Episode Review: Hostage

Okay, I guess I should get this out of the way right upfront.  Something felt off to me about “Hostage”.  Something that hasn’t seemed off about Smallville as a whole for the duration of Season 9.  Well, there were moments in “Escape” that felt off in this way as well, but “Hostage” seemed to take things a step further.  Now, that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy last Friday’s episode.  It’s also not to say that I didn’t enjoy it one heck of a lot more than I enjoyed “Escape”, because I did.  And “Escape” had some moments that I truly loved.  Pretty much anything having to do with the couples was pure, distilled Smallville comedic gold.  There were isolated scenes of greatness, such as Clark’s assertion that he’d learned to be “in control” while training with Jor-El.  The humor elements came off flawlessly.  All of which made the rest of the show (filled such show-stopping missteps as a not-so-scary villain cameo, out-of-character tonal shifts from scene to scene, and the most cliché version of a know-it-all, vaguely creepy, exposition-spouting inns keeper that I believe I’ve ever seen committed to the screen) all the more disappointing.  Also, and back to the point at hand, something just felt off in that show to me.  It was as if it was a side-step away from the journey the rest of this year had been so clearly focused on taking the audience.  Even the seemingly irrelevant peripheral stories in episodes like “Echo”, “Roulette”, and “Disciple” actually managed to tie in with the larger picture at the end of the day.  And “Hostage”, to its credit, was a more balanced, focused, and relevant episode in virtually all the important ways than “Escape” was.  But somehow, something just didn’t sit right with me this time.  I’ll try and touch on the things that felt off to me throughout the course of this review, and attempt to justify this rather vague downer of an opening paragraph as things progress.

Lois, I just don't know if I'm ready to commit to something this iconic and perfect.

The pre-credit sequence has Clark searching the farm for the Book of Rao.  While the Kent Farm probably hasn’t seen this level of intentional destruction since Clark got ticked off with Phelan back in Season 1, and needless destruction can certainly be entertaining, I couldn’t help but wonder what the point was of this search method.  Doesn’t Clark have x-ray vision?  That certainly looked like wood he was punching through, not lead, so I just didn’t see the reasoning behind it.  We see that Chloe is dealing with the aftermath of the Watchtower damage caused in “Sacrifice”, and Clark mistakes Lois for an intruder.  Now forgive me, folks, because it’s not in my nature to nitpick my favorite show, but some things just call out to be questioned.  Again, I have to ask, doesn’t Clark have x-ray vision?  Why would he have to creep around a corner to see who an intruder was?  Sure, there’s the argument that he wouldn’t have any reason to be afraid of the tactic, either, but it just seemed forced to me.  Clark and Lois have a conversation about their relationship and Clark succeeds in sticking his foot squarely in his mouth at virtually every turn.  This bothered me somewhat.  I know that it’s hardly unprecedented for Clark to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, but here he just seemed pretty clueless.  When the woman you’re dating tells you her life’s falling apart, “give me a break” has got to top any list of worst responses.  Clark even tried just walking away from the conversation more than once.  I know he’s had a lot to deal with in the past few weeks with Zod and the Kandorians, but I just don’t see Clark as this insensitive, especially not where Lois is concerned.  Again, it just felt a bit forced.  It was as if the writers just needed an excuse for the two to break up and gave Clark the unenviable task of being just buffoon enough to facilitate it.

Hey, have you guys seen a robot that looks like a metal grasshopper?

The scene ends with the reintroduction of Martha and her now-boyfriend, Perry White.  As cute as the entire intro to “Hostage” was, I was probably most let down with this exchange.  The introduction of Lois Lane to Perry White should have been something historic.  It’s every bit as significant to the Superman mythos as Clark kissing Lois, the discovery of the fortress, Jonathan’s death, or any number of other milestones that are beginning to bridge the gap between this series and the mythology we all know with ever-greater frequency now that Season 9 is drawing to a close.  The trouble is, all those other moments were done justice.  In fact, they’re some of the most memorable scenes in Smallville history.  This one just felt contrived.  Lois has been at The Daily Planet for quite a while now, and it just seemed logical that she’d have met Perry there.  Instead, the choice is made here to have her meet Mr. White during one of two episodes she finds herself unemployed.  I can’t say I’m a huge fan of that decision.  All the same, the scene was fine for what it was, even if it wasn’t what I was personally expecting.  The “awkward dial being turned to 11” feeling of the sequence is just great, and I believe it came off as it was intended.

