Smallville TV Show - Roulette - Smallville Recaps, Smallville Reviews, Smallville Episodes | TWoP

Recapped by Tippi Blevins · Aired 2009-10-23

Previously on Smallville: Oliver killed Lex and framed the Toyman for it. Chloe and Clark were kind of ticked off about it for a while, but tried to give him pep talks anyway. Lois and Oliver had a little somethin' goin' on, but she decided she couldn't share him with the rest of the world. The Toyman tried to get Oliver to confess to the murder at a fancy party, but Oliver decided to just commit suicide instead; he didn't succeed. Oliver said goodbye to heroics by burning his Green Arrow outfit and looked very pretty by the glow of the fire.

A roulette wheel spins in slow motion to the strains of a song that makes me roll my eyes harder than the little ball that's going around in the wheel. A guy with a soft, emotional voice sings about how he's not just a mountain that's been moved and a river that has been all dried up, but is also a sky that nothing wants to fly in and a sun that doesn't burn hot. It's making me picture a fifteen-year-old boy sitting in his bedroom window, his long bangs artfully obscuring one teary eye, as he writes in his black leather journal about how no one understands his LONELINESS and SUFFERING. Instead of a moping teen, though, we find Oliver Queen at the roulette table, lost in his pain as the crowd around him laughs and parties in their fancy attire, oblivious to the waves of LONELINESS and SUFFERING that are emanating from him. He keeps betting and losing, to the point that even the dealer looks sorry. Oliver, all out of chips despite being a multibillionaire, throws his car keys on the table for one last bet. He loses again and drinks from a whiskey glass. A woman in a red satin dress starts walking toward him. She has a dragon tattoo on her left shoulder. Oliver heads for the bar and gets another drink. He drops his cocktail napkin and crouches down to pick it up real slow so that we can see the word "Roulette" on it. By the time he stands up again, the woman in red has reached him. She's Asian and wearing enough black eye shadow to make her look like a goth raccoon. "Now that looks like the face of a guy who's down on his luck," she says. Oliver, giving her a flirty look, says his luck is about to turn around. She says she's seen his type before: "The kind of player who can't find a game to satisfy him." Oliver admits to losing his lust for life, but not for "other things." She invites him to play a game with her. Oliver's interest and other parts are piqued. The woman takes three metal cups from the bar, upends them and instructs Oliver to pick one as she shuffles them. Oliver is disappointed in the lack of sexing in the game, but picks the middle cup. The cup is lifted, revealing a big, red, vitamin-looking pill. Oliver, seeing only the one pill, wonders if his new lady friend isn't joining him on the "trip." She says it's only for him, and promises it will be worth it. "Of course, you do have a choice," she says. "But what do you have to lose?" Oliver, who failed the D.A.R.E. program at school, whispers back, "Absolutely nothing." Oh, boohoo. Then turn yourself in to the cops, why don't you? Big moping whiner baby. He takes the mystery Geritol pill with a swig of whiskey.

By Tippi Blevins

Almost instantly, he starts feeling woozy. The voices of other gamblers sound tinny and distant. He sways on his feet as the woman leads him through the game room. A moment later, he stumbles, alone, though a door and into a grungy alley. The logo on the door has a dragon much like the woman's tattoo. There's also a poster on the inside of the door that says "Live Rock Every Thursday" and there's a picture of a woman in fishnets who looks like Dinah, aka the Black Canary. She's wailing into a microphone. Oliver's world spins and spins. He drops to the street and lands facedown in a puddle. The woman in red walks up to him, another tattoo on her thigh visible through the slit of her skirt. He looks up to see her smiling, but her face goes out of focus as Oliver loses consciousness. He wakes some time later with a sputtering cough, lying in a dark, confined space. He starts to panic when he realizes he's closed in. He bangs on wooden walls just inches from his face. He feels around and finds a flashlight to his leg. He turns it on and shines the light at his surroundings. The words "GAME ON" are painted in red letters on the wall above him. He looks freaked. Somebody save him!

