"Finale" Review!

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

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NOTE: If you don't like to learn important plot details before you see the episode, then reading this review before you see the Finale is probably the very last thing you need to be doing. Go watch the series Finale and come back when you're done. Also, keep in mind this is the longest "Smallville" episode review I've ever written, so you might want to get comfortable...

FOREWORD:

I started reviewing "Smallville" at the beginning of season 4 in September 2004, when I was writing reviews for the pre-cursor of TV.com, TVTome. Those reviews aren't online anymore since they didn't get moved to their new site and that's probably a good thing. A few years ago Craig had offered to host them so I looked at them again. They're pretty bad, so I told him that it probably wasn't a good idea. Also, back then I was still learning and it's best that they're no longer available to read. (I didn't start writing for KryptonSite until the next spring with my review for the episode 'Onyx.')

However, in writing the review of the finale, the final act of Clark's journey, it's made me think of how much I've changed since I started. Those old horrible reviews just underscore how much I've grown as a writer. I think I've gone way above where I had been. I'm a far more capable than when I had started, but I also have a stronger appreciation (and better understanding) of TV that is beautifully made and a story that is well-told.

More than that, the show has meant a lot to me on a lot of different levels, as a writer, a fan and as a person, so it's with a heavy heart I write my last review for an episode of "Smallville." This was an epic outing for the show and I hope I am up to the task...

REVIEW:

Although this two-hour episode was actually two that were filmed apart (having the same Director of Photography for both parts is a huge clue that they weren't filmed back-to-back), it felt pretty cohesive. The first part was written by the producer/writing partners of Al Septien & Turi Meyer, and part two was written by executive producers/ writing partners Brian Peterson & Kelly Souders.

The episode started out perfectly, with Tom Welling introducing the episode ("And now: the series finale of "Smallville") and the flash-forward with Chloe reading a Superman comic to her son. The flash-forward isn't a device I'm fond of (it's usually used so poorly), yet it was done well here.

While I think the comic was awesome, I loved the image of Clark on the bridge from events that happened in the Pilot and the illustrations by Gary Frank were beautiful, but I'm not sure how realistic it was. Would Superman really want the world to know early in his career that he grew up among humans in Smallville, Kansas? It would probably be too easy for people to figure out he was Clark, which would endanger the secret behind his carefully honed mild-mannered reporter alter-ego.

Still, the comic was extremely effective, especially given how that later tied into events in the second hour and it underscored the importance of Smallville to Clark, as his home town, in his development into the man who would one day pull on tights.

Although at first I didn't quite get why they started with that since the first hour was mostly about Clark and Lois and their pre-wedding day jitters, but I’ll talk more about that later in the review...

As I had said in my ‘Prophecy’ review I had thought that Lois telling Clark she didn't want to marry him was more than a bit contrived. Yet, I have to say that it worked out.

The way that the story of the first hour had unfolded was nearly perfect storytelling. I saw the episode with my two triplet sisters while I visited up north and even my older triplet sister said that first hour was very powerful TV. This was coming from someone who never watched the show more than once or twice.

When my older sister said that (well she's only a few minutes older, since I’m the youngest triplet), she has never spoken truer words. The first hour had so much going on, yet it didn't feel rushed or contrived at any point. The pace was steady and the stakes for Oliver, Lois, Tess and Clark rose throughout the episode.

The introspection that Lois' blind-side had forced Clark into had probably more than made up for the fact her getting cold-feet so late in the game was contrived. In fact, it turned out to be the strongest part of the episode, even though in 'Prophecy' I couldn't understand what the writers were doing when they had Lois break off the wedding with Clark. Lois' stubborn insistence on not marrying him made Clark take a closer look at just how the superhero gig is going to fit into his life. It made him doubt himself in a one sense, even as it gave him a renewed resolve to become a hero.

The way that Al and Turi had brought in so many aspects of Clark's life to complicate the conflicting emotions he was going through was the perfect way to handle that.

