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This is a difficult episode for me to evaluate. Parts of it worked very well, but parts of made me ask questions that threw me out of the storytelling. Most importantly, I feel Clark was rendered largely irrelevant for much of the episode and that is never acceptable to me. Still, I thought it somewhat better than Kandor so give it a perhaps too generous A-.
I'll confess a large part of the reason for my less than rapturous reaction to the episode is a hangover from the disaster of last season. I can't help but feel the show runners are setting up Clark to fail yet again for making what should be the right decision. It's not justice to take out Zod for what he may do in the future - there IS hope that he can be deflected from that path. Besides, at this stage I believe the only person Zod has killed is his own lackey for causing the zombie virus in Rabid. Sure his minions did the Metallo experiments but Clark doesn't know about that. And as for Jor-El, although Zod did kidnap him, Tess kidnapped him first and set him up as bait so if anyone should be "taken out" at this stage, it's her. The woman is flat-out crazy IMO. In any case, Jor-El asked Clark to save Zod at the end of Kandor and I was afraid it might have been a mistake for Clark to ignore that advice at the time. And now I fear it's a mistake for Clark to accept the advice, because this looks like a classic no-win situation.
Chloe also caused me a lot of grief this episode, but sadly not when she died in the alternative future. That Chloe was so closed down and joyless that I found her somewhat repellant. I don't particularly object to her taking out Tess when she had the shot, but I do reject her attitude towards Clark. He might have left them behind but it wasn't so he could take a cruise around the world. He went into training with AI!Jor-El as he did in Saviour, but in this AU there was no Lois to pull him back into humanity. I can well imagine that under the Fortress's "guidance", Clark's thinking became one dimensional and utterly predictable to Zod. And of course if he wasn't tied into humanity, it would be all too easy for him to ignore the construction of the solar towers. Who could have predicted that they would give the Kandorians superpowers? Certainly not Chloe or Ollie, who would have been in a far better position to pick up on suspicious activity of that type. So why does Clark get all the blame? Why are we supposed to forget the fact that Chloe ran away with Davis, and that Ollie shot Clark in the back with a kryptonite arrow? All the dialogue with Clark castigating himself for his mistakes and taking all the blame just made me angry and totally threw me out of the show.
I have no idea of what to make of Tess - I really can't take her seriously anymore, she was so lost to reason in the future. How can enslaving the human race and transforming the planet into a desert wasteland possibly equal being a saviour in Tess's head? She was crazy to have listened to the Orb in the first place, and every decision she's made since then has been worse and worse. It's like she's so wrapped up in proving herself to Zod that she doesn't realize the tests he sets are rigged for failure. What I do find intiguing though is that the only thing Tess seemed to learn from the AU is that Chloe is going to kill her. I can't help but feel she's going to start taking some preemptive measures to ensure that doesn't happen.
Callum Blue looks like he's having a great time chewing the scenery as Zod and I enjoy most of his performance. I thought his scenes with Clark were the standout - there was definitely more to the Zod - Jor-El relationship than we saw in Kandor methinks to justify this level of animosity! The future Zod said he kept Clark alive this long to serve as a bridge between their peoples, which reinforces the idea that Clark visiting him at the end is a reasonable first step towards averting the Apocalypse. I loved the twist he threw at Clark at the end - "Kneel before Kal-El" indeed. But of course, Zod himself does not kneel. Zod will never be content for Clark to have powers while he has none: his ego cannot withstand this. I have no idea how the writers are going to have all this work out but the chances of outright success seem slim.
Lois had an enormous amount of screentime since the scenes in the future were told from her point of view, and Erica Durance made the best of it. I will quibble though because although we knew this was the premise going in, it still closed us off to a lot of critical information about how that future happened. For example, I would have loved to get an explanation about how a red sun is supposed to give Kryptonians superpowers - exposure to blue K or not. How long had elapsed since Clark was defeated and what has he been doing since then? There are also some elements of this story that didn't align at all with what we saw in Saviour, such as Alia's apology in her death scene. Perhaps more of these puzzle pieces will fall into place later, or perhaps we're supposed to forget these details the same way we're supposed to forget about the actual events of Doomsday. Sigh.
But for all my quibbles with the plot device, I think the characterization of Lois was pretty much spot on. She was understandably frightened at what was going on in the alternate future, but all the braver for that. You could see how her presence filled Clark with ever greater resolve and rekindled his hope and faith in humanity. Am I concerned they've gone too far in making her pivotal to the development of Superman? Sure, but I have those issues whenever they play up the influences of Jor-El and Chloe and whoever else so don't take it personally. At least with Lois, you know she makes Clark happy.
For all the overt romance of the Clois scenes in the future, I much prefer the "go slow" scene between Lois and Clark at the Daily Planet. I love how Clark cut through all their normal banter to ask flat out where the relationship stands. And when Lois's first reaction is deflection, then focusing on past mistakes, Clark calmly says they'll just have to make it right this time. That of course raises the issue for me of secrets, lies and memory erasure, but I'm going to put my critical thinking on hold for a while and see how it plays out.
In closing, the overall story arc was compelling, but I feel it fell apart on the detailed level. I could nitpick this episode to death and constantly had to edit out my quibbles when writing this review. I think this was far too complicated an episode to leave in the hands of a first time writing team and a second time director. And now we have two months to stew over whether Clark's plan to deal with Zod has any chance of working. Here's hoping for more Clark!
