Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: A- | 416 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT War Games
By Tippi Blevins | Season 9 | Episode 17 | Aired on 2010.04.09
At that moment, Chloe is being forcibly marched into a room at the Checkmate castle by three armed men dressed in black. She's handcuffed and a black cloth bag covers her head. The men push her to her knees and pull off the bag. Gagged, she looks around in terror, panting for breath. Commercials!
LuthorCorp. Tess, looking a little bedraggled from her time with Super Douche, walks into Oliver's office. Her face is red and tear-stained. Oliver's sitting at his desk and makes some snarky remark to her, but she ignores it. "Clark's in trouble," she says, voice thick from crying. Oliver doesn't believe her at first, so she tells him that Clark went off to Checkmate's headquarters after she told him they'd captured Watchtower. That gets Oliver's attention. The camera cuts to the castle. An armed guard walks the hallways, stopping when he hears Waller's frantic voice calling for help. He rushes to the blood sample room where Waller seems to be trapped inside the ring of fire. It burns, burns, burns, so she demands the guard get her out of there. "The prisoner overpowered me," she explains. The guard puts out the fire. Almost at once, John drops his Waller disguise and uses his Martian mojo to render the guard unconscious. John looks pretty pleased with himself. Or maybe he just liked being Foxy Brown for a little while.
Waller, in her office, is going over some paperwork. She's probably filling out a requisition for more chess pieces. It's the mundane, bureaucratic side of comic book villainy you don't often get to see. Clark whooshes into her office. Seems like he'd go looking for Chloe first, but the hamster in his brain is probably still exhausted from making that Chess-->Tess connection. Clark stands in the shadows. Waller, seemingly unsurprised to see him, says, "I liked your colors better when they were more patriotic." "Kidnapping is illegal," Clark says, "even for the government." I don't know whether to laugh or cry. "I don't have time for polite requests," Waller says. Well, this whole kidnapping/blackmailing thing you've been doing doesn't seem to be saving you a lot of time, either. She says there are aliens among us. Clark, still in the shadows, looks constipated. Waller wants Clark's help in fighting the aliens in an impending World War Three, but Clark, like John, is antiwar. "If you don't stand with us," Waller says, "you stand against us." She tells him it's time for him to pick a side and shows him video feed of Chloe at gunpoint to help him make his decision. Waller tells him to step out of the shadows and she'll let Watchtower go. Clark obliges. Waller's impressed with how purty Clark is, but she wants his loyalty. Clark makes a threatening move toward her, but she stops him with the promise that "Blondie" will die. "I know you're fast, but you can't stop a bullet if you don't know where she is," Waller says. "That would be murder," Clark says. Gee, ya think? Waller wants to know the location of Watchtower's database so she can track down Impulse, Black Canary, Cyborg and the others to fight in her war. "It's your move," Waller says. The hamster in Clark's brain snores fitfully.