Review: Smallville Season 7 Premiere

So it’s finally here: The Smallville season 7 premiere. They certainly left a lot of cliffhangers in the season 6 finale, and in this episode we get some, but not all the answers.

The episode is called Bizarro, for good reason. Right off the bat, the episode opens with a bang with big, epic special effects scenes including the dam from the previous episode bursting and a subsequent flood, which Clark in an heretofore unseen level of heat vision power, turns into steam with a wide angle burst of his vision. Very cool and a preview of things to come regarding his willingness to finally unleash his powers this season, I’ll bet.

The one lame point in this opening series of scenes was when they showed a father trying to get his son out of the way of the oncoming flood tripping and hitting his head on a rock like some young girl on the run from the villain in a horror movie. But hey, that was minor IMHO.

Moving on… and be warned, full-on spoilers ahead.

Before Clark did his raging river steam cooking thing, he knocked the heck out of his doppelganger Bizarro, sending him flying and inadvertantly impaling him on a electrical powerline support structure. When a guy drives up in a truck to see if he needs help, Bizarro demonstrates how truly slimey he is by burning the fellow alive via his heat vision. Pretty gruesome.

Oh, Lex was trapped underwater in the back of a police car when the flood demolished the bridge, sending the car to the bottom of the river. He is rescued by what looks to be an angel, but if we’ve spent any time online reading about this season we already know it will turn out to be Kara, Clark’s cousin.

Lois managed to drag an apparently dead Chloe out of danger with a little help from Clark. At the hospital Chloe is pronounced dead, only to wake up in a drawer in the morgue. Maybe someone can explain this scene to me, because from the reply of the nurse/doctor to his question regarding how Chloe was doing, he could only assume she was dead… so why he decides to fine tune his super-hearing to try to find her (and they’ve finally stopped using that CGI down-the-ear-canal effect) is beyond me. If he thought she was dead, why would he listen for her? Ok, he suspected something “meteor-freak-ish” happened to bring Lois back to life, but I think it’s quite a leap to assume she’s alive after the doctor has pronounced her dead.

Lionel is washed downriver from the dam and a mysterious guy that’s dressed like a cowboy rescues him, still unconscious. I’m not completely sure, but I’m figuring it was Martian Manhunter.

Interestingly and in order to draw out the “is he completely evil yet or not” Lex Luthor storyline, he believes that he was rescued by an angel from the bottom of the river and is now seeking redemption, going so far as to turn himself in for the murder of Lana. While in jail, his lawyer is killed by Bizarro, who shows up wanting access to Lex’s storehouse of kryptonite. As seen in the finale last season, kryptonite strengthens him, so that’s why he’s tracked down Lex (since that’s the guy you go to for all your meteor rock needs). We learn that not only does Mr. Crackle Face (Bizarro) possess Clark’s genetics, but he also has all of his memories and thoughts, prompting him to make a pass at Lois (finally).

Martian Manhunter has a talk with Clark, trying to boost his confidence before he goes after Bizarro. Clark doesn’t know how he can defeat someone who doesn’t have his own weakness, and in a cool little scene, he (and the audience) finally learn about our yellow sun being his source of strength. Since Bizarro is the opposite of Clark, sunlight is what can destroy him.

Clark gets to Bizarro too late, after he’s already absorbed all the kryptonite radiation (which conveniently seems to drain the meteor rocks completely, happy news for Clark). Despite knowing he’s outmatched Clark charges Bizarro, who puts him down handily. After having the wind knocked out of him, it dawns on Clark (a little late, if you ask me) that “oh yeah, I need to get him into the sunlight!!” and by goading Bizarro manages to do that. Clark delivers the uppercut from Krypton which sends Bizarro sailing into the upper atmosphere where he starts to disintegrate… BUT, at the last moment a blurry figure flies into the scene to whisk him away, presumably to safety? It happens so fast you can’t tell who it is, but again I have to assume that it was Martian Manhunter. Why he would save Bizarro, I don’t know.

Clark tells Chloe how he feels about seeing what would happen if his dark side was unleashed and again, it seems like this is the season where he’s finally going to “own” his superhero status.

Almost at the end we cut to Shanghai, China, which is of course where Lana is hiding out. She’s in a traditional dress and a short blond wig, all alone. She stares out the window at the moon with that damned weepy expression that I would love to see wiped off her face once and for all.

And finally we see Kara, putting on what look like silver Wonder Woman bracelets and leaving a silvery costume behind that looks like it’s from a 1950’s TV show. She flies off and past the camera.

I thought the opening of the episode was extremely cool and very intense, and although I thought it was a good episode, I felt a bit cheated that almost everything was tied up in just 45 minutes worth of show. I think it would have made for a better resolution if they’d made the opener a two parter… I don’t know. As it turns out, they lied last season because none of the characters are dead. Ok, technically Chloe died, but she came back. And I’m really eagerly awaiting the explanation of why Clark’s cousin, who supposedly was sent to Earth in suspended animation and just woke up - can fly. And not baby first steps wobbly flight, mind you - we’re talking aerobatic manuevers, baby.

Overall, I really enjoyed it and I’ll have to give it another viewing. I’m just glad it’s back.

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