At the cold, dead heart of this episode is a ridiculous plan hatched by Toyman to take over the city's water supply. He does this by buying up several properties along key routes in Metropolis so that he'll own the water rights. (Or something. I watched this episode not forty minutes ago and my brain is already trying to destroy my memory of it, like a body rejecting an incompatible organ.) Lois catches onto this plan when her wedding caterer falls victim to Toyman's machinations. Clark asks her to take a break long enough to visit the Fortress of Solitude to declare their marital intentions to Jor-El. He responds by taking away Clark's powers and giving them to Lois. This is some kind of trial or lesson but the message gets muddled by the end, so it's sort of pointless. Anyway, Lois and Clark get back to investigating the fishy real estate deals and find out Stargirl has been attacking the property owners. Weird, right? Well, it turns out Toyman somehow got a mind-control "diode" on her and made her do his bidding. He's been calling the shots from his jail cell, where Lois goes to confront him. Toyman first invokes the name of Lana Lang, great martyr who sacrificed everything for Clark. Then threatens to kill the Blur unless Lois accepts one of the mind-control diodes. Displaying a level of stupidity that not even Lois Lane should be capable of, she agrees to the deal... and is promptly commanded to kill the Blur. Clark gets his powers back just in time to stop her, but Lois realizes he's her greatest weakness and vice versa, so she calls off the whole wedding.
Meanwhile, Oliver's been spelunking somewhere on the Celtic coast, looking for that Bow of Orion to cure himself of Darkseid's mark. While there, he runs into Kara. She's been trapped down in the caves for weeks, having come looking for the bow to give to Clark. Oliver rescues her and then they solve some Apokoliptian puzzles together and find the bow. Just before they can grab it, Jor-El calls Kara away, saying the bow is for Clark to find. Well, good luck with that, because just as Oliver gets it, Granny Goodness shows up and destroys it. Jor-El also tells Kara she can either stay and help Clark fight the darkness, or go off to meet her own destiny in the future. She chooses the latter for no real reason, without even saying goodbye. In the end, Clark deactivates Jor-El (I think) and Granny tasks Oliver with digging up some gold kryptonite. There are also a lot of cameos from past villains, but we get to that in the full recap. Bring your hip waders.
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Previously on Smallville: A gaseous Darkseid came to Earth; Jor-El told Kara to go take care of that whole "darkness" mess, because Clark wasn't ready yet; Clark and the gang figured out that people whose skulls were marked with an Omega had been "fully taken over" by the darkness; Carter told Oliver that the forces of goodness always defeated the darkness when it came, so screw suspense; Oliver got himself Omegafied after beating up DeSaad; Oliver "hypothetically" asked what would happen if one of the team were to get marked, and Clark seemed pretty pessimistic; Tess and Oliver pulled some info about the "Bow of Orion" out of their collective asses as a possible way to defeat Darkseid; several characters foreshadowed the appearance of gold kryptonite, which would take away Clark's powers for good; a matronly older lady named Granny Goodness was working for Darkseid and erasing people's memories.
Currently on Smallville: A very old, possibly manual typewriter sits cheerfully in Lois's office, glad that it has neither eyes nor ears with which to witness this episode's awfulness. Clark strides through the office door, wearing his glasses but not looking especially meek. He apologizes to Lois for being late because he was getting an offer on the farm. A cow probably propositioned him. He gets a look at the place for the first time. He takes off his glasses and looks around at the stunning disarray that greets him. Piles of books and papers everywhere. It's like journalistic Hoarders. Lois pops up from under her desk, wearing a dark red jacket and matching skirt. "Look, I know you've overwhelmed lately," he says. "Challenged," she corrects him. He humors her. She's been busy with the wedding planning and the new promotion, but she insists she has everything under control. Except for one thing: Their caterer has suddenly gone out of business, leaving them bereft of crab cakes. Lois smells a conspiracy. With a dab of tartar sauce. When Clark is less than enthusiastic, Lois tells him to "go jump in the river," by which she means the sheets of blue paper she's laid out on the floor to represent said water body. All those stacks of books are part of a larger map she's made, with the books standing in for buildings. It seems like an actual map would be more helpful for whatever the hell she's doing. Maybe the props department didn't have money for a mock Metropolis. Lois goes on to say that their caterer was bought out by a company called Marionette Ventures, along with several other local businesses. Clark blames it on the economy, but Lois thinks it's suspicious that all the former owners have skipped town. She vows to solve the mystery before their wedding. Speaking of which, Clark asks her to help her with some wedding stuff of his own. "What could we possibly have left to do?" she asks. Well, you apparently need a new caterer or at least go pick up a couple of those ten-foot sandwiches. Clark explains: "I told your father about the wedding, but I didn't tell mine." That's because he's dead. All your various fathers are dead!
