Clockwork Planet Smallville S7 Episode 10 ‘Persona’ Review

A couple of episodes back, in my ‘Blue’ review, I tore into the Smallville writing team for taking a decent storyline and ruining it by rushing it to a messy and unsatisfying conclusion.  I was talking about the ‘Kara and her crystal’ plotline in that particular case and it frustrated me greatly to have to announce that one of the better aspects of this rather poor seventh season had gone down the pan.  A shame then, that when watching ‘Persona’, I was smacked between the eyes by a sense of déjà vu so overpowering it made me feel like I had been ‘Trotskyied’ with an ice axe. 

In ‘Persona’, both of the major plot lines that have dominated the last few episodes are resolved.  So say goodbye to the ‘Julian Luthor’ story, and the ‘Clark is actually Bizzaro’ twist, because both aren’t so much ‘concluded’ as bumped off hit-man style and left to rot amongst the hopes fans had for a satisfying exploration of either.  That said however, this is one of the stronger episodes of a distinctly lacklustre season. 

Bucking my usual bile filled trend for mercilessly leaping at an episode’s jugular from the off for a second, allow me to indulge myself by starting with a good point for once.  Chloe is back on form! Champagne!

 After being given a genuinely terrible script to try and pry a decent scene or two out of last episode, something even she couldn’t manage, Allison Mack is offered a chance to make amends and does so with an almost palpable sense of relief.  Her performance isn’t stunning, but it’s flavoured with the nuances and snappy delivery that have made her a fan favourite, and for once, she actually plays a key role in episodic events.  See, Chloe twigs that something appears to be wrong with Clark, (aside from him being ‘played’ by Tom Welling that is, who yet again manages to make a wooden hat stand look like Marlon Brando by comparison) and she decides to try and find out what.  ‘Clark’ is hunting for the little Kryptonian shield he yanked out of the town time capsule a few episodes back, because he needs it to track down the fleetingly mentioned ‘other Kryptonian’ who has been living on earth for over a century.  The fact that he can’t remember where it is, when as she puts it, his “mind’s like a titanium trap” seems distinctly odd to her.  It also seems distinctly odd to me, because in the opening episode of the season, Bizzaro tells Clark “I didn’t just borrow your DNA, I have all your memories, all your thoughts”, something the writers appear to have completely forgotten in another display of startling stupidity. 

Either way, this combined with ‘Clark’s’ bizarre behaviour and threatening demeanour make Chloe decide to make tracks for the Kent farm and pinch the little shield thing before Bizzaro finds it.  Smart move.

We then get a lot of filler, with Bizzaro running (or flying) about, having his merry way with Clark’s life.  He taunts Jor-El in the fortress, and persuades Lana to leave Smallville with him.  In fact, the episode opens with a very strange scene involving Clark and Lana (if you think I should refer to them as ‘Clana’ like so many of the fan-tards who watch this show, then please go stick a cheese grater up your back passage, then jump up and down on a trampoline) apparently naked, and in bed together.  Now correct me if I’m wrong, but despite sex being heavily implied in this scene, isn’t it physically impossible for old Krypto-pants, phantom or not, to fill Lana with his love-gunge without either sending her head flying across several states riding upon a jet of cruise missile ejaculate, or filleting her like a salmon with his big-veined love cane?  Yet again the writers seem to be conveniently forgetting about anything that has happened in previous episodes just for the hell of it and it reeks of sloppiness.

Anyway, after James Masters pops up briefly as Braniac, eats a rat with his finger and then has a quick chinwag with Bizzaro, which results in the two villains working together, the real Clark turns up again.  Having been released from his icy prison in the fortress without so much as a peep of explanation as to why Jor-El stuck him in the deep freeze in the first place, he sets about telling everyone the truth about who he is and tracks down the ‘other Kryptonian’ who is living on earth in order to get help killing Bizzaro.  Despite it being almost unforgivably obvious that Braniac is clearly playing everyone for the bunch of chumps they are, this does deliver on a couple of counts.  Firstly we get a nice little scene involving Chloe and Clark, where a clearly shell-shocked Chloe wisely refuses to believe that Clark is actually Clark and not Bizzaro.  Aside from the fact that Chloe had no idea about Bizzaro’s aversion to sunlight, and therefore her acceptance of his ‘proof’ of being the real steel deal making not a jot of sense, (he basically tells her, ‘if I do this thing I could have made up, it will prove I’m who I say I am’), her reaction is pitch perfect and shows exactly why Chloe and Clark work so well together.  If the man had one ounce of common sense, he would chuck the drippy Lana and be all over Chloe like a rash. 

Secondly, we get tension.  As soon as Braniac started pitting Clark and his phantom-clone against each other, I actually began to feel a sense of genuine excitement as the two hurtled toward an eventual epic confrontation. 

Clark uses the shield thing from back home to locate ‘Dax-Ur’, a Kryptonian scientist who has been living on earth as a human and was conveniently responsible for creating the brain interactive construct (Braniac).  Having strapped a lump of blue Kryptonite to his arm, in the form of a charming bracelet, in order to live a normal human life with his wife and daughter, the powerless boffin is living in the middle of a desert fixing cars.  Sadly his first meeting with Clark has got to be the standout stupid moment of the week.