Whew! I got through an entire episode without my cognitive skills impaired.

After the credit sequence, we get a scene with Clark and Martha in the barn where she confesses that coming back to all the memories there isn’t easy for her.  I really liked this explanation.  It really goes a long way toward resolving why Martha would have stayed at such arm’s length from Clark.  Even with her responsibilities as a senator, I found it odd that she wouldn’t be a bit more involved with what was going on during some of the hardest times Clark had ever faced, so I’m glad more of a reason was provided for it here.  Back at the house, Perry and Lois start piecing together an apparent connection in their respective stories.  Is this contrived?  Just a smidge, sure, but all is forgiven by how incredibly well Erica and Michael played off of one another here.  I’ve said it before this year, and I’ll say it again: Erica Durance has grown on me leaps and bounds during the last two years.  It’s hard to believe this is the same actress that joined the cast in 2004.  She owns every scene she’s in, makes it fun, accessible, and indispensable.  It’s the little moments that push an otherwise average “hey, we’re working on the same story” scene into “something more” territory.  Moments like Lois’s little smile when Perry goes for her picture of the Book of Rao.  She’s so playful with Perry, and it’s easy to see how he’d be immediately taken with her tenacity.  Whereas Chloe was simply in awe of Mr. White, Lois is reverent but she’s also undaunted and fearless.  This is beautifully played, and it really drives home why this life was more suited to Lois’s no-nonsense sensibilities.  It even puts into clearer focus why Lois has been portrayed as so tough and spunky over the years in this series.  She’s the kind of woman now who can stand toe to toe with someone like Perry White and still hold her own.

Seriously, Glen, this is the forty-third take. This isn't even make-up anymore.

Perhaps it’s because the opening of “Hostage” has such a uniformly welcoming, disarming feel that the next scene with Tess waking up to an oddly fortified Luthor Mansion and a larger-than-life Maxwell Lord beating her senseless comes off so jarring.  The cinematography is shaky and the camera angles are quite unorthodox and off-putting.  This shooting style was really effective at evoking a sense of “something’s not quite right here” without making it blatantly obvious just what that something was.  I have to admit, I was pretty confused when I first saw this scene, but then I think that was the point.  Maxwell’s really portrayed as an out-and-out monster here, and I really felt for Tess.

I know I left the carrots in the strainer, Lois. I wanted them there, okay?

Back at the farm, we get a nice scene with Lois and Martha which, though it’s essentially episode filler and doesn’t really advance anything per se, somehow managed to be one of my favorite scenes in the episode.  I really loved the story that Martha told about how she found her purpose on the farm with Jonathan.  But then, I’m pretty much a sucker for any scene that makes you want to go back and re-examine characters that you thought you knew and see them from a different perspective.  It reminded me in a way of a scene from “Before Sunset” when we learn that the Jesse character had once been in a band.  That’s a character trait we weren’t let in on in the previous film, and it makes that first film richer in a way because the next time you watch it, you know that bit of extra information about the person, even though it’s not given explicitly.  Hearing Martha explain why she was so drawn to her life on the farm makes you more fully appreciate not only her character in “Hostage”, but her arc throughout the series.  It makes so many things resonate differently.  Her being initially unsure about leaving behind the life of a law school student with high aspirations makes us more fully understand her willingness to work with Lionel, for example.

Widow-dating etiquette 101: never help yourself to random articles of clothing.