Kent farm at night. Clark superzips into the house wearing his Emo Blur outfit, despite Chloe warning him just recently about not doing that because Lois might see him. And, just as Chloe warned the Super Doofus, Lois is waiting for him inside. Lucky for Clark, he notices Lois before she has a chance to see him, so he superzips back out and reenters a split second later in just his gray T-shirt and jeans. Lois sees him for the first time and thinks it's about time he got home: "Shelby's great and all, but the conversation is a little one-sided." Sadly, Shelby appears only in name in this episode. Clark snarks that Lois should be out riding a mechanical bull somewhere, since it's Friday night and all. Naw, she doesn't ride the mechanical bulls -- she just berates them into submission. Lois, who has been sorting through many piles of laundry, informs Clark it's movie night. "I hope you like sharks!" she says too cheerfully. Clark tries to get her to pay attention to all her laundry instead of watching movies. She scoffs. "It's called multi-tasking, Clark, you should try it some time!" You know how Lois is going to find out he's a superhero in this version of the story? She's going to snark at him for the millionth time and he's just going to snap. He'll be like, "Multi-task? Multi-task?! Woman, I just saved a bus full of nuns, burned an S into the sidewalk, and got my eyebrows done! Don't talk to me about multi-tasking!" Clark, seeing all the laundry, wonders how Lois even has anything left to wear. Lois flirts: "Most guys wouldn't complain if I suddenly found myself shirtless." Clark rolls his eyes a little and Lois realizes she's missed the mark this time. She blinks rapidly a few times and brushes past him with a basket of clothes. Clark goes over to the couch and impatiently sweeps aside a stack of laundry. A lacy red bra that looks too small to be Lois's gets tangled in his fingers. I bet it belongs to Tess. Clark stares at it with a surprising lack of boobular appreciation. Lois snatches it away from him then pushes him into the couch. "What else could you possibly have to do tonight?" He smiles nervously. When Lois goes to sort through their movie options, Clark's superhearing picks up a woman screaming for help somewhere. Clark pretends he's going to get them some popcorn and then superzips away behind her back. Fool, you're lucky she's got the powers of observation God gave a turnip.

By Tippi Blevins

Out on the streets somewhere, a woman is being brutally attacked in her car by a guy in a surgical mask. An unseen Clark bursts through the back window, grabs the guy, and hurls him out of the car. Then, because this poor woman's car just wasn't ruined enough, Clark slams him into the roof, crushing it like a soda can. The woman gets out, looking around in shock, probably already dreading what this will do to her insurance premiums. Clark whooshes back home with a bowl of popcorn and Lois is none the wiser. He sits beside her and she snatches the popcorn from him. "See? We're already having fun," she beams at him. Clark looks like he's waiting for a colonoscopy. His leg jiggles with nervous energy. Lois looks pointedly at him and he stills his leg with a sheepish smile. They watch the movie in silence.

