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Odyssey- OSCK Review of the Season 8 Premiere of Smallville « Operation Save Clark Kent’s Blog Space 
Mon, Nov 3
Odyssey- OSCK Review of the Season 8 Premiere of Smallville Posted on September 19, 2008 by supernatural66 ODYSSEY- episode review by OSCK mod Baudyhallee Video and screencaps by Kate- admin OSCK Mythology or mythos. Not foreign to the Greeks or comic book fans. Odysseus went on a journey to return home to Penelope. Clark Kent just wants to go home. Home is where the heart is and the real Clark Kent has plenty of heart. He doesn’t give up – which is something he said in the alternate universe episode of last season, APOCALYPSE. The good fans of Smallville can tell you that the previous year’s AU or otherworldly episode will be the basis for the following season. Case in point, Labyrinth of Season 6 gave us the dark, psychotic season 7. ( Read OSCK founder Erika’s Essay on Season 7 as Labyrinth) Last season’s AU episode had this line said by Lex Luthor. It keeps echoing in my brain. “Sometimes things go so horribly wrong that the only way to fix them is by starting over.” This is what I believe is the backbone premise of Season 8. Final Scene From Arctic When last we left Clark, he was beginning to come out of his BDA and wimp ass tendencies, Lana had dogged him with a DVD of her crying and saying she was leaving him (a standard practice in Lanadom), Lois was there to comfort him, and the last person who held him in his arms was Lex Luthor. Go figure! The Fortress of Solitude was destroyed and Lex found out Clark’s secret. When ARCTIC ended, I couldn’t believe it was over. I thought there was another scene to be seen. So imagine my excitement when we got word of Smallville going towards the Superman mythos this season? Last season it was often snickered at and its fans ostracized. But this year, the new show runners seem to be embracing it – which is a heck of a good idea since this is the 70th anniversary of Superman. This season Clark Kent becomes a man! Wait for the angelic host to finish its last note, please. Or is that the squees of all the fans anticipating this season with great relish and delight? Premieres often feel rushed and ODYSSEY is no exception. Oh, it has a plot, but it serves other purposes as well. Lex is missing. Tess Mercer is introduced as the new evil. Clark is missing. Part of the Justice League is back to try and find him. But mostly – there’s action!!! No more sitting watching broody Clark bouncing his balls in the loft. He’s got himself in a terrible fix. Lex knows his secret, but can’t be found to keep his mouth shut. And Clark is powerless. So much for the remote control on the TRAVELER. Big Daddy Jor-El thinks of everything. The season opener begins with a montage. First out of the chute, Clark throwing the crystal that creates the Fortress of Solitude. That was the end of season 4. The voice over is Jor-El speaking about Clark’s purpose. (yea, he had one, but for 3 seasons he lost it) Then there’s a Lois save, a Lana save, a Lois save, Jimmy Chloe proposal, Lana goodbye, Martha leaving, Lois and DP application, Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, Chloe and Brainiac, Lex in Arctic, the Crimson jump, and then the FOS explodes. The first scene is a helicopter in the Arctic tundra 4 weeks after the season 7 finale. There are tents set up in the snowy mountains. Here is where we meet Tess Mercer, an obscure Regional VP who has been catapulted to the Acting CEO of Luthorcorp. All this information came from Regan – Lex’s lackey from last year. This guy was everywhere in this episode. The Arctic, the DP, Montana – I keep wondering if this was one of Martian Manhunter’s morphs. Tess speaks of Lex in the present – as if he wasn’t dead. They’re digging around the permafrost to see if they can find human remains. Tess is a hard ass. Almost emotionless at times. She’s definitely into the power thing and also manipulation. 801 Odyssey JLA 1 Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details Oliver is nearby (yea, it was a block party in the tundra) and starts shooting up the place . . . with arrows. Black Canary uses her sonic cry and a knife. More arrows. Regan gets the drop on them when . . . (and this is probably the coolest thing I saw in this segment) Aquaman comes up out of the snow floor to take him out. They find Clark’s red jacket in the trench the Luthorcorp mob was digging. Remember the SV red jacket is really a symbol of Clark’s cape. I know we get tired of him wearing it over and over – and it seems like it’s cockroaches and Keith Richards. The thing will just not die! But if you think about it being the cape, then maybe it won’t bug you so much (okay, maybe a little less.) “Clark, where are you?” Credits. The politics of credits. Meh. Anyway, there’s some old shots, some new shots from this season (yet to be seen) which is fine. BUT the one thing I did not like was Clark carrying Tess towards the end – especially when they have a perfectly good Crimson jump or the Lois save from Apocalypse. Felt kind of gypped by that. Season 8 Opening Credits Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details Lineup is Tom (of course, as it should be!!!), Allison, Erica, Aaron, the Kryptonite for a few less seconds, Cassidy, Sam (who we haven’t seen yet), and Justin. 