Smallville: 8x22 "Doomsday" - Discussion and Spoilers

[Admiral_Young]

Taking into effect that Ollie's character in Smallville is essentially what their original plans were for Bruce Wayne only expanded into a fully formed role on the series...one can understand Olliver's intentions and mistrust. Clark is a superpowered being who has almost unlimited power and can if he want eliminate most of the worlds problems but his ethical and morales are holding him back. Ollie doesn't seem to have many ethics or morales and therefor justifies many of his more unfortunate decisions. Also this season there was introduced a sub-plot of self-doubt for being Green Arrow and continuing on being a hero. IMO this was unneccessary and only led to the problems we have now between Ollie and Clark (ie. more drama and angst between characters who were friends and had an understanding). I keep seeing the showrunners and writers trying to incorperate a lot more Batman traits into Ollie and although they're similar I think it's wrong, they should let Ollie be Ollie not their own version of Batman.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Ollie was kept in check by Lex. He was focussed.

Now he has the entire world to save.

Although, it's pretty shitty that the only way that they can make Clark look like a decent human being is by trying to redraw these heroes as a cable of despicable terrorist mercenaries... And the funny thing is that the writers are such idiots that they can't. Clark still looks like a child playing at the biig boys table.

I'm waiting for the episode where they figure out that Ollie had been making money at every turn when they were trying to destroy 3.11(?) through stock market skullduggery.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Rumored CW fall schedule

This is what Nikki Finke is reporting CW's fall schedule to be. According to her, Smallville is moving to Fridays at 8 before a top model encore. I can't believe that Smallville is moving out of the cushy Thursday at 8 timeslot and CW still didn't give it to my show, Supernatual. I'm so pissed. Now it's CSI, Grey's Anatomy, The Office, and Fringe that SPN has to compete against, but Kripke was pretty adamant about telling his 5 year story and then getting out so it's probably a blessing for SPN in terms of content and quality that it goes out after 5 seasons. SPN will probably maintain consistent numbers, but Fringe will further erode that very small piece of the 18-34 demo pie that's left if it isn't totally fueled by Idol.

What will be taking Smallville's place? The Vampire Diaries. Pretty young teen vampires.

 

[Hermiod]

Taking into effect that Ollie's character in Smallville is essentially what their original plans were for Bruce Wayne only expanded into a fully formed role on the series...one can understand Olliver's intentions and mistrust. Clark is a superpowered being who has almost unlimited power and can if he want eliminate most of the worlds problems but his ethical and morales are holding him back. Ollie doesn't seem to have many ethics or morales and therefor justifies many of his more unfortunate decisions. Also this season there was introduced a sub-plot of self-doubt for being Green Arrow and continuing on being a hero. IMO this was unneccessary and only led to the problems we have now between Ollie and Clark (ie. more drama and angst between characters who were friends and had an understanding). I keep seeing the showrunners and writers trying to incorperate a lot more Batman traits into Ollie and although they're similar I think it's wrong, they should let Ollie be Ollie not their own version of Batman.

Small problem - Batman wouldn't kill Davis anymore than Clark would. Batman's let the Joker run around for decades and still refuses to kill him.

Clark and Oliver had a legitimate disagreement. You don't solve legitimate disagreements by poisoning the other guy.

On Justice League movie night, does Oliver bring the ring with him to the rental shop ? When they're discussing whether to get Chinese food or Pizza for dinner does Ollie say "don't make me use the ring" ?

 

[nx1701g]

^ That is true about the Dark Knight. He doesn't kill...

well he doesn't have to save them, but he doesn't kill...

 

[Hermiod]

^ That is true about the Dark Knight. He doesn't kill...

well he doesn't have to save them, but he doesn't kill...

As I said earlier in the thread, this is as close to the League Within the League as we're going to get.

For the uninitiated, in DC's Identity Crisis, an important part of the story was that at some unspecified point in the past the previously dangerous supervillain Dr. Light had sneaked on to the Watchtower and raped Elongated Man's wife Sue who happened to be there on her own.

Oliver, Dinah, Hawkman, Flash (Barry Allen), the Hal Jordan Green Lantern, Atom and Zatanna arrived and caught him. He continued to threaten to do the same thing to their loved ones which caused them to take a vote - they agreed that Zatanna would use her magic not only to make Dr. Light forget but to effectively neuter him as a villain by altering his personality.

This was used as an explanation as to why the previously dangerous Dr. Light became less threatening - to the point where he was left to the Teen Titans to deal with.

However, having done this, they were interrupted by Batman who objected to them. They restrained him and did the same thing to him, wiping his memory of catching them so he would not know what they had done.

It was subsequently revealed that Zatanna had done the same thing to other villains, most notably Catwoman, explaining Selina's turn towards becoming more of an anti-heroine than a villain. (It should also be noted that Selina is now aware of this and beat Zatanna senseless and threw her out of a window having discovered what happened.)

The explanation for all of this was that they felt that Superman, Batman and to a much lesser degree Wonder Woman (who we've subsequently seen is not above killing) do not want to deal with the realities of doing what must be done to protect people. The League Within the League was, apparently, cleaning up after the so-called Trinity.

 

[TheSeeker]

I'm a little late to the party as I just watched it last night but I graded the episode bad and the season as good.

The first half of the episode was shaping up to be really good and then it was like the editor's left he whole fight scene on the cutting room floor. It only got worse from that point on. How many times do we need to see Clark flip-flop over how to handle his Kryptonian heritage?

I have to admit that making Jimmy's little brother the "real Jimmy" and Clark burying Doomsday solves a few of the problems I had about how they have handled introducing characters to Smallville. The only downside is that now we'll never get to see the Superman/Doomsday fight unless they do it in a movie.

