"Dominion" Review!

Written by C.M. Houghton ("Triplet")

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Note: This review contains spoilers, so read no further if you don't like to learn important plot details before viewing the episode.  This is a good one, so just come back after you've seen it.

When I heard that Zod was coming back onto the show, I was curious, exactly, how they were going to do it.  It makes sense that he was supposed to join the long line of previous characters making their final bows on the show, but I had no clue on how they could fit him in so that it made sense.  With the script by John Chisholm, the way this story brought him back was really pretty good.  Zod somehow getting banished to the Phantom Zone by the other Kandorians might be a bit of a stretch, but if it were possible that completely makes sense.  He was making everyone angry at him by the end of last season, so it worked.  I know that if I had been one of the Kandorians, I probably would have sent him to the Phantom Zone too.

Zod figuring out how to trick Clark into coming to him was pretty smart as well. Even though initially I thought it was weird that Zod had done that.   Why not use the crystal to send himself and all those criminal Kryptonians to Earth instead?  That is just what Zod would do, so tricking Clark to come to the Phantom Zone didn't really make sense.  Well, at least it hadn't until Zod had his little chat with Oliver and explained what Darkseid had wanted from him.  That was a well-written scene that was well-acted and directed too.  It was perfect.  Zod gets to rule a world and all the man had to do was to kill Clark, something he wanted to do anyway.  It was like a win-win.
On Earth it wouldn't have been so easy to take over management, even given an army of Kryptonians.  The criminals from the Phantom Zone would be unstable and hard to control in addition to the equally hard to control and ungrateful humans he'd encounter trying to rule Earth.  So, the offer Darkseid gave Zod probably seemed more like a sure thing. 

John did a great job in being sure that made perfect sense.  Yeah: initially it seemed out-of-character, but it wasn't.  And the fact that Zod knew about Oliver's dark mark after Oliver managed to come along with Clark to the Phantom Zone probably wasn't a coincidence, but I guess only time will tell how deeply Darkseid had orchestrated the whole thing.

Although I think the gladiatorial matches were a bit odd since "Smallville" doesn't usually do anything like that, but in thinking about it still worked well.  Actually, it worked really well.  The slow motion photography by Director of Photography Gord Verheul helped that out a lot.  It was very well done.  And I liked that there were touches of "Gladiator" (with that one combatant's helmet) and a bit of "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" (with Oliver fighting using two swords) in the gladiatorial match scenes.  

In that I would like to think that the show paid homage to sword and sandal gladiatorial epics partly because a former producer and writer for the show, Steven S. DeKnight, is the show runner (series creator and head writer) for the Starz shows based on Spartacus' infamous slave rebellion.   Well, at least I'd like to think they'd did that because I love both shows so much.

As hackneyed as 'gladiatorial' matches are they do make for great dramatic stories (heck, DeKnight has done a great job of turning the drama of a gladiatorial match into a series).  Other shows have used the occasional one-off gladiatorial type of fight (friends forced into a fight to the death).  Think of the several times that "Star Trek" the original series did it,  Kirk fighting Spock to the death in the pon farr episode "Amok Time" was probably the best example they had.

However, as trite as the idea is of having two friends fight to the death is, what John did with this was pretty awesome.  He turned the genre TV trope into a terrific platform for exposing the effects the Omega symbol has had on Oliver, at the same time putting pressure on his relationship with Clark.  By putting Clark and Oliver through that ordeal, it was the perfect way for Zod to pry the two friends apart so he could get what he wanted (Clark dead). 

Yet, it was also a dramatic gold mine for the writer:  Zod was a great foil for Clark, as he has always been.  Yet, by forcing Clark to confront Zod, John made him expose a little bit more about himself in the process.  Clark learned more about how he is like Zod, but he also learned just how he is different.  That was another good thing for him to learn leading up to the end of the series.  Added to that, we also got better look at just how close giving into the darkness Oliver really is.  It was truly a beautiful part of the episode.

