Review “Toxic”
By: Celia
If there is something that Smallville have tough us is that every hero has a journey and Oliver Queen is not an exception. In “Toxic” we learnt that Ollie was lost in a desert island for two long years, being in there, his life suffered a turning point, since he chose to become in the archer that some years later would be known as the Green Arrow. In the island he met Tess Mercer as well, when the apprentice of a Luthor was a scared biologist in danger, becoming his first recue. However, none of them was expecting to met with the first villain faced for our greenest hero again, who returns looking for revenge and poisons Ollie, leaving him in his deathbed dreaming with his past in the island while his friends fear for his life. But Tess Mercer is not that damsel in distress that Ollie used to date anymore, now she is capable of leading Luthorcorp, develop secret antidotes in Brazil and kill her enemies without been discovered.
All Ollie’s friends go to the rescue, even those who don’t know him at all like Davis, or those who like to pretend that they don’t share a past with him like Tess. Chloe uses her new power to find the antidote to that toxic flower and that way save Ollie’s life leaving a worried Clark who wonders how much Chloe got infected by Braniac and the consequences of that. Lois wonders if her break up with Ollie was the wiser choice and the reasons that leaded to that, Chloe and her new friend Davis talk about the tricky but usual question about secrets and lies in a love relationship, and once recovered, Ollie finds a shocking true, Lionel Luthor killed his parents and Clark knew it.
With all those themes in the episode, it wouldn’t be fair to say it was “filler” at all, but in my opinion it was a blatant boring episode. Maybe what actually bothers me about “Toxic” is that the episode is made to work at any cost and it turned bad for some characters. They once more, tried to get some target just like Ollie and his arrow did to hunt that poor pig, and what they got was a weak episode.
All this is seeing mainly with Chloe’s character, the targets to fill it with her in “Toxic” were:
- Get her closer to Davis Bloome.
- Show her new power and Clark’s reaction to it.
- Foreshowing angst in Chloe and Jimmy’s relationship because of her power and all the secrets that Chloe keeps in following episodes.
Their arrows hit all the targets by in order to got it we had to hear things like “Clark if you were the one lying in there I would do whatever you want”. It was a nice thing to say, but it was untrue since in “Odyssey” Clark was dying and he clearly asked Chloe not to use her power to heal him and she tried it anyway.
Another senseless thing was that Chloe didn’t try to cure Ollie with her healing power. I understand that she is probably scared of dying herself if she uses her power and it’s wise not to use it if you have another choice. I understand too that the power that is meant to shine right now is the superhacking, but a person is dying and, ¿nobody says ANYTHING about the fact of there’s a person in there who happens to have healing powers? I would be ok with them agreeing that it’s too risky to use that power so it won’t be used if isn’t as a last resource. But, not mention it at all? That’s bad writing from someone who doesn’t want to answer whether or not Chloe is able of curing a human being that early in the season. Now, months after this episode was aired we know that Chloe lost her powers when Braniac attacked her, but it was never said onscreen. How are those fans that don’t get online supposed to be aware of that?
However, what makes sense is Chloe grumbling because Clark spend a lot of time with Lois and kind of trust Tess since in order of being happily ever after with Jimmy she chose to get apart from Clark in the previous episode. It wasn’t an easy choice, but I think it was a good one since Chloe needed time for caring about her own life and not just Clark’s. But it’s not easy to her to accept that Clark is searching for his own new life without depending of Chloe that much and that pisses Chloe.
Another person who chose to look at the future and forget the past was Lois when she broke up with Ollie in “Siren”. However, seeing Ollie barely alive makes her wonder if she did the right choice, but in the end she reaffirms in her choice since they had good strong reasons to end their relationship. The importance of all this lies in the reason why Lois and Ollie ended for good, it couldn’t be because of the distance, but they have to choose not being together even when Ollie is a regular this season. In my opinion Lois’s choice was the wiser. Not just because we know that her future it’s supposed to be Clark, but because Ollie doesn’t know how to deal with women in a relationship. We have proof of this in past episodes like “Justice” where he wanted to leave the town without telling Lois who was packing for a travel with him. And now we know that he didn’t bother in saying goodbye to Tess either when their relationship ended in the past. A new shot with Ollie, being in a relationship that she knows it’s not what she needs, will make Lois to become a resentful person like Tess.
As a curiosity/anvil in “Toxic” we have the scene between Lois and Davis where Ollie (Lois most important man in Lois’s romantic life until now) lying in front of her while the future Doomsday tries to save his life. In the future it would be Clark the one lying close to Lois but Doomsday won’t come to the rescue, but will be the killer. He helped Lois to save the wrong man but will kill the right one.
So, my rate to “Toxic” is 3 points, since it wasn’t a bad episode but wasn’t a great episode either. It was just fine.