Bringing in his mother, the ghosts of both of his fathers, his friends and even Lois being so bull-headed and stubborn about her decision, all forced Clark to work through the dilemma and come to a resolution. Of course he decided to do the wrong thing, leave Lois, but it was awesome to see all the different people in Clark's life giving him input. And it was good to see both Kents, Annette O'Toole and John Schneider were perfect, if only to remind Clark that he couldn't step away from the parts of the past that helped form the man he is.

It perfectly built upon the foundation that had been slowly formed during the course of the season: the idea of what you are comes from what you remember and what you've done and where you've been. Clark isn't who he is solely because of the things he can do. If that were so all Kryptonians would be like Superman. It's because of Clark's moral compass and that was mostly due to the parents who raised him, not his biology, as Jor-El correctly reminded Clark in the second hour. It was because of the parents who had raised him who had helped him be a hero, and he would have been one with or without his powers.

Clark’s reactions after the talk with his mother and his little graveside monologue to his father gave the complication with Lois some context. His increasing doubts, perfectly indicated through the 'talks' with his parents and his confrontation with Oliver in the graveyard, made his reconciliation with Lois all the more touching.

As contrived as it was, the wedding day jitters gave the show some awesome drama and let us get to know Clark a little better. The tenderness and loving care with how that progressed from Clark and Lois being apart to them finally getting to the church together was perfectly handled. The vows were wonderfully and beautifully read aloud by Tom Welling and Erica Durance. Clark's vows gave me probably my favorite single line from the series:

"I believe in you. And when you believe in someone, it's not for a minute, or just for now, it's forever."

Not only did Tom perfectly read it, but the best part of that line was that it wasn't just about his love for Lois, or her love for him. It's the fact that it's also reflective of what his parents and Lois feel about him. Even better, despite the fact it might seem a bit of an exaggeration, the line also boils down to its essence the sort of unconditional belief that people have in the show, Clark Kent and Superman.

That's probably hyperbolic, but maybe I'm not the best barometer of whether it is or isn't. I've watched the show regularly for most of its ten year tenure and have put down more than 300,000 words on it (that's roughly equal to three novels’ worth of writing) not including innumerable forum posts and tweets... To say that I'm a huge fan is probably not an exaggeration, so my bias is definitely showing.

So, that line meant a lot to me on several different levels and I teared up each and every time I saw those scenes because Clark’s belief in Lois, and her belief in him, was so emotional. It was very satisfying as a fan and as a romantic.

In the comics Clark and Lois have an epic love affair. His love for Lois is strong and one of the only things that is true in almost all iterations of the character. Even when things don’t quite work out between them, I’m looking at you “Superman Returns,” the profound love they have for each other is a huge part of Clark’s and Lois’ lives. As a fan of the character of Clark Kent, not just of the version of him in this show, that also made the Superman fan inside me very happy.

I also adored that Lois didn't walk down the aisle alone. It was perfect that Clark was there beside her. After taking her hand and looking at her so lovingly I loved that they walked down the aisle together, Lois by Clark’s side as he had said she was earlier.
Given what had happened in their relationship before, it was exactly the right thing to do.

The wedding was so beautiful, with the bride and groom so happy, it just figures that Oliver would come along and spoil it. With "Smallville" it's just par for the course, so that wasn't totally unexpected, especially with that earlier scene with Oliver getting the gold kryptonite ring from Desaad. I didn't mind that the nuptials got ruined by Oliver's Darkseid-fueled scheming.

It was a fantastic way to help dredge up Oliver's darkness in a huge way. It not only threatened Clark's and Lois' happiness, but threatened Earth's people with subjugation to a dark overlord that Granny Goodness had earlier attributed stories about Lucifer to.

Darkseid isn't just the big bad guy, he's been around so long and is so intensely evil that he inspired stories about Lucifer... Not sure how other folks felt about that, but I liked Granny ascribing stories about Kali and Lucifer to being really about Darkseid since it painted a picture. That shows that Darkseid isn't just a bad guy, but that he's the very personification of evil.

