Smallville: 8x22 "Doomsday" - Discussion and Spoilers

[Servo]

Not saying that I disagree with your assessment of Chloe, Hermiod, but I think the potential dramatic impact of her death far outweighs it.
I love the character of Chloe just as much as the next person, but I wouldn't be prepared to sacrifice drama and show progression just to keep her around. That's how shows become stale.

I would argue that shows become stale by being renewed for ninth and tenth seasons.

I was still enjoying SG-1 10 seasons in.

Shows only get stale when they're allowed to, or when writers get frightened of making tough decisions. A show can run for 20 seasons, and still be fresh if it's written well enough. [cue half the board saying that Smallville don't have writers capable of that].

Chloe is probably the only character on the show they have true freedom with since she isn't bound by any previous place in Superman mythology. Even Tess has her ties to other characters, even if they supposedly aren't the same person.

I think that very freedom is the thing that allows her to be killed off for the sake of good drama, should it be necessary.
In an ideal world, no character should be safe, but that goes doubly for one that has no actual place in Superman mythology.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

Not saying that I disagree with your assessment of Chloe, Hermiod, but I think the potential dramatic impact of her death far outweighs it.

So the first thing you do is to give Chloe and Davis even lamer deaths than the actual show gave Jimmy and Davis? So what, Davis is seperated from Doomsday and is just killed off straight away? Then what's the dramatic point of splitting them?!? And it also renders Chloe's final act (well, in your version) entirely pointless before she's unceremoniously offed. At least Jimmy gets a proper heroic sendoff, despite the shoddyness of the execution.

I had the opportunity to send Davis to the Phantom Zone, and I didn’t. I let my emotions cloud my judgement. I let my feelings for Chloe influence my decision, and now… now she’s dead.”

Oh, I thought he stopped himself from sending Davis to the Fortress because he didn't want to just sacrifice Davis's life by letting Doomsday consume him. A decision that was by no means the smartest he could have made, but was pretty damn noble and Superman-like. Although I've no idea why we'd be looking for those qualities from the main character of this show.

And of course you put more thought into the various fight scenes than anything to do with the actual characters.

(bearing in mind that I'm not actually a writer)

You're right there.

In an ideal world, no character should be safe, but that goes doubly for anyone that has an actual place in Superman mythology.

Fixed.

 

[Hermiod]

Shows only get stale when they're allowed to, or when writers get frightened of making tough decisions. A show can run for 20 seasons, and still be fresh if it's written well enough. [cue half the board saying that Smallville don't have writers capable of that].

Well, they don't. Instead of rounded, interesting new characters we get Tess who is a combination of insane man-hating serial killer and the world's worst boss - "This coffee is slightly too hot! Don't bother coming to work tomorrow! Yes, I know you make the best coffee in the world but you failed me ONCE!"

 

[Guy Gardener]

Do you honest believe that Tess planned out?

That every episode was moving towards her manic agenda which was ripped off straight from unbreakable?

 

[Hermiod]

Do you honest believe that Tess planned out?

That every episode was moving towards her manic agenda which was ripped off straight from unbreakable?

I've only scene Unbreakable once, so maybe I don't remember somebody cumming while murdering a guy.

 

[TGTheodore]

For me Chloe has held this series back for the last three seasons. Nice little actress. Good little director, but please get her character off the show so things can get moving.

--Ted

 

[Servo]

Not saying that I disagree with your assessment of Chloe, Hermiod, but I think the potential dramatic impact of her death far outweighs it.

So the first thing you do is to give Chloe and Davis even lamer deaths than the actual show gave Jimmy and Davis? So what, Davis is seperated from Doomsday and is just killed off straight away? Then what's the dramatic point of splitting them?!? And it also renders Chloe's final act (well, in your version) entirely pointless before she's unceremoniously offed. At least Jimmy gets a proper heroic sendoff, despite the shoddyness of the execution.

