“I would never take advantage of a sexually immature species.” - Lt. Ilia

By TrinityVixen

It would be easy to dismiss the threat-of-the-week as yet another fatal love connection, but you have to give Maxima credit: she acts a hell of a lot more like a moral being than some of the show’s regulars. The fact that she acts is a bonus. (In short, pouty bursts, but she does act.)

Season Eight, Episode 4

By the show’s standards, the reductionist view of Maxima, the prescribed, rote path she takes from vixen to villain, is fairly lively and refreshingly direct. Then again, she’s one mate-or-die whine away from being a fanfic cliché. Maxima, ruler of all Almerac, needs a man. She’s got the kiss of death thing working against her, which sets the prospective mate bar pretty high, so you can sympathize with her plight: her standards are exceedingly, fatally high. Humans aren’t up to snuff. Luckily, Maxima heard Kryptonians are made of hardier stuff, and wouldn’t you know it? She got a space-time jingle letting her know where she might find one.

That call came courtesy of Tess Mercer and one of her science stooges testing the blue crystal that is the sole remnant of the Fortress. After kissing her way through a few human male soon-to-be-corpses, Maxima tracks down Ms. Mercer, thinking that the woman who made the call has the skinny on where she can scare up a crystal in the rough. Ms. Mercer can’t quite control her reaction to all this, but she’s catching up on Lex’s infamous stoicism. She can’t give details she doesn’t have, but maybe if Maxima gives her some hint as to what this Kryptonian playboy looks like, she could help out.

Maxima’s no dope—you don’t get to be the warrior queen (who hasn’t gotten laid ever, and thus has had a lot of free time) of an entire planet by being a dummy. The only problem is that her smarts are warped by her intensely hormonal focus. She thinks Ms. Mercer is hiding something from her (true) and assumes it is the identity of her soul-mate (false). A gag-gift from Oliver (?) on Ms. Mercer’s desk includes a dress and an invite to the Ace of Clubs for drinks. Maxima takes it and dashes off to impress her man.

Instead, she runs afoul of the continuing trials and tribulations of Jimmy Olsen’s insecurities. Jimmy, while moving into the Talon with Chloe, discovered an old love letter she wrote to Clark. This sent him into a spiral of self-doubt. Why it should unnerve him that she never wrote livejournal-worthy emo about her tragic love for him, I cannot say. Tragic love on this show never did anyone any good. Ask Clark. Ask Lois. To avenge his hurt feelings that his girlfriend ever had a thing for another man, Jimmy gets drunk and tries to play the field at the Ace of Clubs to make Chloe jealous. Except Chloe isn’t there to see how studly he is. Jimmy is a douche.

Maxima puts the moves on Jimmy because he’s the lone single guy at the club and she’s still working on the theory that Ms. Mercer’s date was with her one-and-only. Jimmy succumbs to her irresistible charms. If not for Maxima’s established magnetism, Jimmy would never be forgiven for this breach of trust with Chloe. You can dick around on any character still in the opening credits, but you cross a line when you mess with Chloe. She doesn’t deserve anything but the best after being the whipping girl for seven seasons. Also? There is no moral equivalence between your girlfriend having had a crush on her friend years ago and you making out with another woman. Douche.

When Jimmy starts to fall apart because of her kiss, Maxima seems genuinely disappointed that he wasn’t the one and is going to die. That lasts for all of an eye-blink once she sees Clark super-speeding in to rescue Jimmy and take him to the hospital. Hello, lover. (Those fickle queens!)

Clark (hey, remember him?) had been following the trail of jilted losers left in Maxima’s wake as an assignment for The Daily Planet. He discovered an unusual burn mark at one crime scene hidden underneath a perfectly normal burn mark. (Okaaaaay.) Unusual burn marks, like any other markings deemed too complicated to penetrate Clark’s thick skull, have to be run by Chloe. Chloe, awesomely, took one look at what appeared to be a redesign of the symbol for the Zodiac sign Scorpio, and declared that it was a marker in the shape of the royal crest of Almerac. There was also a lot of technobabble as to how the marker signifies that Maxima used a teleport device hidden in her bracelet.