They zip off to the Fortress of Solitude. Clark explains that Kara told him that "the head of the house has to approve all life unions." Lois teases him about just how "romantic" that sounds. "Kal-El, my son," intones the voice of Jor-El. "You have returned." Thanks, Mr. Obvious. Clark takes a few steps away from Lois. "Jor-El, I come here today as a Kryptonian, as a member of your house and your son. In honor of our home, I'm here to declare my desire to start a life bond with this woman, Lois Lane." Jor-El asks Lois if this is all kosher with her. When she answers in the affirmative, Jor-El starts things rumbling in the Fortress. He says, "You must both understand." Lights flash. The whole place shakes. A big pillar of ice breaks free and lands on Lois. It turns out ice is shitty building material for fortresses. Clark jogs over and tries unsuccessfully to raise the pillar. He begs Jor-El to return his powers but Jor-El is characteristically inscrutable. Clark grunts and shoves and grunts some more. Suddenly, the pillar shifts. Clark jumps back. Lois raises the pillar high overhead. "Lois, are you OK?" Clark asks. "I'm more than OK," she says. "I'm super!" Somebody save Clark from the hernia he probably just gave himself!
Instead of seeing Lois give Clark a speedy piggyback ride back to Metropolis, we move to Oliver's "Celtic coast" destination. Oliver rappels down through a cave and touches down in something that looks like an underground temple. Massive stone columns bear alien runes. "I'm starting to regret not packing my intergalactic dictionary about now," Oliver says. He makes quips even when he doesn't think anyone can hear him. But it turns out someone can hear him this time. A voice behind him says that the symbols are "Apokoliptian." Oliver whips out his bow, ready to shoot until he realizes it's Kara. She's striking a pose in a circle of light. He moves toward her but she stops him. "It'll kill you," she says, indicating the light surrounding her. To demonstrate, she tosses a small rock that disintegrates when it hits the light. She thinks Oliver has been sent by Watchtower to rescue her, but it turns out nobody even noticed she was missing for most of the season. They realize they're both there to find the Bow of Orion. Kara's kind of down on Oliver for searching for it without Clark, but he points out she's doing the same thing. She says she's doing it to protect Clark. "Who are you here to save?" she asks. Instead of answering, he gets busy trying to free her. Kara deciphers the runes for him, telling him it's a prophecy about Darkseid. She touched Orion's symbol on one of the columns and ended up trapped. The symbols say that "a balance must exist between light and darkness, and to wield the bow's power and save the world, hands must first right the scales' two sides." Oliver mulls this over and figures that since Kara touched the Orion symbol, he now has to touch the Omega symbol on an opposite column. "Or we could be stuck down here for centuries," he says. No, Kara will be stuck there for centuries. You'll die in a week or so. Kara decides that since Clark trusts Oliver, she does, as well. Oliver lays hands on the Omega and the light surrounding Kara blinks off. They head off to find the bow.
Metropolis. Lois zips in and out of her office in a sort of indiscreet way while Clark watches with disapproving eyes. She speedily types something at her computer. "Lois, I don't think Jor-El did what he did so you could get ahead at the office." Lois, however, tries to see the positive, even after her typing breaks the keyboard in half. "Maybe Jor-El wanted me to know what it felt like to be you," she says. Well, he didn't give you super-whining powers, so that's probably not his plan. Clark thinks Jor-El is trying to make a point about their relationship. Lois isn't worried. She's so supremely confident in the two of them that it basically telegraphs the ending of the episode. Clark mopes some more. Lois reminds him that Jor-El said he'd get his powers back at sunset. Clark is pouty. Lois is upbeat. Recapper is tired. For some reason, Lois gets a sudden flash of inspiration about the businesses Marionette Ventures has been buying out. She has another look at her makeshift map. She and Clark realize that all the businesses are along the city's underground reservoir. "Along with all the building purchases come the water rights," she says. That's just... so, so lame. There's one last unsold building that, if sold, would give Marionette total control over the city's water supply. She zips off to check it out, then zips back a few moments later when she realizes she's forgotten Clark. People are milling around outside her office, noticing neither all this super-zipping nor Clark's lack of glasses. Everyone is so dumb.