Yikes and what a way to up the stakes.

It was awesome Oliver was Darkseid's pawn and that Clark, with his unswerving belief in Oliver (like the unswerving belief in Lois he had just talked about in his vows), was enough to pull Oliver from the brink. Then right after Clark saved Oliver it was great that Darkseid's dark planet was about to fall into Earth's atmosphere, ready to ruin everyone's day (if not their lives). Talk about rising stakes: that's really falling out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Now that was an fantastic cliff-hanger to take us into the next (and the final) hour of the series. The entire first hour was completely awesome: it had building stakes, compelling drama, romantic reconciliations, a beautiful wedding, poignant dialogue perfectly delivered and destiny-forging confrontations... The first episode had given the entire cast, and the returning regulars, all terrific opportunities for acting.

Probably my favorite part of the episode was the sequence of events that led up to Clark's and Lois' failed attempt to marry in the church. It was fantastic drama and the actors really delivered. It started with the scene in the Planet bullpen between Lois and Chloe. I cannot remember being so touched by such a quiet scene before. It was just Erica Durance standing there as Tom read those wonderful lines in a voice-over. I don't know how she did it, especially since she probably didn't have the help of “Breathe Again” by Sara Bareilles playing in the background, but Erica did a remarkable job with that scene. Then that shot toward the end of that scene of Allison as her eyes filled with tears just put me over the top. The scene was extremely powerful emotionally.

What fantastic work by both actresses.

The later scene with Clark and Lois at their apartment door was right up there too. What a powerful amount of emotion and the way it was shot, staged and acted all added to the emotional impact. The wedding perfectly paid all of that off, but I’ll talk more about that in the section on photography. (Directing, editing and the cinematography played a huge part in why I thought those scenes worked so well.) The entire episode gave a chance for all of them to shine. It was all so terrific, what was even better was just how well it built into the second hour. Al & Turi did a fantastic job.

Brian Peterson & Kelly Souders had done a fantastic job working with the beautiful start the first hour had given them. While the middle sorta sagged a bit with a lot of talking, and perhaps the shoving match between Clark and Darkseid could have been a little more involved, still the episode was nearly perfect.

I adored that the idea of Clark wanting to step back from his past, putting his family history (on both the Kryptonian and human sides) behind him, was brought back strongly and it so nicely tied into Tess dealing with her own familial legacy. Tess had always resisted the dark side of her nature and I loved that they brought John Glover back as Lionel (and Michael Rosenbaum as Lex) to show Tess just how dark the Luthor side could get.

Lionel's reappearance gave the show a reasonable explanation of why Lex could come back, but it also forced Tess to face the facts of her parentage and what that really means. Granny Goodness coming to tempt Tess in the first hour resonated with Clark's own struggle with his ancestry and how it affected who he had become.
I really liked that both Tess and Clark both came up with the same conclusion (albeit for slightly different reasons): your biology doesn't decide your fate.

While it's something that's not new in genre fiction, I do like how the show dealt with the two characters' struggles with the idea. There are other examples of this same dilemma from different fictional universes, but the biggest example I can think of is that Harry Potter also had to struggle with that in terms of the huge influence that Voldemort had unknowingly wrought upon him.

So, like Harry, Clark had to finally internalize that no matter how he felt about the tough love that the AI in the Arctic gave him, it was the nurturing his adoptive parents had given him and his choices in life that made him who he really was. And Tess finally came to terms that no matter who her father was; she isn't like him because she didn't make the same choices he would have. Sadly, that conclusion came almost too late for Tess. However, Clark's epiphany was just in time.

Some people online seemed to have thought that Clark's confrontation with Darkseid was too one-sided, and perhaps they have a point. Darkseid throttling Clark only a little and then throwing him across the barn was a bit on the minimalist side as confrontations go, yet I didn't mind it. Perhaps that's odd given the thrashing I gave the non-fight in my review of 'Doomsday.' Here, beating down Darkseid wasn't really the important part of that scene, or even that key a part of the episode.

