Smallville: Bloodline

By TrinityVixen

If the lesson is, “Go evil; become ridiculously hot,” how is this show ever going to convince people to stay on the side of all that is good? I mean, having a rampantly shirtless Oliver Queen prance around can only do so much to salvage audience morality.

Season Eight, Episode Eight

After an anonymous source puts the Fortress/Clark’s/Ms. Mercer’s missing crystal into Clark’s hands, he and Lois are sucked into the Phantom Zone. Kara, PTSD-ing up to her eyeballs, welcomes them to the hell to which Brainiac and her own conscience have consigned her. While SKara-tor is still rocking the starved skeleton look, she’s gotten herself a much more grown up Road Warrior-esque outfit and some fantastically hip hair extensions. (You have to feel bad for the stylist who got stuck in the Zone, but he/she does fabulous work.) No, really, Kara is beautiful—aged, but beautiful. Maybe she’s born with it; maybe it’s the constant abrasion of sand against her skin that has polished her to such a smooth finish.

Kara informs Clark that she could have left the Phantom Zone any time; Zor-El was a dick, but he left his family an out should they need it. (Probably on the assumption that he would be the one stuck there.) She hasn’t used the portal because she’s not as stupid as Clark: use the gate, let out phantoms. Earth doesn’t need another Bizarro. (Another perfect example of evil = foxy.) Clark almost explodes with love for his cousin. That’s fair. If my cousin went from being a total brat to protecting a world she doesn’t care two bits about, I’d hug her, too. (Clark and Kara’s reunion makes me hopeful that my Libertarian cousin and I will someday be on speaking terms.)

As Lois is the only human and thus bringing a knife to a nuke fight, Kara offers to let Lois out of the portal, provided Clark fend off the Zoner phantoms. Too bad he hasn’t quite gotten a hang of the infallible hero, giving-hope-to-the-world thing yet: Lois gets out, but so does a Zoner. The Zoner makes for Lois and puts her on like a skin suit. Thus we have the most marvelous transformation of Lois Lane into smashing babe ever. I have lost track of the umpteen makeovers Lois has had as she moves through various undercover jobs, head injuries, accidental kryptonite poisonings and possessions, but this one is definitely the best. Erica Durance looks more mature yet undeniably more youthful than usual. Her poise and menace make up for the bizarre stiff neck and behavioral ticks she uses to indicate that Lois Isn’t Home Right Now. And, like I said, being evil is better than Pantene for your coif and better than $150,000 to spend on your wardrobe. Zoner-Lois stalks through Metropolis dressed to kill for the very good reason that it is something she does very well. (So why not dress for the occasion?) Lois could be a naughty dominatrix version of Laura Roslin as a younger woman, she’s that powerful and gorgeous.

Lois has been possessed by Faora, Zod’s wife. Faora of the Formidable Tresses immediately starts speed-reading the entire internet for information on her son. Yes, her son, whom she sent to Earth when Krypton was going kablooey. I blame Jor-El. He and Angelina Jolie are kindred spirits; they find some backwater to bring their magnificence to and assume they’ll be beloved and pretty soon everyone is trying to export children from town. Except Angelina appears to actually give a damn about people not blessed with her bone structure, and Jor-El is a dead guy with a bad temper who thinks humans are stupid. Whatever, Faora’s a devoted, demented mommy, and she wants to make sure her baby’s set up to reclaim his birthright.

And, wouldn’t you know it? Before Faora even starts in on the baby talk, Bloomesday is conveniently pestering Chloe to help him figure out why there are no records of his life before his third birthday. I, drolly, laughed at this revelation at the time; “Hey, that’s just like Clark!” Then Faora showed up, and yeah, here we are. Bloomesday is Faora and Zod’s little bundle of joy. Or little bundle of various strands of DNA cobbled together into some monstrous faux-baby to make Homicidal Psycho-Daddy and Mommy less self-conscious about their infertility. Faora has read about Bloomesday’s mass murderings, and she couldn’t be happier. If only his father were alive to see this day! (Good thing he’s not, though; if Faora had been around for that kiss with Lana, she’d have removed something from his host body that Lex would definitely have missed later.)

