Smallville: Siren

by TrinityVixen
From now on, there needs must be an entire exchange wherein Clark has his hypocritical ass handed to him in every episode. Because I got to swoon through one that marked the return of Oliver Queen, and I’ve still got the vapors-the vapors of awesome. True, he’s subsequently saddled with dialogue so leaden Clark can’t see through it and he’s still chasing Lois, but otherwise it’s a welcome return for the leader-at-large of the proto-JLA. Hello, Nurse! Er, Green Arrow!

With great abs comes great responsibility. Also flying in on the fletching of a fetching lad’s arrows: side-character development and respect sadly lacking from episode to episode. Chloe slips easily into the role of Watchtower once more, and, lo, she is beautiful. Chloe’s mad hacking skills-with-a-Z have always been ridiculous in isolation. In the employ of a billionaire superhero, her ability to crack code like Kansans break bread becomes more forgivably implausible. The McGuffin data disc that she extracts from one or another of Lex Luthor’s porous servers exists solely to get her in trouble with a chick who looks like she walked off the posters for this current “cycle” of America’s Next Top Model. Congratulations, Black Canary! You’re still in the running!

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But lest we get sidetracked investigating this new development without doing our due diligence to Smallville’s first couple, it’s time to check in with Clark and Lana. For people who’ve spent six years not looking each other in the eye even when declaring their devotion to one another, it sure is awkward when they can only barely communicate after the unfortunate revelations last week. Lionel tries to blackmail Lana and threatens to reveal even more of her eeeeevil-ity to Clark unless she helps him prove that Lex had the Editor-in-Sleaze murdered. Lana refuses, spills to Clark himself, and generates more awkwardness. End of recap.

None of which I would have related if not for the fact that it spins Clark off on a hyperprotective tangent over Chloe’s involvement with Oliver. Hello, genius? You know she’s been in touch with him the whole time. Why should it surprise you that he’d drop into town and have her already manning the digital cannons aimed at the Luthor empire? Dick. When Chloe won’t promise to block Oliver’s number from her PDA, Clark tries to spin his bull-pucky on Oliver. WHO, AWESOMELY, WILL HAVE NONE OF IT. And I quote because I have to:

Clark: You’re the one who runs into things without giving it a second thought. Why don’t you try to think of someone other than yourself for once?

Oliver: I’m selfish? You know, some of us sacrifice being with the people we really care about so we can go out and make a difference. What do you do? You sit around in domestic bliss curled up on couch!

The internet has taught me the perfect word for this moment. And that word is “PWNED.” Seriously, I’m not sure how Clark managed to dodge the lightning bolts aimed at his thick skull for even thinking, let alone saying out loud, that Oliver is the one with the self-centered tendency to rush into danger without a plan. The Gods must be crazy (or, maybe, just the writers). Game, set, match Oliver Queen. Clark swallows his crow, and now we can get back to dealing with the Black Canary. Most of that will be left to Oliver because Clark has to go make doe eyes at Lana and pretend that they will ever not be too lame to live.

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Like all future allies of our hero (despite evidence to the contrary, it’s that tall guy–big, dark hair, most definitely does not wear glasses?), the Black Canary has to start out on the wrong side of the black-and-white justice cookie. There’s a checklist for this by now; gimmicky, stunt-cast parts like the Black Canary have to get through the entire thing in one episode. Canary starts off working for Lex, realizes Lex is a bag of dirty douche water, and turns on him to help the heroes she had formerly fought. Minus the Lex-helping thing, it’s like watching Oliver’s arc at the start of season six on fast forward; I prefer that option, as there were gratuitous shots of him with his shirt off.

Not that we don’t get one of those tonight. “Gratuitous” is the operative word, though several substitutes present themselves as we are invited to ogle. Words with increasingly perverted timbre, running the gamut between “scorchingly orgasmic” and “it will involve licking–lots of it.” Lois thinks so, too. She gets off exactly one slap to Oliver’s perfectly innocent face before she’s sinking her talons into his flesh with less-than-holy intentions. In keeping with tradition, the monkey-spanking gets interrupted by the duties of the Green Arrow–namely that he attract as much as problematic attention as possible whenever he is about to get nookie. Black Canary’s sonic scream shatters the glass walls about Oliver’s suite, including those hiding his secret lair, which exposes the Green Arrow (not like that, and, yes, I am devastated, too) to an uncharacteristically conscious Lois.