That was because of all the great opportunities for acting that aspect of the story had provided the cast.  Every single member of the cast, especially Callum Blue reprising his role as Zod, did a fantastic job.  The interplay between all the characters along with the charged dialogue let the actors shine.  I loved that Oliver had to trick his way into going to the Phantom Zone, it set up some conflict between him and Clark and gave their interaction in the episode a bit of an edge, which both Tom Welling and Justin Hartley did a terrific job at playing.

Callum Blue was awesome as Zod.  Callum makes the man so complicated: he's not just another cold-blooded killer.  Zod has very little regard for the lives of others, yet part of what he wants is simply to be accepted and loved.  In this episode it was a nice touch for John to write Zod striving to find in Oliver what he'd lost with Jor-El and never got with Clark:  someone who could be like a brother to him.  Despite his sociopathic behavior, that innate need to be accepted and loved seems to be a major flaw for him as a character.  So it's good that John used that to bring some good drama to this episode.

Another thing I really liked about this episode was the physical peril that Clark and Oliver were in.  The violence helped to counter-act them being pretty passive in the early scenes after their capture.  It also allowed the men to show off their physical fitness.   I know that Oliver is a very physical character, so it makes sense that a fit guy like Justin would love playing him (like he seems to do).

What about Tom? I don't know the guy, although I would never turn down a chance to meet him, but it has to be frustrating for such an obviously physical guy to always have any sign of strength by Clark always be some sort of parlor trick.  Clark's show of abilities is heavily supported by special effects (both practical and visual) to show feats of Clark's physical strength.

Yet, in this episode they had probably some of the most physically challenging fight choreography that Tom's had to do in almost the entire series.   (Well, with a heavy assist from his stunt double, no doubt.) The fight between Oliver and Clark was fairly long, as it needed to be since an important fight shouldn't be over in 45 seconds (I'm looking at you: the non-fight in 'Doomsday').  Added to that, it was more physically involving than usual for Clark's fights. 

Maybe Clark isn't as smooth a fighter as Oliver, he doesn't really do much hand-to-hand combat on Earth so it makes sense that he isn't as good, but it was nice to see Clark wasn’t a complete push over despite that. It was nicely written aspect of the episode and a perfectly realized scene by the cast, crew and the freshman director. And I don't know if that was hard work for Tom or whether he found it fun (the sword fighting, jumping, rolling around in the dirt, and hand-to-hand combat with guys holding swords), but it was probably a blast.  It's not often he gets to be that outright physical in the show so it must have been satisfying, if not cathartic, to have not just one, but two, really physically intensive fights in the episode.

Then it was beautiful that without his powers, Clark ultimately beat Zod by outthinking him.  I think it would have been easier for Clark to beat Zod up, as a character he is more likely to solve a problem by smashing things or throwing opponents through a wall rather than work out a problem by thinking it through.   It was nice to see Clark use some of his intelligence to solve a problem that seemed unsolvable.  Although, the way that Tom played it Clark looked really surprised at how well Oliver was playing the part Zod wanted him to.  Of course Clark doesn't know Oliver has been marked by Darkseid, so when he does find out, it will make sense.

I don't want to leave Erica Durance and Cassidy Freeman out of mentions, but they also turned in terrific performances.  The tension between Lois and Tess in that scene when Lois held Tess at gun point was awesome.   I loved Tess' desperation and Lois' determination so both women played their parts in that scene perfectly.  

As much as I love Erica, I did have a bit of a problem with her toward the end.  I thought that when Clark showed up in their apartment after coming back from the Phantom Zone that Lois wasn't happy enough to see him.  Her running into his arms seemed too reserved, maybe it was too rehearsed, for me, but it was probably the only moment I had problems with anyone's acting the entire episode.

Well...  There was probably one more: when Zod had dragged the sword down Clark's chest, the blade didn't even cut the skin, much less that blue t-shirt, yet it looked like that caused Clark agonizing pain.  That didn't really make sense given what we were seeing.  I don’t think he would have been in real pain until Zod started pressing the sword tip into that wound at the end of that little bit, although that part Tom did completely sell me on the pain Clark was feeling there.