Faora pep-talks her baby boy into the courage to be the planet-stomping terror she created him to be. When that doesn’t work, she kills him. It’s a tad extreme, but I don’t judge other people’s parenting methods. Mama kisses her baby as he shudders and dies, promising that which kills him only makes him stronger. That’s not how I heard that phrase when I was growing up. Maybe my mom just didn’t have the stomach to kill me so I’d become invincible. For that is what happens to Bloomesday. He recovers from a slight case of impalement on hospital equipment and decides to test out his invulnerability. (Shirtless, of course.) He shatters a dissecting knife against his rock hard pectorals (Be EVIL! It’s a great workout!) when he tries to stab himself. Bloomesday has only more questions.

Too bad for him, then, that Faora is riding the bullet express back to Suck City. Chloe ropes Oliver into stealing Ms. Mercer’s power generator (which he is only too glad to do; jilted lovers are so spiteful!) so she can use the crystal that sucked Clark into the Phantom Zone to bring him out again. Her eyes turn white, she has the strength to throw Oliver across a room, and her nose bleeds from the effort, but Chloe manages to retrieve Clark and Kara. Clark goes to stall Faora without hurting Lois; Kara dashes to borrow the Martian Manhunter’s re-arresting crystal so they can suck Faora back into the Phantom Zone. Oh well, so long Loreal-hair-Lois. I will miss you.

The fallout from Faora’s short visit is astonishingly major:

-Ms. Mercer ran afoul of Faora only to a) give Lois a raise, and b) discover that if Lois Lane knows something about Kryptonians, so, too, must Clark Kent, her sometimes partner, sometimes housemate. (Thanks to the raise, the latter will not be issue again.) Tess shows Clark matching footprints, one from his farm, another from the arctic. She knows he was the last to see Lex Luthor alive. Clark dissembles, which hurts Ms. Mercer’s feelings. Why won’t he trust her? Uh, duh, because Lex Luthor did, and anyone worthy of Lex Luthor’s esteem can only be his enemy? She makes a go of assuaging his fear but spoils the ruse by twirling her figurative moustache over how she’ll figure out what he’s hiding for her sooner or later.

-Kara thinks Clark needs to be Earth’s hero. And this without the benefit of having been around this season to pick up the meme directly from the rest of the cast. Everyone is on board except for Clark, it seems. (All my pie-in-the-sky rambling from last week, wasted.) She’s off to find the city of Kandor, which may have survived the destruction of Krypton. (They have really good Tupperware on Krypton.) She can rebuild their people, she has the technology!

-After witnessing Chloe’s wi-fi her brain to an alien supercomputer (and suffering a brutal smack down when he tried to stop her), Oliver comes down hard on Clark about his stonewalling on her Brainiac abilities. Such things as the proto-JLA members get into are not for humans! (Except those who are in the JLA, apparently. When did Watchtower’s membership lapse?) Clark is frightened by the news that Chloe was the one who pulled him out of the Phantom Zone. He swears he’s done everything he could to try and work out how to stop Chloe from endangering herself and others with this ability. (He says he “talked to her.” What more can one alien do?!) I’m not sure if Oliver is voting to protect Chloe from herself or neutralize her. Either way, Chloe’s powers are a new source of contention between the brothers-in-leather crew.

-Bloomesday is now invulnerable, totally freaked out, and still a monster. This is a good thing.

Next week: Chloe’s memories start vanishing into the ether. How ironic that she should lose her memories after killing Sebastian Kane. He might have been able to dictate some of them back to her. It shouldn’t really matter. Chloe’s a smart woman, and she backs up her main hard drive like clockwork. As soon as someone teaches her to speak, read, and type again, she’ll have it back in no time.

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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.

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