Starkville’s House of El Podcast

So what did Tim think of “Combat”?

Was it a Krypto-smackdown or was it a huge letdown before hiatus?

So what did I think of this episode? I thought all-in-all it was a fairly decent episode. Poeople at forums across the ‘net are hailing this as the worst of the season (but in my opinion that honor goes to Trespass), but I thought this was a good episode. I liked it.

We had, once again, some professional wrestlers guest-starring in this episode. We had WWE wrestlers Kane and Ashley starring as Titan and Athena, respectively. Now, I really liked Kane as Titan. I thought he was a perfect fit for this role of the Zoner warrior. Athen was very . . . interesting to watch. But I enjoyed their appearances overall, just as I enjoyed Batista playing the bone-sucking Zoner in “Static” of this year.

Very interesting thing to note was this episode started at the very end, much like Spirit (episode 18 of season four). I thought it was interesting. A lotta people think it was a cop-out after last week’s time-stamp-filled episode, but I thought the episode was well-executed. The early teaser gave us a look into this controversial “Krypto-fight club”, propelling us straight into the action of Combat, showing us black-clad Clark. I thought it was awesome!!!

This episode was very well-directed, as it was directed by fan-favorite James Marshall who has directed such Smallville-gems such as Insurgence, Rosetta, Transference, Phoenix, Vessel and Zod. The episode benefitted from his direction, as Marshall does a really good job at directing really-strong character-based episodes such as this, knowing how to make his actors to go to their darkest for a scene if it requires it. For instance, the character that I felt was at his darkest was Clark Kent himself, as it seemed he was willing to do whatever it took to take Titan, the Zoner, down.

This episode felt very much like a folllow-up to last week’s episode, “Promise”, just as last season’s Vengeance was a follow-up to “Reckoning”, showing a hardened Clark dealing with the loss of someone very close to him in his life. If you watch the episodes closely, you will see a similarity to these two episodes.

One thing I did not expect in this episode was the loss of Lana’s baby, which was kind of a minor subplot in this episode. I expected that to happen in the episode after our next great hiatus, the episode to be titled Progeny. But, alas, I was wrong. I think this baby-loss will be a giant catapult for Lana’s character. The reason I think is that earlier in the episode was Lana was beginning to pull away before this, and I think one of the reasons Lana was staying with Lex was for the baby’s sake. Then, as soon as it was lost, it pushed Lana further away from Lex. I personally cannot wait to see how and when Lana finds out that Lex may have been responsible for her miscarriage. It’ll be interesting to see the fallout between Lex and Lana.

It also brings to light some things about Lex and Lana’s baby. Some inside sources have said that the baby will play a part in the finale. What is this baby? Is it truly Lex’s baby? Clark’s baby? Or totally 33.1-based?

Also, high marks to Kristin Kreuk in this episode, esp. toward the latter-half of the episode when she lost the baby. Seeing Lana cry like that was really emotional. It is my opinion that Kristin Kreuk plays one thig great: that is the emotions. When Smallville directors give her emotion to play with, she goes ALL THE WAY. You really feel for her. Something I feel I should’ve mentioned last week as Promise was another Lana-centric episode, but I think it applies just as much here as it applied last week. ANyways, Kudos to Kristin!

Another thing I liked about Combat was seeing Lois goe undercover. It was interesting to note that no one knew how to find this strange fighting arena where meteor-freaks were being forced to fight a Zoner, but it was Lois that knew exactly where it was. She was using her reporter-skills greatly, I think. Another fun thing to note . . .

Probably another highlight of the episode was the massive fight scene at the end. It really showed us the true extent of Clark Kent’s power. It’s not something that we see too often of in Smallville, seeing Clark Kent really cut loose. It’s not something we see of his future super-alter-ego, either, so it was really interesting to see.

Also, this episode brought to light some truths about Clark’s quest to bring to justice all the prisoners from the Phantom Zone. It seems the only way to stop all the Zoners on Earth (as Titan was not the last Zoner on Earth, apparently, as Clark and the audience has supposed) was to kill them, as he does not know how to return them to the Phantom Zone. So, my question is what has that crystal with the \S/ symbol been doing all this time?

I thought this episode was an enjoyable one to watch, as are most seventeenth episodes of the season following in such entertaining footsteps as Rosetta, Legacy, Onyx, and Void. It was very fun for me, and I don’t think it was as bad as most people say.

RATING: 4/5

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 4:39 pm and is filed under News, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.