801 French Maid Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details Lex’s mansion which apparently has been shut up for the past 4 weeks. But no fear, the French maid is here with her trusty drill and attitude. Lois Lane. She finds a flash drive in a locked cabinet and puts it in her cleavage. Tess enters the room and it’s a pissing contest. Tess pulls a provocative power move by intruding Lois’s personal space. ( Reminiscent of BIZARRO last season ) Lois is trying to find out where Chloe is since she can’t seem to find a hot trail towards the DDS who supposedly took her away. Tess spouts some jibberish about Lex believing in truth and justice. Huh? Well that means she’s totally obsessed by Lex or she’s his and Lana’s clone baby experiment. Tess does have red hair – which she could have gotten from either of her parents that way (if SV Lana had red hair). Tess has a female assistant. Black Creek, Montana. Chloe is being held by geek boy who is watching her flash read through mucho pics on a screen. She can even tell him how fast they are going. She’s had a dramatic increase in intelligence. Uh oh, maybe Brainie left her a gift? She thinks she’s been captured by the DDS for her hacking into NASA which is an act of treason, apparently. But she hasn’t figured out who really has captured her. 801 Odyssedy JLA 2 Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details Oliver, Dinah and AC are at the Isis Foundation trying to find something on Chloe’s hard drive about Clark. They are trying to track Clark’s whereabouts all over the globe. Victor and Bart are covering the southern hemisphere. (good mention!) “Clark would never give up on us. We’re not giving up on him.” 801 Clark Russia 1 Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details Verkhoyansk, Russia (third smallest town in Russia – a Russian Smallville if you will) It’s raining and we see a wet Clark. (excuse me, I’m enjoying this) Lifting and toting for the commissar who calls him, Johnny Appleseed. ??? who knows. Clark looks exhausted. Not sure why he’s in a work camp but apparently he owes someone money and he just wants to let people know he’s okay. But this isn’t your previous 7year Clark. Huh uh. You can actually see him think and plan an escape. He jumps into a truck and manages to wreck it (no big surprise there), but he was trying to avoid machine gun fire – and without powers that would be the smart thing to do. So Clark gets punched and kicked and he passes out. Definitely no superpowers going on there. Back to the DP where Regan is sitting at the big desk and Tess walks in. He’s studying some pictures. Another pissing contest. We find out more about Tess. Apparently she was a Lousiana girl, raised in a swamp, who taught herself to read and she entered Harvard at the age of 15. Oh, and she likes to deep sea dive in her spare time. Tess suspects Regan and his loyalty being lacking where devotion to Lex is concerned. Chloe is to descramble a transmission’s algorithms to find 3 phone numbers. She gives out the first – we see AC taking a shower in Tromoso, Norway (which is actually on an island so lots of water for AC—and Alan was the flesh ‘barer’ for the evening – he’s buff. It was appreciated.). He’s shot in the neck with a dart. Chloe gives the geek the second phone number and we see the Black Canary in Qeqertarsuag, Greenland where she is captured. Before the third number is complete you see Chloe realize its Oliver’s number. She refuses to give her captor the last three digits. She realizes she’s not at a DDS facility. She kicks the geek and runs for it. She’s grabbed and Regan shows up. 801 Clark Russia 2 Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details Clark is still out cold in Ruskieville. He makes another attempt at escape by attacking his caviar dealing captor, but without superpowers and all he’s been through, he’s just not pulling the right cards. “I just want to go home.” Oliver arrives speaking Russian and introduces himself as Roy Connor (after the Red Arrow and his son, the other Green Arrow). Clark sees him and gets hit for his trouble. Oliver starts calling him out and they engage in a ‘mock’ fight. The banter between the two is accented with punches. They both look like they’re having fun. Ollie pulls a knife and says he’s taking the caviar and this ‘pathetic punk.’ He drags Clark off to which Clark replies, “What took you so long?” I love this episode. Clark seems very proactive despite his circumstances and there is plenty of action. 