By Tippi Blevins

Meanwhile, back at Oliver's Tiny Box of Doom, he's still pounding on the walls and shouting for help. You know, for a guy who supposedly wants to die, he sure is putting up a lot of fight. I guess dying in a little obscure box doesn't have the same panache as dying in an exploding nightclub. Oliver beats on the ceiling of his wooden prison until he notices a little latch on one side. He pokes at it, but can't quite get hold of it. He looks at the flashlight still in his hand and gets a flash (ha!) of inspiration. He pries off the little split ring that's on one end of the shaft and fashions it into a pick. With his new little tool, he's able to push in the latch and force open what is now revealed to be the top of a simple wooden coffin. Oliver sits up with a grunt. He's wearing a new white suit. He stares at the coffin, catching his breath, and says, "That's the last time I trust a woman with a dragon tattoo." How about just not taking pills from strangers, idiot? A few moments go by and he hears the muffled sounds of a man shouting and banging on wood. It becomes apparent Oliver's in--what else--some kind of warehouse. He follows the sounds of the unknown man's struggles to a second coffin. He brushes some dust off a nameplate affixed to the door; it bears Lex's name. Oliver recoils a bit, but as the frantic screams and knocking continue, he kneels down to open the coffin. He breaks off the lock and throws open the door, revealing only a pair of speakers. A man's voice laughs. Oliver: "You gotta be kidding me." I thought the same thing. "It's a hell of a game you're playing, Winslow!" Oliver shouts into the empty warehouse. The man's voice informs him that the Toyman is not responsible for this. Oliver wants the game to end. "Just say the safeword, and the game will stop," says the voice. Oliver's like, "I didn't get a safeword!" The voice chastises him for not asking for a safeword and for not caring enough to ask for the rules of the game. I think he's saying you shouldn't have taken the pill without asking more about it, idiot. Also, I've just added "safeword" to my MS Word dictionary. I'm sure my modified dictionary makes me look like the nerdiest perv in the world. And now I've added "nerdiest perv" to the dictionary, because I have a feeling I'll need those words again some day. Oliver demands to know who's behind this. The voice taunts him: "I'll give you a hint. Tell me, Mr. Queen, who did you destroy?" Oliver thinks about it for a while and says he's ruined a lot of lives. The voice decides to keep it simple: "Have you had your rabies shot?" Before Oliver can get lost in confusion, a large black dog breaks through a glass window and charges him. Oliver jumps through the broken window and runs. The dog barks and growls, hot on his heels. Oliver jumps into an old car, slamming the door shut behind him. The dog jumps and snarls at the window but then inexplicably backs off. A second later, Oliver notices the same thing the dog must have: a truck is speeding toward him. Oliver frantically tries to get out, but the door is stuck. He shoves at the door. It doesn't budge. He looks up to see the truck's headlights bearing down on him. The truck smashes into the car with Oliver inside.

By Tippi Blevins

Kent household. There's a bunch of half-eaten junk food laid out on the end table beside Lois. Clark walks in from the kitchen. Apparently, he's been sneaking off to rescue people under the guise of fetching snacks for Lois, but she's starting to get annoyed. "You're up and down more than the Cubs' batting average," she says, which is some kind of alien language I don't understand. Clark sits on the couch beside her and asks what he's missed in the movie. Lois badly imitates the famous suspense music from Jaws. Clark frowns at her. Somehow, this is the final clue Clark needed to figure out that something weird is going on. He points out that she's shown up with all these shark movies and laundry when she'd normally take just a pair of socks to the drycleaner. How very expensive. "Are you OK?" he asks. She says she's fine a couple of times, then admits: "I'm totally not fine." She rambles that it's Oliver's birthday and they always go out for beer pong on their birthdays but it's past midnight now and he's missed it and how does a guy with nine phone numbers not return a phone call? Clark strangely says Oliver's probably celebrating with someone else. Why would he purposely hurt Lois like that? Just tell her he's probably doing work in some distant country with no cell phone reception, jerk! Even Lois is stunned at Clark's response: "Wow. Tall, dark and single. Go figure." See, if she would just pick on him when he deserves it, I would be on her side! Clark frowns a bit. Lois stares hard at him and presses for an explanation: "Do you know something? You would tell me if you did, right?" Clark says Oliver's probably fine, but admits paying him a visit wouldn't hurt.

By Tippi Blevins

Oliver's actually not-so-fine. He's waking up facedown in a mud puddle and his face is full of little cuts. It's bright daylight. Oliver staggers to his feet and sees the decimated car he somehow miraculously escaped from. He finds a payphone and dials without putting in any coins. When the other end picks up, he immediately says, "Chloe, I need your help!" But the operator's voice cuts him off. "We're sorry, but your call cannot be completed as dialed." Oliver's like, "Aw, come on!" Much to Oliver's surprise, the operator answers back in a teasing tone, "You come on, Mr. Queen. You didn't think it would be that easy." She hangs up. Oliver beats up the phone a bit, then catches sight of an ink mark on his wrist. It's the red dragon "Roulette" club symbol. Oliver stares at it with equal parts determination and indigestion.

