Smallville 5.22: "Vessel"

Written by Brian Peterson and Kelly Souders
Directed by James Marshall


I’ll give it to the writers: when it comes to season finales, they usually manage to make it work. The set-up may not be the most elegant process in the world, and there may not be a sense of ongoing consequences in every instance, but the stories usually manage to come together. In this case, the effectiveness of the story was hampered slightly by the relative lack of cohesion within the season arc. The pieces are ultimately pulled together, but it’s not a perfect fit.

The finale works best on a thematic level. The season was driving home the fact that Clark’s inability to tell Lana his secrets destroyed that relationship. He was letting his fears and insecurities get in the way, and it pushed Lana right into Lex’s waiting arms. There’s a deep sense of irony as a result. Lana does freak out about Lex’s apparent abilities, but she’s willing to stay with him and support him, even when everything else is going to hell. When Clark discovers that, it should be a rather telling moment.

Taking the long view, this is an interesting payoff for some of the symbolism from earlier seasons. The idea of Clark and Lex as friends or brothers, driven to opposite sides in a powerful conflict, goes back to the discovery of the caves. This episode puts Clark and Lex on the same level, though in many respects, Lex is not himself, even before he is inhabited by Zod. Perhaps the writers felt that it would be going to far for Lex to attack Clark fully with every possible ability, since it would take that interpersonal conflict much further than easily reconciled.

I do like the fact that Lionel is continuing to act, consciously or unconsciously, as Jor-El’s spokesman. I still question Jor-El’s motives. At least, I question the version of Jor-El that has been contacting Clark since the beginning of the series through the ship and the Fortress. Like Fine in the previous episode, Jor-El tries to use his parental authority to push Clark into killing someone, and the knife ultimately serves to “download” Zod into Lex. Doesn’t that seem a little convenient?

I also liked the scale of destruction that came with Zod’s arrival (though I thought it was Gotham City in the DC universe, not NYC). But when did Lana become so capable of taking care of herself, especially as compared to Lionel and Chloe? I was very worried that Chloe would get stabbed in the riot; keeping it vague was better than the nasty non-“Smallville” images that popped into my head. But why would Chloe run into the middle of a riot, and why would Clark be dumb enough to overlook her affections yet again?

All that said, I’m a little perplexed by the direction of the plot. So the virus was always supposed to be a computer virus? The vaccine was always just an excuse for Lex to create the Zod Cocktail? While a number of things were clicking thematically, aspects of the plot felt tossed together. I think the central conflicts remained the same, right down to Clark in the Phantom Zone, but Fine’s viral gambit felt a bit ret-conned.

I’m also not sure why Fine would take Martha and Lois to the general vicinity of the Fortress. They played up the disturbing Martha/Lionel thing again, right down to Lois telling Martha that it might not be a bad thing, but the rest of that plot thread didn’t seem to make sense. Are they thinking of using Martha and Lois as hostages, to convince Clark to hand over the Fortress to Zod?

Whatever the case, it’s a good place to leave the season, especially if the CW really has already picked “Smallville” up. I suppose one benefit of failing to develop a strong season arc is that the finale only has a few particular elements to address, and everything else is up for grabs. It had to deal with the Zod/Brainiac plot thread and the Clark/Lana/Lex triangle. This finale covered all of that well enough, and for once, there’s no telling where the series will go next.

This is the part where I would usually launch into a discussion about the season as a whole, but I’m doing things a little differently moving forward. The “Smallville” post-mortem (so to speak) will be the main focus of this week’s episode of “Dispatches from Tuzenor”, a new podcast started as an expansion to the written reviews conducted every season. That episode should be up after the weekend, so I invite anyone interested to drop by the archive site (www.entil2001.com) and click on the link. (It’s also available on iTunes.)

Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 2/4

Final Rating: 8/10

(Season 5 Final Average: 6.5)