Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ready... Aim... Misfire!
By Tippi Blevins | Season 9 | Episode 10 | Aired on 01.29.2010
So, it's halfway through the episode, and here's where I thought to myself that we've finally found out what the story is about. It's not about Oliver going crazy or being dark or someone framing him for these attacks because he's a scuzzball. Rather, Oliver's the 'disciple' of the title and this muscular fellow is 'teaching' him a lesson of some sort. Hah! How wrong I was.
Back to the show: Clark is dressing Chloe's wound as she studies the arrow that nicked her. She thinks her attacker was Oliver, because how many other "arrow-toting Rambos" know about Watchtower? Clark's not as sure Oliver is behind the attack, despite how hard it's been on Oliver to see Clark and Lois together. Chloe presses on: "I know from the outside, it doesn't seem like Oliver would ever do anything to hurt Lois and me, but his dark half might." Clark thinks Oliver's left all that dark stuff behind him but Chloe wonders if he doesn't have a split personality that even he doesn't know about. Oliver potentially having a deeply buried personality would have been so much more interesting if the show had made more than a half-assed attempt at it. Clark defends Oliver, saying it would take more than boxing rings and drugs to make him go "Jekyll/Hyde." Chloe thinks about this for a second and then confesses that she set Oliver up a few weeks ago to make him get off his ass and be a hero again. Except she says it with a terrible extended metaphor about cars and freeways that I won't repeat. Clark is stunned. Chloe says she had to do something to save him, but Clark is upset that she decided to do it by herself. "Isn't that what you do every day?" she asks mildly. "You should have told me," he says, turning away in dramatic soap opera fashion. Chloe chastises him for not being able to pull the trigger when necessary and walking away instead. "I do what's right," he says, turning to look at her again. Eh, sometimes. Chloe: "You're not willing to do what's necessary." He asks her if what she did to Oliver was necessary. She stops to think about it for a moment, then says, "Not if it really shattered him." Clark walks away and Chloe asks him where he's going. "To pick up the pieces," he grumps, superzipping away. God, this show is so talky. And yet, hardly anyone ever says anything good. A beeping computer catches Chloe's attention; a match for the mystery arrow has been found.