Smallville10x21&22 "Finale" Discuss/Grade

[Admiral_Young]

I'll agree with Gaith (gasp!!!) the writing the first three seasons (give or take a few episodes) was much stronger than it has been under Brian and Kelly the last three seasons. There is a reason I only watched five episodes of this season, and why I borderline nearly abandoned this show after the last three seasons.

[AntonyF]

I've continued to ponder this, and think it was a good ending for the Superman franchise.

But, ultimately, is a bit of a betrayal of Smallville.

(is this how people felt at the end of Ent?!)

Basically because it undermined its own story that it'd built up, in an effort to fit with the franchise - which it hadn't done before. It had honourned the franchise, but did its own thing.

I still enjoyed it though. Smallville has ranged from very good to very bad. Overall, it events out. It's a good show, with a good ending.

I watched Superman the movie today... the music must have put me in the mood!

Plus I thought more about Dean Cain in that suit paying me a visit in the night... but that's my private thoughts that turn up often.

And at the end of the day, I'll always be a Lois and Clark fan foremost.

[Trekker4747]

Lex getting a memory-wipe kiss/whatever from Tess was just bullshit and didn't need to happen. It undoes everything Lex has done and gone through over the course of the series. The Lex/Clark dynamic I always thought was one of strongest elements and a big reason why the show's quality dropped when Rosey left the series.

Erasing all of that not only doesn't make sense on the front of how Lex is able to go on to do all of his evil things but it just makes so much pointless. It would have made far more sense for Lex to look at Clark and say, "You've been lying to me since day one; when you saved me on that bridge I thought for the first time in my life I had met someone who could have been a real friend. I would've done everything I could to protect you from your enemies, from my father, and from the world itself, Clark. But you chose to remain in the shadows and hide yourself from me, and because of that there's nothing I can trust about you. Your friends, your family, they're all safe from me, Clark. But whenever you put on that suit you represent everything between us and I will make it my life's goal to bring you down to my level and give-in to weakness and the darkness that is inside all of us."

But, nope, a memory-wipe made more sense.

[Brent]

At first, in this thread, i stated that the memory wipe was cool. But upon further thought, I agree that it was a bad move. They had built Lex up to be Superman's opposite, and he had all the right stuff to be Superman's nemesis in Smallville. I love the scene where clark said he'd be there to stop him every time. It looked like Lex was going to do everything he could to destroy Superman, without revealing who he really was. Then to just wipe that all way, was pointless and lame.

[Mach5]

What's the deal with all the drama about Lex's memory wipe? That's not the same Lex Luthor from the previous seasons anyway. It's just a clone/Frankenstein monster, goddammit.

[JD]

I hadn't thought about it too much, but now I do have to agree that the Lex memory wipe was a bad move. I always thought Lex's arc was him becoming Clark's nemesis, but just when we get to the point where all this is about to come to fruition they go and wipe it from Lex's mind. It baisically undid his entire arc, and made his entire arc kinda pointless from the perspective of setting his character up. If they didn't want him to remember Clark and his powers, then they should have just erased Clark, not all of his memories.

[Starbrow]

The finnaly was okey, i guess. It would seem like they just wanted to wrap up things asap.
I enjoyed alote watching Tom Welling as Clark Kent and Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor. Chloe, Marta and Jonathan kent were the next favorite characters on this show. I hope to see them again in something exciting in the future.




P.S. I'd like to note: 35 first pages of spam? Wouw i never seen anything like this befor.

P.P.S. What happend with Lana story? Did she died earlier or something? It felt like she was abit forgotten at the end.

[Mach5]

Starbrow wrote:

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P.P.S. What happend with Lana story? Did she died earlier or something?

Purple kryptonite gave her AIDS.

[Admiral_Young]

^ Is that comment necessary? Lana was written out of the show two seasons ago when Kristen Kruek left.

[DarthPipes]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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Lex getting a memory-wipe kiss/whatever from Tess was just bullshit and didn't need to happen. It undoes everything Lex has done and gone through over the course of the series. The Lex/Clark dynamic I always thought was one of strongest elements and a big reason why the show's quality dropped when Rosey left the series.

Erasing all of that not only doesn't make sense on the front of how Lex is able to go on to do all of his evil things but it just makes so much pointless. It would have made far more sense for Lex to look at Clark and say, "You've been lying to me since day one; when you saved me on that bridge I thought for the first time in my life I had met someone who could have been a real friend. I would've done everything I could to protect you from your enemies, from my father, and from the world itself, Clark. But you chose to remain in the shadows and hide yourself from me, and because of that there's nothing I can trust about you. Your friends, your family, they're all safe from me, Clark. But whenever you put on that suit you represent everything between us and I will make it my life's goal to bring you down to my level and give-in to weakness and the darkness that is inside all of us."

But, nope, a memory-wipe made more sense.

I like your version a hell of a lot better.

[Admiral_Young]

An even better resolution would be that the clone didn't retain the memories of Clark's secret due to traumatic brain damage experienced when the Fortress collapsed. Lex would still remember everything else except have that gap. He would still kill Tess. People are ignoring the sub-text of the mind wipe scene had to do with Tess's last act of redemption. Yes I might be delusional that it was the important part of the scene but we shouldn't be ignoring it. Tess was protecting Clark.

[Temis the Vorta]

The first 3/4th of the episode reminded me why I never could stay watching this show: angst angst talk talk, more angst, more talk. GAH! Drama is okay but not the after-school-special way these scenes are written, "Oh Clark, I wanted to marry you but I fear this is just a metaphor for my inability to deal with my childhood issues." There's no feeling of life to these characters, that they are individual, actual human beings, other than what the actors bring to the role. It's comic-book writing in the bad sense that term.

However, the ending was cool and worth hanging around for (or, rather, zapping to the end - not just zapping the boring angst but also the ads, which seemed to take up at least half the two hours - a bit excessive there, CW.) The John Williams theme was a nice surprise. I didn't expect that they'd bother to get the rights to it.

Erica Durance was very good. I hope she gets a role in something else. Unlike Tom Welling, she has enough screen presence to cut through the hokey material.

I agree the Lex mindwipe was BS. I'm not even sure why they felt the need to do it. I guess for the sake of continuity with the movies? Why is that important? They aren't planning another series taking up where this one leaves off, are they?

And what ages are the characters supposed to be at the end? Are they still in high school? They all look like they're 30 years old. They probably are...

[JoeZhang]

Mach5 wrote:

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Purple kryptonite gave her AIDS.

I thought it gave you space VD?

[CaptainJack]

Yes, The lex mind whip thing was bad. So why does he end up having it out for Superman after he knows nothing about him?

[Samurai8472]

CaptainJack wrote:

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So why does he end up having it out for Superman after he knows nothing about him?

He mind defaults it self to the basic reason.

"This man/alien has more power than me. I want!"

New Lex just saw a red and blue being push a planet away. That should be enough to intrigue him