Starkville’s House of El Podcast

What did Tim think of Veritas?

Was it all he could’ve hoped it to be? Did the strike help or hinder the episode for him?

Wow, what an episode this was. I know that I say that every week after an episode, but every episode this season has really been solid. I think it was really good. It had really great pacing, and left all the characters in very interesting places for when the show comes back in a couple of weeks.

Now it is a well-known fact among the general fandom that this episode was meant to serve as the season finale for the series had the writer’s strike still been in place. I, for one, glad it wasn’t. Like any fan, I am glad that we are getting a nice batch of episodes to stretch the story of Smallville a little bit more. Having said that, I would’ve liked to see what this episode would’ve been like, had it not been changed up as it was.

But I still enjoyed the episode for what it was. I kind of envision this episode as part of a 3-parter, though. With Traveler being the part that sets everything up, but Veritas was that second chapter, and Descent I feel is going to be that third chapter that has us all screaming.

One thing this episode seemed to be about was teamups. The first teamup that I was really glad to see was the teamup with Clark and Kara as they took on Brainiac together. I hope we can see more of this kind of teamup in future episodes. Their teamup has a certain family element to it, which in my opinion is what Smallville has always been about.

Another teamup that we saw in this episode was the classic teamup of Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. In the comics and TV series, you see Lois and Jimmy teaming up a lot to take on the big story. Now, this is not the first time that Lois and Jimmy have teamed up. If you recall, in the episode, “Hydro,” they teamed up to try and reveal Oliver Queen as the green Arrow in season 6, but of course, Clark and Ollie put their own leather stamp on that teamup. This episode was different, as it was Lois and Jimmy teaming up in the Daily Planet, whereas before it was Lois in the Inquisitor and Jimmy in the Planet. So it felt more iconic and classic to me. Although, Jimmy and Lois didn’t uncover anything that we, as an audience, didn’t already know, it was still fun to see them together. I also think that the respective actors really pulled this off, as well.

Another thing that Superman has kind of carried with him in all his interpretations from the strip to the screen is his Christian parallels. This episode was no exception to that. Now, I may be alone in this, but I thought this episode had quite a few.

One that stands out in my mind is Veritas itself. Veritas, at its core, are men who anticipated the arrival of a Traveler, who would come to Earth and thus bring great change to it. In the Bible, there are many prophets who prophesied the coming of a Savior namely Jesus Christ. Throughout Superman’s long history, he has been called a “savior.” So there is that parallel . . .

Another parallel that I saw was in actually my favorite scene of the episode – the Chloe and Lionel scene. Lionel says that they can trust him because Jor-El chose him to be his vessel and emissary, and that has been the way that he finds forgiveness and atonement for all of his past sins. That is a way many Christians like myself find ways to repent, through serving God. This is a bit far-fetched, but there have been comparisons of Jor-El to God before (see Superman: The Movie and you’ll see what I’m talking about)

I think one thing that this episode promised but did not deliver on was the fact that Kara was supposed to teach Clark to fly in this episode. I know that we have this rule that says we may never see Clark Kent fly in Smallville. But I, for one, actually believed that he was going to fly in the episode at some point. I was waiting for it, and it never happened. I was a little disappointed in that. I do think that sometime soon Clark Kent has to fly. I mean, we as fans know from avid watchings of this show that Clark Kent knows how to fly, as he’s done it before. Whether he’s afraid of heights or afraid of too much power or whatever, something is holding him back and sometime in the near future I would love to see him fully conquer that fear.

One thing that this episode had to offer was the return of Brainiac after him being off the show for 5 episodes. It was really nice to see him again and back to his old tricks. I simply love James Marsters’ portrayal of Brainiac in the series. He is the first live-action actor to tackle the role, so to see him portray this character as an evil master-manipulator is pretty refreshing.

Now, we see from this episode that Brainiac, after being sickly in Persona, has repaired himself. Obviously, the information from Dax-Ur helped him to do that, but how? I would like to know how he was able to do that. I hope in future episodes we will see this happen. I have so many questions regarding Brainiac’s actions in this episode, though.

I think the question regarding Brainiac that we all have is: What the frak is Brainiac’s plan? Why did he need Kara for it? It seems that Brainiac can never do anything by himself. He always needs some member of the House of El to accomplish his means. But I think he knows how to make those certain Kryptonians tick. It shall be interesting what Brainiac’s overarching master plan is this time if it is not to release Zod like last time.