801 Odyssey Clark Ollie Plane Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details In Oliver’s plane, we learn that the Jor-El took Clark’s powers and that he survived without his abilities. There was wind and snow and he hiked. He ended up on a fishing boat in the Arctic Ocean and then apparently in the Russian workcamp. “I really screwed up.” Confession is good for the soul and it appears as if Clark is starting to have some self realization. Being stuck in the Arctic will do that to you. Clark is concerned with Chloe’s abduction and Oliver tells him it wasn’t the DDS. Lex! He knows about the Montana facility and that Dinah and AC are off the radar while looking for Clark. And he’s a little unsure of whether Clark going along is a good idea. “You’re kind of . . . useless.” But Clark convinces him and the plane changes course. Dinah and AC are in the Montana facility now with Regan. He interrogates the two of them. Alan was suspended bare-chested much as Clark was in SPIRIT. Regan wants to know who they were searching for in the Arctic. They’re new secret weapon? The alien known as the Traveler? They both deny it and say they were looking for Lex. Regan knows about their ‘hooded ringleader’. 801 Odyssey CLOIS 1 Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details A door explodes and the Green Arrow and Clark enter through it. Clark wants to split up to cover more ground to find Chloe. GA says he might not save him if he gets into trouble. Clark goes off on his own. (He does this often in the comics as well, not always joining up with the JLA.) He searches down corridors and comes to an intersection when he hears voices. He’s about to turn and go into another direction, but one of the voices he recognizes. The look on his face is priceless. Lois Lane. She’s dressed like the guards and is talking a mile a minute when she sees Clark. “What the hell are you doing here?” We get the familiar BDA look. One of the guards asks if he knows her. Clark says no, Lois says yes. “He wishes he didn’t know me.” Gotta love Lois. She explains that she had put him into his cell. The other guards want to take charge of him. Lois refuses. There’s an altercation and Lois takes out one guard while Clark punches out the other. Ooooo I love manly Clark! Then Lois takes a gun off a body and gets all BAD ASS. I love Lois when she’s bad ass, too. Clark starts the banter reminiscent of Season 4. Only this time its sharper and comes from knowing the other person. This is not only a mental exercise these two seem to enjoy, but it shows how much they truly know each other and there is some teasing involved. Lois makes a comment “You disappear for a month and come back with a sense of humor?” If you have ever read Superman/Batman then you know that it is Bruce Wayne who is the brooding man of angst who has no sense of humor and that he constantly rolls his eyes at Clark who believes in faith and hope and has a sense of humor. On Smallville during its many previous seasons, fans often thought the creator/producers confused the young Clark Kent with a young Bruce Wayne. In this season, we see the real Clark Kent. One who seems to be holding onto hope and has his sense of humor intact. Lois always brings it out. Lois is deadly with a gun in her hand, punctuating her dialogue with a pull on the safety. “. . .just do exactly what I tell you . . . and we can both stay alive.” Clark follows her closely. Clark may have superpowers (at this moment he doesn’t), but Lois is always a force to be reckoned with. Chloe strapped in a chair realizes she’s been helping Luthorcorp, her captors. Regan comes in. Chloe is now a meteor freak and has a turbo intelligence. Her mother Moira had the ability to make people do things against their will. Lex surreptitiously took her spinal fluid and added the secret green glowing ingredient and Voila – instant automatons. They inject Chloe with her mother’s spinal fluid. Creepy!!! And she spouts out Oliver’s phone number. They locate him on GPS and he’s in the building. GA finds Dinah and AC and is about to save them when Regan shows up and injects him with the green goo. “Do whatever it takes to find out what happened to Lex Luthor “ 801 Odyssey Chloe Rescue Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details Clark and Lois in the hallway. The banter continues. Clark tells her to watch where she’s pointing the gun. She explains to him that she grew up with guns and commandos, not cows in the corn. “You stick with me, I’ll protect you. You’ll be fine.” Clark finds the room Chloe is in. He tries to open the locked door. “Out of the way, Smallville.” There’s a head nod of agreement that Lois knows what she’s doing. Then she opens fire on the door and enters first with gun raised. Chloe tries to warn her, but she gets tazer’d by geek boy. Clark comes in and punches out geek boy and in the next instance, he is seeing to Lois. Chloe is screaming at him. “Where have you been? I have been waiting for you!” Okay, that is just – she EXPECTED him to save her. She’s not concerned about her cousin at all. It’s that whole Clark is god thing again. She doesn’t even give Lois a glimpse before and after Clark tells her to “Watch Lois.” He finds out from Chloe that Dinah and AC have been captured. He runs off to see what he can do. 801 