Lost "Ab Aeterno"

Finally, some answers!

This episode mainly deals with Richard Alpert and by mainly, I mean there aren’t really any flashbacks fading in and out of the present. It’s mostly a flashback of Richard’s life. I’ve got to say it was another great episode.

The show opens up with Ilana explaining that she came to the island to protect the candidates and that the candidates are people who are supposed to replace Jacob. Her instructions after she took the candidates to the temple were to ask Richard what to do next, but he goes off on a crazed frenzy. He says he’s known a secret that no one else knows about the island and it’s not what it seems and I hold my breath. But then he continues his crazed frenzy and thinks he’s in Hell and storms off stating that he thinks he might follow someone else.

Jack sees Hurley talking to no one in Spanish and assumes it’s Jacob. Hurley says it’s not and storms off.

The flash back starts in 1867 on Tenerife on the Canary Islands. Richards wife Isabella is ill so he rides into town to get medicine taking all of the money he has and his wife’s gold cross. The doctor refuses to ride in the rain to help her and he won’t sell the medicine for such a cheap price. Richard panics and pushes the doctor and he hits his head on a table and dies. Richard leaves panicked with the medicine and returns to his wife, but she has already passed. He cries over her body as men come to take him away.

In prison, a priest visits him and Richard has a confession. However, the priest will not forgive him for his sin, because the priest says he can’t absolve him of his sins for murder. If the Dharma Initiative was instated at the time or if Jacob was recruiting Others, I would have sworn that the priest was behind something sinister, because it was such a shock and he did look creepy and not really sympathetic. He said Richard needed to do penance but he didn’t have time because he was going to be hanged. I’m not sure what was the point in the confession, but the priest didn’t seem concerned. It was like “Want to be forgiven? That’s too bad. Have a nice time burning in Hell, you murderer!”

Instead of being hung, a British Captain buys Richard because he can speak English and plans on taking him to the New World. During the ride a storm breaks out and they are drawn to the island. The Black Rock smashes into the Statue of Taweret, which answers what happened to it and then the ship crashes in the middle of the jungle.

The Captain is sure the slaves will rise up and kill them and the supplies are limited anyway, so he starts killing all of the slaves. Richard is the last one, but the killing spree is interrupted by the one who does it best: Smokie! The smoke monster begins killing the crew and the Captain looks up while blood is dripping down on him. It was kind of horrifyingly awesome for tv. Then Smokie kills the Captain and does the whole “I’m gonna approach you but leave” thing to Richard.

Richard is stuck trying to escape for the next few days but then he sees his dead wife. She tells him that they’re in Hell and that he has to leave before the devil homes. They hear Smokie and then she runs away. Richard hears her scream and begins to panic, still trapped in chains and unable to help.

Enter Man in Black. He gets Richard out of the chains and gives him water. He admits to being the black smoke and confirms that they are in Hell and that the devil has his wife. He give Richard a knife and tells him to go kill the devil living in the statue. Richard agrees since it’s the only way to save his wife. It mimics how fake Locke convinced Ben and how Dogen convinced Sayid.

He goes to kill Jacob, but Jacob kicks his butt and convinces Richard that he’s not in Hell by sort of drowning him. I thought Jacob was a lot more passive than what he appeared to be in this episode, so I was a bit shocked. He tells Richard that he brings people to the island to prove to the Man in Black that people are good while the Man in Black believes that they are corrupted. All of the people Jacob brought has died. Some people think that Jacob might not be as good as what people believe but it would seem that his has a disconnection with humanity. All of these people’s lives are like games to MIB and Jacob. Richard wants to know why Jacob doesn’t interfere and Jacob says that he believes that there’s no point in the argument if he has to tell people to choose good. Richard says “If you don’t then he will.”

Jacob then asks if Richard would like a job to interfere on his behalf. In return, Richard asks for his wife back and Jacob says that he can’t do this. I thought this was very important because we keep seeing dead people appear on the island but whose to say who is dead or what? No one has really ever come back for the dead so resurrection seems to be out of the question, though the Man in Black is promising it to Sayid. Is Man in Black lying or does he posses a power that Jacob does not or does Jacob think it’s wrong to resurrect people? Richard also asks to be absolved from his sins, but Jacob says he can’t do that either so if anyone has any theories that Jacob is God, then I think that proves them wrong, but he does seem to have a separation from humanity. Then Richard asks to live forever so he can never go to Hell and Jacob agrees to doing that.

Richard’s first task is to give the Man in Black a white rock. MIB explains that he knows Jacob can be persuasive and says that if Richard EVER changes his mind, he’ll have him.