Throughout this episode, as Brainiac was doing his thing with Lana, and all of the other stuff he was doing, this got me thinking. I would love to see Brainiac continue as a recurring villain in season 8. I think he really interacts with all the cast of characters really well, and could bring much more to the show than he brings now and he brings a lot.

Now, the vehicle of this episode was the Veritas flashbacks. I, for one, enjoyed these, and thought they were very well-executed. They not only revealed a lot about Veritas itself, but also brought many aspects of the series full-circle to me as a longtime viewer and fan. I also love the way these flashbacks were brought about. Lex, in the episode, mentions that ever since he got shot in Fracture that he was remembering more and more. I loved that. I do not think that it was just the blow to the head that caused Lex to recover these lost memories. I think that Chloe’s healing power also had something to do with that. I think that Chloe’s healing power mended those parts of his brain that had blocked out those childhood memories that he had blocked out. And, who knows? It could have been a combination of both the healing power and the memory-extractment” treatments he took years ago.

But the first flashback is worth noting. The first flashback was one of many meetings of the Veritas secret society. It revealed quite a bit about Veritas. In fact, we know from this flashback that there was kind of disputation of power and knowledge in the Veritas group, and that seed was planted into some by Lionel Luthor. There also was a division of ideas between groups within Veritas. Swann and Queen believed in protecting and nurturing the traveler when he arrived, while Luthor and Teague (mostly Genevieve probably) believed in controlling him.

Also, you can believe this kind of attitude from Swann because this is the attitude that Swann carries in his two appearances in the series. In fact, if you watch Rosetta and Legacy closely enough, the whole Veritas thing makes a whole lot of sense. That was what I loved about the flashback was that it seemed to bring that whole storyline with Swann to a nice conclusive end. The Swann storyline was one storyline that I would’ve loved to see wrapped up and it was wrapped up nicely. Although, it makes you wonder where would that storyline have gone in the series, had Christopher Reeve (who played Virgil Swann) lived on even unto this point?

One thing that I felt was lacking from that flashback was the appearance of Genevieve Teague. Now I understand that Jane Seymour could not be on the set to film this episode, but I still would’ve loved to see her character return. I actually enjoyed Genevieve during her small run on Smallville. I really thought that she could’ve added much more to that scene than was already there. But I did like the fact that we got Edward to stand in her place. I still think it would’ve been cool if Genevieve and Edward were there together.

I also found it interesting that this meeting seemed to give the idea that this secret society was just a kind of passing down the legacy of something called Veritas and not just something they came up with. Sure, Veritas was formed and founded by Virgil Swann, but I think that Earth had been preparing for the arrival of the Son of Krypton for a long time before that, as we know from the caves and the stones. I liked that the stones were talked about in concordance with Veritas. It definitely brought season 4 back into my mind, as that was probably where Veritas had its early beginnings.

One thing that I did not like in this whole flashback sequence was the addition of an unnecessary wheelchair in the whole sequence. It didn’t seem campy or unneeded to me at all. It just kind of took away from my mental image of Virgil Swann. I always saw Swann as a man very much like Christopher Reeve. I imagined that he was paralyzed in an accident very much like Mr. Reeve was. The wheelchair definitely added a feeling of wonder in terms to Virgil Swann that is very fitting to Mr. Reeve and it is a feeling that Swann had in his short time on the series.

We also learned from this flashback that there is an envelope that was in the possession of Swann and Queen that was locked in a vault in Zurich. This also leads to the question, what is in this envelope? I hope that we can get the answer to this soon.

The second flashback that is worth noting is the second flashback. This second flashback was just as intriguing. While the first flashback revealed a lot of information about Veritas, this second one seemed to bring everything full circle with the series. After all, the flashback revolved around the famous newspaper headline from the Pilot. It also confirmed that Lionel had a hand in murdering many of the charter members of the Veritas society. It also brought things full circle with Lionel’s lines at the end: “Are you ready for an adventure, son? We are going to fly in a helicopter to a friendly little town . . . called Smallville.” When Lionel said Smallville, I had chills. It really brought the whole series to a nice little round; as we know those two characters would never be the same after entering this small town ever again.

We also learned from this flashback that Lionel did indeed have one of the keys to the vault in Zurich, that Virgil Swann also had which he passed to his daughter Patricia. But obviously Lionel did not have the fortitude to trust his son the way Swann trusted Patricia.

But those were the flashbacks. I thought they really added a lot to the series and to the season in general. It’ll be interesting to see how these particular flashbacks that Lex had play out throughout the Final Five episodes.