In the midst of her expository info-dump, Chloe freaked herself out. This is different from speed-reading the internet; this is pulling information neither humans nor the long-resident alien know out of the ether. Clark tried to bring up the Brainiac-worked-over-her-brain conversation that haven’t been having, but Chloe sent him off to Metropolis again when she discovered another victim had been found right outside of the club. His rescue of Jimmy is both coincidental and serendipitous. And not a little ominous, since now Maxima has Clark in her sights.

In Smallville, Ms. Mercer broaches the idea of recruitment to Chloe. She needs someone to hack a super computer (the crystal), and Chloe is the best. She pulls out all the stops to get Chloe on her side—reasoning, entreating, cajoling, and, when all else fails, threatening. Chloe smacks her down impressively; she’s danced the dance with two different Luthors and no Janey-come-lately will ever see her sweat. She walks right out on the royally ‘faced Ms. Mercer in favor of scooting over to Metropolis to see Jimmy in the hospital. She comes in too late to hear Jimmy confess to Clark about kissing Maxima. Clark does him a solid and keeps Chloe out of that loop. He does, however, emphasize that Jimmy and Chloe being together is really important. (Threats work for Lex lackeys and superheroes alike.)

Over at The Planet, Clark is scanning footage from the Ace of Clubs to identify Maxima. She saves him the trouble by arriving to jump his bones. Clark’s been hard up without a girlfriend, and there’s that irresistible force she lays down, so they get right to it. Although the entire basement is empty, they relocate to an elevator for the consummating. Somehow, they manage not to break it. Unfortunately, a working elevator can still move between floors, and Lois gets a nasty surprise when doors open. Her intervention might be something she’ll be scrubbing out of her brain for the next few episodes, but it breaks Maxima’s spell.

It does, alas, expose Lois and Clark’s fledgling, unrealized attraction to the very jealous super queen. (She’s rather keen with the insights this one. It must be a consequence of palace living and constantly having to monitor those around you for alliances against you.) Maxima’s temper tantrum at her beloved’s infatuation leads her to flip Lois’ car over with her inside it. Lois denies Maxima’s accusations about her relationship with Clark. The only thing that keeps Maxima from rolling her eyes and then putting her foot through Lois’ face is the arrival of a special forces team.

Thank God for the army, since Clark is distracted over at the Isis Foundation by Ms. Mercer and her shiny crystal. Ms. Mercer admits that Maxima attacked her, and when Clark asks why, she flashes him some Kryptonian rock. He claims he has never seen it before, but lust for and panic over the crystal is all over his face. A phone call from her mercenaries prevents Ms. Mercer from interrogating him further. Clark overhears their location and hightails it over there.

Clark drags Maxima off to a convenient alley to have it out with her. She begs him to be with her, to come back to Almerac. Maxima susses him out, pokes at his vulnerable spots and promises that he wouldn’t have to be alone if he would be her mate. Maxima pleas are desperate and lonely in their own right, and Clark sympathizes to a dangerous degree. He manages to cling to his love of the Planet Earth and send her packing via bracelet teleport. I fail to see how this will prevent her coming back—he didn’t break the device, and presumably Almerac has more than one regardless. Stupid show, leaving themselves openings for lame guest star retreads. (How’s that working for you, Cyborg? Aquaman? Black Canary?)

Don’t get me wrong: it was surprisingly not-sucky while it lasted, Maxima. The ultimate result of this episode was more telegraphed than a political soundbite, but the actress seemed to be having fun and that’s half the battle. I’m just not ready to commit myself to warmed up leftovers from an episode that featured a lot of uncomfortable close-ups of people kissing and breathing more heavily than passion demanded.

Besides which, mystery abounds! Chloe goes to chastise Ms. Mercer for busting into the Isis Foundation and to reverse herself on her decision not to help with hacking the crystal. Clark figures that the crystal from the Fortress might have some of Jor-El left in it. Since he created Brainiac, who better to help Chloe with her cranial alien database problem? One little snag: the crystal was stolen. Ms. Mercer gets an e-mail with a picture of the crystal and a tetchy sign-off: “You are not ready yet – X.”

Will the mysterious Mr. X reveal himself? Better question: how long will the show drag out that revelation when the obvious candidate is obvious? (And also sufficiently spoiled as a future guest star?) How will Jimmy react to Chloe picking Clark to give her away at her wedding? Will Mr. Sullivan weep for not being invited to his own daughter’s wedding? Clark and Lois: what is going on with those two crazy kids? All these answers and more: to be ignored…

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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.