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This review is late because I've been mulling about whether and why I liked Echo more or less than Rabid. Both episodes had their flaws but they also had some really great scenes as well. So I eventually came to the same grade for both episodes, an A-.
I'm still shaking my head over how enormously contrived the whole set up was. Clark makes a mistake in judgement and this magically triggers something that Jor-El implanted in his body - can I even begin to explain just how screwed up a premise this is? Long rant deleted - just chalk up one more in a long list of times when Jor-El feels perfectly entitled to screw around with Clark's body. Imagine my indignation when I saw some people using that hideous "mind rape" term again because Clark couldn't help but hear Lois's thoughts. Grrrrrrr. And then of course the ability disappears right when it might be useful, not to mention manages to miss hearing anything about Tess and Zod or Lois's visions or Ollie's guilt or whatever's going on in Chloe's head...
In Rabid, I felt Ollie was the unquestioned weak point and was at the point of never wanting to see him again. Well frankly, I've pretty much been in that frame of mind since Toxic last year - the character simply doesn't work for me 90% of the time. So I had a really sinking feeling in my stomach when the preview started and focussed so much on my least favorite character. His early scenes in the Mexican bar did nothing to change my mind, though Tess's sudden appearance in her Lara Croft gear did amuse me. The first scene in particular should have been at a much faster pace. I get that they were trying to foreshadow Ollie's suicidal frame of mind by his attitude with the Mexican thugs, but to me it just came off flat, especially in contrast to the earlier Lois and Clark scenes.
I still wasn't feeling Ollie's epic man-pain when he started to read Toyman's speech - in fact, I was grinning to myself that at least SOMEBODY sees Ollie for who he is. Justin Hartley was trying to sell it, but I really wasn't at all interested in the supposedly dramatic pause of whether to read out one word in particular - "murderer". And then by the time Ollie stepped off the plate, we the audience already knew there was no danger so it was decidedly anticlimatic.
So why exactly did I like this episode so much? It's all about Clark, baby! I'm even feeling some compassion for Ollie and it was all because of Clark's empathetic reaction to his suicide attempt. For me, the scene hearkens back to Clark's comment in Nemesis that maybe he gave up too soon on Lex. That relationship broke at the start of season 5 because Clark felt (justifiably IMO) that he had to lie to Lex about what happened in the cave in Commencement, prompting Lex to arrange an elaborate test in Mortal that nearly cost the Kents and Lana their lives. Clark walked away and things went from bad to infinitely worst, and I believe Clark will feel grief for that for the rest of his life. Learning from that experience, reinforced somewhat by the latest trial, he apologises to Ollie for not seeing below the surface and tells Ollie that he hasn't given up. For me, that was the quintessence of Superman on display - he's so much more than his super powers!
The Clois was also top notch, though I can understand it might have been a letdown for many after the epic hug and punch scenes from Rabid. This was a different Clois, where their interaction was centered around the investigation of the explosion, complicated by the insights that Clark gained by reading her thoughts. Clark eventually asks her for "something like a date" and I'm totally sold on the budding romance. But when we see Lois burbling away so happily to Chloe and donning her hideous-to-me monster truck rally outfit, you just know things won't work out well. I'm a bit surprised Clark didn't call her to let her know he couldn't make it, but he had the best of intentions - especially when you consider what happened in Metallo. But Lois isn't easily put off and when she got an internet update about Ollie's return to the city, she immediately jumps to the conclusion that Clark is trying to scoop her. I love the outfit she shows up in, though the monster truck in the background should have either been there longer to properly register as a joke or not at all. I loved her struggle between her anger at Clark and her attraction to him. Her initial desire is to "kick his ass", but she eventually decides to step out for a breath of air and winds up missing the excitement. All of this is the setup for one of my favorite "shippy" scenes ever - where Clark sincerely apologises for standing her up and is ultimately forgiven. The whole "hypothetical" discussion had me practically dancing with glee. The absence of angst was so refreshing - it goes a long way towards making me believe the writers aren't going to mess up this relationship.
Tess was another standout in this episode, though I did find her outfit in Mexico very out of place for what we've seen of her over the last year. I loved how she seemed to be all sympathetic towards Ollie and then basically turned on him with contempt. And she was even better in the jail scene with Toyman - I love the idea of him helping to reboot Metallo's kryptonite heart. I really want to see a few scenes between her and Clark though.
Chloe only seemed to be in this episode to do things Clark could just as easily have done on his own, like activating an emergency alarm and tracking down Toyman. Oh well, he had enough on his hands so I won't dwell on it. What I do hate is how angry and cynical Chloe seems to have become, immediately ascribing the worst motives to Clark. I understand that's probably her grief and guilt still working through her, but I want to see her moving towards rebuilding her life.
A final comment about the writing and directing. I like Brian Q. Miller for the way he writes Clark and his dialogue, but also have trouble with the way he constructs the plot. In this case, in the teaser I don't think the audience should have been alerted to the fact that the "bomber" was in fact a hostage. That way it would have played out as a mystery to us as well as Clark - what did he get wrong, who's the real villain? As it was, the fact that we knew what he didn't made his toss of the bomber/hostage look callous and careless, while the "reveal" in the hospital of the criminal was anticlimactic. Similarly, the tension in the bomb scene was completely drained away the second we saw the pressure plate was on a timer, not to mention that Clark disabled the bomb before Ollie stepped off the plate. I'm not sure if this was a script issue or directorial decision, but that whole scene seemed to be very dragged out with each cut to Ollie hesitating over the word "murderer". I can't help but feel the script as written would have played out faster and there are probably some missing scenes out there because the director didn't get the pacing right. I'll chalk it up to the same sort of rookie mistake made by many another on their Smallville debuts.