The embodiment-of-evil Darkseid being downsized to a Hitchcock-like McGuffin (a desired goal that isn't really the point of a story, even though at first it seems to be) is probably understandably unsatisfactory to some viewers. However, for me it didn't matter that much because of that other little thing that happened in that scene: Clark finally accepting his 'destiny' and freakin' flying.

I adored how that came to be. I had always thought that Clark would finally learn to fly when the life-or-death stakes were really high and they have never really been as high as this before now. So, for me, it makes complete sense that he finally flew in reaction to this Darkseid-inspired epiphany. After having a little chat with Jor-El in the blink of an eye, he was able to fly and through that destroy the husk of what was left of the mirror universe Lionel, taking care of those threats. Then a couple of scenes later, Clark rose to the skies and save Lois, the President of the United States and then the entire world.

That was complete awesomeness.

And I really liked that when Clark’s life flashed before his eyes when he was faced with impending defeat by the Darkseid-possessed Lionel. Some key memorable moments from previous episodes flashed in front of Clark, reminding him that he is as much a result of his past as he is of his biology. I’m not sure I would have expected that, but it really worked.

That was contrasted nicely by Lex's at the end of the next scene when he lost his memories of Smallville. Literally his life flashed before his eyes, but instead of accepting those memories like Clark did, for Lex they only came to him just as he lost them. I really liked the symmetry of both men going through the same sort of experience as they get a major step further along their journeys to their destined Superhero-hood and Super-villainy.

Although, I'm not completely happy that Lex lost his memories. I had liked the idea of Lex knowing who Clark was and having that history with his old friend. Although it would have been a different take on the mythos, certainly, if they had kept that. I think it would have given the possibilities in their future relationship more of an edge...

So, maybe they were lining up the series' future more with the comics, since the few times in the comics that he had known Clark in Smallville later Lex somehow forgot who Clark was. However, it's a future we will never see, now that the show is over, so I'm surprised they worried about it. Is that why they killed Tess? Did they kill her because Lex doesn't have a sister named Tess or with the backstory of Tess in the comics? Or is it because dying was the only way that Tess could be redeemed? This isn't some 1950's western where the reformed bad guy had to die in order to earn his redemption. Tess could have lived, but again it's probably not really that big a deal to me.

I would have liked Tess to have survived the events of this final episode, maybe to have gotten the redemption she'd been so urgently looking for, but this way she died protecting Clark and was solidly on his side. So, despite the fact that I didn't really love Lex developing amnesia, by taking Lex's memories, Tess protected Clark. It will make Clark and all of his loved ones safer if Lex doesn't know that Superman was his old best friend, so again, it was something I understood even if it wouldn't have been a choice that I would have made.

The writers of the second hour had also done a good job in providing the actors with some fantastic drama. John Glover was perfectly creepy in his return of Lionel. I don't know if the shaggy beard and unkempt, long hair were for this episode, or for some other role, but John looked very, very creepy and a tad bit nuts because of that. It was a fantastic choice.

That scene, and the later scene with Michael Rosenbaum's Lex, gave Cassidy Freeman a real chance to shine. The scenes were tense and all the actors did a fantastic job. I adored every scene Tess was in. Cassidy did an outstanding job especially in the scene with Michael Rosenbaum. Her death scene was tastefully restrained.

And while Michael Rosenbaum had a very small part in this episode, I loved what he did with it. The scene with Tom was like old times. I'm not sure I completely bought the bald cap, so I'm glad they minimized the close-ups, even as terrific as Michael was in his return. I liked that Lex brought up the line from the Pilot, that Lex and Clark had a destiny together. While leaving Lex to almost be a footnote in the series finale might not have been a perfect choice, I thought the writers did an excellent job with what they had to work with (only one day of shooting with Michael because he had been working on another show) and gave Lex's and Clark's intertwined stories some closure for the series.

As for the Clark's BIG Superman moment, finally pulling on the suit, I thought the way they handled that, with Jonathan and Jor-El helping Clark to finally get to the point where he pulls on the suit, was perfect.