Oliver returns to the club and finds the lady in red drinking at the bar. "Just the woman I'm looking for," he says. She glances around nervously before adopting a too-friendly stance with him. She crosses the room and plants a kiss right on his lips. He looks confused, but not upset. She pulls back and whispers, "Don't make a scene. The people who set the game in motion are here; if they realize you're here, they'll kill you." He doesn't think he should trust her, but she tells him to trust his instincts: "When the chips are down, they're all you have." He stares into her eyes for a few moments before she suddenly shoves him to one side and starts kicking the crap out of some guy who was about to lay hands on Oliver. She does this cool thing where she spring-loads a kick by pulling back her ankle and then releasing it into the guy's face. Another guy comes up and shoves Oliver. This is yet another fight that's already cooler than Clark vs. Doomsday. Oliver and the lady in red knock out their respective baddies. She holds out her hand to Oliver and asks, "All in?" Oliver considers things for a few moments before leaving with her. Outside, they run down the block before Oliver stupidly stops her and asks her for her name. "It's Victoria! We don't have time for this!" she shouts. They're stopped at a glass bus shelter where there's another one of those Black Canary rocker posters. The words at the bottom read "LOUD AND PROUD," by the way. Instead of getting the hell out of Dodge, Oliver wants to stand there and discuss who's behind the game. Idiot. Victoria claims not to know for sure: "I work for some nasty guys. They don't exactly have an HR department!" Near tears, she explains that if she hadn't gotten him to take the pill, these guys would have killed her. Oliver promises to help her, but he needs to know what they want from him. Couldn't you be having this discussion in a police station? Or anywhere that's not twenty feet outside the club where people just tried to kill your ass? Tears roll down Victoria's cheeks. She still insists she doesn't know: "People hire them. They never tell me the client's identity or end game." Oliver, she says, is the only one who knows who he hurt so badly that they'd want to see him dead. She stares up and him and, oh my God, he goes into a spiel about how his "personal wars have left a serious casualty list" and how he felt like hurting people was easier than waiting around to disappoint them. This speech would make me want to punch him even under normal circumstances, but he is speechifying within steps of this death club! Being self-pitying is one thing, but self-pitying and dumb at the same time is just too much.

By Tippi Blevins

They stare at each other until a gunshot rings out, shattering the glass partition beside them. Victoria gasps: "They found us!" It's not like it was hard to do! She and Oliver run. More shots. They run some more. One of the bullets hits Victoria. She grabs her side and starts to fall. Oliver eases her to the street. He says her name and begs her to look at him. "Let me go," she whispers, with blood at the corner of her mouth. She says death is the only way she can be free. He pleads with her to hold on, but her eyes go glassy. A police car screeches to a stop beside them and two cops bolt out, weapons raised. They order Oliver to his feet. He stands slowly, covered in blood, and shouts that they've got the wrong guy. When he takes a step forward, one of the cops tasers him. Oliver drops to his knees and then faceplants onto the street. I just noticed his feet are bare and dirty, so, like, whoever put him in a new suit didn't see fit to also give him shoes. Ha!

By Tippi Blevins

Meanwhile, at Oliver's LuthorCorp office, Lois is just barging through the doors with Clark in tow. "Pants on, birthday boy! The party train's arrived." Clark seems embarrassed as he points out that people would prefer a knock to her "pants on" greeting. Clark exposits that they've already checked Oliver's jet and apartment. Then he notices an invitation to the Roulette club lying on Oliver's desk. Clark says the party train's already left, but smirky Lois thinks it's doubtful it would have left without her. She sits down at his desk and starts tappity-tapping at Oliver's laptop. Somehow, she knows his username and password and comes across the security footage from the Ace of Clubs meeting last week. The footage shows Oliver standing at the podium while the guests file out of the room. Lois wonders why Oliver would be "reliving the night someone tried to Hindenburg him." Oy, this dialogue. Clark tries to close the laptop, but Lois slaps away his hand. As Lois watches, she realizes Oliver didn't know the bomb was defused before he stepped off the plate. "Oliver tried to kill himself," she whispers. Clark tries again to close the laptop, but not before Lois sees Clark on the video, walking up to Oliver. She realizes this means Clark knew about the suicide attempt. Teary-eyed, she asks Clark how he could keep such a serious thing from her. Because it's not his business to tell you, Nosy. Clark says he was trying to protect him, but Lois angrily asks, "From who? His friends?" Clark says he didn't think Oliver would have wanted anyone to know. "Well, I'm not just anyone," Lois says. She gets on his case for lying to her face. Wouldn't it be nice for once if people on this show got mad at other people for the right reasons? Clark watches with a frown as Lois storms out, then picks up the Roulette invitation. He stares at it hard, willing an idea to form in his brain.