Overall I was very disappointed with this episode.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

Clark and Oliver had a legitimate disagreement. You don't solve legitimate disagreements by poisoning the other guy.

Oh, please. Ollie used the equivalent of a tranquilizer dart on him. If Ollie wanted him dead, he would have slit his throat as he lay on the ground. He did the only thing he could to knock him out temporarily.

You're also forgetting that Clark was accomplice to the attempted murder of Davis, watching him die writhing in a tank of kryptonite. As far as Clark knew at the time, it was an execution. Clark has no higher moral ground here. He is in the same position as Ollie, who killed Lex but feels now that he would take the action back. The difference with Clark is that he gets a free pass, the action was taken back for him, whereas Ollie has to live with it and put up with Clark's hypocracy.

 

[Hermiod]

^As I've already said, Doomsday is a Kryptonian problem to be solved by a Kryptonian. It's Clark's call, not Olivers.

 

[Broccoli]

^ but in fairness, the Kryptonian problem is effecting Earth.

 

[Hermiod]

^ but in fairness, the Kryptonian problem is effecting Earth.

Which Clark, not the glorified Robin Hood, has been sent to protect.

 

[TheSeeker]

^So your saying that because NATO troops have been sent into Afghanistan that the local population should sit back and do nothing?

 

[LaxScrutiny]

^As I've already said, Doomsday is a Kryptonian problem to be solved by a Kryptonian. It's Clark's call, not Olivers.

Which therefore proves that Ollie poisoned Clark and tried to murder him, and went after Davis to satisfy more bloodlust or something.

Davis-day had killed umpteen people and would have gone on non-stop. Clark has been ineffectual, whether because of his confused, still developing scruples or because he lacked the power or the will or the imagination, Clark had not stopped him. Which obligates everyone else to sit on their hands and wait to be murdered by a rampaging monster. Right.

 

[Hermiod]

^Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Oliver has proven that he can't be trusted. Why would Clark rely on him again ?

Clark did stop Doomsday. Oliver tried, failed and nearly got everyone killed.

 

[Watch Commander]

Look, these guys are super heroes in a long standing series, not one of them died, they argue like all friends do eventually in real life, they have different opinions, different beliefs in some things. I already mentioned, Ollies intent was NOT to kill Clark, just to imobilize him temporarily. His plan ultimately failed, Clark did step up and for the time being immobilized DD.

In a series of this type, long standing and continuing, hopefully for another two yrs, give or take, things are going to go up and down in relationships, canon enemies may die and come back, and friendships will do the same. Clark has no big animas toward Ollie at the end, does not mean he won't have things to work out with him, but he still trusted him to take care of the explosives. In the end, your relationship, if it has been around more then 5 minutes is not whatever was said in the last phone call or argument, it is about what common ground you still can find and overall goals and what the yrs have been to form it.....

 

[Broccoli]

^Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Oliver has proven that he can't be trusted. Why would Clark rely on him again ?

Clark did stop Doomsday. Oliver tried, failed and nearly got everyone killed.

This is a red herring argument and isn't the point being discussed.

You said that since Doomsday is a Kryptonian problem, Clark should clean up the mess and Ollie should just sit back and not do anything about it even though it is on his planet. I'm sorry; that is poor reasoning.

If there were a couple of terrorists from another country and they were operating and causing a ruckus in the US, should the US just sit back and let any immigrants from that country that are willing to step up take care of the problem?
The point is, regardless of who was right or wrong (or who failed or was successful), Ollie, being an Earthling, has a right to protect his planet.

 

[hyzmarca]

Clark and Oliver had a legitimate disagreement. You don't solve legitimate disagreements by poisoning the other guy.

Oh, please. Ollie used the equivalent of a tranquilizer dart on him. If Ollie wanted him dead, he would have slit his throat as he lay on the ground. He did the only thing he could to knock him out temporarily.

Which was Ollie's biggest mistake. He should have killed Clark when he had the chance. Doomsday is a big strong alien, but ultimately not very dangerous due to his lack of intelligence. Clark is powerful enough to destroy the world or conquer it all by himself. All he needs to do to become the most dangerous thing on Earth is develop some backbone.

And Ollie really should have killed Chloe, too. Things would have turn out better without her idiocy.

The problem is that every single major threat that Clark has dealt with is the direct result of Jor-El's decision to send him to Earth. If Jor-El had not decided to save his son, Earth would never have been in danger from Kryptonian threats in the first place. It's disenginuine to state that he was sent to Earth to protct it. He was sent to Earth to protect him, the welfare of six and a half billion humans was always of secondary concern.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Secondary?

These are Kryptonians we're talking about.

I doubt we'd factor into the top 40.

 

[Hermiod]

The point is, regardless of who was right or wrong (or who failed or was successful), Ollie, being an Earthling, has a right to protect his planet.

Which he is incapable of doing. A few Kryptonite arrows are not going to get the job done.

Killing Davis is impossible. Faora stabbed Davis, not Doomsday, through the chest and he healed with his skin becoming unbreakable. They gassed him with Kryptonite and he got back up!

What is it exactly that you all think that Oliver can do about Davis ?

 

[Guy Gardener]

You just have to get him moving faster than 10 meters per second per second, which I think is escape velocity, which is how they got rid of Doomsday in the Comics while he was resurrecting quite slowly after he and Superman sniffed each other in their first final battle.

Dude can't fly.

Remember how the speeders were knocking over the AT-ATs?

Impulse snares Davis around the neck with a larriet and the other end is attached to a space heading rocket.

Billionaires.

They're not to be fucked with.