Tied back-to-back, Lois and Oliver have a hysterical confrontation-admission session, completely ignoring the fact that the Black Canary is sitting around listening to all this bankable blackmail material. Lois vents her spleen about being kept in the dark and Oliver pretty much shrugs it off as if costumed superheroism is merely a lovable personality quirk. We revisit the kiss Lois planted on the “Green Arrow,” who was really Clark trying to help Oliver throw Lois off his trail. Hilariously, Black Canary can’t stand Lois any longer than it takes to slug her into silence. Pity Justin Hartley, who makes no effort to mask the strain of the story-pushing dialogue that he is forced to recite thereafter. He rolls his eyes and I swear it’s at the audience having to sit there and take this. Such a loss. For one shining moment, someone on this show had chemistry. And it was with Lois! I think that’s a sign of the Apocalypse.

Canary confronts Lex about those paper-thin lies she couldn’t see through earlier (she’s only a reporter for The Daily Planet; no one at that rag knows nothing). Things get ugly when he demands the Green Arrow’s head at gunpoint. They get pretty again in a hurry when Green Arrow shows up in time to reveal that he’d already convinced the Canary to turn stool pigeon and then traitor-wren (there is such a thing, I swear). So…going to Lex’s place is entirely a waste of time dramatically and entirely about showing off hot guys fighting. I’m okay with that. Canary is hastily brought into the ranks as Lois drops herself out of the picture. This is not a coincidence, though I don’t know why this show bothers any more. The kind of comic nerd who would know that the Black Canary and the Green Arrow end up married stopped watching Smallville four seasons ago.

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However, I bow to the skill with which the writers separate Lois and Oliver. Unlike the many, many, many-to-the-nth-power times they’ve thrown stumbling pebbles between Clark and Lana, they’ve hit gold with a decent, heartbreaking reason for Lois to break it off with Oliver. In her most vulnerable state, Lois confesses that she can’t live in doubt and fear all her life. She puts a brave face on her disappointment, better than Oliver manages, only to crumple in Clark’s arms later. Crying but completely rational, she assesses the only possible future she and Oliver could have together and wants no part of it. Both men try to convince her otherwise. She invokes General Poppa and his admirable-from-the-outside devotion to his country. It works if you’re not someone who hoped to bask in half as much his love as the U.S. of A. got. Oliver will always put the Green Arrow’s mission ahead of all else. And hey, that’s the right thing to do because saving the world is one damned important mission. Still, while she could get over being second best growing up, she cannot play second fiddle to the partner of her future. She deserves to be loved, she is saying, and loved best. Clark reassures her that she does, indeed, deserve love and offers a little of his (admittedly pathetic) platonic affection to comfort her in her misery.

I nearly cried. Over Lois. Every so rarely often, the Lois Lane of the collective universes of Superman peeks through, and this is one of them. This show has thrown Lois and Clark into Krypto-spore-induced sexual comas and produced no inkling of romance between them. It’s like they only just stumbled onto the idea that having the future Mr. and Mrs. Clark Kent be honest and supportive of each other might be a more convincing argument for their future mutual happiness. Well done, show, it only took you three years. All in all, while I know Justin Hartley acts on a whole other plane of excellence from the mainstays on this show, I give major props to Erica Durance–she knocked this one out of the park.

Never miss an update. Subscribe to Pink Raygun by Email or subscribe via RSS About TrinityVixen: There’s an asterisk on TrinityVixen’scollege transcript that assures anyone who reads it that, though there is no specific major, degree, or certificate for it, she did, in fact, complete some kind of creative writing program as an undergrad. Armed with that symbol of irrelevant experience, she has polluted the internet with her opinions and horrible fanworks ever since (and for quite a long while before). Living poor in New York until she finds a means to become independently wealthy, she must subsist on the juicy meat of fandom. Fandom and noodles. And instant soup.

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