Following what I thought was a disappointing half-season opening episode of Smallville last week, Bulletproof (episode 8.12), brought the series back to the higher quality level it’s shown this season.
The episode opens with fan favorite (and one of mine as well) Detective John Jones (aka Martian Manhunter and played by Phil Morris) chasing down a murderer. He catches the perp and hands him off to an obviously unfriendly police officer when suddenly his car is peppered with shots from a sniper.
He does NOT get away.
John is rushed to the hospital with a critical chest wound, where Clark runs into Oliver Queen (aka The Green Arrow played by Justin Hartley). They butt heads a bit even though they’re both concerned about John, and decide to go their separate ways to try to track down the shooter.
Clark (Tom Welling) determines the shooter is a Metropolis cop and enlists Chloe (Allison Mack) with her amazing hacker/forgery skills [note slight sarcasm] to get him into the Metropolis PD as a transfer from another city. He is partnered up with a young police officer (Dan Turpin from the comics) and starts asking questions as nonchalantly as he can manage about John’s shooting.
He meets the young officer’s wife and son and the guy seems decent enough. However his two cop buddies are obviously much slipperier characters. They’re all called away and it turns out it’s to beat and murder the man who killed the officer Clark has replaced, who was released on a technicality.
Of course Clark is mentally scrambling trying to figure out how to stop this when The Green Arrow swoops in to stop the corrupt cops from carrying out their intended deed.
In the meantime Lana (Kristen Kreuk) confronts Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman) and surreptitiously steals some data via wi-fi (unsecured wi-fi? in the Luthor mansion?). The newer and tougher Lana doesn’t blink when Tess tries to intimidate her.
Eventually these two ladies come to a showdown and I have to admit it: I really enjoyed seeing Lana on the show for the first time in AGES in this hand to hand fight scene. It was a pretty serious beat-down on both sides until Lana got the upper hand (ie. the gun). Unfortunately after this cool scene the show veers off into the ridiculous with Lana having determined that there is some “nano technology implanted in your [Tess Mercer's] visual cortex.” It seems Lex did it when he found her near death and has been watching EVERYTHING Tess has done through her eyes.
Clark keeps appealing to the good he sees in the one police officer and eventually of course, the guy rises to the expectation. He turns on his bad cop buddies and turns them in after a tense scene where he and The Green Arrow are trying to avoid sniper fire.
Tess figures out how to block the signal allowing Lex to spy on her, but not before she tells Lex (in the mirror) that she’s going to divest him of everything he owns. Cut to a newspaper with “Lex Luthor Confirmed Dead” as a huge headline in the Daily Planet.
I know this show isn’t Shakespeare… heck it’s not even close to the likes of Battlestar Galactica – but for what it is, when it’s at this level it’s pretty entertaining. I enjoyed this episode as much as I did the first half of Smallville‘s 8th season – which is to say: Quite a bit.
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Loved tonight’s episode and I would have to agree – “Bulletproof” brought the show back from Legion. I really enjoyed the dialogue between Clark (Tom Welling) and Oliver (Justin Hartley) and even though many of the fans are not happy Lana is back, I’m actually enjoying her character this season. The confrontation between Lana and Tess was good, especially when Lana enlightened Tess about Lex.
Can’t wait for next week’s episode!
Bulletproof is the true start of the second half of the season that Legion failed to be. Unlike Geoff Johns, Bryan Miller gets SV Clark and cares for him.
There were a lot of mythos characters in this episode, but Clark and Dan Turpin were the driving forces. Clark didn’t regress and continues to be proactive. The only thing they regress was his love life, but I can deal with that.
Lana can be interesting when she has great scenes of her own apart from Clark, but her scene with Tess was truly dynamite. I’m glad that Lana sees what Clark does when she last saw him.
It was awesome seeing Clark, Martian Manhunter, and Green Arrow in one scene together that’s a foreshadowing of the JLA. To me, they’re like the Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. I want more of this stuff later down the season.
They butt heads a bit even though they’re both concerned about John, and decide to go their separate ways to try to track down the killer
I think you meant they went to track down the shooter, since Jones didn’t die and the murderer was already caught. But your synopsis was still very good.
Well, I did like this episode but I liked Legion better, mainly because there was a lot more special effects. Clark didn’t use his powers much until nearly the end. I found this episode more adult than the previous one and Lana didn’t get on my nerves this time, but I thought the previous episode was more entertaining. That’s just me though.
The blond cop was Dan Turpin. They even said it (although the name Turpin was only said once, so if you missed it, it’s fine).
Thanks for the corrections, guys – I’ll fix the post here shortly.
Vic
BTW, funny how a negative review brings out so many more commenters than a positive one.
Vic
Yep! Just call us the Bizarro-posters.
The whole Chloe being some kind of pro hacker is always so absurd.
As always, it’s fun to see someone from the mythos pop in though Turpin could have used a bit more backbone.
And it’s always interesting to see Clark and Oliver go at it because you KNOW that’s how Clark would go at it with Bruce if he were on the show.
I was worried that the marisian’s physiology was not the same as a human and he’d be rushed off to a government facilely. I guess either it is the same (strange) or the doctors were in Oliver’s pocket.