Mystery interrogation room. Oliver is cuffed to a chair as a uniformed cop badgers him for having no I.D., no witnesses, and no alibi. You forgot he also has no shoes. Just tryin' to help. Cop: "Why should I let a murderer walk free?" Oliver insists that the people Victoria works for are the ones who shot her. Before the cop can say anything to that, a man in a suit walks into the room and informs them the case is under FBI jurisdiction now. The cop is grumpy, but leaves. FBI Guy puts a laptop computer and a pair of shoes on the table in front of Oliver. "Thought you could use those," he says, and unlocks Oliver, calling him by name. Oliver seems stunned that the guy knows him. "We also know about the game," FBI guy says. He explains that they've been tracking this group, whose M.O. is to target wealthy people and hack their bank accounts. Oliver, wide-eyed, takes this all in. FBI Guy suggests that Oliver check his bank account and slides the laptop over to him. Oliver immediately logs in with his username and password. Did anyone in the audience at this point not yell at him for being an idiot? The screen shows a balance of over three billion dollars, much to Oliver's relief. FBI Guy calls him "lucky" and all Oliver has to do now is fill out some paperwork. Of course, the instant the guy is out of the room, Oliver notices that his billions of dollars are dwindling away to nothing. He taps at the keyboard, but everything's gone. He shouts out, "They're taking everything!" No one answers. Oliver runs to the door, but it's locked. He pounds on it, shouting for help, but behind him some nozzle thingies descend from the ceiling and start filling the room with smoke. Oliver crumples to his knees, coughing. Suddenly, the door and entire wall are yanked backwards and Oliver falls onto his hands. As he clambers to his feet, someone grabs him by the shoulders. Oliver looks panicked until he realizes it's just Super Doofus. Clark says he found the Roulette invitation. "It's only a few blocks away -- I could hear you yelling," he explains. "What is all this?" Clark asks. Oliver looks around at the obviously fake interrogation room. "It's game over," Oliver says, "and I just got taken."

By Tippi Blevins

Watchtower. Chloe is tapping away at one of her many computers and Clark and a bloodstained Oliver walk in. "Oh my God, are you OK?" she asks. Oliver replies that he's "south of there by a few horror movies." Clark tells Chloe about the game, the club, and the woman named Victoria. She turns back to her computer and gets to work. She wonders what kind of game this is. Oliver: "The kind that starts with burial and ends with bankruptcy." Chloe frowns. Her computer beeps as an FBI file on Victoria Sinclair comes up on screen. Her alias, Chloe reads, is Roulette. (I think the comics version of Roulette would have been a better fit for the show, what with Oliver's already-established proclivity for fight clubs. Or maybe I'm just sad for all the lost potential for partial male nudity.) Roulette is a career criminal, Chloe says. Oliver tells Chloe to get his gear. She tells him to get his own damn gear because she's not his servant. Actually, she tells him that she locked up his arsenal in the hopes that he might want it again someday. "But not like this," she says. He says he'll fight this how he sees fit. Clark tries to stop him, too: "Where'd that line lead you last time?" Oliver promises he's going to use his lawyers to get out of his mess, and tacks on an, "OK, Scout?" for good measure. He brushes past Clark. Clark starts to go after him, but Chloe stops him: "Right now, you've got bigger problems. Trust me." He stares after Oliver for a while as Chloe pulls up the security footage from the Ace of Clubs shindig. Clark tells Chloe about Lois seeing the video of not just Oliver, but of Clark, too. Chloe asks, "So on a scale of one to Chernobyl, how big was the fallout?" Clark: "Let's just say if there was an anti-life equation, I think I've found it." Ooh, a Darkseid reference. Meaningful foreshadowing, or geeky namedropping? Chloe zooms in on a frame of the security footage that shows a woman with a Kryptonian tattoo on her shoulder. Clark recognizes her as the assassin who attacked him and Lois. "I buried her before this footage was taken," he says. "How could she be on it?" Chloe's out of ideas, but Clark thinks maybe Jor-El won't be.

