Wow! I haven’t been much of a fan of the so-called stand-alone episodes, especially as this is the last season of Smallville and we all want to see some progression towards Clark finally embracing his whole Kryptonian self, but I was just blown away by this episode because it was just so deep.
Who hasn’t been excited for Teri Hatcher‘s cameo since it was announced? I may have a little disappointment that she wasn’t in the episode more, but her one small scene as Lois’s long dead mother carried so much weight for the Lois and Clark story. When Lois revealed she didn’t want to see her mother in the hospital, it was sad because it made me think about how her mother must have felt not seeing her daughter for the last five weeks of her life. But Lois finally watched her mother’s old videotapes and discovered that she asked that the children not be brought to the hospital to see her deteriorating, and it became even more heartbreaking. That was all Lois needed though to push her to seek out Jor-El and try to repair the rift between him and Clark. My only bit of negativity comes from the fact that Clark has all of his Kryptonian papers and ephemera just lying around the barn for anyone to find. Seriously, shouldn’t that stuff be under lock and key somewhere?
When Clark discovered Lois had gone to the Fortress, it brought a tear to my eye to see and hear Kal-El’s parents instill in him all of their hopes and dreams for the man he was to become. And really, how cool is it that did we not only get a former Lois Lane cameo in this episode, but a former Supergirl cameo as well?! Add Julian Sands to the mix as Jor-El (and yes, I know they have both been on the show before), and it just totally made me geek out. Oh, another cool cameo was one of Granny’s girls, Mad Harriet (the girl with the Freddy Kruger glove) was played by Mrs. Justin Hartley, Lindsay Hartley!
Even with Lois and Clark both learning more about their parents, the biggest and most important part of this week’s story was undoubtedly Tess’s discovery of her past. The opening black and white dream sequence was done very well, very creepy, and made me wonder what was going on, and the big reveal that Tess is a Luthor totally blew my mind – although I guess it shouldn’t have in some way, but the idea had never crossed my mind (and check out the date on the birth certificate). But with an episode that I really enjoyed everything about, probably the best part was the reveal of Granny Goodness, who is running the orphanage (and building an army) where Tess was raised, club owner DeSaad and radio personality Godfrey (aka Glorious Godfrey) working as minions for Darkseid! Of course, anyone who follows the comics already knows this – and I was recently educated on the whole Godfrey story (thanks Larry!) – but if I had geeked out over the star-studded cameos then I don’t know how to describe all of this new information. I don’t know how other fans of the show and/or the comics will react to this episode, but I loved it and those last few minutes really have me excited for what is to come.
“Hello, Mister … El?” – Lois at the Fortress
“Clark Kent and karaoke. Isn’t that one of the signs of the Apocalypse?” – Lois
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Nov 12, 2010 @ 22:55 EST5EDT
I knew Tess was a Luthor!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There’s an “r” missing in “Terry Hatcher” and I guess you shouldn’t use those kinds of pictures because they are kind of a spoiler. But hey, Keith did it for SGU so whatever, I’m not angry even though I haven’t seen the episode yet :-)
Dude. That’s an awesome lead-in image. How could he not post-airing?
Hehe I Know but who of the CW Demo is really watching it live on Friday night?
Like I said it’s not that big of a problem especially because you have to really look at it to be spoiled and when someone does that they don’t deserve better if they did not watch yet :-)
*POST AUTHOR*
Whoops! Sorry about the R missing in Hatcher (but it’s still spelled TERI). I’ll see if I can get that fixed. As for the “spoiler,” if the show has aired and is available for anyone to see, it’s technically not a spoiler. We assume that if you’re coming here to read about the show then you’ve already seen it. Sorry!
Oh! Thanks for telling me – otherwise I’d have called her Terry forever :-)
Seems I had it wrong for ages – and that’s why I like being corrected :-)
I understand that if something has aired it should be fair game but with DVRs and Hulu with the shift of the viewing it’s getting harder and harder to take that as the rule. I DO manage to skip articles of shows I have yet to see but I just can’t skip pictures. They are too instant (yet this one here is all about the text in it so I don’t really have a point I know ;-) )
Lutessa is an awful name. (With apologies to all the Lutessas in the world. I think my own name is pretty horrendous because of how many Jennifers there are in the world, if it makes you feel any better!)
I kept wondering what happened to the little girl Clark saved. Did he go back for her? It’s like she was totally forgotten.
*POST AUTHOR*
Yeah, I was wondering that too. And why didn’t he round up Granny’s Female Furies while he was at it? Well, apparently they are important to the story if you follow the comics, but the little girl detail is a bit nagging!
Very good episode. Would’ve been nice to know if Clark ever let that one little girl out of the closet (or if we had seen some kind of resolution there — I mean, did Clark and Tess just leave the orphanage in operation?) but the emotional content of the episode was great, the guest stars were truly incredible, and overall, a superior episode.