MIB and Jacob talk. MIB just wants his body back and he wants to leave the island. Jacob can’t do that because apparently, MIB is evil incarnate. MIB says he has no choice but to kill Jacob and Jacob says that if he manages to kill him, he’ll just have a replacement. So the candidates are NOT protecting the island. The island is protecting everyone else from MIB. This makes a lot more sense. But since there is no island in the sideways universe, I’m curious to know the consequences.

Flashbacks end and Richard goes to a spot where he had buried his wife’s cross. He cries and calls out to MIB. Hurley then emerges and says that he was talking with Isabella. After Richard and Isabella have a conversation via Hurley about how her death wasn’t his fault, Richard feels better. Hurley also tells Richard that Isabella said that they have to stop MIB from leaving the island or “they all go to Hell.”

In the distance, MIB is watching.

This was a very great episode. I was troubled by how Richard snapped, but I suppose he has been around for a long time and there's no telling everything he went through. His story with his wife was very sad and it was touching when he got to speak with her again. This episode was probably the second best of the season, but I'm looking forward to some more great ones before it's all over.

Lost "Recon"

I’m sorry to admit this, but Lost was sort of a disappointment. It’s weird saying that since I adore watching Sawyer and he’s had some very interesting storylines, but I feel that this episode pales in comparison to the emotion and plot progress that the last episode possessed.

There was a surprise in Sawyer’s sideways universe, but it was the most shocking thing of the entire night. Sawyer was playing his favorite con, in bed with a wife of a rich husband and he gets up and takes his suitcase and all his money falls out. The woman is supposed to see it and decide to become part of the investment scheme he has going on and Sawyer takes her money and leaves. Well, his girl (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe who played Gretchen on Prison Break), totally saw right through it since her husband is a con artist. Sawyer tells her that he’s really undercover and if she doesn’t cooperate, she’s going to jail. She doesn’t take him serious and I assume it’s another good lie from Sawyer trying to get out of being shot, but as it turns out, his backup comes piling through the door and arrests Gretchen.

Sawyer is a cop, so he doesn’t go by “Sawyer.” He goes by James Ford. I know I had a pretty stupid expression on my face, and I’m not sure what it meant or what I was really thinking at the time. I was just surprised. Sawyer is a rugged, bad boy. It’s all part of his charm. But the most important thing to consider is that Sawyer is presumably changed for the better without interference from Jacob and the island. Is Jacob really not on the side of good? That’s a question that a lot of people are beginning to wonder. I would personally feel a little betrayed if that were the case, so I’m theorizing that he’s good. I believe that there will be a very good reason as to why the cast had to live such miserable lives to get to the island and I assume it has something to do with the smoke monster. I hope Jacob is in the end justified, but it doesn’t look too good on his part.

Anyway, Miles is James’ partner and James is keeping him and everyone in the dark about his past. His father still killed his mother and himself and James is tracking down Anthony Cooper who is actually the only person called “Sawyer” and plans on killing him once he finds him.

James goes on a blind date set up by Miles with Charlotte. They hit it off and go back to his place but when she finds his secret files on “Sawyer”, he freaks out and kicks her out. He tries to reconcile later, but she tells him that he “blew it.” He also gets into a huge fight with Miles because Miles finds out that James was in Sidney and not on vacation.

James really contemplates the entire episode about how he is pushing people away by living in the past and holding onto revenge, so he tells Miles about what happened and what he plans to do. There’s not really a conversation stating that James will stop his hunt so I wouldn’t say that there was real growth like in the last episode with Ben Linus.

However, James did catch Kate at the end. That was an interesting twist, but leaves me to wonder why James seemed to aid Kate at the airport when he was always a law abiding citizen.

On the island, the smoke monster/fake Locke sends Sawyer to Hydra island for a recon mission. Locke wants to know if there are any passengers from the plane left and their intentions so he can use the airplane and fly home. Sawyer does as told and discovers that all the left over passengers are dead and there is only one survivor. Sawyer eventually finds out that she’s lying and discovers that she’s one of Widmore’s people. They are armed with guns and sonar weapons like The Others/Dharma had to keep him out the smoke monster. Sawyer is taken to Widmore and promises to take fake Locke to him so he can kill him and so he can escape on the sub with his people. Widmore agrees. But, something to wonder about is how the passengers died. Widmore claims that he did not kill them. It very well could have been the smoke monster, but Sawyer doesn’t believe Widmore, though he seems suspicious of fake Locke since he knows about the people at the temple being murdered because of the smoke monster.

