"Fortune" Review!

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

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Spoilers Lie Ahead: Important plot details will be revealed in this review. Don't say I didn't warn you, but one or two big twists will be revealed so read at your own risk.

I have not seen the film "The Hangover," but I know the basic premise: A group of men head off to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. The next morning, the men can't remember a thing from the night before, but realize with a shock that they managed to lose the groom and somehow gain a Bengal tiger in his place. From what I could gather from the trailers, most of the film has the remaining members of the wedding party try to retrace their steps in order to find the missing groom and get him to the church in time. They also discover just what kinds of serious trouble they had been in because of their drunken antics.

Despite the broad similarities, this episode wasn't based very closely on the film: I'm not sure how long it's going to be before Clark's and Lois' wedding, for one thing, so there was no rushing to make it to the church on time. Also, the missing person was the bride, not the groom, and the animal the wedding party gained was a ring-tailed lemur instead of a tiger. (The lemur was AWESOME, by the way. It was SO CUTE. I smiled every time it was on screen.) Also, I would think it's a pretty safe guess that the film didn't have magically enhanced champagne or a groom with superpowers either, so only parts of the episode were similar to the film, not the whole thing.

Because of that I wouldn't label this episode, written by producer Anne Cofell Saunders, a 'rip-off' like a lot of people online did. That's too strong a word (and too harsh of a judgment) for me. I actually like the writing on the show, for the most part, and this episode turned out to be a stellar example of some very fine TV writing.

Frankly, I am not sure I understand the impulse to constantly bash the writers when certain episodes are similar to other shows or films. It's like people think that every episode needs to be totally unique, but there is really no such thing as an original story. All movies and TV shows use ideas that had been done before. It's probably next to impossible to have a completely original story, but you can have a fresh take on an old idea. In my opinion, that is one thing that the writers on this show are very good at. The whole show is a fresh take on Superman's origin, so the writers will always have a strong starting point.

And Anne had succeeded in bringing us something fresh with this episode. Yeah, there were some derivative elements in it, but how well the idea was executed and adapted for this show delivered some truly outstanding comedy.

Writers like Anne (and the producers who gave her the writing assignment) don't need to steal anything to come up with stories to tell. They're all smart and talented. So, something else must have happened. I don't know for sure since I have zero inside info, although if anyone wants to drop me a line from the writer's room I'd welcome it, but I doubt anything got stolen.

It might not even have been the producers' idea. For all anyone knows, The CW could have told the producers "Clark and Lois are getting married, so you need to do a Hangover episode for sweeps..." and this was the result. (This episode aired the final Friday of the February 2011 sweeps period.) If that is what happened, then I think Anne made the best of a bad situation that probably exceeded all expectations. She delivered an episode that was far funnier than any other episode in recent memory and it did very well in the ratings, for a show in The CW anyway.

I didn't even really care it was in the least bit derivative because this episode was just that funny. There were some moments that made me laugh out loud, and sometimes very loudly, so enjoyment of the episode wasn't limited by the any similarities between this episode and that film. Probably the best part, even aside from all the fun, was that the episode was full of revelations about the characters and even the actors who portray them. It's like a win-win, along with the comedy there was some important character development. Go Anne.

I never would have thought Justin Hartley would have looked so good in drag. That was hilarious and it's like another win-win for the show. Anne turned what almost has become a rule (Oliver shedding his shirt in almost every episode) and made it funny.
And Cassidy Freeman has a terrific voice and was very entertaining to watch. Maybe it's just me, but at points her voice reminded me a bit of k.d. lang. And it was fun that Tess had on a dress that looked like something that Nancy Sinatra might have worn while she was dancing and singing next to Elvis-impersonator Emil.

I was also very pleasantly surprised by Alessandro Juliani. He not only has a very good voice, he had a terrific stage presence while performing. That was a terrific scene and looked like the actors were just having so much fun, I really enjoyed it.

As good as Tom Welling has been in the show with the romantic-comedy type of humor he's played with Erica Durance, I wouldn't have thought he would have been so good with physical comedy too. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised: he's just such a good performer. The best example of that in this episode was Clark running into that building and falling over. That was hilarious.