And I understand why some fans weren't happy with the very tiny bit we had been shown of Clark in that, but I was satisfied. Maybe it's unexpected, but I really don't think we needed to see it. Not really.

While my baser instincts miss what I might have seen of Tom Welling as he wore a skin-tight, royal-blue body suit, I must say that the restraint the show exhibited in not showing that was commendable.

Honestly, I am almost glad they didn't show the suit. It just would have been too easy.

However, if they had they would have run the risk of alienating some segment of the show's fandom by showing a suit that too strongly resembled one particular previous version of the suit more than it did another. If they had put Tom into the "Superman Returns" suit, I know I wouldn't have been happy. I have stated more than once how much I hated that suit, for a variety of different reasons. If they had put him in that, I would have been annoyed because it would have tied the show to what I thought was a terrible film, but I might have been persuaded if he looked absolutely fantastic in that. However, I'm skeptical he would have.

Not that I think that Tom would look 'bad' in anything, but there are some outfits even the best looking person in the world can't quite pull off. For me, the one thing Tom Welling might not have been able to look good in would have been the "Superman Returns" version of the suit.

Yeah.

I hate it that much.

Yet, for some people who adored that movie, they would have had their fandom validated in a huge way by Tom wearing that suit. Those fans would have been deliriously happy. Still, would the choice to use that particular suit have left the more traditionalist fans out in the cold?

There are some, no doubt, that might have wanted the suit to look more classical; more like the suit that Christopher Reeve wore in the first Superman films. Or some might have preferred the slightly updated classic suit that Dean Cain wore in "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman." Or maybe some <fill-in-the-blank> suit from the comics... If it resembled none of them, if they had done something uniquely from "Smallville," then the armchair quarterbacks of the fandom would have still picked it apart.

So, I don't know if a full body-shot of Tom Welling in one particular suit would have made everyone as deliriously happy as some have supposed. This way it's better in at least one sense: only getting a brief glimpse of the suit means that each fan can mentally put Tom Welling into whatever suit they would have most preferred. Maybe it's not ideal, but in the end it's in part because of this that I don't really mind what they did.

However, the biggest reason I didn't mind that was that the show was never really about 'Superman,' per se. It was about Clark Kent before he finally pulled on the tights and the last minutes of the show gave us a series wrap-up that completely and beautifully fulfilled that concept.

In the end, even though I had a few problems with some details with the writing of the second hour, I thought as endings go, it was a nearly perfect one. I adored that in the final Fortress scene, Clark faced both of his fathers' ghosts. It was good it finally struck home with Clark that his heroic destiny wasn't forged only by his physiology, although being bulletproof and able to fly certainly helps, but by the town where he grew up and the parents who had raised him. What Jor-El and Jonathan said in that scene, and what the ending of the comic finally showed, was that it was because of his time in Smallville that helped make him Superman.

The best part of the episode, the part that got me smiling every single time I saw it: was the final few minutes. The flash forward to the scene with Lois at the Planet, with a brief cameo with Aaron Ashmore as the 'real' Jimmy Olsen, was terrific. And although we didn't see Michael McKean (Mr. Annette O'Toole) as Perry White, I did like the little voice-over he did. The brief scene show-cased Perry's bellicose side perfectly, without Michael needing to step on set.

Then when Clark and Lois literally bumped into one another on the steps, as John Williams' well known theme for Superman played underneath, we got a better glimpse into a future that we won't be seeing: Clark and Lois being adorably in love and Clark playing the fumbling alter-ego perfectly. I adored that how well Tom and Erica played that sort of interaction. I loved that they had turned his secret into something private, a sort of in-joke, and that Clark and Lois could have fun with it. Then to see Clark race to the roof to again save the day as he pulled off his shirt and tie as John William's Superman theme came to a crescendo... What a great moment.