Back at camp, Claire finally snaps and attacks Kate. While Claire is holding a knife to Kate’s neck, Sayid is watching. Locke comes to save Kate and then she leaves to cry and wonder why the world has turned so wonky. I personally would have ran out of there. She knows that Locke is really dead. I don’t know if she has enough sense to realize that Locke isn’t really a resurrected Locke and something is off. Claire is also crazy and Sayid is obviously off his rocker as well. Locke explains to her that he told Claire that The Others had her baby so she could hate someone because it’s a very powerful survival skill and all that hate was transferred to Kate. Locke also stated that he had a crazy mother and he had issues because of it and expresses concern because Aaron’s mother is now also crazy. It’s interesting because the real Locke’s mother was off, but it seems like fake Locke is talking about himself. He did used to be a man. Since he mentioned it himself, I would hope that his past is further explored. Claire does apologize and hug Kate and cries, but I would still get out of there if I was Kate.

When Sawyer returns, he tells fake Locke about his deal with Widmore and Locke sees it as loyalty. Kate confronts Sawyer when they’re alone and he states that his loyalty doesn’t belong with anyone and he intends on letting them fight it out and escaping on the sub.

What was interesting was that Widmore and fake Locke knew of each other’s presence. I’m curious as to how and I’m curious if they’ll actually end up being enemies or allies. After all, Widmore and Ben are true enemies and Ben rejected Locke’s offer to join him. The enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of thing may come into play, unless it ends up being an every man for himself scenario.

This episode wasn’t bad or anything, but I’m not sure if I would watch it back just because. With great episodes like “The Long Con” under Sawyer’s belt, I just thought there might be something more with this one.

It would also seem like Sawyer is catching on that Locke might be the smoke monster, but Kate seems to be missing some bananas out of the bunch, because there was more than enough red flags to send me running into the jungle after Jack.

Another food for that, it’s not a prediction, but it would seem that Jack is becoming a man of faith who believes in the island and a mission that it might hold while Sawyer is willing to do whatever he can to get off, which seems to be the relationship of Jacob and the smoke monster.

Also, it’s possible that the island might be the smoke monster’s prison. If that thing were out in the real world, what kind of chaos would ensue?

Can’t wait until Richard’s past is revealed next week. I’m ready for some answers!

Lost "Dr. Linus"

I’ve been waiting for this episode ever since I found out that Ben was in the sideways timeline, well and alive. Lost did not disappoint with this episode. It was without a doubt, the best episode of the season and contained one of the best emotional pieces of the entire series.

I’m not going to try and recap the complete episode, just go over some of the most important things. The episode was centered on Benjamin Linus. He’s traveling with Sun, Frank, Ilana, and Miles. Ilana was always weary about Jacob’s death so she gives his remains to Miles and he confirms that Ben, not Smokie, killed Jacob.

All seems to be going awkwardly well as they walk back to the beach. Then Illana ties up Ben, points a gun to him, and orders him to dig his own grave. Ben is trying to get out of it by talking to Miles and offering him the millions he asked for years ago. Miles threw in that Pablo and Nikki had diamonds buried with them, so he didn’t need Ben’s money. Then when all hope seems lost, fake Locke comes and offers Ben a chance to escape. He releases his chains, tells Ben where he can find a gun, and offers Ben the opportunity to join him. His reward will be to once again become the leader of the island once fake Locke gets what he wants.

Ben runs for it and I am seriously on the edge of my seat once he starts running through the jungle with Ilana right on his tail with a riffle in her hand. Ben is really my favorite character. If he is to die, I at least want him to survive to the very end. This episode is very nerve wracking for me. Luckily, Ben gets to his gun first and then you ask yourself is Ben going to do the right thing or is he going to save his own skin again.

Instead of killing Ilana, he explains that he knows what Ilana is feeling after losing Jacob, because he lost Alex. He acknowledges that it was his fault and how he was angry because he chose the island over Alex and Jacob didn’t seem to care about any of Ben’s sacrifices. It was truly one of the most heart felt dialogues of the show and something you might not have expected to hear Ben Linus say. If you haven’t seen the episode, you truly need to watch his performance. Top notch.

After apologizing to Ilana, he says that he plans on joining Locke. Ilana then asks why and his answer is one of the saddest, most pathetic in a “I want to feel bad for you” kind of way, things I’ve ever heard. His answer was “Because he’s the only that’ll have me.”

Ilana says, “I’ll have you.” And they both turn around and go back to the beach. Even though they had this emotional moment, I’m constantly watching the clock and waiting for her to snap and shoot Ben in the back of the head or something, but she doesn’t. Thank goodness!

In the sideways timeline, Ben is a history teacher who cares about the students, but the principal is on a power trip. Ben is encouraged by Locke to become the principal and he tries dirty politics to get in. At the last minute, Ben sacrifices his flawless plan to become principal for a student’s well being, who is Alex Rousseau. It was a pleasant twist.