By Tippi Blevins

Out on the streets of Metropolis, Lois is on the phone, badgering some poor fool on the other end in order to get the GPS location of Oliver's car. Luckily, she finds the car (a sweet yellow hottie of the Lamborghini persuasion, I believe) before we have to listen to too much of her tirade. She walks up and peers inside. About this time, a woman's voice behind her tells Lois not to get smudge marks on her car. Lois turns and sees the woman we know as Victoria. Lois tells her to "go Grand Theft someone else's Auto," making me cringe like the forcibly "hip" attempts at dialogue usually do. Lois goes on: "I've sat in this excuse for a front seat enough times to know this car belongs to Oliver Queen." Victoria and her insane black eye shadow say that Oliver gave the car to her as a gift. She tells Lois to back off, but Lois grabs Victoria's shoulder and demands to know where Oliver is. They start trading blows. It's a somewhat realistic fight for this show, where too often even normal everyday people manage to send someone flying with a single kick. They fight and fight until Victoria pulls out a gun and levels it at Lois. Lois, showing a glimmer of common sense, doesn't try to punch the gun or insult it into surrender.

By Tippi Blevins

Roulette club. Oliver walks into the seemingly empty game room, still wearing his muddy, bloody white suit. He's not accompanied by his lawyers--as he'd promised--but by a gun. As he creeps into the room, he notices a woman sitting at the bar. Her back is to him, but her red satin dress and hairstyle seem to identify her as Victoria. Oliver cocks his gun and aims, but hesitates. He stares down the gun's sight, a muscle twitching in his jaw as tears fill his eyes. Maybe he's worried it's a mannequin, like the last time he tried to shoot someone in the back. Embarrassing! He lowers the gun and seems a little surprised at his own reaction. "I guess your luck hasn't run out," he says to the woman. He walks up to her. Slowly, she turns around and reveals herself to be... "Lois," Oliver whispers. She's bound and gagged. Oliver steps toward her, but a gun cocks behind him, stopping him in his tracks. Victoria aims her weapon at him and says, "I'm disappointed, Oliver. You lack the killer instinct after all." She tells him to toss his gun. He complies. Oliver complains that she's not a true gamesman because she stacked the deck in her favor. Victoria, continuing the gaming metaphor, says, "Everything was aces until your girlfriend showed up." She says she's just playing the hand she was dealt. Oliver wonders why Victoria tried to make him kill Lois instead of killing Lois herself. Victoria: "One can tie up loose ends with a simple square knot, or one can choose the more elegant cloverleaf." I wish she'd chosen the monkey fist knot. It's my personal favorite. Victoria, desperate for a segue into the fight scene, tells Oliver she should apologize for taking his money, but: "In your case, it doesn't matter. You can't take it with you." She shoots, but misses. Oliver dives behind a gaming table. She shoots again and the bullets hit the wall. Oliver waits until he hears Victoria's gun clicking empty, then tumbles out from behind the table and grabs his fallen gun, all in one move. He leaps to his feet, gun aimed, but finds Victoria using Lois as a human shield. Lois, speaking around her gag, tells Oliver to shoot. Oliver refuses: "She knows I won't, not if there's a chance I'll hit you." Man, it's too bad he hasn't had tons and tons of training shooting tricky targets with tiny projectiles. Oh, wait...