Outdoor cafe. Clark sits watching the unsold building across the street. He's alone and pouting over his meal, when Lois zips up and takes a seat to him. "Nothing suspicious to report from this end," Clark says. He notices a bullet hole in her jacket. "I thought you said you were going to get parmesan!" he protests, with a glance back at the pizza stand behind them. Lois produces a wedge of cheese she picked up in Wisconsin while helping out in a hostage situation she heard about over the cafe's TV. She also helped out in a flood and broke several pairs of heels along the way. Clark notices that the shop they've been watching is closing even though it's the middle of the day. He helps Lois use her new super ears to pick up what's going on inside. At first she has a hard time focusing and keeps picking up sounds of people in distress all around the city. There's a "kitchen fire" in town that Lois wants to help out with, but Clark tells her to let the nearby fire department to handle it. Yes, eavesdropping on these real estate deals is much more important than a silly fire. Lois is stunned that Clark has to deal with this all the time. He explains he's learned how to prioritize, like a triage. Lois gets back to focusing on the shop and hears a heated argument. She whooshes away in plain view of everyone on the street.
Inside the shop, the owner is being choked by a petite person wearing a black ski mask. Lois zips in and tosses the attacker through a wall. The shop owner gapes. "I work out," Lois explains. Dumb. SO VERY DUMB. Clark shows up to unmask the unconscious attacker. It's Courtney, a.k.a. Stargirl, and she has a small blinking star embedded in the side of her neck.
Caves. Kara and Oliver continue to explore the underground temple while laying down a thick spread of exposition. In short, Orion was Darkseid's son and he rejected both darkness and his father. Oliver confesses that he wants the bow because he's trying to "change his fate." Besides, he's an archer, Orion was an archer... there's precedent! They walk around and talk and talk and then they finally find themselves deep in the heart of the temple. On the floor are symbols for both Orion and Darkseid. They somehow figure out that they have to stand on the symbols and simultaneously shoot at matching symbols halfway across the room even though there are columns blocking the way. Oliver hands Kara a complicated-looking bow. "It's easier than it looks; just point and shoot, really." He takes out another bow. They aim. They wait. They wait some more. "Now!" Oliver tells her. They loose their arrows at the same time. The arrows cross each other in midair, ricochet off the symbols and then hit a target symbol in the opposite wall. The wall cracks open, revealing a secret alcove. Light spills out. Angels sing. As Kara steps toward the light, she hears a high-pitched buzzing and grabs her head in pain. Oliver's worried. "Are you OK? Is it another trap?" "It's Jor-El," she says. "I have to leave." She tells Oliver to get the bow to Clark, then whooshes away.
Fortress. Kara comes looking for answers. "The bow is Kal-El's destiny, not yours," Jor-El explains. Kara's a little ticked because Jor-El's the one who tasked her with protecting her big, dumb cousin and here he is stopping her from doing just that. Jor-El speaks vaguely about his son's destiny, then tells Kara she has a choice to make. "You can leave Earth now and allow Kal-El to embrace his destiny, or you can stay and help him, risking the future of this planet." So... helping is bad? I know they need a reason to have Clark stand on his own for the final fight, but this is just painfully contrived and dumb. There's more talk about destiny, namely that Kara's is in some other time. Jor-El foresees a time when his son will turn away from him but trusts he'll make the right decision. I think Jor-El just makes this shit up as he goes along. It just sounds important because he sounds British. Kara wants to at least warn Clark before she leaves, but Jor-El pulls this nugget out of his nonexistent ass: "Sometimes the greatest sacrifice a person can make is to give up what they hold most dear." Say what? How does that preclude her warning Clark? Or even just saying goodbye? If Jor-El weren't already long dead, I'd wish him so.
Watchtower. Tess examines the blinking star and tells the gang that it's a "diode" that does these crap technobabble things to control whoever is wearing it. Courtney is slightly disturbed that she was being controlled, but nobody seems especially disturbed that she may have disappeared all those shop owners. "What I want to know is who's behind Marionette Ventures?" Tess asks. That perks up Courtney. "John Jones and I looked into that company," she says. "We know who the shareholders are: Dark Archer, Roulette, Metallo and some dude named Manta!" And y'all didn't think that was some info that the rest of the team needed to know? Also, wasn't Metallo in Tess's care the last time we saw him? Everyone frets about what will happen if these nefarious real estate moguls get their claws into the city's water supply. They're all concerned that the evildoers will charge everyone exorbitant sums for the water. They hatched the plot while playing Monopoly one night. thing you know, they'll snatch up Baltic Avenue, too! The computer politely informs them that it's finished scanning the star doohickey. The initials "W.S." appear on the screen like a microscopic signature. Tess utters Winslow Schott's name with a note of disgust. Wasn't Toyman also in Tess's care the last time we saw him? Did she just lose track of all that stuff when she turned good? Without talking it over with the others, Lois zips away to talk to Toyman herself.