Ben has done some terrible things in his past in the name of his power, but after Alex died, he realized that power wasn’t the most important thing. It seems that this revelation has somehow connected in the sideways time line, because he didn’t sacrifice Alex for his power. I’m curious of the relationship of the sideways time line and how it really will coincide and if the two worlds will ever collide or become aware of one another.

Ben wasn’t the only character who had a breakthrough. Jack is starting to become a man of faith. Richard lost his way and thought his life had no purpose because Jacob died and so he wanted to die. We’re all well aware that he can’t age, but we found out that he also cannot kill himself. He returns to the Black Rock and the popular suspicion that Richard came from the ship is confirmed. Questions are being answered!

Richard asks Jack to light a fuse on a stick of dynamite and Jack obliges the request, but sits and waits for the stick to blow up. Now this is pretty gutsy of Jack and of course we know Jack isn’t going to blow up. Jack’s reasoning is that Jacob wouldn’t want him to go through all he’s been through just to blow up. Our reasoning is that Jack has to have a showdown with evil Locke and or bitter Sawyer. Yet knowing all this, I’m still sitting on edge. I mean, if Jack blows up, a lot of people would feel cheated, but it would be completely unexpected. Jack ends up being right and the fuse burns out right before it reaches the stick.

Jack, Richard, and Hurley return to the beach and meet up with Ben and everyone else.

The big shocker though, the moment that made me scream, was when I saw a submarine in the water. I thought for sure that something was going to come up and snipe Ben. My heart was pounding. After all that emotion and anticipation, it would be terrible if he got popped the last minute of the show. Instead, there is an even bigger twist that I think no one saw coming.

Charles Widmore is back and he’s found the island!

So far, I can’t say that any episodes of Lost this season made me feel shocked or left me with that intense anticipation for the next episode until this episode aired tonight. It was bloody fantastic. Emotional, suspenseful, some questions were answered, faith reassured, and plots started coming together. This was the first time I screamed in shock the entire season and that’s why I watch Lost. I like that there’s a show brilliant enough to emotionally involve me.

I can’t wait until next week. Nine episodes left.

Lost "Sundown"

I am really pumped about Lost this season. I really–in fact–desperately would like to be satisfied with all of the mysteries and the questions and so on. When I saw that the title of this episode was “Sundown” I assumed it was going to be about Sun. I found out some days prior that the main focus was Sayid. I wasn’t too excited about that. Sayid has had such a depressing life that I thought they should have let him die after he got shot last season. Why bother trying to save him? He worked most of his adult life to get back to a woman who he finally married and she was run over by a car and died in his arms.

Sayid’s sideways story was interesting though. I caught on as soon as he was dropped off by his taxi that Nadia was going to be with a different man. I just didn’t know that it would be his brother. They clearly still love each other, but he thinks he doesn’t deserve Nadia and that’s why they didn’t get together in the sideways universe. Sayid’s brother made some bad business deals and got himself in a lot of trouble with none other than Martin Keamy, the man who infamously killed Benjamin Linus’s daughter, Alex. Sayid’s brother got hurt, Sayid was taken, and then Sayid killed everyone there, except for none English speaking Jin, who is tied up in a back room.

On the island, Sayid has a showdown with Dogen. Some people think it’s too late to introduce Dogen and get attached to him, but I like him. It was also cool to see him fight Sayid in hand to hand combat and I enjoyed that he came up on top, since Sayid is supposed to be turning evil. Dogen banishes Sayid after sparing his life.

Claire comes to the temple trying to get Dogen to leave to speak with fake Locke, but Dogen refuses and they take Claire away. Dogen then asks Sayid to kill fake Locke.

Sayid tries, but can’t. Then Smokie tells Sayid that he can give Sayid the one thing that he wants more than anything in the world. I can only assume instead of something noble like redemption, he’s going to do the crazy thing and attempt to resurrect Nadia.

Kate returns and talks to Claire. She can’t tell that Claire needs to be sent to the loony bin, even though she’s alone and singing lullabies in a very creepy fashion. Claire tells Kate that she thinks that The Other’s have Aaron and Kate tells her the truth. Kate doesn’t notice how epically pissed Claire looks and continue chatting about how lovely and wonder Aaron was and how she had been raising him. Of course she claims that she wants to reunite the two of them, but I have a suspicion that Claire is going to kill Kate as soon as she has the chance.