One thing I liked about this episode was that it continued where Traveler left off. All of the characters were still reeling from the events of Traveler, including Clark Kent. Clark, at the end of Traveler, had concluded his “alliance” (if that’s what you’d call whatever Clark and Lionel have) with Lionel Luthor. This episode saw the continuation of that. I really enjoyed the scene that Clark and Lionel had, as it reminded me a lot of Clark’s attitude towards Lionel in season 3. Clark’s attitude to Lionel in that season was that Lionel was the bad guy, and now having trusted Lionel, and left him in the dirt, so to speak, he is back to that attitude that he had towards Lionel in those early seasons. It was really nice to see a return to that kind of rival relationship. But Lionel is desperately trying to make Clark see that he was indeed telling the truth.

This episode also saw the desperate Lionel Luthor that we saw a bit of near the end of last week’s episode. But this seemed to be to the point of madness. Some people wonder why Lionel is so desperate that Clark listens to him now, more than ever. It’s not like Clark has him in a choker hold or anything like in times past. If you look back to the episode, the desperate Lionel returned when Lois and Jimmy revealed to Lionel that Patricia Swann had been killed and her necklace removed. I think Lionel thinks that Lex will kill hi, as he has the other key. That is why he tried to hand the key to Clark and possibly to Chloe.

Another thing I liked about this desperate Lionel was that we kind of gotten a few viewpoints that only Lionel as Jor-El’s emissary would know. This is why I believed Lionel when he said that being Jor-El’s vessel changed him. In Lionel’s final scenes, he tells Chloe that Clark has turned away from Jor-El and that he is vulnerable and in terrible danger. This was very interesting to me, as it definitely provided some great hints toward the future that will lead Clark back to the Fortress again to seek counsel and training from Jor-El.

Another interesting bit of information that Lionel gives out in his final moments with Chloe is that “what’s coming is so terrible.” What is coming to Clark that is so terrible that he would need protecting from? We have had the second meteor shower, Brainiac, Zod, the Phantom Zoners, and Bizarro. What could possibly be worse than that? It should prove to be intriguing whatever the path the series goes.

One noteworthy part of this episode that sticks out in my mind is Lana. I think all of Lana’s scenes in this episode really speaks about Kristin’s acting ability. Lana hardly says more than a paragraph of dialogue throughout this whole episode, but her blank looks and dead stares throughout the episode. Whoever says Kristin Kreuk cannot act is severely mistaken. I also believe Lana’s final line of the episode was delivered chillingly by Ms. Kreuk. It really made me sad.

Some may complain the fact that everything in Smallville seemed to revolve around Ms. Lang, but to that, I say that she is the damsel of the show. Brainiac is smart, too. If you want to affect the main heroes, you attack the people that they care about. It is just the first rule in the book of supervillainy.

Another thing that this episode really had was the return of Kara. Although Kara did technically return in the previous episode, I really felt that Kara Zor-El, as we have known and loved her on this series, returned in this episode. This episode, with the return of Brainiac as well, really displayed her inner conflicts that she has had ever since awakening at the end of last season. It was really great to see her act alongside the other actors in Smallville once again. Also, I think Laura Vandervoort adds a lot to that role than I think any other actor has in times past.

The episode also had some really massive effects. Specifically when it comes to flight. I don’t know what it is, whenever somebody flies in Smallville, it always contains this really big bang that leaves you drooling while you’re watching. I really enjoyed the closing flight scene with Kara and Brainiac. It definitely got me pumped for the moment when Clark will finally take to the skies in the show’s final season.

This episode was also written very well. This is no surprise, as it was written by Smallville alums Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson, who have written many a Smallville finale. So it seems right that they were going to get to write the pre-strike finale. I hope they are able to write the actual finale, as well, because they did a stellar job with those episode.

It was directed by one of my favorite Smallville directors, James Marshall. He directed one of my favorite Smallville episodes, Rosetta, and has been my favorite ever since. He also directed some great premieres, finales, and “special event” episodes, so he is a trusted ally over at Smallville productions.

All in all, I enjoyed this episode a great deal. I will confess on my first watching that I was a tad disappointed but only because I expected too much, I think. But, as I watched it in subsequent watchings, I enjoyed it a lot! it was very remiiscent of the viewing experience I had while watching the season five finale, Vessel. I understand that this episode went through a brutal edit as it was to contain a lot of information and action about Smallville’s current state being shaken up. But I think the cliffhangers and reveals in this episode will still have fans talking until the newest episode, Descent airs in a couple of weeks.

RATING: 9/10

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 1:45 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.