Clark strolls in through the door of his garage, having never met him before, and despite him looking like any other human, simply assumes that he must be the Kryptonian just because the shield dropped him in close proximity to the man.  He then proceeds to blow his closely guarded secret identity, something that he has almost destroyed countless close personal relationships over, to a total stranger without so much as a momentary pause for contemplation.

Now don’t get me wrong, it makes a tiny amount of sense because the shield effectively led him to the man, but what if he had been the business partner of Dax-Ur, and the real Kryptonian chappy was in the crapper at the time?  I suppose you could argue that Clark was x-ray goggling the place, but still, marching up to some random and announcing a secret you have fought your entire life to guard as if it’s nothing? Jesus, why not just drop in for a chat with Jay Leno on national TV and be done with it?  If it hadn’t been Dax-Ur, Clark would have looked a tad stupid to put it far too politely.  And what about the man himself?  He’s apparently a ‘brilliant scientist’ (because every American film and TV export needs one of those fuckers, no matter how unlikely; ‘I Am Legend’ I’m looking at you, you massive pile of wank), yet he proceeds to demonstrate less intelligence than your average house fly by simply accepting that Clark is in fact Kryptonian, without demanding so much as a jot of proof.  “But Nihil” I hear you cry, “it’s all very well you sitting there with your perfectly formed buttocks and chiselled jaw-line telling us that he didn’t demand proof, but the fact is Clark gives him a piece of Kryptonian technology and a Kryptonian name, surely that’s enough proof to satisfy even you!”

To which I reply, “The shield was in human hands, Dax-Ur knew that, and an escaped phantom or dedicated human researchers could have found the name Kal-El from somewhere.  For an Alien who has been living with the constant fear of his true nature being revealed for over a century and believing his entire race to be extinct, he’s a pretty fucking stupid one.” 

This leads me on to yet ANOTHER stupid thing about the scene. Why doesn’t Clark even bat an eyelid at the fact that a Kryptonian man who lived on his home planet for long enough to become a shining beacon of its scientific community, and then decamped to Earth for over a century, doesn’t appear to be a day over 60?  It raises some interesting questions about exactly how long Clark himself will last, but this is totally ignored along with all the other neat possibilities having an older and far wiser Kryptonian on earth generated.  And I do mean ‘generated’ because at the end of the episode, yet another Kryptonian is bumped off about five minutes after appearing in Smallville, ending any interesting future plot arcs before then can even be imagined. 

It’s at this point that the episode falls apart.  Clark and Bizzaro have their final confrontation and it is without doubt one of the most unsatisfying in the history of the show.  Quite why the writers feel the need to set us up with some truly fantastic fights, and then have them collapse almost instantly into one-sided thirty second affairs before the bad guy goes pop, is beyond me.  If they had spent a little money, we could have enjoyed an earth shaking super powered tussle.  Instead Bizzaro is dispensed and that’s that… aside from Lana implying she doesn’t love the real Clark, but frankly, who gives a shit anyway. 

So, I’ve almost run out of review space and I haven’t even mentioned the other major plot line of the episode: Julian Luthor marching into Lionel Luthor’s office and effectively saying ‘Hi dad’, much to Lex’s annoyance. 

As plot’s go, this one also had fantastic potential, but just like the Bizzaro arc, and Kara’s crystal before that, this is dispensed with in the space of a single crowded episode, with events coming so thick and fast you can hardly even blink before it’s over.  It’s a terrible shame. 

Julian and Lionel decide to get to know one another, prompting Lex to fire his cloned brother from his position as editor of the Daily Planet out of spite.  Julian tells Lex, quite rightly, to go fuck himself, which is never a smart move, but is perfectly in keeping with the character of a Luthor. 

Sadly, as with the ‘Braniac playing everyone for a fool’ element also running through the episode, the fact that Lex is going to have Julian killed is as obvious as someone beating you about the head with a broken beer bottle, so when it happens, it’s not even slightly shocking.  Despite this, it sets up some really juicy plot lines for the Luthors in future episodes.  Lionel has lost his younger son twice now, something that’s bound to upset even the most black hearted human, and in the case of a Luthor, prompt an enraged and potentially murderous reaction.  Lex has nearly gone insane over Julian’s death once, in the excellent ‘Memoria’, and in a nice-if-overly-melodramatic nod to that extremely popular rain-soaked episode, Lex once again finds himself on the roof of the mansion in the middle of a downpour, blaming himself for Julian’s death (although this time of course, it’s unquestionably his fault). 

The possibility of the long overdue father/son battle between Lionel and Lex finally kicking off (a battle we know the insane younger Luthor will eventually win of course) is one that could finally propel Smallville to the heights it is irritatingly stubborn about reaching.  I can only hope that by the end of the next episode, I’m not spitting nails and madly hammering my keys as I rage about the useless, rushed and contrived destruction of potentially the best storyline Smallville has ever set us up with.  Sadly, ‘Persona’ was an entertaining yet crushing disappointment, and it’s easy to see ‘Lex vs Lionel’ going exactly the same way. 

6.7/10