Sayid returns to the temple and informs everyone that they have until sundown to leave. Whoever stays will die. A lot of people leave. Sayid goes back to Dogen and they have a moment. Dogen explains that he came to the island to save the life of us son and assumes that Sayid was offered a deal just as good. Sayid then drowns Dogen.

Dogen’s minion, Lennon, panics and says that Dogen was the one who was keeping the monster out. Sayid turns full out psycho, admits that he knows that, and kills Lennon as well. Smokie starts on a killing spree.

Miles and Kate begin running but get separated when Kate goes after Claire. Miles runs into Alana, Sun, Lapidus, and Ben. Ben runs off to go find Sayid and at this point, I start yelling. They already killed my cool, samurai guy and I am in great fear that they will kill my favorite character. I just know that Sayid hates Ben and will snap his neck. But when Ben sees Sayid, it’s clear that Sayid is evil and off his rocker and Ben looks at him horrified and runs away.

Alana finally saves some people and opens up a secret passage way to get her, Lapidus, Miles, and Sun out. I don’t know where they’re going, but it’s pretty bogus that they took all that time getting to the temple to be safe and as soon as they get there, Smokie strikes. It’s like the only point of going to the temple was to save Miles, but that hardly redeems her after letting Jacob get whacked. I don’t dislike Alana, but I hope she does something epically amazing. It’s bad enough that she came to the island especially to protect Jacob and then he was killed.

Kate gets to Claire and barely misses Smokie during his pursuit of destruction. After it’s all over, Kate, Claire, and Sayid are looking at all the bodies of dead people. I’m extremely disturbed that Kate is just continuing to follow them without saying anything since she just saw a non dead John Locke leading the people, but whatever. Kate does what she feels like anyway. I guess she feels like being demented and confused.

I was expecting Claire to say “kill Kate” to Locke or go ballistic right then and there, but I’m sure she’ll have her battle with Kate eventually.

As far as the questions answered, I can’t say that there were any of the original questions from seasons prior answered. Questions about Dogen’s origins were answered and why the temple was safe was answered. However, we don’t know why Dogen had that ability to keep Smokie out of the temple in the first place.

A new question is what exactly does Claire want the fake Locke to do for her? Everyone has a price. She may be nuts, but she clearly stated that there was a promise that he made to her.

I predict that Claire and Kate will have their blowout, but I’m thinking Jack will be around for it. The woman that he’s been obsessed about and his sister in a death match over three years of his nephews life.

I’m kind of worried for team “good” though. I mean, it seems like it’s going to be Sayid, Sawyer, Claire, and Smokie vs Jack and Hugo. The odds are not good.

"Chollie" is the new "Clana"

“Chollie” is the new “Clana”

Now I know that there are and were A LOT of Clanas out there in the world, but for The Gorgeous Geeks, it’s a dirty word. However, it was not always that way. When Smallville first began and for the first couple of seasons, we were desperate for Clark to get with Lana. From the first time Clark tripped all over himself when he got near her glowing, green necklace, we were sold. I think we started on a downhill spiral once Lana told Clark “I think I should stay away from you” after she agreed to take in paranoid Lex, gave him something to drink that would “calm him,” startled her own horse, and got her leg broken. Then she was with the really dead boyfriend Adam, and then there was the whole witch thing, Jason, Lex, lies, blah, blah, and blah. So we dropped off the loony wagon.

But the thing about Clana is that it was destined to fail. When Lois was introduced to Smallville, she was the beacon on which people familiarized themselves with. Lois and Clark. It’s literally legendary. Lois is the only woman that Superman will literally move Heaven, earth, and the multiverse in order to be with. There were Clana fans who said “Screw the mythology!” But I think they were remembering who Lana used to be in the first few seasons and couldn’t see who she had turned into: a secretive, lying, Clark obsessed, whore. It’s really no different than the comic books.

Now we have this “Chollie” thing. When I first noticed it, I was...well, I was disgusted. But then I started thinking about it from the perspective of a Chloe fan, or what you Chloe fans should think about. Chloe had a fake Jimmy that died before her eyes. She’s been possessed by aliens, witches, parasites, has family history of mental illness, faked a death, and had a demented relationship with Doomsday. She’s had a ridiculous alien intellect and then had to be regular again, which must have felt like “Flowers from Algernon” (though Smallville didn’t really deal with that). Lois took the life she wanted with ease. All of Chloe’s existence revolved around Clark. At first she was in love with him and now she wants to protect him (though that has sometimes been an excuse to act however she wants sometimes). She’s had a cool life, but it’s been very complicated.

My thinking about this Oliver relationship is why? Why bother going through the motions and giving her something that isn’t going to last? Why not give her something meaningful that she can cherish?