Erm, the point is not how she actually dies in my version of the episode, but how and why she ended up in that position in the first place - the journey she took throughout season 8, culminating in her death. The other aspect being how her death affects Clark.
And Davis was practically killed off straight away in the proper episode anyway. He gets split, then we don't see him til Chloe's apartment where he's alive just long enough to stab Jimmy and shout at Chloe. The character was always going to die at the end of the season, so what does it matter if it was by Doomsday or Jimmy?

I had the opportunity to send Davis to the Phantom Zone, and I didn?t. I let my emotions cloud my judgement. I let my feelings for Chloe influence my decision, and now? now she?s dead.?

Oh, I thought he stopped himself from sending Davis to the Fortress because he didn't want to just sacrifice Davis's life by letting Doomsday consume him. A decision that was by no means the smartest he could have made, but was pretty damn noble and Superman-like. Although I've no idea why we'd be looking for those qualities from the main character of this show.

Nope. Clark was all set to sent Davis off to the Phantom Zone until Chloe showed up at the Fortress and talked him out of it.

And of course you put more thought into the various fight scenes than anything to do with the actual characters.

Seeing as the history of the characters - Superman and Doomsday - centres around THE fight, starting with the JL tring to take DD down first, what exactly were you expecting?

And the rolleyes are unnecessary. Grow up.

(bearing in mind that I'm not actually a writer)

You're right there.

Let's see you do better. Or were you actually happy with the lame excuse for a finale we ended up with?

In an ideal world, no character should be safe, but that goes doubly for anyone that has an actual place in Superman mythology.

Fixed.

It wasn't broken.

 

[TGTheodore]

A general comment on some of the posts. Not a particular poster.

This was NOT a "finale". It's the first PART. Don't keep thinking that this is the way things will be. It's not resolved yet. When the story arcs are resolved and you dislike them, THEN have at 'em all you want.

That WASN'T "the fight with Doomsday". It's still coming. Jimmy Olsen has ALWAYS been a lot younger than Lois and Clark. Now he will be.

Let the story crock pot do its job before calling it a crock.

--Ted

 

[Admiral_Young]

Knowing Smallville though they're resolve everything in the premire like they normally do and then start setting up the rest of the season that's the trouble. I liked Servo's rewrite of the finale...I expected Chloe to be killed by Davis or Doomsday anyways so I could accept her death if it motivated Clark to become Superman. Jor-El remember hasn't been around the Fortress since Brainiac occupied and corrupted the Fortress of Solitude in "Bride" or just before "Legion" i think.

The thing is that is bugging me about Smallville is that they're sticking with their original motto of "No Flights, No Tights" and their series dogma about this being about Clark Kent. That is all fine and good...considering that you're also on a network that panders to a younger audience and you have shows that also pander to that audience. How come Supernatural doesn't seem to have this problem? They have successfully managed to evolve their characters while avoiding a significant amount of angst and unnecessary relationship drama...or their drama enhances the show (this coming from a casual viewer so someone like Dorian Thompson who's a regular watcher or someelse can correct me...Lucifer Rising btw was an awesome finale). I don't see why Smallville can't finally grow the hell up.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Do you honest believe that Tess planned out?

That every episode was moving towards her manic agenda which was ripped off straight from unbreakable?

I've only scene Unbreakable once, so maybe I don't remember somebody cumming while murdering a guy.

Everyone cums when they murder. It's a given.

Mr Glass, did great evil, he murdered and murdered in the hopes that logically the universe would summon a nemesis to confront him and in so further afterwards save the world.

It's called "taking one for the team".

I listened to a Dr Who audio adventure where Richard III was this bored sarcastic thug utterly nonplussed after meeting the like maybe 10 thousandth timetraveler come to view if history and Shakespeare were at all right about him being a truly evil man.

The universe does conspire.

never doubt it.