Jail. It's a special kind of jail that consists of a cage in the middle of a dark room. No sink, no toilet, just a pallet for a bed. Toyman's just sort of staring into space when Lois walks up to the cage. They exchange various punny greetings that aren't funny. Toyman says, without any sincerity, that he's mended his ways. Lois, naturally, doesn't believe him. She knows he's been collecting "an evil posse of pen pals." Lois notices a lump in his shirt pocket. With a flick of her speedy hand, she plucks out a cell phone and says, "Sorry, your calling plan has been revoked." Ugh. Toyman's the one in jail and yet I feel like I'm the one being punished by this dialog. "The Blur and his team are well aware of the 'little present' you planted on one of their own," she says, making the rookie mistake of revealing too damn much to the baddie. Toyman latches onto this bit of info, notices the engagement ring on Lois's finger and then uses them to get under Lois's skin. He tells her about the Blur's first love. "She was willing to sacrifice everything for her bulletproof beau," he says. "How heartbreaking, the tragic tale of one Lana Lang... and Clark Kent." Lois first looks queasy, then laughs. She tries to make like the Blur and Clark have nothing to do with each other, but Toyman's not buying it. He tells her his team is out to kill the Blur right now. Instead of whooshing away to check on him, Lois stands there looking stricken. Toyman makes a deal with her: if she wears one of his star doohickeys and gives him back his phone, he'll call off his team. Lois stands there thinking about it for a long, long, long time. "How do I know I can trust you?" she asks. You can't, you idiot! You idiotic idiot! "What kind of gamesman wouldn't follow his own rules?" he asks. She thinks about it some more. Meanwhile, Dark Archer kills Clark fifteen times. Finally, Lois takes the star doohickey and affixes it to the side of her neck. Naturally, Toyman orders her to kill the Blur. She whooshes away with an evil smile.
Caves. Oliver finds the Bow of Orion hanging in the middle of a room. Angelic music plays. The bow glows. The runes etched along its length suddenly turn into English. "The only true power comes from within," Oliver reads aloud. You went all that way and solved all those puzzles for a fortune cookie. Congrats. As he reaches out to grab the bow, it suddenly flies across the room. Granny Goodness appears out of the shadows to catch it. "How deliciously selfish of you to want the bow just so you can remove the stain we put on your soul," she says. The bow dissolves into embers in her hand as Oliver lets out a shout of protest. She thanks Oliver. "You see, those traps were designed to keep the prophets out," she says, gesturing to herself. And yet, the puzzles required people of both the light and the dark. Huh. Granny exposits that the bow was the one thing Darkseid couldn't defeat. Oliver charges toward her, all het up to to do a little defeating of his own, but she knocks him to the floor with a wave of her hand. "From the moment you were marked, you've been serving him," she says. Entirely off-screen, apparently, because he's seemed mostly like his normal self this whole time. Granny coos about Oliver's potential, says he won't remember anything and then makes his Omega glow.
Marionette Ventures. The evil real estate moguls gather around a table. Some of them we've seen before, like Vordigan and Roulette, although their faces are hidden in shadows so they wouldn't have to hire back the same actors. Toyman video conferences in as the baddies look over their mission folders. Each of them has been assigned to a specific hero. Toyman waxes ridiculous about their evil water supply plan. It's so over-the-top, so awful, that calling it cartoony would be an insult to cartoons. Toyman tells them that their "newest associate" is on her way to kill the Blur. "We... are going... to have... so... much... fun!" Toyman adds a maniacal cackle just in case you weren't completely convinced of his buffoonish evil. [I dunno, it seems like killing Clark would be the most fun, for all of us, and Evil Lois gets to do that. - Zach]
Watchtower. Tess and Clark are making plans to head to the jail when Lois whooshes into the room. Clark takes one look at her, sees the blinking light on her new star doohickey and says, "Toyman put a diode on her neck!" No, your nitwit fiancée did that to herself. Clark asks Tess how long till sunset, but before she can answer Lois throws Clark through a giant monitor. "You need to stall her," Tess tells him. "The sun's almost down!" Lois advances on Clark, grabs him by the throat. He tells her to fight Toyman's control. "Hold on Clark, just a little bit longer," Tess says from the sidelines. Super helpful there, Tess. Lois struggles a bit. She's taking an awfully long time to choke him. "I love you," Clark gasps. That reaches Lois for just a moment and she lets him go. Her doohickey zaps her. She advances on Clark again... very, very slowly. "Clark, not yet," Tess says. "You don't have your powers back." Yeah, you'd think he'd notice that on his own, but thanks for stating the super obvious. Lois makes like she's going to punch Clark just as the sun finally sets. He stops her fist. She struggles against him. He plucks the doohickey from her neck and she collapses in his arms.