I wrote that on a video for a Chloe video and I had nine negatives on the video within a few hours. People were angry, saying that “Smallville is AU” and “screw the mythology” and “Chloe and Oliver are going to be together forever!”

Wake up people! The truth is that this is a fling. Smallville is an AU, but just like Clana fans wished and hoped for something meaningful and long lasting, Chollies will also be disappointed eventually. Oliver ends up with Dinah. They are married and they are great together. Dinah is a character on Smallville. They’ve already dropped hints. They are going to be a couple, even if Smallville doesn’t have enough time to iron out their details.

But since their relationship is already going, we can see that it’s not very sweet or romantic. Oliver is probably still very much in love with Lois and Chloe’s relationship with Jimmy ended for more reasons than Davis stabbing a metal pipe through his chest. They both are lonely. They both have more important things to do than romance so they are secretive and sexual. I’m not surprised. Oliver is a man whore. I’m a little surprised on Chloe’s part, but she’s been shutting herself off to meaningful human ties as she watches the world through computers.

Now, here’s the real reason why I had to compare “Chollie” to “Clana.” In “Conspiracy,” Oliver found out that Chloe had been stealing money from him and making kryptonite weapons, all in the name of the greater good. Chloe’s unrepentant for it and is bothered when Oliver moves weapons that Chloe didn’t technically own since it’s his money, without her knowledge. Lana kept plenty of secrets. When she married Lex, it didn’t take her long to prove that she deserved the name “Luthor.” Clark basically took it all the time because he’s an idiot and was bound to love her, even if she turned into a dinosaur and bit his head off. That’s how blind he was with that girl. Oliver is not Clark and called Chloe out, but I don’t like that Chloe is acting like Lana. Chloe once warned Lana about her behavior and stated that she would be there to protect Clark from her crazy, secretive, obsessive ways. Who is going to call out Chloe correctly for her questionable behavior?

If she keeps up her behavior, she’s not going to have a man or best friend. She’s not as cute as Lana, and Ollie’s probably still thinking about Lois when he bangs her. He’ll just find another girl to get busy with and her relationship with Clark is already rocky.

O.M.G. Chloe might be forced to get her own life. Whatever will she do?

P.S. I’m not technically anti-Chloe. I’m anti-obsess-over-Clark.

Smallville "Conspiracy"

Okay. Let me start off by saying that I have been enjoying season nine of Smallville and I am hoping for a season ten to close out Smallville with a classy exit. However, “Conspiracy” was a bit below par, and mostly because of stupid mistakes.

Basically, the gist of the story is that a crazy man has abducted three Kandorians because he himself was experimented on by them. He’s grizzly, but I easily understand his frustration. (Of course they’ve done crazy kidnapper at least a hundred times already, but hey! It’s Smallville!) Clark and Zod are working separately to try and save the Kandorians before it’s too late.

Now there was something that I think everyone should realize: Clark should just wait around with Lois. Why? Because the story always runs into Lois. She either stumbles into it or she herself is forced into it. In this particular episode, she was kidnaped so she would be forced to write the story about how the earth was invaded by aliens. She did some butt kicking, but was taken out by the bad guy by of course, a blow to the head. She was knocked unconscious so Clark can keep his identity a secret while he saves everyone without a convincing disguise.

Zod is pretty smart with his investigation. He goes through the Daily Planet, because of course a desperate, crazy alien spouter would have tried to contact the newspaper before stealing a news reporter. Zod finds letters in the crazy pile and finds the hideout. He helps Lois and then is shot.

Clark takes the long route while playing reporter. He learns some facts about Zod and sees him as a nicer person. Clark is a sap in the comic books, so it doesn’t bother me when he does stupid things like trusting everyone who smiles at him friendly.

When he finally figures everything out, he pushes the alien kidnapper hard in a way that probably should have injured him. It was considerably harder than what knocked out Lois, but whatever. The bad guy gets up, holds his chain saw in the air, and gets electrocuted. That was lame. That was very, very lame. Him being knocked out after the super push would have been sufficient. It is every other episode.

Clark doesn’t want Zod to die, but he surprisingly does. But, Clark doesn’t want it to end like that so he finds the random kryptonite infected placed material in the room and cuts his hand. He drops some of his blood on Zod and it heals him. Clark’s blood is so fantastic that it wipes away all of the blood that was on Zod. There was a glow and sparkle and then Zod was clean and healed. The random, unplanned act has worked. Hizzah!

Zod ends up telling Clark that they’ll work together and Zod pretends to still be hurt. But as the sun rises while he’s alone on the roof of the Daily Planet, he soaks it all in and flies away.

The moral of the episode is this: Clark is an idiot. But we didn’t learn anything new. Now did we?