I'm still shaking my head over how enormously contrived the whole set up was. Clark makes a mistake in judgement and this magically triggers something that Jor-El implanted in his body - can I even begin to explain just how screwed up a premise this is? Long rant deleted - just chalk up one more in a long list of times when Jor-El feels perfectly entitled to screw around with Clark's body. Imagine my indignation when I saw some people using that hideous "mind rape" term again because Clark couldn't help but hear Lois's thoughts. Grrrrrrr. And then of course the ability disappears right when it might be useful, not to mention manages to miss hearing anything about Tess and Zod or Lois's visions or Ollie's guilt or whatever's going on in Chloe's head...
In Rabid, I felt Ollie was the unquestioned weak point and was at the point of never wanting to see him again. Well frankly, I've pretty much been in that frame of mind since Toxic last year - the character simply doesn't work for me 90% of the time. So I had a really sinking feeling in my stomach when the preview started and focussed so much on my least favorite character. His early scenes in the Mexican bar did nothing to change my mind, though Tess's sudden appearance in her Lara Croft gear did amuse me. The first scene in particular should have been at a much faster pace. I get that they were trying to foreshadow Ollie's suicidal frame of mind by his attitude with the Mexican thugs, but to me it just came off flat, especially in contrast to the earlier Lois and Clark scenes.
I still wasn't feeling Ollie's epic man-pain when he started to read Toyman's speech - in fact, I was grinning to myself that at least SOMEBODY sees Ollie for who he is. Justin Hartley was trying to sell it, but I really wasn't at all interested in the supposedly dramatic pause of whether to read out one word in particular - "murderer". And then by the time Ollie stepped off the plate, we the audience already knew there was no danger so it was decidedly anticlimatic.
So why exactly did I like this episode so much? It's all about Clark, baby! I'm even feeling some compassion for Ollie and it was all because of Clark's empathetic reaction to his suicide attempt. For me, the scene hearkens back to Clark's comment in Nemesis that maybe he gave up too soon on Lex. That relationship broke at the start of season 5 because Clark felt (justifiably IMO) that he had to lie to Lex about what happened in the cave in Commencement, prompting Lex to arrange an elaborate test in Mortal that nearly cost the Kents and Lana their lives. Clark walked away and things went from bad to infinitely worst, and I believe Clark will feel grief for that for the rest of his life. Learning from that experience, reinforced somewhat by the latest trial, he apologises to Ollie for not seeing below the surface and tells Ollie that he hasn't given up. For me, that was the quintessence of Superman on display - he's so much more than his super powers!
The Clois was also top notch, though I can understand it might have been a letdown for many after the epic hug and punch scenes from Rabid. This was a different Clois, where their interaction was centered around the investigation of the explosion, complicated by the insights that Clark gained by reading her thoughts. Clark eventually asks her for "something like a date" and I'm totally sold on the budding romance. But when we see Lois burbling away so happily to Chloe and donning her hideous-to-me monster truck rally outfit, you just know things won't work out well. I'm a bit surprised Clark didn't call her to let her know he couldn't make it, but he had the best of intentions - especially when you consider what happened in Metallo. But Lois isn't easily put off and when she got an internet update about Ollie's return to the city, she immediately jumps to the conclusion that Clark is trying to scoop her. I love the outfit she shows up in, though the monster truck in the background should have either been there longer to properly register as a joke or not at all. I loved her struggle between her anger at Clark and her attraction to him. Her initial desire is to "kick his ass", but she eventually decides to step out for a breath of air and winds up missing the excitement. All of this is the setup for one of my favorite "shippy" scenes ever - where Clark sincerely apologises for standing her up and is ultimately forgiven. The whole "hypothetical" discussion had me practically dancing with glee. The absence of angst was so refreshing - it goes a long way towards making me believe the writers aren't going to mess up this relationship.
Tess was another standout in this episode, though I did find her outfit in Mexico very out of place for what we've seen of her over the last year. I loved how she seemed to be all sympathetic towards Ollie and then basically turned on him with contempt. And she was even better in the jail scene with Toyman - I love the idea of him helping to reboot Metallo's kryptonite heart. I really want to see a few scenes between her and Clark though.
Chloe only seemed to be in this episode to do things Clark could just as easily have done on his own, like activating an emergency alarm and tracking down Toyman. Oh well, he had enough on his hands so I won't dwell on it. What I do hate is how angry and cynical Chloe seems to have become, immediately ascribing the worst motives to Clark. I understand that's probably her grief and guilt still working through her, but I want to see her moving towards rebuilding her life.
A final comment about the writing and directing. I like Brian Q. Miller for the way he writes Clark and his dialogue, but also have trouble with the way he constructs the plot. In this case, in the teaser I don't think the audience should have been alerted to the fact that the "bomber" was in fact a hostage. That way it would have played out as a mystery to us as well as Clark - what did he get wrong, who's the real villain? As it was, the fact that we knew what he didn't made his toss of the bomber/hostage look callous and careless, while the "reveal" in the hospital of the criminal was anticlimactic. Similarly, the tension in the bomb scene was completely drained away the second we saw the pressure plate was on a timer, not to mention that Clark disabled the bomb before Ollie stepped off the plate. I'm not sure if this was a script issue or directorial decision, but that whole scene seemed to be very dragged out with each cut to Ollie hesitating over the word "murderer". I can't help but feel the script as written would have played out faster and there are probably some missing scenes out there because the director didn't get the pacing right. I'll chalk it up to the same sort of rookie mistake made by many another on their Smallville debuts.