Jail. Toyman's on the phone, telling someone that the Blur won't be a problem anymore. Who's on the other end? Who knows? Toyman hears a whoosh behind him and asks, "Back so soon, my pretty little plaything?" "I'm flattered, Winslow," Clark says. Toyman gasps. Clark grabs his phone and crushes it. You don't think there might have been some useful information on there, super dope? Toyman is momentarily distraught. He thinks for a bit. "What's to say I don't tell the whole world who you really are?" he asks. "Something tells me if you really wanted to, you already would have," Clark says. Well, I'm 100% reassured! How about you? Clark gives him a little speech about stopping his games or whatever and there's heroic music like this isn't ten pounds of moron in a five-pound bag. Clark zips away while Toyman sulks into empty space.
Fortress. Clark walks in. Jor-El greets him: "I trust you found my gift to the both of you illuminating." Clark thinks Jor-El's gifts suck. He thinks it was another trial, not about showing Lois what it was like to have powers or showing him what it was like to be human. Jor-El plays innocent. "This whole time it's been up to me to decide when to take control of my destiny," Clark says. That's the message you got from all this? Because I got your passive-aggressive asshole father trying to show you and Lois that y'all are super dumb and super unprepared for a life together. Clark says he's not just the son of Jor-El or the son of Jonathan Kent, leaving out Martha and Lara completely. Clark plucks a crystal out of the console. The Fortress goes dark. "Goodbye, Jor-El," Clark says. Thanks for all your work, Terence Stamp. You were better than the show deserved. As Clark whooshes away, the camera lingers on the ice closet where the Superman outfit is still hanging.
Digging. Oliver's shoveling away in some dark plot of land. He unearths a chunk of gold kryptonite. Ominous music tries hard to imbue some suspense, but nobody really believes Clark is going to permanently lose his powers, do they?
Watchtower. Lois is wearing a gorgeous purple dress that looks like it came from Tess's collection. She's also wearing a worried expression as she fiddles with her engagement ring. Clark comes up behind her and drapes a stole around her shoulders. Is there any reason why they're getting duded up at Watchtower and not at their apartment? Probably not. Lois reflects on what it was like having Clark's powers. She didn't really realize until now that it's never really over, this being a hero thing. Clark admits this is true, but: "I guess I tell myself there's always a balance of good and evil in the world; it's up to me to tip the scale." He's talking like he had some insight into Oliver's subplot this week, but he doesn't. Lois is tearfully proud of her man. She hugs him. Kara is levitating outside the window, unseen. She has tears in her eyes, too. "Good luck, Clark," she whispers, and slides the Legion ring onto her finger. She zaps herself into the future in a burst of pink light, choosing not to say goodbye for no real reason. Inside, Clark and Lois are still hugging. "I was so weak, Clark," Lois whispers. You were dumb, too. Don't forget dumb. "The very moment Toyman threatened you, I put on that diode and I let him control me." Over Lois's shoulder, Clark's face starts to get a little concerned with where this conversation is going. Lois goes on to say that he's her greatest weakness and that she's his, too. He tries to reassure her that she's his strength, that his new Jor-El-free destiny is to marry her. She smiles, but she's still crying. He heads for the door, I guess to their rehearsal dinner, but Lois sobs and apologizes. "After today, I realized us being together makes you vulnerable, and I can't just sit and watch a movie and eat ice cream when at that very moment you could be saving five people." She can't steal that time from other people who need saving, she says. She's full on crying. "I'm sorry, Clark, I can't marry you." She leans into his arms for another hug while Clark sort of... looks around. Too bad she didn't realize this before you sold the only home you've ever known, huh?
So, that's it. The last episode before the end of the series. Will the finale be any better? Probably not, but at least there will be some Lex.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then give this episode an honorable mention among the worst episodes of the last ten seasons. And see what our vlogger thinks about the show, below!
What are people saying about your favorite shows and stars right now? Find out with Join the conversation now!