However, those two things were probably the only acting moments I had problems with.  This was such a solid script by John Chisholm that it must have made first-time helmer Justin Hartley's job easier.  Despite the fact that the script started out a bit awkwardly with Clark and Lois getting interrupted in their unpacking (maybe writing romantic banter isn't John's strong suit), it really picked up from there.  The act breaks were strong, the stakes kept rising for all the characters, and the action was very well-done.   

This episode just didn't let up.  Not even when Zod was doing all that talking in the middle part of the episode did it seem like it dragged.   So, John delivered a very strong episode that managed to serve up a ton of expository dialogue from Zod without it seeming like an info dump, but it also had good action and surprising twists and turns.  I also liked how (again without Darkseid ever showing his face) the Omega/Darkness storyline was brought in and then the stakes were upped even higher.

With only two more episodes left in the series (three if you count 'Finale' as being two) John helped craft an episode that will help build up to the coming final confrontations of the series.   I can't wait to see how Oliver's dark mark affects him as the series comes to its close and how Clark will react when he discovers the truth.  While this wasn't a perfect episode, John certainly turned in another solid effort that was extremely enjoyable.

Freshman director Justin Hartley probably had a relatively easy time of things, despite his inexperience, because this was such a strong script.   This turned out to be probably the most solid freshman helming effort of any of the cast members.  It showed Justin had a sure hand when it came to directing his co-stars (with only two acting missteps, in my opinion) and he even had a good visual sense. 

The Director of Photography Gord Verheul having a very cinematic flare helped, I'm sure.  However, if I hadn't known a first time director had helmed this episode (aside from maybe one or two shot choices that didn’t seem to make sense) I don't think I would have been able to guess.  He did a very good job on both sides of the camera, which in and of itself is something many freshmen actor/directors don’t do well.  All the time he's been acting on the show Justin apparently was paying attention to more than just learning his lines and hitting his mark.  He has learned a thing or two and it showed.  Justin did a very good job.

Director of Photography Gord Verheul also did a very good job.  The slow-motion sequences in the fight scene between Oliver and Clark were well done.  It was very reminiscent of how the fights were shot for the two Starz Spartacus-based series. It wasn't identical, it doesn’t look like "Smallville" has the same super-high-speed cameras "Spartacus" uses since the look of the shots weren’t quite the same, but it had a similar feeling.  It was beautiful too, which made it just icing.  The de-saturated colors and the slow-motion tableaus that Clark and Oliver made while fighting were perfect and it made both men look very good.

Costume Designer Melanie Williams did an outstanding job with the Zoner costumes, likely buying a lot of those costumes (I don’t think she made that many costumes), but the almost steam-punk look of the long coat Zod wore was a good choice.  It was different than the homespun, almost Arabic-look from previous visits to the Phantom Zone, but there were some costumes that echoed that choice too.  It was a nice mix that I liked.

Normally I don’t have too much negative to say about Key Hairstylist Sarah Koppes, but I really hated Erica Durance’s hair throughout this episode.  I’m not sure what’s different, maybe it was the pulled back look looking too groomed, but it really went beyond hate and moved into loathe territory…  It seemed like it was a really bad wig, actually.  Maybe it was.  Maybe they did something with Erica's hair in the 'Finale' two-parter (the last three episodes were filmed out of sequence, although I'm not sure of what was filmed when), so it appears they had to use a wig for some reason but did they have to have such a horrible one?  I know the series has wrapped by now, but hopefully that look isn’t done in any of the remaining episodes. 

As much as I hated that, I thought the Tom’s and Justin’s hair in the Zone scenes was fantastic.  Just tousled enough to sell the post-Apocalyptic desolate feel of the Phantom Zone without going too far…

Composer Louis Febre's score was awesome.  I loved every minute of it, but I especially like the non-vocal choral parts in the fight scene between Clark and Oliver.
This wasn't a perfect episode, but it was pretty close.  I give this 4.75 escape gate console crystals out of a possible 5.

Take a look at a gallery of images from the May 13 SERIES FINALE of Smallville!

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