Although the thought struck me that since Clark was so terrible at super-speeding until he sobered up, how did he and Chloe get from the Kent farm to Metropolis in the first place? I only have to assume that since Chloe seemed more or less recovered, that Clark let her drive because his head hurt. So, that particular event seemed a bit odd upon closer inspection, despite how funny it was.

Anyway, the revelations about the characters were probably better than the comedy. I liked that Lois confessed some doubts about the upcoming wedding and it also explains why she's been so intense about the preparations: marrying 'walking perfection' would probably do that to a girl. It offered Erica Durance some very nice moments to act as well. She did a terrific job.

However, Clark thinks that Lois is perfect too, so all her little insecurities and idiosyncrasies don't make him doubt her love for him just like his don't make her doubt his love for her. Yet, even though she had come close to losing her ring and he thought he had pushed her away, they still came together at the end. It was a nice touch, to add a little drama into an otherwise solid relationship, but now it seems now that their love is stronger than ever.

I liked that Chloe and Ollie reconnected in a real way. I'm not sure if this is Allison Mack's final episode of the show, but if it is, then she went out well. Although the scenes between Chloe and the two men in her life had laid things on a bit too thick with them telling her how important she was to them. I'll grant that Chloe is important to both men, and to the show in general, but it's not like its news to any of the characters in those scenes. The dialogue seemed too on-the-nose (that's writer-speak for 'obvious') so it doesn't seem like they'd say it. The situation didn't need to be spelled out like they did. Those scenes were awkward and overblown and that is possibly the only real problem I had with episode's writing.

Despite that, I did like that the show gave her exit some weight. I liked that she's going off to Star City to be a reporter, yet will still do some of the Superhero-related stuff she seems so good at.

I think for a long time Chloe has been seen mostly in terms of what role she plays in other people's lives, instead of her own. It's been a problem for a lot of the show's women, unfortunately. So, it was good that 'Masquerade' explored that aspect of her character a bit before this episode helped wrap the idea up and brought Chloe's story some closure.

If this is the last episode Chloe is in, as I write this it's unclear at this point if she will be back for the series finale in May, I think that's about as good of a place to leave her as any I could think of. I'm not sure that I would have foreseen that Chloe and Oliver would have tied the knot in a drunken stupor and have it stick, but it's something they both apparently wanted. With her choice to head off to Star City and explore what else she can do with her life, it makes sense that Oliver would tag along.

It's better that they're married, but the permanence of that sort of happily-ever-after makes me worried what affect the darkness (that Omega symbol brand on Oliver's skull) has to do with his decision to leave. If Darkseid has planted ideas in Oliver's head about retreating from the Superheroing, it'll be an interesting twist. When Desaad had used a vision of Oliver to tempt Chloe with sloth it seems to have been a bit of foreshadowing of what happened in this episode. I mean, an apparent happy ending for Chloe and Oliver makes me worried that something awful will happen to ruin it.

However, his walking away now leads me to believe that Oliver will be back in the show, even if Chloe won't be. With the effect of the Darkness on Oliver, it will probably take some convincing (or some serious event) to get him back to Metropolis to help Clark. Maybe this sounds strange, but that twist makes the little sub-plot with Oliver's new skeletal markings probably a lot more interesting than I'd originally thought it would be.

Another thing I liked about this episode was that Chloe's speech to Clark included oblique references to Wonder Woman and Batman. Although I guess they can't do more than that, it's nice to know they exist in this reality.

The reason for not naming names is that the live-action character rights for the other two members of the Superhero Trinity (Batman and Wonder Woman) are reserved for features and those folks, apparently, aren't in a sharing mood. At least, they hadn't been until the news hit recently that a live-action Wonder Woman show just got a Pilot order from NBC.

I will not hold my breath that either Wonder Woman or the Dark Knight will get more than these oblique references, despite the fact that they exist in the world of "Smallville." Yet, it would be nice if they both showed to fight Darkseid in the final battle. Although, despite the inference in her little speech, I doubt that Bruce Wayne or Amazonian Princess Diana needs Chloe's help to become heroes.

As for this episode being the one that introduced Fortune, a villain in the comics and whom this episode was no doubt named after, I'm not sure it was completely successful in that respect. I don't know if we'll see him again, but his emphasis on luck in the episode fits in very well with how he's usually portrayed in the comics so I guess it was a pretty good outing for him as a character even if he was only in few scenes.