The next two scenes are a pair of oddities for me.  The first is one in which Perry informs Clark of his intention to ask Martha to marry him.  Clark’s assumption that she wouldn’t likely give Perry the answer he’s looking for was peculiar to me in a way.  I know we had the scene earlier where it’s made pretty clear that Martha’s still grieving on some level, but it’s also been four years, and this is her first trip back to the farm after an extended time away.  Naturally, she’d be dealing with her share of old ghosts.  That doesn’t in and of itself mean that she’s unready or unwilling to move on with her life or that Perry’s not someone with whom she’d be willing to do so.  Clark obviously doesn’t know much about their relationship aside from where they met, so this just felt like an odd response to me.  In the build-up to dinner, we get a cute scene with things coming to a head with Lois and Clark, followed by one the strangest moments I can recall on the series.  Perry coming in wearing Jonathan’s jacket may have worked better on paper, but I couldn’t help but wonder why in the world he would have taken it upon himself to just throw on a jacket that was lying around in a widow’s barn.  Could it have been Clark’s jacket?  Sure, it’s possible.  But a 50/50 chance is a pretty big one to take with someone you’re thinking of marrying.  Best case scenario, you’re still being a bit presumptuous in taking something that doesn’t belong to you in the first place.  It just felt contrived to me, and I think that’s really my main gripe with “Hostage” as a whole.  Things just happen, but there’s no real reason for them to happen, and no context given as to why they’re playing out that way.  A simple scene showing Perry beginning to chop wood, getting cold, calling out once for Martha, and then noticing the jacket and deciding to just wear the thing rather than bother walking all the way back to the house or bothering anyone would have gone a long way toward making me feel better about this scene in general.

Sadly, Clark's training hadn't covered the Heimlich and he had no clue how to respond.

The dinner scene, on the other hand, is one I really can’t fault at all.  The interplay between characters is just priceless, and I love how things are played out like this huge train wreck that’s just going to happen no matter what.  Having Lois and Perry on one side of the table and Martha and Clark on the other was also inspired.  It let those two sets of characters share looks that would only have made sense from their respective points of view.  It also effectively drew a line down the middle of the table between those who knew about Clark’s secret and those who didn’t, which was pretty clever.  The shout back to the engagement announcement from “Persuasion” was absolutely perfect and just made a bad situation that much worse (and kudos to Erica for the method acting in actually choking on the potatoes – that’s dedication to your part, people).  Martha and Perry’s faces as things imploded with Lois and Clark were pitch-perfect and you really get the feeling that they had no clue how to respond to the scene unfolding in front of them.  I also liked seeing how Clark has matured here.  He initially follows Lois, but lets her go when she asks him.  He’s putting her first, not himself.  That’s the Clark Kent I know with Lois Lane, and again, it isn’t the Clark that we saw when this episode began.  Martha discovers that Perry’s following a lead on the Book of Rao via the slight contrivance of his papers falling on the floor.  Sure, it’s a bit of a cheat, but it gets the job done.

I was only kidding, Tess. Those pants look fine on you. Really, they do.

Up next, we get another, equally disturbing scene of Tess held captive by Lord, this time with the introduction of Oliver to the proceedings.  A lot of things about this sequence are pretty inexplicable (such as Tess removing Ollie’s bandage for apparently no reason), but only without the later context of it all being part of Maxwell’s mind game.  Subconscious sequences don’t tend to make sense once you’re watching them from a lucid perspective, and this one’s no exception.  Back at the farm, we get another scene with Martha and Clark in which she tells him that if he wants to be with Lois, he’s going to have to come clean with her about who he is.  I thought this scene was really effective.  It managed to present a real contrast with his reaction to Lana and how he was so sure that he wanted to tell her who he was, even if it might not have been the best or safest course of action for her.  With Lois, the decision is made harder for him, if only because she’s far more selfless than Lana was.  She understands Clark’s need to protect his identity – even from her – perhaps more than even he understands it himself.  That’s a great characteristic for Lois to have, and I’m glad that Clark’s not just thinking of himself anymore.  Lois is too important to him to put his own happiness first this time around, and that’s great to see.

Wait, I've got it! Five-star hotel?! Oh, I suck at this game!

Back at The Talon (seriously, show, it just makes no sense whatsoever for Lois to still be holing up here, even if we’re to willingly accept Smallville’s dubious-at-best geographic retcons), Perry and Lois arrive to find her room’s been ransacked.  I love the banter that these two have when working together.  I think Louis Febre’s score captured the feel of the two perfectly.  It’s a serious situation, but when they’re both on the case, things just can’t be but so bad or somber.  Now, I know that Lois obtained the cell phone in the Wonder Woman costume from Amanda Waller, but I’m not exactly clear on how Lois knew what number would be a direct line to Checkmate or, even if it were, how the person on the other end would have any way of knowing how they could find The Red Queen.  The whole point of The Red Queen up to this point is that she’s been a big mystery, even to Checkmate, so this, again, seemed a bit contrived to me.  In any case, it somehow works and she and Perry get a lead on where to meet her.  That said, I must admit that I wouldn’t have sacrificed the Taco Dan’s conversation for absolutely anything, so I suppose all is forgiven.

