seems to have put new life into the show. BLOODLINE had the highest ratings this season. Clark and Lois in the Phantom Zone, and the ending of Kara’s story arc. Great episode.

Legion, not such a great episode. It had some good moments, but the rest was cringe worthy. The Legion were supposed to be all about Clark Kent/Superman/Kal-El, right? Well for some reason they did not know or understand about the “NO KILL” policy. Yea, uh huh – so they formed the Legion, why?

After the initial scene of Blahna fondling the wedding bouquet again. Ms. Victim, a misnomer from PS3’s POV, doesn’t seem to realize she’s already had HER bouquet. Does she have the hots for Jimmy? Oh I forgot, she’s an excellent flower arranger. One of her many skills. Her meteor freak power is to have everyone she meets fall at her feet and tell her how amazing, beautiful and smart she is. This episode did not fail in displaying that power. Imra of the Legion must have got a major blast of it because she was buttkissing Blahna the whole episode. Lana has a great destiny aside from Clark.

Hmmm, last I checked Blahna married Pete Ross (settled for actually), they had a son and named him — Clark (yea, talk about slap in the face to the original Jewish creators), kissed Clark while he was married to Lois (Geoff Johns wrote that issue), badmouthed Lois when she was covering a war, moved in to take care of Clark with pom poms and baby in tow, and argued with Clark about how he had settled marrying Lois. Lois got shot, so Lana put her underpants in their couch, so when Lois came home and felt well enough to start tidying up the apartment she would find them. Lana divorced Pete. Pete has custody of little Clark (cringe) now. Within the last year, she pushed a button releasing all the kryptonite Luthorcorp had stored around the world (in case Superman went rogue) causing Clark and the rest of the beings with Kryptonian DNA to be exiled in the Watchtower. After young Toyman saved the day, Clark confronted Lana and told her if she ever wondered why Lois was the one instead of her – Lois would never have pushed the button. Lex’s construct fired her as CEO of Luthorcorp. Oh yea, and she’s got the Insect Queen inside of her. Great destiny – can’t figure out what that doesn’t have to do with Clark. Smallville will probably give her a glorious sendoff on the show – because y’know, Blahna rules that world. ( Check out the anti-Lana comics scans in the CCC Comics Gallery for these examples and more HERE)

Clark Kent. Yea, remember that guy. As we all know SV Clark was kept a ‘boy’ through season 7. If you don’t believe me, listen to Al Gough’s DVD comments on SIREN, when he says Ollie is a grownup . . . inferring Clark is not. Dude, he’s not a man because you wouldn’t let him be!!! Argh! Season 8, we have seen a more mature Clark – getting it right in doing the right thing. Investigating on his own and with Lois. Less sidekick hacker stuff from Chloe. (She’s got the Chloniac honors.) Things were really going well for our Clark until he got snapped back to this little retro arc.

In Legion, he has to listen to Lana tell him not to kill Chloe. (This from a person who’s body at least murdered Genevieve Teague, tortured Lionel Luthor, and kicked the crap out of Lex when she had superpowers – after she kissed him, of course. Put Lois through a plateglass window – but Wimp Ass Clark under Blahna’s meteor freak power said, “Lana would never intentionally hurt Lois.” I’m still waiting for that little lie to be debunked.) So great advisor there. Rolling eyes. Supposedly Blahna is more mature, but . . . she has thecrets and liesth of her own. Naturally, it’s Blahna.

Garth’s fanboy was refreshing and fun, but his premise of Chloe changing her name to protect her was a little too theorist for my taste. Also Rokk seemed a mature and knowledgeable character, but his surmising that Clark would fly because of Chloe almost gave him puke honors.

Clark had a lot to contend with. In one day, he was Jimmy Olsen’s best man, he nearly kissed Lois, Blahna returned (bucket!), Doomsday attacked the barn knocking Clark on his ass next to kryptonite (lame!) and takes Chloe away, Lois left him to take care of Jimmy, he can’t find Chloe, Persuader shows up and hacks him with an axe, the Legion shows up and tells him he’s an inspiration to the universe (Clarkie, you’ve got a lot of growing to do, man, and for seven years you never grew with Blahna around), he puts his foot down and refuses to have Chloe killed even though she hosts Brainiac, gets the Legion to work with him, and gets a Legion ring for time travel only.

The other part of the episode had to do with Chloniac. This was the end of this arc, supposedly. I say supposedly because after Brainiac is exorcised from Chloe’s body by the Legion and Clark, Chloe remembers Clark’s secret. ABYSS, lowest rated show this season, Clark had Jor-El restore Chloe’s mind without his secret. Two episodes later. She remembers. So much for having a weight lifted off of her. I guess they have to give her something to do now that Brainiac is ‘gone.’ She could get a life of her own with her new husband, but that’s probably too boring in PS3’s mind. So does she have the healing power back?

Sometimes while watching this show, I forget who it’s supposed to be about. Clark. Yea, Clark Kent. So much time is given to characters that don’t matter. Chloe Sullivan as the Legion rightly tells Clark is not heard of in the history books. Blahna now has this glorious destiny aside from Clark, after formulating the Isis Foundation that makes people not shun aliens (meteor freaks actually) so much. The idolization of Blahna makes my ass twitch and then I get the dry heaves from puking.

One thank you: Ending with Doomsday out of the cocoon and red-eyed! Don’t think I could have taken it if we ended with Blahna. Thanks!

Rating: 3 out of 5. Taking the momentum out of the first half of the season and expecting fans to wait until sweeps for it to pick up again. Thank Glen Winters for his excellent direction and Tom Welling’s continually awesome performance for the whole 3 points.

Trailer: Not sure if it was for next week’s episode only, BULLETPROOF, or the rest of the retro arc. A previous trailer showed a kid impersonating the red blue blur, Martian Manhunter returns to get shot, and a possible Blahna kiss in the Talon. This trailer showed us Blahna going in for the kill on the roof of the DP. Is nothing sacred!!! And Clark collapsing at Blahna’s feet. I guess her meteor freak power is too much even for the Man of Alloy.

BTW: I will not be watching live for the next 3 episodes. During Blahna episodes, the dry heaves start kicking in before the credits. It’s hazardous to my health. The first half of season 8 was so great to watch. GRIN!