Smallville delivered a pretty nifty little episode for Halloween this week. The idea of a hidden village populated by a bunch of people doing a horrible thing in the name of their god has been done before, but putting Lois and Clark in the middle of this situation and adding blue meteor rock to the mix to render Clark powerless was a nice spin. Of course, if you’ve seen any previous variations on this story, it was no surprise that the little girl had more up her sleeve than some lemonade and the cop was not what he seemed either. What stood out in this part of the story, though, was once again Erica Durance’s performance. It was nice to see Lois being a little more serious this week (although she did have a few good one-liners), but when she was trying to reason with the villagers as they prepared to sacrifice her, I though Erica showed great strength and emotion during her speech about faith, right and wrong. I know some fans are getting tired of the possession and damsel in distress episodes with Lois, but that is the traditional role of Lois from the comics. She has a nose for news and a knack for getting herself into trouble. I just hope she doesn’t end up being in danger in every remaining episode.
The second storyline this week was very intriguing as we learn that little Alexander has aged four years in two weeks and has a lot of knowledge about things he shouldn’t know about. When he started scribbling the “S” symbol on a paper plate, Tess looked more than a little concerned and rightly so. It was shocking to see her slap the boy across the face after he called her out for attaching herself to powerful men and trying to redeem herself through Clark, but it was even more shocking when she told the doctor to cease finding a cure for him, to stop all treatment and to let him die. I loved the final image of Alexander beginning his transformation into Lex and I’m intrigued to see if he will somehow outwit Tess and the scientific team, or is there another Lex clone out there somewhere?
While the Tess/Alexander part of the episode was thrilling, the Clark/Lois part had some ups and downs. I really liked the opening when Lois was quizzing Clark about all of the oddities she’d encountered over the years only to find out they were all Kryptonian, and that Clark learned that Lois was the one who removed the blue kryptonite dagger from his chest in the season opener. But I wasn’t keeping up with the blue kryptonite and how it was affecting him. The villagers had been drinking water infused with the meteor rock’s essence, so Clark’s powers were useless when he was in their vicinity. When they thought he was dead and buried, I didn’t quite get how Clark was able to resurrect himself. If there was kryptonite in the water, wouldn’t there be kryptonite in the earth too? And how was he able to survive the flaming blue kryptonite fluid and then heal and speed off? I am just not up on the properties of blue kryptonite, so if anyone wants to fill me in I would appreciate it. Overall, not a home run of an episode but it had some nice moments and the Tess/Alexander portion really did make it more than just a throwaway episode.
“It’s like dating a god … or Bono.” – Lois
“Yummy. And to think you fixed all this without a Kitchenaide or Costco.” – Lois commenting on her dinner with the villagers
“These Holy Rollers from Hell want to make me a human sacrifice so they can grow bigger tomatoes.” – Lois
“My name is Lex.” – Alexander showing Tess who’s boss
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Oct 30, 2010 @ 00:51 EST5EDT
If it wasn’t for the Alexander plot and Lois quoting Pulp Fiction to make the villagers fear Clark, I would of been disappointed by this episode.
I’d agree, hopefully the main season arc will get rolling again with the next episode. I feel like these last two have been mediocre episodes with some good scenes here and there. But with the Suicide Squad and JLAers on the way, I think business is about to pick up
Agreed. The Alexander plot made the episode. I think the other stuff was just a little Halloween stand-alone.
You know, I actually liked this week. I was afraid the final season couldn’t recover with Chloe’s absence, but I liked the writing, both the actors seemed engaged (which is good after watching Tom Welling slowly drop off post-S4), and I found the pointy cloth masks and torch-wielding mob suitably creepy.
On a side note, I know Lois likes proving her independence, but, seriously, what city girl worth her salt would willingly stay on a dirt road by herself for an hour even with a little girl who actually did try to dimple her to death?
I didn’t not like it, it just wasn’t a strong Clark/Lois/Superman story for the final season. Like I said, it seemed more of a Halloween stand-alone episode, and the villagers’ masks were very good and creepy! The Alexander portion of the episode was much stronger and important to the overall mythos.
As for Lois staying behind, she was upset with Clark and she assumed that once he was out of sight, he’d be into town and back in a flash. I also didn’t understand why Clark had to keep going on about he and Lois having an argument which would have made him look really suspicious if the cop had been for real. When you have to question some plot contrivances that only serve to justify a character’s uncharacteristic behavior then that points out some not very strong writing.
He keeps a journal filled with Kryptonian symbols in a desk drawer in an unlocked barn? A barn that has been searched by numerous factions before?
Really?