 

[Cartoonist]

Jimmy being killed was a surprise. Followed by the fact that he wasn't the Jimmy we know from the comics. At his funeral, when the priest called him "Henry James Olsen", I instantly knew what they were doing. Two minutes later, when we see the little kid, my suspicion was confirmed. I was laughing so hard. Was it a cheat and a huge retcon? Oh yeah. But, somehow, it worked for me.

Me too. In fact, I loved it. The Jimmy we had just never felt right to me. But without even saying a word, that kid struck me as a perfect Jimmy Olson. Right age, right look, and a backstory that makes the Planet's hiring of a teenager make sense.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

^He's done this two weeks running now. Why did he have the Kryptonite ring ?

I have had plenty of arguments with people over the years, but I've somehow managed to never deliberately poison anyone or lead them in to ambushes so I could do it.

Have you ever blown up their secret installations?

 

[Hermiod]

^He's done this two weeks running now. Why did he have the Kryptonite ring ?

I have had plenty of arguments with people over the years, but I've somehow managed to never deliberately poison anyone or lead them in to ambushes so I could do it.

Have you ever blown up their secret installations?

All the time. I strongly doubt the geothermal plant was a secret, though.

My point is, Oliver knows that Clark has a very specific weakness that is easily exploited by someone whose company just merged with another that has collected most of the Kryptonite on the planet.

In two consecutive episodes, he has shown up with Kryptonite and in the second case he used it to ensure that he got his way. He just doesn't strike me as a particularly trustworthy person or someone who Clark can rely on.

What happens the next time they don't agree on something ? Out comes the ring ?

 

[LaxScrutiny]

^He's done this two weeks running now. Why did he have the Kryptonite ring ?

I have had plenty of arguments with people over the years, but I've somehow managed to never deliberately poison anyone or lead them in to ambushes so I could do it.

Have you ever blown up their secret installations?

All the time. I strongly doubt the geothermal plant was a secret, though.

My point is, Oliver knows that Clark has a very specific weakness that is easily exploited by someone whose company just merged with another that has collected most of the Kryptonite on the planet.

In two consecutive episodes, he has shown up with Kryptonite and in the second case he used it to ensure that he got his way. He just doesn't strike me as a particularly trustworthy person or someone who Clark can rely on.

What happens the next time they don't agree on something ? Out comes the ring ?

What happens if Ollie doesn't have the ring? Out comes the super speed, super strength, super invulnerability, super heat blasts?

The ring puts them on a level playing field. That's all Ollie wants. So that Ollie is free to make his own decisions, make his own mistakes, and live according to his own ethics, not have Clark owning him.

Ollie is human, he will make mistakes and have regrets, but he is living his own human life. Clark is not his father, his concience, his supervisor or manager. Clark wasn't going to let Ollie make his own decisions about Doomsday, Clark was going to make all the decisions.

Was Ollie "right"? No. Neither was Clark. But Clark using his powers to stop Ollie was no better than Ollie using the ring to keep the freedom to make his own decisions.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

Not saying that I disagree with your assessment of Chloe, Hermiod, but I think the potential dramatic impact of her death far outweighs it.

So the first thing you do is to give Chloe and Davis even lamer deaths than the actual show gave Jimmy and Davis? So what, Davis is seperated from Doomsday and is just killed off straight away? Then what's the dramatic point of splitting them?!? And it also renders Chloe's final act (well, in your version) entirely pointless before she's unceremoniously offed. At least Jimmy gets a proper heroic sendoff, despite the shoddyness of the execution.

Erm, the point is not how she actually dies in my version of the episode, but how and why she ended up in that position in the first place - the journey she took throughout season 8, culminating in her death. The other aspect being how her death affects Clark.

The journey of Chloe I saw was of a woman trying to save all the men in her life, and how she ultimately failed to save any of them because of it. Even Clark is "dead" according to his own words. We need to see her react to this. There may be a time (probably end of next season) where we will get the reaction of Clark to her death, but that time isn't now.