You killed my sis...oh, I just can't stay mad at you, Kal.

Across town, Clark meets up with Vala and asks for more information about the Book of Rao and how close Zod is to finding it.  Again, this scene just didn’t exactly work for me.  At first, Vala seems absolutely furious at Clark, accuses him of killing her sister, and attempts to superspeed away.  After he stops her and simply says “you don’t really believe that, do you?”, suddenly she’s cooperative to a fault and tells him everything he wants to know.  I just can’t understand this character’s motivations or comprehend her actions.  She’s either with Zod or she’s not.  She either hates Clark or she doesn’t.  Perhaps she’s being made to straddle the fence like this so she can be swayed at a critical moment in the finale, but that seems a role that would have been far more potent had Faora been allowed to carry it.  I’m also just not sure about how some scenes lead into others in this episode.  How did Clark even know where to find Vala?  And provided he did know, why didn’t he just know where to find Zod instead?  Again, it’s not in my nature to nitpick in my reviews, but this episode presented me with too many questions to simply ignore.  Also, this scene ultimately served little purpose for me.  Vala tells Clark that the Book of Rao is very dangerous and that it will destroy the Kandorians’ life on Earth.  All of this is information that Clark already knows.  She also plants the seed with Clark that Tess is The Red Queen, but she offers no reasoning for this belief or proof of what she says, so it just comes off as a planted reason for Clark (and the audience) to think it could be Tess.  And if you ask me, that’s just kind of a weak plot device to employ on a show that’s seen its share of far smarter bait and switch scenarios.

Cell Phone Tumors: Truth or Modern Myth?

Tess finally snaps out of Maxwell Lord’s mind manipulation and escapes (as, we’re later told, she was always meant to), after which Lord is evidently killed by some sort of high-pitched noise transmitted over his phone.  The implication is made later that Martha was behind this entire subplot and subsequent use of Tess to locate the Book of Rao, but I hope that some distinction is made between Martha’s Red Queen and the cold-blooded killer who just apparently short-circuited a man’s brain.  I can buy that Martha is acting to protect Clark, and I can even swallow her finding it necessary to adopt this alternate identity to do so.  But Martha becoming a straight-up killer in the name of justice?  That’s certainly not the character who left this series in Season 6.  And perhaps it isn’t meant to be, but it’s a bit of a stretch.  Martha’s moral compass was always one we could count on in the past.  But with Jonathan gone, and with what’s happened with Oliver and more recently with Chloe, I’m starting to wonder if the show runners are going to leave us with any traditional good guys by the time this year is out.  I certainly hope so.  This is Superman mythology we’re building here, not Batman.  It’s okay to have a clear-cut hero on occasion.  I have no qualms with a series – even one based in a world as fantastic as this – striving for a little verisimilitude with fallible leads, but must we have each and every one of them test the dark side waters?

Billboard heaving finally earns its rightful place at the Kandorian Olympic Games.

When we catch up to Perry and Lois, they’re staked out at the coordinates they were given to meet The Red Queen and, after she makes a brief appearance on a nearby roof, the pair spring into action ascending the most precariously-built fire escape ladder I’ve seen since “Final Destination 2”.  It naturally gives way and Perry’s hanging on for dear life.  This leads to yet another issue I had with “Hostage”.  One of the big plot points in this episode was Lois finding a bigger purpose to her life.  A greater meaning to what she’s doing.  She needs to feel like she’s making a difference.  And how does she get that sense of self-worth?  Well, if this climactic scene in “Hostage” is any indication, all she really needed was to pull someone to safety from the side of a building while a small group of “I’ll stare up in horror but do nothing to help” people cheer her on.  Now, trust me on this one, folks.  This reviewer doesn’t need much to jump blindly aboard the “Lois gets to do something significant this week instead of just being knocked needlessly unconscious” train.  But is this really the big cathartic experience that Lois needed?  They didn’t find The Red Queen.  Their story was a dead end, and all the pair really succeeded in doing on their first job together was to rummage through an apartment and climb up to a roof chasing what ultimately amounted to a wild goose.  I don’t know, I guess I just wanted (and expected) a bit more from these two.  Their scenes were fun, but the whole thing really just didn’t lead to anything that actually mattered or even really warranted inclusion in the overall arc.  Except, of course, that we needed an excuse to get these two characters working together which, again, is the very definition of contrived.  On the heels of this scene, we get to see Clark attempt to stop The Red Queen’s car (which I gather she had waiting just long enough for her to make a cameo on the roof and then make a speedy exit), but he’s straight away thwarted by Kryptonite.

