Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Oh, the Humanity!
By Tippi Blevins | Season 9 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.25.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Welcome back to Smallville, everyone! We return three weeks after the events of the finale to find that Clark is trying to shed his humanity so that he can embrace his Kryptonian destiny. What he has managed to get rid of, though, are his famous red and blue clothes, having traded them in for broody black hand-me-downs from Angel. He prowls the streets of the city, rescuing people, posing dramatically against the sky, and burning the Superman S-shield on walls. Vandal.
He still can't fly, because Lois's five thousand pounds of hair are weighing him down, or he's attached to her, or something. She returns from her trip to the future by mysteriously being zapped onto a train in Metropolis. She's followed by a female assassin with funky blue eyes. Naturally, a fight ensues. Clark saves the train and Lois winds up at the hospital, unaware that she's been gone for so long. Turns out Green Arrow has also been MIA, working out his self-loathing issues by drinking and getting physical with well-muscled half-naked men in some kind of grungy Fight Club.
Newcomer Zod (a major, not a general, at this point) has been holed up at the Luthor mansion with a bunch of his Kryptonian soldiers. For some reason they don't have any of their super powers, which makes them all paranoid and turn against Zod for a while before eventually kneeling to him. Tess has been tortured for information that she doesn't have. She tries to play Zod and his men against each other but it doesn't work because Zod's English accent proves too inspirational for the soldiers to resist. Also new to the show is John Corben, who's the Daily Planet's newest hire. He clashes with Lois, because everyone clashes with Lois, and flirts with her for the same reason.
Chloe, meanwhile, is at her Watchtower apartment, which ends up getting funding from Dr. Emil Hamilton. Chloe asks Clark to take a trip back to the past to save Jimmy/Henry, but he turns her down because messing with destiny is bad. At some point in there, he fights the blue-eyed assassin who was just using Lois to get to him. The assassin politely apologizes for… something, just before she dies. Oh, and Clark apparently has one year to prevent the end of the world. It probably has something to do with Lois's episode-ending visions of the future, which include fighting, Kryptonian symbols, dead Chloe, and nookie with Clark. Yep. Sounds apocalyptic to me.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see what vlogger Sean Crespo thinks of Smallville when he has No Prior Knowledge! And find out who all these superdudes are in our guide to the Heroes and Villains of Smallville!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!First off, I have to give a shout out to Omar G., who bravely recapped this show for an unbelievable eight years. I won't even try to fill your shoes, man. I'll just try them on while I'm playing dress-up.
Previously on Smallville: A decent and fun little show lost its soul but ambled on for several more years, like a zombie, only better-looking. Clark was a crappy dresser and worked at the Daily Planet. Lois befriended Clark's horribly named alter ego, the Red-Blue Blur and made a date to talk to him at midnight. Tess Mercer took over LuthorCorp and the paper. Oliver kaploded someone we're supposed to believe is Lex and got himself on Clark's moral shit list for his troubles. Chloe suggested Clark create a secret identity for himself, and he reacted like this was a crazy idea even though half the people he knows have done exactly the same thing. Lois found the Legion's time-traveling ring and zapped herself to some unknown time while in the middle of a fight with Tess. Tess found a magical Kryptonian orb that couldn't be activated until the "Beast" was dead. Speaking of whom... Davis Bloome had a super-hot physique and turned into Doomsday. The Doomsday part was killed by Clark (I think? The finale was so vague...). The Davis part became human and killed Henry James Olsen out of jealousy over Chloe, but Henry/Jimmy killed him right back with the last of his strength. Chloe got a happenin' penthouse apartment which she christened the Watchtower. Clark blamed himself for the whole debacle and faded off into the sunset, intoning, "Clark Kent is dead."
We sweep over the darkened Metropolis skyline and for a moment I get excited that this might be a Clark POV because he's finally flying. But then I realize there's no way this show has the money to have Clark flitting about on a regular basis. We land in Chloe's apartment. She's on the phone with the cops, informing them that her cousin Lois Lane has been missing for three weeks. In this time, Chloe's gotten a cute little wavy hairdo. She's also wearing a baggy belted shirt that puffs up in such a way that makes me wonder if she's supposed to be pregnant, as some people on the Interwebs have speculated. I think it's just a bad belt choice, though. Chloe stomps over to her computer. She's been calling the police repeatedly, she says, but she hasn't been getting any answers. Then she confesses that she's just hacked into their computer system because they're so unhelpful. Instead of arresting her, they just hang up on her. That'll teach her.