And Davis was practically killed off straight away in the proper episode anyway. He gets split, then we don't see him til Chloe's apartment where he's alive just long enough to stab Jimmy and shout at Chloe. The character was always going to die at the end of the season, so what does it matter if it was by Doomsday or Jimmy?

It matters because we don't get to see how Davis acts free of the "beast". Davis' switch to psychopath is a little hard to swallow, but it at least provides some closure to his arc.

Nope. Clark was all set to sent Davis off to the Phantom Zone until Chloe showed up at the Fortress and talked him out of it.

Yes, Chloe talked him out of it. She didn't hold a piece of kryptonite on Clark and force him to let Davis go, she explained why, according to his own moral code, it was wrong to send Davis to the PZ, and he realised she was right. If he didn't, he could easily have stopped Chloe from taking Davis and resumed his attempt to get him into the PZ.

Seeing as the history of the characters - Superman and Doomsday - centres around THE fight, starting with the JL tring to take DD down first, what exactly were you expecting?

The fight was nothing more than a way to dramatically begin the story of how the world reacts to the death of Superman. Granted, I would have preferred a better use of the time and special effects used during the fight, but that's never been Smallville's forte, fights like the one from Combat being the exception to the rule.

And the rolleyes are unnecessary. Grow up.

You're right, but then so was your rejoinder. Evens?

Let's see you do better. Or were you actually happy with the lame excuse for a finale we ended up with?

I may give it a go. And no, I wasn't happy, though obviously for different reasons.

In an ideal world, no character should be safe, but that goes doubly for anyone that has an actual place in Superman mythology.

Fixed.

It wasn't broken.

So the death of a charcter who we assume is safe because they're a part of the larger mythos is less important than the death of somebody who isn't?

 

[Hermiod]

]What happens if Ollie doesn't have the ring? Out comes the super speed, super strength, super invulnerability, super heat blasts?

The ring puts them on a level playing field. That's all Ollie wants. So that Ollie is free to make his own decisions, make his own mistakes, and live according to his own ethics, not have Clark owning him.

It doesn't put them on any kind of level playing field, unless Oliver spends most of his time rolling around in pain, unable to defend himself. (Of course, the issue of how Smallville presents the effect Kryptonite has on Clark/Superman is another story)

Most likely, without the Kryptonite, Clark would not have allowed Oliver to try to kill Davis. That's a good thing. Oliver tried it his way and he nearly got himself and his team killed.

Ollie is human, he will make mistakes and have regrets, but he is living his own human life. Clark is not his father, his concience, his supervisor or manager. Clark wasn't going to let Ollie make his own decisions about Doomsday, Clark was going to make all the decisions.

Was Ollie "right"? No. Neither was Clark. But Clark using his powers to stop Ollie was no better than Ollie using the ring to keep the freedom to make his own decisions.

This is Clark we're talking about, not Terence Stamp playing Zod. Clark can't and won't control everything Oliver does.

Ultimately, Doomsday is a Kryptonian problem to be dealt with by a Kryptonian - namely Clark. Oliver is, as you say, human. He is completely incapable of fighting Doomsday so in this case he has to defer to Clark. Clark doesn't have time to take a vote every time he faces an enemy that no-one else in the team could possibly be a threat to.

Another point - Clark isn't as stubborn as you make him out to be. He will listen to people he trusts. He listened to his parents and he listens to Chloe. Oliver has to earn that trust. Oliver has to make his case and then support Clark's decision, not try to force the issue with Kryptonite.

 

[hyzmarca]

Was Ollie "right"? No. Neither was Clark. But Clark using his powers to stop Ollie was no better than Ollie using the ring to keep the freedom to make his own decisions.

No, Ollie was pretty much right. Ollie's way, had Chloe not interfered to use Clark's plan, would have resulted in one death (or two, depending on how you count). Clark's way resulted in at least three.

It matters because we don't get to see how Davis acts free of the "beast". Davis' switch to psychopath is a little hard to swallow, but it at least provides some closure to his arc.