This is the heart of the island, Chloe. You must never go into it, or you'll become a giant smoke monster.

The next scene is probably my favorite of the episode.  Chloe tells Clark that, though she’s gotten Watchtower back up and running, she’s just not equipped to handle what’s being asked of her anymore.  She knows she’s done things that she shouldn’t have done in the name of protecting Clark and everyone else.  I have to say, it was a huge relief (especially after the events of last week) to see Chloe coming to a sort of crisis of conscience here.  She’s been long overdue for one in truth, and I’m thrilled that the writers have finally seen fit to put these words into her mouth.  I articulated much of my concern about Chloe’s dark path in my last review, and seeing a scene like this makes me realize even more why her arc has concerned me so much.  I like Chloe as a character.  Or at least I used to before her motivations and subsequent actions got so dark gray that even I couldn’t tell whose side she was on at times.  This scene actually had me feeling for her again, which is something that I haven’t done for a while now.  I actually was beginning to dislike Clark if anything here.  The fact is, Clark doesn’t have the bird’s eye view of Chloe that we’ve had as an audience.  He doesn’t know just how far down the wrong road she’s gone in his name, and I suspect that if he had a bit better understanding of what’s truly become of his once wide-eyed sidekick from Smallville’s early years, he might have taken what she said a bit more seriously.  While I appreciate the pep talk he gave Chloe in this scene, what I feel she really needed instead was understanding and a reassurance that it’s acceptable not to be okay all the time.

Only one other person besides me knew about that pie recipe, Tess. I'm here to collect.

So our big reveal of Martha as The Red Queen has her obtaining the Book of Rao from Tess and warning her not to end up on the wrong side of the coming apocalypse.  This reveal, by the way, likely came as just about as much of a shock to anyone paying attention to this show as the fact that the use of the word apocalypse is a foreshadowing device.  Also, Lois getting her job back at The Daily Planet was kind of a canon necessity, don’t you think?  Seriously, though, I have a theory that both Smallville and Metropolis exist, to steal a patented Star Trek phrase, in some sort of temporal anomaly where normal rules of time and space just don’t apply.  I know there’s no accounting for time cuts, but Martha was positively everywhere at once in this episode.  She’s at the farm talking to Clark, then she’s on a roof throwing Lois and Perry off her trail, then she’s in Tess’s wine cellar, then back to the farm just in time to get that scrumptious cherry pie out of the oven.  That is one busy woman, folks.

Oh, come on, this is a Schick Quattro, not a Gillette Fusion! This ruins everything!

In our final scene, Clark tells Martha that he knows all about what she’s done.  There is a passing mention of “her people” tracking down the Book of Rao while she kept him home for dinner (now that’s how a mom gets things done), so I’m hoping that said people were behind Lord’s assassination and that Martha’s hands are at least somewhat clean.  She hands over the Book of Rao to Clark with the warning that it has the power to exile all Kryptonians from Earth, including him.  I know it probably seems like I hated this episode, but really, I didn’t.  I enjoyed a lot of it.  And, as I said, I’d still rate it higher than what I’d consider to be Season 9’s lower points.  I simply found there to be more glaring holes this time around, more things that called attention to themselves more readily upon a second viewing and, thus, more things to critique.  As such, my apologies for this review running a bit away with me.  I just felt that I had a lot to say.  I wanted to love “Hostage”, but instead found it to be merely “good”.  And this close to the end of what will likely be Smallville’s penultimate season, I don’t want a good episode.  I want a great one.  I think I might actually have enjoyed this show more had it been third from the end instead of second.  The Kandorian’s fly off from the fortress, Zod tells Clark he won’t be able to stop them, and next time we see him he’s at the farmhouse?  It just felt strange.  Too many things just didn’t gel for me in “Hostage” the way I wanted them to in a story that featured the historic first-ever team-up between Lois Lane and Perry White.  In truth, I’m a hopeless fan of Smallville.  And no matter what this show sells me, I’m going to buy it.  But for the first time in a while, I’ve got a twinge of buyer’s remorse.