DtS Review – Power
By: Kevin
“It seems to me that you’re not just playing with fire, you’re stepping into a raging inferno.”
~ Chloe Sullivan
Note to self – if you ever undergo a medical procedure that starts with the doctor saying, “Begin the trans-dermal evisceration”, it’s not going to be the best time you’ve ever had in your life. But it looks like Lana is into that sort of thing. Oh those crazy kids and the things they do for kicks nowadays. But, the question, obviously, is ‘why’ is Lana doing this to herself? Here we learn the real reason she’s been missing for the past 7 months or so.
If you read my review of Bulletproof, you’ll know that I, like a lot of viewers out there, weren’t too keen on the sparks flying again around Clark & Lana. I was a little happy to see Clark second guessing that whole business at the start of this episode. That, at least, brings some ease to my quarrel with this plot twist. I just wish Chloe hadn’t shown up and sewn the seeds of doubt into Clark’s noggin. Armed with this, Clark heads to the Talon to talk to Lana about the state of Clana, but she’s nowhere to be found and the apartment is ransacked – but not entirely void of occupants. Tess is there. As a diversion to keep Clark from tearing her head off, she tells him that the DVD Lana sent to him last year was a fake & that Lex had Lana kidnapped after she awoke from her coma. Tess knows this because she helped orchestrate it while Lex headed to the Arctic. Before I saw this episode the first time, I had purposely avoided spoilers, and I wasn’t too keen on the whole post-coma abduction storyline. It seemed a little too convenient or something. I’m not sure why, exactly. But watching it again, it works for me. It’s definitely something Lex would do. His line from Season 6′s finale Phantom kept ringing in my ears,
“You really think I could just let you walk away?”
The only thing I don’t get is why Lana felt the need to immediately run away from her life and seek revenge on Lex. Sure she may have meant some of the things she said on the break-up DVD, but before her Brainiac induced coma, things were pretty good between she & Clark, weren’t they? I also don’t really understand why The Powers That Be made Kristin wear that lame wig in Lana’s return to the show. She looks SO much better with her cropped short hair that she has in the flashbacks in this episode. I like to believe that Allison Mack felt sorry for Kristin so she put in that scene with her slicing of her flowing locks. But, Lana did a pretty good job with the new ‘do’ considering she used a random, old, rusty blade. I hear she teaches “How To” classes Wednesday nights at the Smallville Learning Annex.
After escaping she finds Carter Bowfry in Edge City, Tess’ strategic adviser, who’s also trained Green Beret’s & Navy Seals to withstand extreme pain and torture. Lana spends most of the seven months that she’d been missing with Bowfry. She goes through all of this training but eventually realizes that it’s all for nothing without power. More specifically, power like she wielded in Season 7′s Wrath, when she got a jolt of Clark’s abilities but went a little too ballistic with them. Now she’s got a stronger will and determination to have that kind of power at her fingertips, and she knows just where to get that kind of power – Project Aries. The experiment that infuses alien DNA into human beings to create super-soldiers; Lex used to it to resurrect Wes Keenan in Season 6. But it was shut down before Lex went missing, so Lana moves on to Project Prometheus – similar technology that the still missing, but apparently alive, Lex Luthor needs to sustain his life. Cut back to present day and this is where Lana is getting the final touches put on in the brutal procedure.
Allison Mack directed this episode and I think she did a great job. It flows very well and I like the flashback effect where everything sorta ‘slides’ off to one side, revealing the past events. It’s a pretty heavy episode, but it definitely holds its own against all the others and that’s pretty good for a first time in the director’s chair. I always find it interesting when an actor directs an episode that they also act in, but Chloe’s role is minimal here. But, she does have an important role. She’s known about Lana’s activities for quite some time, but was sworn to secrecy.
Lex Luthor has had an endless supply of security guards and Regan is apparently one of his most loyal. He’s been missing for some time, but pops back up in this episode. Tess tries to get him to give her Prometheus, but he’s not too keen on that, so he tries to double cross & kill her. Obviously, Tess isn’t a fan of this course of action and, in turn, beats him to a bloody pulp. It’s a bit shocking, but also pretty awesome to see Tess standing over Regan in the darkened room, wiping the blood spatter off her ruby lips. Kudos to Ms. Mack for that visual execution. From there, Tess goes to the lab where Lana’s nearly done with her recovery from the super-skin graft. Tess comes in and tries to destroy it all, but Clark arrives to intercede, only to be beaten to the punch by the now super-powered Lana. Soon after, she urges Tess to let go of her hate for Lex or she’ll be consumed with it as Lana has been.
The episode closes out with a semi-touching moment on the Daily Planet as the sun sets. I say semi-touching because, finally, it seems Clark could be able to have what he’s always, ALWAYS wanted – to be able to have a life with Lana, and not have to worry about his secret or his powers bringing her harm. They’re now equals. But, it does feel like so many other moments in the shows history, and because of that, I can’t fully enjoy it. And that makes me turn back to my frustration with this romantic angle to this storyline. The Prometheus arc could have worked fine on its own, I suppose, because Lana has been heading that way for a lot of years – wanting to not be a victim and she’s become more and more on a quest to stop Lex. But, I really do think it would have been more interesting to watch if there was drama between Lana & Clark in a way that wasn’t romantic drama. Like, say, if they had remained friends after she returned and as Clark learned all these things about her mysterious disappearance, he tries to stop her, and that drives a wedge between them that they eventually resolve to some degree. For me, that would have been more interesting to watch than the “same old, same old” Clana.