I'd assumed that Clark and Chloe screwed up in their plan by not taking into account the possibility that Doomsday would be the good half and Davis the evil half.

 

[Hermiod]

Was Ollie "right"? No. Neither was Clark. But Clark using his powers to stop Ollie was no better than Ollie using the ring to keep the freedom to make his own decisions.

No, Ollie was pretty much right. Ollie's way, had Chloe not interfered to use Clark's plan, would have resulted in one death (or two, depending on how you count). Clark's way resulted in at least three.

Ermmm, no. We never got to see Clark's way because Tess destroyed the crystal he needed to make it work. Then, his plan B was also thwarted by his so-called friends stabbing him in the back.

Chloe used the black kryptonite because Davis was turning in to Doomsday. He had already said her influence over him was no longer working. The mistake they all made was trusting Davis once he had been separated from Doomsday.

Doomsday wasn't the "good" half. Doomsday without Davis is just an animal, doing what his instincts tell him to do. He's not good or evil, he just is.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

For me Chloe has held this series back for the last three seasons. Nice little actress. Good little director, but please get her character off the show so things can get moving.

The only ones holding back the show are the Exec Producers who still want to line their pockets. They'll keep delaying Clark's growth into becoming Superman for as long as they can in order to keep the show on the air. Even if you believe they are somehow using Chloe to do this, getting rid of her won't solve the problem. They'll just pull more shit like they did in the finale, by regressing Clark and making him pull away from humanity.

No one thing is going to make Clark "accept his destiny", save perhaps for hiring new Execs.

This was NOT a "finale". It's the first PART. Don't keep thinking that this is the way things will be. It's not resolved yet. When the story arcs are resolved and you dislike them, THEN have at 'em all you want.

That WASN'T "the fight with Doomsday". It's still coming. Jimmy Olsen has ALWAYS been a lot younger than Lois and Clark. Now he will be.

Let the story crock pot do its job before calling it a crock.

--Ted

The story of Smallville is how a young Clark Kent grows up to become a hero named Superman. We are in the latter stages of that story, God willing, and when the story is eventually over, the only thing I'll care about at the end is what has come before, not what might/will come after.

If "the" fight with Doomsday is yet to come then we won't get to see it since that comes after Clark becomes Superman, so that story needs a good resolution now. I also doubt we'll see the "real" Jimmy Olson in action before the end of the show, so I don't really give two shits about him. I only care about the characters on my screen now. And when ever he was far away from Chloe, who he had very little chemistry with (with the odd exception of episodes like Turbulence), I really dug Aaron Ashmore's Jimmy. I can't say I really care how old a character is "supposed" to be.

 

[hyzmarca]

Was Ollie "right"? No. Neither was Clark. But Clark using his powers to stop Ollie was no better than Ollie using the ring to keep the freedom to make his own decisions.

No, Ollie was pretty much right. Ollie's way, had Chloe not interfered to use Clark's plan, would have resulted in one death (or two, depending on how you count). Clark's way resulted in at least three.

Ermmm, no. We never got to see Clark's way because Tess destroyed the crystal he needed to make it work. Then, his plan B was also thwarted by his so-called friends stabbing him in the back.

Chloe used the black kryptonite because Davis was turning in to Doomsday. He had already said her influence over him was no longer working. The mistake they all made was trusting Davis once he had been separated from Doomsday.

Clark's way sticking to a stupid moral code, so was Chloe's. Olliver's way was realizing that moral codes are stupid and just doing what has to be done.
It was all the concern over making the most moral choice, rather than the most effective, that caused the mess in the first place.

Doomsday wasn't the "good" half. Doomsday without Davis is just an animal, doing what his instincts tell him to do. He's not good or evil, he just is.

And Clark probably could have housebroken him and taught him to do tricks. Instead, the misunderstood woobie gets a refinery blown up on him.