When I reviewed the 'Pilot' a few months back, I had said that a series Pilot has an important job to do. It has to set the stage, establishing characters, storylines and themes that will carry a series. The series Pilot of "Smallville" did that job very, very well.

Yet, at the close of a show, the series finale has an even more important job: it's got to wrap things up and make an ending for a series that fans will accept and appreciate. It's especially important that a series ending for a genre TV series like "Smallville" has got to be, more than anything else, satisfying.

That's the real trick. You have got to fulfill the promise of the series ending for fans that are notoriously hard to please and still wrap up the story that you had been telling for ten seasons. That's probably not an easy thing to do.

Maybe it isn't if you have characters with a less well-defined character arc. Love or hate the convoluted path that Clark took getting from the 'Pilot' to the 'Finale,' he's had one of the best series-long character arcs on TV.

Despite some missteps along the way, and more than a few loose threads left hanging, the show had a definite place it was heading toward: Clark finally pulling on the tights. And I think they pulled it off with this last season, and this final episode, as they tied so much of the past in together with Clark's future. They made me believe that Clark really became the hero he was meant to be.

I'm not sure they satisfied everyone with their decisions in the final hour, but in my book I was completely satisfied. They brought in continuity from the show's past and not only made those references to Clark's past in Smallville extremely relevant; they made them matter to Clark in a huge way.

They took "Smallville" as a show and turned it around on Clark and made it self-reflective. They made clear that the show called "Smallville" was about how 'Smallville' the town helped form the man who would be the fictional 'leafy little hamlet's' best known hometown boy: Superman. I am amazed at the economy Kelly & Brian used to bring all that together and tie up an entire ten-year run into a neat package in the space of a single episode.

Even if some of the talking belabored the point a bit, the end-result was a beautiful piece of writing. Kelly & Brian did a fantastic job and I felt inspired and awed by the final moments of the show. Clark pulling open that shirt while running into the camera as the iconic John Williams music from the Christopher Reeve's films played, it was the perfect shot. It was only icing that the beautiful slow motion made Tom Welling looked so awesome in the warm light from a fading sunset.

While the episode wasn't completely perfect, how Kelly & Brian tied Clark's past in Smallville into helping form the hero that Clark became still perfectly ended the series. This Superman fan was very happy with the entire two hours, and even deliriously giddy during that last few minutes.

Both directors did an outstanding job. Kevin Fair directed the first hour and working with Director of Photography Glen Winter and Editor Andi Armaganian, the entire series of scenes that took Lois from reading Clark's vows up through the wedding ceremony was fantastic. The voice-over of Clark reading of the vows, which were perfectly delivered by Tom Welling, then the door sequence, with that moving camera and Erica Durance doing a wonderful job with the voice-over of Lois' vows, then later the wedding itself was all perfectly shot and edited together.

I'm not sure, to be honest, how much of the door sequence was practical and done in the same take (all done in camera) or whether they used some sort of sleight of hand when editing different takes together.

If it was done all in one take, I'm extremely impressed. The wall looked solid (likely thanks to Entity Visual Effects) even as the camera moved 'through it.' Then the camera movement was done so smoothly, the actors staying in focus (well, mostly) as the camera moved around them, it was an awesome job by all involved.

If it was done with multiple takes (a 'take' being when the camera is stopped, film reloaded, or whatever it is they do with digital HD cameras, or moved to the 'take' the next bit of the scene), I'm still very impressed: the camera movement appeared to be completely fluid because the different takes were matched so perfectly. It looked like a single long take.

Either way that was a stunning scene in execution, but how it was filmed also reinforced (combined with Music Composer Luis Febre's beautiful score) the emotional impact of Clark's and Lois' reconciliation and reaffirmation of their love. I am seriously tearing up just thinking about that.

I also loved the wedding scene and the way that it was shot. Once the new act started, and the vows were read by Tom and Erica, I liked how the vows were intercut the way they were. And I loved the almost lazy slow-motion and the moving camera with the lap dissolves, or cross-fades, between them. It was a gorgeously shot and beautifully executed scene.