Odyssey Clark MM GA Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details Running down the stairs, he sees Oliver. He’s relieved. But Ollie is now a Luthorpawn. “Where’s Lex?” Clark is confused. They’ve had this discussion before. Ollie pulls out an arrow and shoots Clark. Clark struggles to pull the arrow from his chest. “That was a warning. The next one will go straight through your chest.” Clark denies knowing anything. He’s bleeding on his white undershirt. (all the better to see it with) I hate Clarkie bleeding. It upsets me!!! The next arrow goes through his heart and we see it take out a window behind him. (good effect) Clark falls to the floor. It’s then that the effects of the green goo wear off and Ollie runs to Clark realizing what he has done. He tries to stop the bleeding while mancrying (Justin just nails this stuff!). Chloe rushes in, saying “Oh God.” And it’s the god complex in reverse. She commands Ollie to get back. “I can save him!” Clark doesn’t want her to save him. He knows what a price she pays for doing that feat even if he is now human. She dramatically places her hand on his chest wound and nothing happens. Uh oh!!! (All I could think was when Lois finds out she let him die – she’s going to be majorly pissed!) So Clark’s life flashes before his eyes and who’s first up on deck. Blahna! Byuck! (well there goes my lunch!) Then there’s Ma and Pa and Ma at Pa’s funeral. Then we see the Martian Manhunter (who comes out of nowhere). “I’m here, Kal-El.” Chloe cries over Clark’s dead body as MM picks him up. With no acknowledgement of the stupid humans in the vicinity, he flies through the window holding onto Clark. MM is a BAD ASS!!! (Clark needs more bad ass beings in his life!) This scene is phenomenal. I got choked up. We see their flight leaving the Earth and heading towards the yellow sun. In-frikkin-credible!!! 801 Odyssey Clark MM Barn Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details Kent Farm. Clark is laying in the sun on the red couch in the loft. He’s wearing his blue t-shirt and jeans. He hears a noise and it’s MM. “How does it feel to be whole again?” MM tosses a football at Clark (as Lex had done in APOCALYPSE) and Clark crushes it to prove he has his abilities back. He grins then realizes that MM has saved him. “You brought me to some white light.” (Remember Lois’s white light in ZOD – could be Jor-El) MM tells him it was the healing effects of the sun. MM was only to be a watchful guardian, but he could not watch Kal-El die. “Jor-El knew he was sending you on an impossible Odyssey.” To have the powers of a god and to live amongst humans. “Sometimes I feel like I need to be two separate people.” Saving Clark stripped MM of his powers. Not comic continuity but hey, it’s Smallville. “Yours is the greater destiny.” Without the FOS, Clark will have to seek his destiny without Jor-El’s guidance. “Or anyone else’s.” (Too bad Chloe didn’t hear that.) IMPORTANT!!! Clark talks about the people who have died and who walked away from him. “But I’ve never really said goodbye. I’ve been holding on to a life on this farm that hasn’t existed for years.” WOW. I mean. WOW. Can you say epiphany? “So what are you going to do,” asks MM. “Let it go,” says Clark. “It’s the only chance I have of finding a new one.” YES!!! Freakin YES!!! This is the third scene like this with MM discussing Clark taking on his destiny and letting go of the past. One was deleted from LABYRINTH in Season 6, one was in Season 7 (Lana screwed that up) and now this one. Let’s hope third time’s the charm. MM hands Clark his red jacket. Which is really his red cape. Clark puts it on much the same way he put it on in ARCTIC when he turned down the DP application. The Supes-like music plays in the background. Is that RESOLVE I see in his face??? Damn! They might just get this show turned around and going in the right direction! Lex Mansion. Tess enters carrying newspaper with headline of Regan being missing. It makes you wonder if she had something to do with that or not. She rips the sheet from the Veritas window and then from Lex’s desk. She sits in his chair. She is taking over even though she denies it to her assistant, who hands her a brief case from the excavation site. “Any word on Lex?” There’s a photo of a bootprint that they found in the Arctic. Looks familiar. Tess opens the brief case and there is the Fortress crystal. (doing the happy dance!) 801 Odyssey Chimmy Posted to TV Promos n Trailers by supernatural66 on September 19, 2008 Click to Play | View Details The Talon apartment at night. Chloe is rapidly reading things on the internet and wondering what is happening to her. Jimmy comes in (out of nowhere). They hug. He thinks she’s going to refuse his proposal, but she says yes. “You’re perfect . . for me.” Ahhh. So the engagement is on! But if we remember APOCALYPSE, Jimmy’s old girlfriend broke his heart. Chloe will probably blow it. She’s having issues. Well, enough about that. Let’s get to the good stuff. 801 Odyssey JLA 3
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