The director of this episodes wanted to play with the slow motion button a little too much. Maybe once or twice, but three of four times is overkill, especially when it’s not for anything cool like super powers.

Clark and Lois didn’t experience much romance in this episode. They did both acknowledge that they both have professional secrets that they have to keep from each other. That was that. There was no fuss. They were very mature about it. It was much more evolved than “I need you to trust me, Clark!” Lana issues.

Chloe and Oliver had some screen time together. Apparently, they’re sexual partners, not very romantic. It’s hard to be romantic with Chloe stealing Oliver’s money. At least it’s for something cool, like kryptonite weapons, in case the Kandorians get their powers...or in case the Kandorians decide to use it against Clark. I’m sure one of the two will happen.

Oliver ends up taking the weapons and putting them in a safe place. He keeps the location to himself, which Chloe doesn’t like. Chloe is becoming the new keeper of secrets and expects others to spill their guts to her. It’s very Lanaish and I don’t like it. Not one bit. (Don’t get mad at me, Lana fans. She did it all the time!) At least Oliver called her out on her hypocrisy. It feels good when the character in the television screen listens to what you have to say.

At least Oliver thinks they should tell Clark the truth about the weapons...when it’s the right time...whenever that might be.

Some positives of this episode was Zod’s acknowledgment of Lois. He understands why Clark likes her so much, and I’m assuming Zod will have more face time with her. I also like how Smallville is including Amanda Waller. She’s very sneaky, very clever, and has a bit of a twisted idea on how to save the world. I think Smallville is hinting at doing great things with her character. I hope they don’t mess it up.

I would say that this is a solid episode (on the Smallville meter anyway), but it’s one of my least favorite of the season so far. I expect Clark to do dumb things, but the villain’s death was lame, the glowy blood was cheesy, and I don’t like what the writers are doing with Chloe.

And for the record, I think Clark was doing the right thing with trying to assimilate the Kandorians into society to live like humans. It was driving a wedge between Zod and his people and they were seeing Clark has their hero. It was just dumb and random to bleed on Zod. I can even understand Clark wanting to save Zod, as his father asked him to, but when I see people hurt, my first reaction isn’t to bleed on them. Clark’s blood by itself doesn’t heal. He didn’t know it would. I’m not sure why it even crossed his mind to do that.

Oh well. Here’s to an interesting follow up episode!

Heroes Volume 5: Redemption

Let me start off by saying that I have no love in my heart for Heroes. I thought it was good starting out, but started spiraling out of relevance very quickly.

I think the problem with “Redemption” is that it occurred right after a very, terrible season finale. We finally get a Peter vs Sylar fight, with Nathan thrown in there as well, and they close the door on us. The only reasonable explanation to do something so horrific to a viewing audience is budget cuts and even though it’s reasonable, it certainly isn’t acceptable.

But the absolute worst thing about the season finale was the fact that Sylar kills Nathan. It’s not because I was sad to see him go. Nathan has been a backstabbing, manipulative, easy to manipulate, jerk since the very first season. I was glad to see him go. How can you not expect hunting down people with powers when you yourself has powers is going to end well? Anyway, the terribly written part about it is that we all know that Claire has the power to heal people with her blood. I don’t understand why it didn’t cross Angela’s and Bennet’s mind when Bennet was actually brought back from the dead! So they instead change Sylar into Nathan via Matt Parkman in order to keep the world from thinking that a super powered freak killed an important super powered freak (I guess they’re not into sane cover ups like airplane crashes anymore...even though they eventually did that).

So when Redemption opens up, I’m still upset. Every story with fake Nathan that may have been interesting is really stupid because I can’t get the fact out of my head that he shouldn’t be dead in the first place. And it’s not like the writers are trying to forget that Claire’s blood can heal, because Claire mentions it herself when she finds out the Hiro is sick. I do find some of fake Nathan’s stories interesting, but it’s evolved from something beyond stupid. It truly was an unforgivable mistake. Epic fail.

Hiro is dying from a tumor and all of his fans are on edge concerning Hiro’s life. I don’t know why. It’s not like they were ever going to kill him. They don’t have the guts to kill important cast members that people like. (Consider Nikki. She’s part of a triplet set. So if Tracy dies, we have a backup.) Hiro tries to correct mistakes in his life by changing things that he messed up. He hooks up Ando and his sister then he goes in the past and saves Charlie’s life. It’s interesting that Hiro ends up needing Sylar’s help to save her after he saves her from Sylar. But the most sappiest thing in the world happens in the past. Hiro tells Sylar that he’s going to die alone and then a fear is born inside of Sylar. It neuters him...badly.