I'll confess a large part of the reason for my less than rapturous reaction to the episode is a hangover from the disaster of last season. I can't help but feel the show runners are setting up Clark to fail yet again for making what should be the right decision. It's not justice to take out Zod for what he may do in the future - there IS hope that he can be deflected from that path. Besides, at this stage I believe the only person Zod has killed is his own lackey for causing the zombie virus in Rabid. Sure his minions did the Metallo experiments but Clark doesn't know about that. And as for Jor-El, although Zod did kidnap him, Tess kidnapped him first and set him up as bait so if anyone should be "taken out" at this stage, it's her. The woman is flat-out crazy IMO. In any case, Jor-El asked Clark to save Zod at the end of Kandor and I was afraid it might have been a mistake for Clark to ignore that advice at the time. And now I fear it's a mistake for Clark to accept the advice, because this looks like a classic no-win situation.
Chloe also caused me a lot of grief this episode, but sadly not when she died in the alternative future. That Chloe was so closed down and joyless that I found her somewhat repellant. I don't particularly object to her taking out Tess when she had the shot, but I do reject her attitude towards Clark. He might have left them behind but it wasn't so he could take a cruise around the world. He went into training with AI!Jor-El as he did in Saviour, but in this AU there was no Lois to pull him back into humanity. I can well imagine that under the Fortress's "guidance", Clark's thinking became one dimensional and utterly predictable to Zod. And of course if he wasn't tied into humanity, it would be all too easy for him to ignore the construction of the solar towers. Who could have predicted that they would give the Kandorians superpowers? Certainly not Chloe or Ollie, who would have been in a far better position to pick up on suspicious activity of that type. So why does Clark get all the blame? Why are we supposed to forget the fact that Chloe ran away with Davis, and that Ollie shot Clark in the back with a kryptonite arrow? All the dialogue with Clark castigating himself for his mistakes and taking all the blame just made me angry and totally threw me out of the show.
I have no idea of what to make of Tess - I really can't take her seriously anymore, she was so lost to reason in the future. How can enslaving the human race and transforming the planet into a desert wasteland possibly equal being a saviour in Tess's head? She was crazy to have listened to the Orb in the first place, and every decision she's made since then has been worse and worse. It's like she's so wrapped up in proving herself to Zod that she doesn't realize the tests he sets are rigged for failure. What I do find intiguing though is that the only thing Tess seemed to learn from the AU is that Chloe is going to kill her. I can't help but feel she's going to start taking some preemptive measures to ensure that doesn't happen.
Callum Blue looks like he's having a great time chewing the scenery as Zod and I enjoy most of his performance. I thought his scenes with Clark were the standout - there was definitely more to the Zod - Jor-El relationship than we saw in Kandor methinks to justify this level of animosity! The future Zod said he kept Clark alive this long to serve as a bridge between their peoples, which reinforces the idea that Clark visiting him at the end is a reasonable first step towards averting the Apocalypse. I loved the twist he threw at Clark at the end - "Kneel before Kal-El" indeed. But of course, Zod himself does not kneel. Zod will never be content for Clark to have powers while he has none: his ego cannot withstand this. I have no idea how the writers are going to have all this work out but the chances of outright success seem slim.
Lois had an enormous amount of screentime since the scenes in the future were told from her point of view, and Erica Durance made the best of it. I will quibble though because although we knew this was the premise going in, it still closed us off to a lot of critical information about how that future happened. For example, I would have loved to get an explanation about how a red sun is supposed to give Kryptonians superpowers - exposure to blue K or not. How long had elapsed since Clark was defeated and what has he been doing since then? There are also some elements of this story that didn't align at all with what we saw in Saviour, such as Alia's apology in her death scene. Perhaps more of these puzzle pieces will fall into place later, or perhaps we're supposed to forget these details the same way we're supposed to forget about the actual events of Doomsday. Sigh.
But for all my quibbles with the plot device, I think the characterization of Lois was pretty much spot on. She was understandably frightened at what was going on in the alternate future, but all the braver for that. You could see how her presence filled Clark with ever greater resolve and rekindled his hope and faith in humanity. Am I concerned they've gone too far in making her pivotal to the development of Superman? Sure, but I have those issues whenever they play up the influences of Jor-El and Chloe and whoever else so don't take it personally. At least with Lois, you know she makes Clark happy.
For all the overt romance of the Clois scenes in the future, I much prefer the "go slow" scene between Lois and Clark at the Daily Planet. I love how Clark cut through all their normal banter to ask flat out where the relationship stands. And when Lois's first reaction is deflection, then focusing on past mistakes, Clark calmly says they'll just have to make it right this time. That of course raises the issue for me of secrets, lies and memory erasure, but I'm going to put my critical thinking on hold for a while and see how it plays out.
In closing, the overall story arc was compelling, but I feel it fell apart on the detailed level. I could nitpick this episode to death and constantly had to edit out my quibbles when writing this review. I think this was far too complicated an episode to leave in the hands of a first time writing team and a second time director. And now we have two months to stew over whether Clark's plan to deal with Zod has any chance of working. Here's hoping for more Clark!