By Tippi Blevins

Oliver keeps the gun raised, just the same. Suddenly, he frowns and sniffs. Victoria smiles and names what Oliver is obviously smelling: "Gasoline." She holds up a pocket lighter and explains she's going to burn the place down when they're done. A tear rolls down Lois's cheek. Victoria shoves Lois to the floor, saying, "Never bet against the house!" Lois passes out for some damn reason. Victoria runs away through some back room and Oliver races to Lois's side. As he crouches down beside her, an explosion rocks the casino. He looks up to find one wall in ruins, with flames licking at the broken edges. Oliver's focus remains on Lois until he hears Victoria's anguished cries for help. With a long look at Lois, he mutters, "Aw, hell!" He races toward the sound of Victoria's continuing screams and finds her in the decimated kitchen, trapped under a piece of wall. Fires roar all around them. Oliver crawls toward her, promising to get her out of there. Oliver tries to lift the wall, but can't even shift it. Victoria wonders why Oliver is trying to save her when he could have gotten away. "After everything I've put you through, no one would blame you," she says. "I would blame myself," he answers. He says he doesn't care who she is or what she did. He struggles some more with the wall. Victoria's frantic expression cools. With no difficulty at all, she eases herself out from under the wall. Oliver gapes at her. As he looks around, the roaring flames die back with little sucking sounds, revealing that they'd been coming not from a gasoline fire, but from strategically placed gas burners. "What the hell is this?" Oliver asks. The room grows dark. "You kept asking me who did this to you," Victoria says. She goes on to ask, "My question was always the answer: Who did you destroy?" The lights come back up. Oliver turns toward a mechanical sound; a walled mirror is turning into place, stopping to show him his own reflection. Victoria says she hears Oliver is a hero, but that he tried to bury that part of himself. Yes, because he murdered someone in cold blood and then pinned it on someone else. Oliver stares at himself in the mirror. Justin Hartley is a damn good-looking man. I just wish I felt like Oliver had earned this redemption even a little bit. Victoria says he's proven that the hero is still alive and now it's time to resurrect him. Triumphant orchestral music plays. I roll my eyes.

By Tippi Blevins

Metropolis coffee shop, morning. Chloe sips coffee and reads a newspaper at one of the outside tables. Oliver approaches and places a White Queen chess piece on the table in front of her. "Nicely played," he says. Chloe looks up at him, but says nothing. Oliver goes on: "I started asking myself who knows about Lex, about Toyman... the things I'd given up, what I tried to do. It all occurred to me: Dinah shattered the glass in the warehouse, Bart rescued me from the car, Victor faked the computers and Watchtower kept an eye on the whole thing. Right?" Chloe looks at him for a moment before saying he'd been living like he had a death wish. "You had to face your demons if you were going to make it out alive." She says she had to push him over the ledge in order to pull him back. Oliver doesn't seem at all annoyed. He teases that she didn't need to use a three-ton truck to push him. She teases back that a tricycle wouldn't have made the point. Oliver brings up that the game put Lois in danger. Chloe says that was an accident: "Victoria went off-script." Oliver worries that he could have killed Lois. Chloe says she made sure his gun was loaded with blanks. Guess it's a good thing he used one of his own guns and not one he got off some street thug. Monkey fist! Chloe: "I trust you, Oliver. Just... not that much." She sips her coffee. He looks at her like she's a hot, sizzling slice of deep dish pizza and he's been off carbs for a year. Hmm. After a while, he asks if Clark knew about any of this. I'm pretty sure Clark barely knows his own phone number. Chloe says Clark never would have risked what needed to be done. Oliver says Clark's led a different life than they have. He looks at Chloe and says, "I can't expect him to know me like you do." He thanks her. She smiles gently at him and says he was still a hero. He reaches across the table and takes her hand. He gazes intensely at her. "You saved my life, Chloe. Both the myth and the man." Soaring heroic music plays.