Charlie ends up getting kidnaped and lost through time via bad guy, so Hiro can’t be with her anyway, but at least she lived a long and happy life...with someone else.

How does Hiro eventually get healed though? He has a wonky dream while he goes under surgery. He’s under trial for using his powers for selfish reasons. He’s going to die until he pleads guilty and acknowledges that he was being selfish. Then his dead mother heals him. How her powers work beyond the grave is beyond me. It’s very...Disney channel.

The biggest complaint was for the bad guys. There was a carnival of super freaks who were led by a madman named Samuel. I didn’t think it was stupid or anything. I don’t get why so many people disliked it. Samuel’s powers actually grew when other super freaks were around him, which explains his community and why he was trying to recruit. His real story was that he wanted to be loved and when he couldn’t get it, he was going to kill everyone. That’s basic mad villain formula. It works.

What disappointed me was that the epic climax of the season finale ended with “Everyone! Lets leave!” So they leave. Samuel fights Peter with his powers and Peter matches him ridiculously fast. You would think a guy whose been working on his powers for about forty years could easily beat someone who just picked it up. No. Good guys have to win. Right?

Matt Parkman was being driven crazy by Sylar trapped in his head. So after Sylar gets his body back (and Nathan officially dies), Matt decided to burry him in his worst nightmare. While Sylar is comatose, Matt does the most brilliant thing ever and builds a brick wall to trap Sylar in his basement...in his house...where he lives with his wife and baby boy. BRILLIANT!!! I can see why they kept Matt on LOST for more than the pilot episode (which they didn’t).

Peter used to be my favorite character, but I find him to be quite useless now. He can only contain one power at a time now, delaying the inevitable Sylar vs Peter fight. He gets a new love interest, who is a waste of screen time. I’m sorry. I don’t care if the deaf girl can see colors instead of hearing sound. I want to see fights like X-Men vs The Brotherhood. I understand budgets and all that, but Smallville had more action sequences in a two hour movie than Heroes had all season. Peter is pissed off when he finds out his mom has been keeping this major secret about his brother’s death. Of course he’s not pissed off enough to cut off his crazy, shady mother. It’s just mild stuff after all. Then he goes on this revenge kick against Sylar. Then he sees in a dream that the deaf girl, Emma, is going to be in trouble and the only person who can ironically and oh so predictably save her is Sylar. He gets trapped in Sylar’s lonely nightmare and they work out their differences within one episode and Sylar is a good guy now. Yay? I mean, they didn’t do that already...unless they did. Wait...I think they did. Huh...

I think Claire’s story was probably the most annoying out of all of them. She wants to desperately have a normal life. That’s exactly why she jumped out of a window at school. What she really desperately wants is attention. That’s why she didn’t let her dad erase the memory of her creepy, lesbian roommate Gretchen. Claire wants a normal life so bad that she considers joining a freak show circus. That’s why she cuts herself in front of her mom’s idiot boyfriend during Thanksgiving dinner. Claire also has a revelation that she’s like Sylar in a way of building walls and that’s why she won’t hold Gretchen’s hand in the cafeteria. Hmm. Silly me. I just assumed it was because she wasn’t ready to be turned out by a creepy lesbian girl who is obviously obsessed with her. I’m sorry. Claire’s last attraction was a hot boy who she made out with under water. I don’t see how she can go to Gretchen after that.

Sylar and Claire also had some time together. Some magical ink showed Sylar what he needed and it was picture of Claire. Once he had a conversation with her, he concluded that he needed to lose his powers in order to be happy, because Hiro made him sad and now he can’t kill people, which usually makes him happy. Could it be that Sylar maybe just had the hots for Claire? I mean, they’re going to live forever. It would solve his “alone” problem and the only reason why they give Claire so much air time is because she’s pretty. He did even suggest it last season. He also kissed her.

Bennet has a rocky road with his daughter. They almost end up being buried alive together. Almost. You see, Tracy magically found them and created a puddle for them to float to the surface. I might have to watch that again. I’m a little fuzzy on the details about how any of that made sense! Especially since no one knew where they were. Bennet’s new girlfriend was right above them, but they never showed that she even had a clue that they were under ground.

I was so looking forward to Bennet dying. They could have at least let him die dramatically after they teased that someone was going to die. It was Nathan by the way...but they actually killed him LAST SEASON!!!!

So since Claire so desperately wants a normal life, she jumps off a ferris wheel in front of a news camera to reveal the world her powers...because that’s so going to work out perfectly on her quest to live a “normal” life.

In conclusion, I have no hope for this show. It’s probably going to be mediocre until it’s canceled. At least Smallville is getting better.