“We saved the world. I say we party.” - Buffy

By Viridian

Thanks to a number of reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture ( plus or possibly minus 5 cool points to the first person to get that reference), yours truly has been away from the recapping business for the past few episodes, which have varied wildly in quality. Unfortunately for me, but perhaps fortunately for all of you who missed it and are reading this recap to catch up, “Hero” was nothing so much as an hour-long commercial for some brand of gum I’ve never heard of before and quite frankly hope never to hear of again. The gum is called Stride, and if you miss it the first time, don’t worry: you’ll be reminded approximately umpteen billion times in between small snippets of recycled plot from seasons past.

This episode starts off nearly promising with the return of Pete (who I almost didn’t recognize, since it’s been, what, four or five seasons since we last saw him?), but quickly goes downhill once it becomes clear that Pete’s been turned into plot device of the week: Kryptonite-enhanced gum has turned him into, basically, Mr. Fantastic. Or perhaps Mrs. Incredible. Or, as Jimmy Olsen will ever-so-tactfully put it later: Gumby. In any case, Krypto-gum makes one really, really stretchy. Like gum. Get it? Ugh. Get your jello shots ready folks: if this episode is good for anything beyond drinking game fodder, I’ll eat my laptop.

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So, basically, Pete’s only function in this episode is to turn up and give Clark the same old speech about not hiding his powers, blah blah great responsibility blah - hey, didn’t Oliver Queen already do this with a lot more finesse and while somehow being less of a jerk? I’m sure Pete fans ought to be irate at this character assassination, except I’m pretty sure no one even remembers Pete after this long without even a mention, so, eh. It’s hard to get very worked up considering how much of a jerk the writers make Clark into every other day.

So, basically, Pete’s back, and now that he has powers he wants to go public, and he’s bitter about having lived in Clark’s shadow. And he’s bogarted some of Chloe’s hacking skills, because he somehow manages to threaten the Daily Planet’s computers with a virus in an attempt to protect Chloe from Lex’s spying. Whatever. Lex is more interested in his somewhat more successful attempt to steal Kara’s lost bracelet, but unfortunately, I’m not.

Kara’s also back, and this whole memory-loss plotline is doing Laura Vandervoort no favors. Sure, she does “vacant” well, but does anyone feel like watching it? I vastly preferred the days of her and Clark bickering like siblings to yet another variation on so-and-so doesn’t trust such-and-such while someone-or-other is protecting whatshername. You can only turn the tables so many times before you’re just spinning in circles, writers. I’d be dizzy by now if I were still bothering to watch very closely.

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Good points? Well, I suppose if you really are a Pete fan, it’s nice that his continued existence in the Smallville universe has been confirmed. Chloe and Jimmy had a cute moment near the end of the episode, in spite of a truly unfortunate line naming Chloe as the Pokey to Pete’s Gumby. (Really, writers?) And I now have one less brand of gum I’m ever going to waste money trying. Thank Smallville for small favors, I guess.
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Viridian lives in New York, where she puts her degree in English Literature and Theater to dubious use by alternating between doing the evil bidding of her Cylon overlords and teaching high school students how to psych ETS into giving them good SAT scores. She used to fruitlessly deny her geekiness, and in penitence has decided to prove herself the biggest dork of all by sharing her fannish opinions with the entire internet. She also has a livejournal, in which she posts all opinions too inflammatory, irrelevant, or just plain incomprehensible to make it into her reviews.