Starkville’s House of El Podcast

Let me start by saying how much I appreciate being allowed to write this review. I truly love Smallville and am grateful for the opportunity to be involved in the fandom in any capacity. I should warn you that this review will be different than what you’re used to. I hope you enjoy what you are about to read. I know I’ve enjoyed writing it.

I am not going to summarize the episode. If you’re reading this then I am going to assume you’ve seen the episode. The gist of the plot is explained by the title. This episode follows the “descent” of Lex Luthor, and allows us to witness Lex finally become the Luthor of the future. I knew the minute I saw the trailer that this was going to be a huge episode, and I wasn’t disappointed. This was one of those episodes that immediately took off (we’re talking zero to sixty in two seconds). I immediately knew I was in for a treat. This season has been a very solid season, and this episode was no exception.

First off I’m going to talk about the lighting and colors in the very first scene. Why this specific scene you ask? Well, because it just looked so perfect and fit so well with the context of the scene itself. The shadow and light in each shot seemed to contradict and struggle against each other. It illustrated the battle between good and evil that had gone on between and within both Lionel and Lex. There was one particular shot of Lionel that made the most significant impression on me. After Lex asks about the “Traveler” the elder Luthor’s face was shown half consumed by the darkness and the other half illuminated. I thought it was an excellent reflection of Lionel’s journey on Smallville. His path on the show was full of half-truths, betrayal and ultimately redemption. The contrast between the light and the dark just seemed to represent the change in Lionel Luthor.

I believe you should all know that I am a huge fan of dialogue. For me the dialogue is what I anticipate the most and we wouldn’t have story or dialogue without the writers. They were at the pinnacle of their game this week. It would have been very easy to let the teaser be the climax of the episode, but lucky for us the writing staff on Smallville is phenomenal. Everything in this episode was handled brilliantly. The struggle between Lex and Alexander, the confrontation between Lex and Chloe, The argument Clark and Lex have, and every scene in between was written brilliantly. Every scene seemed different than anything else we have ever seen on the show. I think Don Whitehead, Holly Henderson, and the rest of the writing staff deserve several standing ovations for the quality of this episode’s script.

The direction by Ken Horton was outstanding. What sticks out to me the most is the shot of Lionel’s eye while Lex was indentifying the body and the shot outside of Luthorcorp where we see Alexander speaking to Lex for the first time in this episode. Both of those particular shots stuck with me. The idea of looking any corpse in the eye disturbs me, but it effects me even more so when the person viewing the eye is the murderer. The shot with Alexander really felt like you were inside Lex’s head. It felt like time was standing still for him, and the reality of his crime finally came crashing down. There were several other brilliant points of direction in this, and Lionel’s funeral scene was one another one of those brilliant moments. There was no dialogue, but there also wasn’t a need for any. Everything could be said with glances and expressions. The initial visual of the scene automatically sold it for me. The layout of it with Clark and Lex standing on either end of Lionel’s grave was a moment that will not be forgotten any time soon nor will the look the two of them exchanged as Lex walked away. I half expected a shoulder bump to happen between the two characters. The entire scene had a “Lex Luthor versus Superman” vibe that could not be ignored.

Let’s talk about the performances in the episode.

I’ll begin with Aaron Ashmore and Erica Durance. I thought the two gave very good performances as Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane. I enjoyed the team up, and was thrilled to see Jimmy get a moment in the spotlight (however brief it was). In this episode Lois was her usual sarcastic self, and had several of my favorite lines. I have to say my favorite line of hers from the episode had to be her line to Jimmy about readjusting his focus (“The school boy crush is sweet, Jimmy, but you need to readjust your focus in more ways than one.”). Both Erica and Aaron have great comic timing, and that seemed to be showcased in their scene with Gina (Mercy Prototype 1.0).

John Glover’s one scene was more than I could have ever hoped for. His expressions were believable and effective. Mr. Glover really pulled off the after effects of Lionel’s desperate attempts to talk to Clark. I will miss John Glover on the show as his performances always kept you guessing about a character. It really says something that there were still fans of the show who were unsure about where Lionel Luthor stood. There were people who still believed Lionel to be evil and selfish, and that were never sure of his loyalty to Clark. The fact that John Glover achieved that amount of mystery for his character says a lot about his talent.

Allison Mack did her thing as usual, and she was outstanding. I have decided that not only is she talented with carrying the technical babble, but she’s also the best at giving pep talks. So many great lines came from her pep talk to Clark toward the end of the episode. Her confrontation with Lex was also one of the highlights of the episode. Allison Mack is one of the best actresses (if not one of the best then she is the absolute best) on the show. While it was sad to see Chloe fired from the Daily Planet it now opens up a lot of different possibilities for the character, and I am excited to see how that is handled (by Allison and the writers).

At this point in his career Tom Welling knows his character inside and out, and it definitely shows in his performance. It is clear that Lex and Clark are far from the friends they used to be, and Tom did an excellent job of portraying that. Tom made it clear in this episode that Clark is very suspicious of Lex and will be from this point on. This episode brought Clark as close to being Superman as he’s ever been. Tom Welling has been doing an excellent job of showing Clark Kent’s transformation from small town farm boy to international hero. The highlight of his performance for me was his scene with Michael outside of Luthorcorp. The way Clark followed Lex across the police barricades just looked so perceptive and powerful at the same time.

Finally let’s talk about Michael Rosenbaum. We’ve always known he was a wonderful actor, and if you didn’t then I hope you do know. I’m going to miss Michael when he leaves the show because of his amazing portrayal of Lex Luthor. He’s made the character extremely accessible and easy to relate to. We’ve seen Lex fall from who he used to be. Michael has managed to make an evil mastermind seem human, and to make his transformation gradual. Michael’s performances as Lex have been and continue to be masterful. My favorite scenes of his in this episode were all of the scenes with Alexander. Michael did a wonderful job of interacting with the embodiment of his good side. It was a very complex scene and Michael pulled it off with flying colors.

All in all, this episode was Smallville at its best. The entire cast and crew was on top of their game, and garnered this episode a five out of five rating. Even Roger Ebert would have to agree with that.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 7:15 pm 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.