Anyway, a good episode. I wish Lana would go away, Hope Doomsday kill her soon
- It is gonna be funny when Clark becomes Superman, and at the press confrence says: its superman now, not the red blue blur…
I agree I really enjoyed this episode. Reminded me of Magnum Force. The Lana fight scene was really good!
chuck
Turpin being a bit uncertain makes sense to me.
He is a rookie here compared to who he is in the comics.
Glad last weeks terrible episode was apparently a fluke .
Personally, I thought it was one of the worst episodes of the series
I thought that the plot was very weak.
I liked how they used Green Arrow in this episode. When he’s not being an a$$, he functions well in pointing out Clark’s absurdities to him.
But I threw up in my mouth a little when Tess starting talking about Lana’s “presence” and how she “tamed a Luthor.” I wish this show would quit its Lana fetish. It’s just silly.
Did anyone notice that, for a brief moment on the computers at ISIS, it showed what looked like schematics for Lex luthor’s armored suit? I wonder if that’s what the Prometheus project is all about. Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give to mortals, maybe this project is “stealing” power from the super-beings and giving it to normal humans, namely Lex. I don’t know, I might be grasping at straws, but I thought that would be an interesting way of bringing Lex back, and maybe having a really cool fight scene between Clark and super-powered armored Lex.
Do you guys notice that there’s been a trend of Lana-worshipping? It’s a reflection of some of the new showrunners whose favorite character is Lana.
Its not Lana worshipping .
There is a reason she is back.
Just keep watching.
The new showrunners have been in charge since before the season started Lana has appeared in only 3 episodes this season .
She is hardly taking over the show.
What’s with Tess and the super duper mascara? Is Raccoon Chick one of those DC characters I’ve never heard of?
I actually found this episode weak compared to last week and realy a regression to have GA lecture Clark on not killing (the guy who has twice tried to murder Lex)when last week that was the message Clark was teaching the Legion. I liked this week’s premise but the story was trite and predictable and yes, the Lana worship is back in full force. She’s Lex’s equal (please), is stunning, has a powerful presence (whatever), and is able to use her LanaFu – the most convinient of all the Fu’s_– to take out MERCY??? Sure, why not. I didn’t hate most of the episode, but we’ve seen so much of this before and done better. The realization of the value of a team? I thought that was what “Justice” was for. Also, he’s back to putting Lana before the world? Not this again. How did he take Dan’s comment about balancing family life with the job to mean Lana comes first? Ugh, this episode felt like it was written by someone who hasn’t actually watched the show. Did like seeing Jonn Jones.
Ok, I’m truly loving Smallville these days but it just occurred to me why and how the heck did
Chloe some how remember Clark’s secrec after she was errased from them I remember way back to save her life? Did I perhaps miss an episode?
Richard
Richard, did you miss the episode where Doomsday kidnapped Chloe and took her to the fortress where she was overtaken by Brainiac again? Apparently when they ridded her of Brainiac everything went back to normal. BTW, don’t you know that ANYTHING is possible in the comic book world? Who cares anyway? We are all glad she remembers. Right? My concern is that the visitors from the future have never heard of Chloe. So either she goes off eventually to live a mundane boring life or she dies. At least we know that Lana will do great things. You go girl!
Thanks Tricia, I undersdtand now.
Problem though I miss things 1st view. Sometimes I watch 3rd time but was poor tv I had anyway. Now this show is on here at
8 Sat eve then again Sun 7PM.
It’s great I get cell postings for these rants then go online to read & learn.
Ironically this show not supposed to heve this technology but immagine watching this show & others without it!
So that’s true being comic anything can hapen…
Richard
I am going to read all the rants though already viewed some.
Is therea way I can view a show on U tube I mean the whole episode?
Richard
@Richard
Try going to cw.com to view full episodes.
So now Lana is out of the picture…FINALLY! But does anyone believe Lex is dead? You would have to do a lot more than that to kill Lex; the man is too smart. Now, let’s get to some Doomsday butt-kicking. But before they do that, when is the old Dark Knight going to team with ole Supes? I suppose it would be when he first becomes Batman, since these guys are soo young.
Of course Lex isn’t dead. They can’t rewrite comic book history THAT radically on the show.
Vic
Seems reruns now but hope season 8 not over(?) So any1 know what’s next? More season 8 or begin season 9 & when?
thanks, Richard
Vic: Thank you for agreeing with me in believing that Lex’s Luther is not Dead. I believe that it is part of the mystery all together. No telling what is going to happened to Lana; she was not in the last episode. We watch Clark fly at Superman speed up to the towers where the incident took place. It was reassuring seen him do that(just an obserbation). Otho, 2/14/09 @ 1:30 AM
Vic, I’ve notice that on Thursday the 12th episode we began to see TW revelling his secret to the world. He also destroyed the legion Ring. Lois was quite taken and surprise by TW requesting her to print his story. It seem the start of the 9th season is in progress. Otho 3/13/09
Yeah, and it looks like they may finally be making Clark fly next week, as I wrote about a while back.
Vic
I’m growing weary of the incremental Doomsday tease. Hey Smallville, drop the meteor rocks or get off the pot.
What is it with the butt-ugly women and racoon-like eye makeup on this show? And how did Ms. Lake find out so many things about Clark and more importantly the paramedic? Are we to believe since she can turn into water, and water is everywhere, that she hears everything?