Later that day, Oliver is in his LuthorCorp office when Lois barges in carrying a shopping bag. She looks pissed. Oliver says he's seen that look before: "Usually right before you sock me in the jaw." These two are such awesome friends. Lois says it's tempting, but then he wouldn't able to answer her questions. "Like, who the hell was that dragon lady?" Oliver dismisses her as a "psycho ex-girlfriend who'd seen Fatal Attraction too many times." Lois wonders if that makes her the bunny. Oliver chuckles. Lois seems to buy the explanation, because she tells him he needs to try dating saner chicks. They flirt a bit about how Lois looked in the red satin dress. He apologizes for getting her into his mess. Lois, growing serious, wonders if the mess was so bad that it was easier for him to throw it away rather than clean it up. He feigns confusion, but she tells him she saw the video. "Why didn't you come talk to me?" He shakes his head. "Pride?" he offers. Also: "Fear. Regret..." He says he'd been fighting the war so long, he just wanted it to be over. Lois has tears in her eyes as she wonders aloud whether he felt like nothing was worth fighting for. He shakes his head, but admits he never felt that way when they were together. Well, that's because that was before you were an awful, awful murderer, silly! Lois glances away and Oliver stumbles over himself to get past the awkward moment. "I--I mean I just lost sight of what was good in my life." He says he knows things between them have changed, but Lois says some things haven't. "Ollie, I will always be here for you. And if you forget that again, I will knock you out." He breathes out with a laugh and she smiles back at him. She gets around to their belated birthday celebration and reaches into her back for a couple of beers. She gives him one, which... seems like kind of a bad thing to give to someone who's been coming across like an addict lately. Whatever. They smile some more at each other.

By Tippi Blevins

Watchtower, night. Chloe walks in to find Clark at one of her computers, studying a close-up of the assassin from the Ace of Clubs video. Chloe asks if Jor-El knew anything about her. Clark confirms that Jor-El recognized her: "Turns out the symbol tattooed on her shoulder is a family crest." Her name is Alia, he says, and she's Kandorian. Chloe is confused because she thought Kandor exploded with the rest of Krypton. Clark thought so, too. Jor-El thinks if there are others, they will have left symbols to "mark their arrival." Chloe immediately gets to work digging through satellite images. While the computer plugs away, Chloe cheerfully informs Clark that Oliver is back. Clark wonders what happened. Chloe lies that the scam artist must have "really done a number on him." She smiles and adds, "Or maybe he just needed to get some perspective." Clark narrows his eyes. Chloe starts to look a little nervous, but the computer has pulled up the search results, grabbing their attention. A cool 3-D image of the Earth forms in mid-air, showing the Kryptonian symbols all over the planet. "Alia definitely didn't come alone," Chloe murmurs. Clark looks scared.

By Tippi Blevins

High atop a building overlooking the nighttime Metropolis skyline, Oliver poses in his Green Arrow outfit, one foot braced against the head of a stone gargoyle. Clark appears behind him. "I heard you were back," he says. Oliver turns around and doffs his hood and sunglasses. He gives Clark's Emo Blur outfit a once-over and snarks, "You do know you look absolutely ridiculous in that, right? I have this great tailor. He can hook you up with a little color." Clark smiles at him. "Nice to see you found something worth living for," he says. Superhero costume design? Oliver smiles back and says it's more like a rediscovery. He says he's here to help Clark save the world now. "Something tells me soon the world's going to need all the help it can get," Clark says. They stand side by side, looking down at the city below as a swell of heroic music takes us to the end credits.

So! What are the lessons we can take from all this? That it's not exactly OK to murder people, but if you're going to do it, at least frame a criminal for the act? If you're a villain, the hero will save you as long as you're a hot babe and not a bald guy with half his skin melted off? Guilt can be absolved by a crazy, complex plan that even Rube Goldberg would find over-the-top, because it makes you feel better about yourself even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the root of your guilt? Posing dramatically on rooftops makes you a hero? Black eye shadow should only be applied sparingly except on Halloween? What the hell, I'm going with that last one. Keep the makeup classy, everyone.

Tippi Blevins does not pose on rooftops, dramatically or otherwise. You can send her comments and tasteful amounts of cosmetics at b_tippi@yahoo.com.