After 10 seasons and over 200 episodes, Smallville, the story of a young Clark Kent on his path to become the legendary Superman, is finally coming to an end...
... not counting any potential spin-offs, movies, specials etc that they may use to milk it a bit more...
As such, it is time to look back over the good, the bad and the ugly that was Smallville.
The Good: Lex Luthor.
Lex, the multi-millionaire genius with little in the way of either morals or hair, has generally not been well represented whenever Superman tried to leap from comics to live-action. Gene Hackman’s Lex in the original Superman movies was, unfortunately, an idiot who relied on idiots to get anything done and Kevin Spacey’s Lex followed suit, while John Shea’s Lex in The New Adventures of Superman was just a… well the less said the better.
And then came Michael Rosenbaum. Hell yeah. Smallville’s Lex Luthor, as well as being sex on legs, was just perfectly pitched. Everything worked. From his early beginnings, struggling to fight against his father’s evil influence, to his full fledged bastardhood, killing his father, destroying the fortress of solitude and bringing Superman to his knees, Lex hit the spot time and time again.
Thank you Smallville, for putting right what once went wrong.
The bad: The Chefing of Lex and lazy writing.
Smallville, you absolute f***kers!!!
How the hell could you Chef Lex?!?!?!
Side note: To “Chef” a character is to bring a character back for a limited time after the actor(ess) who plays that character has left the show, for the sole purpose of destroying that character in as crappy a method as possible as a final “f*ck you” to the actor(ess) who abandoned ship. Originates from South Park’s treatment of the character Chef.
Seriously, was it any wonder you had such a hard time getting Michael back for the finale? You turned Lex into a burned up zombie (despite no signs of a fire when Michael was last seen or anything like it happening to the humanised Clark) and made his last action the petty act of breaking up Clark from his girlfriend before blowing him up? Worse still, you didn’t even try to finish the storyline that Michael had been part of.
Lex has Clark on his knees and the fortress of solitude is collapsing all around them. What happens next?
...seriously, what happens?!?
Which brings us nicely to the other bad thing about Smallville: the incredibly lazy writing techniques used.
"OK guys, we’ve built up Doomsday for an entire season, how do we finish him off?”
"Drop him down a hole?”
"Done. Let’s go to the pub.”
The Ugly: Clark Kent
Smalville’s Clark Kent is, without doubt, an absolute git.
First of all, we have the basic Clark Kent formula of making it completely obvious to everyone around him that he “has a secret” then making them feel like complete dicks when they want to know what it is.
"I have a secret.”
"Oh, what is it?”
"I can not believe you would ask me that! I thought we were friends! Why can’t you just respect the fact that I need my privacy! I hate you!”
He milks this issue to the extreme with Lex, which contributes quite a lot to pushing Lex over the edge and into the dark side. Even when Lex straight out tells him that he knows his secret he’s still determined to cover it up.
"I can’t believe you would show me hard scientific evidence that you know I saved your life with superhuman abilities! I’m not superhuman! If you were my friend you would believe me when I’m clearly lying to you! I hate you!”
But 10 seasons of guilt tripping everyone around him is by no means the worse of Clark’s crimes. There are lots, lots more. The top 5 being:
5. Ditching Chloe to go and find himself... just after her husband was brutally murdered in front of her.
4. Running away after his mum has a miscarriage - dude, your parents are in tears, you try to help matters by running away from home?
3. Voluntarily using red Kryptonite - doesn’t matter if your upset, this stuff makes you potentially able to kill people.
2. Not helping Lex when his dad frames him for insanity and starts frying his brain, until AFTER Lex has forgotten he has superpowers.
1. Not saving a bunch of orphans from Granny Goodness - he just saves himself and runs away after he finds they have Kryptonite weapons. He NEVER goes back for the kids! Seriously? Dude.
And with that, there’s nothing left to do but grab some pop-corn and snuggle in for the final few episodes, including the joyous return of the mighty Lex...
... and the almost certain let down that will follow.
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