Smallville – Doomsday has arrived

(Season 8, Episode 10, “Bride”)

“Why do these terrible things keep happening all around us?” – Lois

Last week‘s warning that Doomsday was coming came to fruition in the final 2008 episode of The CW’s Smallville. Doomsday officially arrived, thanks to the increased budgets for Sweeps episodes! Sweeps also means surprise guest stars … so we were sadly treated to Lana’s return. Luckily, she didn’t make everything about herself and actually helped Clark move on a bit more. She also is involved in a mysterious storyline that could turn out to be interesting, especially if she is working with Lex.

Oh, and Lois? To answer your question, terrible things keep happening all around you because: 1) You are on a TV show, 2) it’s November Sweeps!

Here are my random thoughts about this week’s Smallville episode.

• Even if I still hate Lana (yes, I know “hate” is a strong word but I think she hurt the show from the second she appeared on the screen in the series premiere), I must admit that her new hair cut and tough chick look aren’t bad at all. They help prove that she did move on when her love relationship with Clark is concerned. However, hints dropped during the episode make me believe that she is working with Lex on uncovering more of Krypton’s secret, including Clark’s secret. Someone had to send Lex footage from the wedding. Who else than Lana?

• As expected from Lana, she arrives at the most inappropriate time: Lois and Clark are leaning in for a long awaited kiss. The episode, especially Jimmy’s work on Lois (“Lois and Clark will be great together,” he tells her at one point), helped push Lois and Clark closer than ever. Lois doesn’t know that Clark has officially moved on even if he still somewhat cares for Lana’s well-being so she’ll probably mope around for a while (at least four more episodes since that’s how long we are stuck with Lana) thinking that she misinterpreted her feelings towards Clark. Luckily for us, we know that Lois and Clark are meant to be, so we will eventually get to see that kiss.

• Oliver clearly wants to avenge his parents’ death but at least his quest also helps Clark find Lex.

• Lex is alive!!! And no, that wasn’t Michael Rosenbaum in that last scene but a stand in, which is why we only saw Lex’s back. The show is however trying to get Rosenbaum to do some voice recording for upcoming episodes, so keep your fingers crossed!

  Back to the topic, Lex is alive. As Lana said, it’s not because the leader is gone, it’s that the empire is too. It’s clear that some Luthor Corp. employees found Lex and are helping keep him alive with all those wires and gadgets. Since Lana is pretty resourceful in that area, as we saw during her time at the Isis Foundation, it wouldn’t be surprising if she is the one helping keep Lex alive. Lana may even be the one who found Lex or be one of the first person who was contacted by some random Luthor Corp. employee who didn’t read the memo that Lex and Lana were no more. No matter who’s behind Lex being alive, the person doesn’t want anyone and everyone knowing that Lex is alive, including now-in-charge-of-Luthor Corp Tess. It’ll be interesting to see what they do next with Lex now that they’ve confirmed to us that the man is not dead.

• Thanks to a few more bucks during Sweeps, as I’ve mentioned before, we finally saw a glimpse of Doomsday. Even if the show played with Doomsday’s background, they at least made him look similar to the comic book version.

  At first, I thought that Davis tapped into his Doomsday persona, even if not totally willingly, to get the woman he wanted. However, after seeing Doomsday bring Chloe to the Fortress of Solitude, taken over by Brainiac in the last episode, I’m wondering if Doomsday wasn’t guided a bit to Chloe by Brainiac wanting his human host back. Chloe’s eyes and smile at the end of the episode made me believe that Brainiac went back inside of her. What will he do when he notices that Chloe doesn’t recall who Kal-El is? Unless Chloe saying that “Nothing is going to make me forget” to Clark is foreshadowing the fact that somehow (maybe with Brainiac’s help) she will get all her memories back?

  Let’s face it, Clark needs someone else living in Smallville and/or Metropolis besides world-traveling Oliver that knows his secret. Lana proved it when she grabbed the meteor rock from the floor.

• Since Sweeps is all about guest stars and bigger budgets, why no Pete or Martha Kent at Chloe’s wedding? I’m sure the two of them could have made an appearance, no? Or maybe we could have had the other characters tell us why they couldn’t attend. After all, Pete was Chloe’s BFF back in high school and Martha was really important to Chloe when she was a teen and her father was away.

That’s it for the first half of Smallville‘s eighth season. The next new episode will air on January 15 and will feature three League of Superheroes characters: Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy.

What did you think of “Bride” and the first half of the season? Let your voice be heard in comments below!

Clacked by Isabelle Carreau
on Nov 20, 2008 @ 22:30 EST5EDT