Episode Review: Ambush

The hot peppers might have been a bit too strong a metaphor, but what the hell. When else does a set designer really get to be mischievous?

Last week in my review of “Harvest”, I mentioned that one thing I hoped to see going forward in Season 10 were more episodes that simply advanced the mythology of Smallville as opposed to ones that adhered to one central plot point or another.  With “Ambush”, the creative team has delivered just such an episode.  It was a huge step in the right direction for nearly every character on the series, for Season 10, and for this entry in particular.  In fact, I think it’s just moved into second place behind “Homecoming”.  There were just so many things in this episode that could have been played for an inappropriate level of humor or come off far more strained than what wound up on the screen last Friday night, and what we got instead was both entertaining and emotionally resonant.  Our show starts with the “morning after scene” that some fans out there have been clamoring for, and even I must admit it’s pretty awesome.  I’m not sure exactly how one accomplishes the “glow” with a combination of makeup and set lighting, but they pulled it off brilliantly with both Lois and Clark here.  Just as Lois is luring Clark to the porch swing (in an extremely cute exchange that we could only have on this show with two characters who’ve earned it as much as these two have), we see that things are being intercut between Lois / Clark and Rick Flag, who’s tracking someone or something to the Kent Farm.  This was done very well.  At first, we think this may be Clark, and then we realize it’s something zeroing in on the farmhouse instead.  Just when this episode was running the risk of turning into Gossip Girl light (have we ever had a more openly sexual scene on this series as the one against that door?), we discover – along with Lois and Clark – that it’s General Lane and Lucy who’ve being tracked to the farm.  I was briefly reminded of the scene in “Hostage” here when Martha and Perry entered the house awkwardly.  Now it’s Clark’s turn to be embarrassed, and it’s played up to the hilt.

Clark tried his best to be appreciative, but he really couldn't think of any place he and Lois would enjoy less on their honeymoon than a USO show.

Lois explains that the General is likely more interested in sizing Clark up as the man dating his daughter than visiting with her.  The next scene in the kitchen with General Lane, Lois, and Clark is just expertly done.  He hands Clark a list of things that need improving on the farm, and I couldn’t help but be amused at the thought that the entire thing would probably take about five minutes of Clark’s time.  I loved the tension between Clark and Lois over her need for Clark and her father to get along, and the friction that’s there automatically when the General starts going off about the danger of superheroes and how he’s sponsoring the Vigilante Registration Act.  It was really hard to know whose side to be on in this situation.  On the one hand, we’ve all been waiting for years for Clark to start standing up for himself and not allowing people to marginalize what he does as The Blur.  On the other, choosing to do so here and now with the one person that might actually negatively impact his relationship with Lois seems a rather foolish time to make that particular stand.  Febre’s score in this scene really made a huge difference.  It might have come off far too serious and forced otherwise, but by keeping things musically whimsical and fun, you got the sense of all that tension without it consuming the scene altogether.  The look on Lois’s face when Clark asked her opinion on the heroes was absolutely fantastic.  Erica is doing such a phenomenal job with Lois this year.  I really didn’t think there was much room for improvement after last season, but her portrayal is simply a joy to watch each and every week.

As much as Oliver didn't want a tattoo, he just could not seem to hold on to a watch. So what if this one would only be right twice a day?

I have to say that the scenes we get in “Ambush” with Oliver and Tess are truly wonderful.  It’s funny, but I didn’t completely buy Tess as someone who belonged at Watchtower until this week.  When Ollie comes in injured and she directs him to the first aid kit, we really get a sense that she’s coming into her own in this role.  It might seem blasphemous for a Chloe-lover like me to say, but something just feels suddenly right about Tess being at Watchtower in this capacity.  Chloe was never quite comfortable in the overseer role.  She always had issues with how impersonal things had become there for her and with how much of her humanity she felt was being lost in the process.  Tess, on the other hand, is used to living life from this perspective.  She holds people at arm’s length at all times anyway, and she’s used to being the one with all the information who pulls all the strings.  She’s also always had a need to save the world, misguided though her methods may have been at times.  A gig like Watchtower is, in all honesty, tailor-made for someone like Tess.  I did have to crack up when Ollie hesitated in taking off his shirt for her.  Hartley shirtless has become such a staple of Smallville now that I feel like the writers are just having fun with it as this point, experimenting with how many excuses they can possibly work into the series to show him off.  When Tess discovers that Ollie’s been “tagged” by a sub-dermal tattoo, she puts the pieces together and figures out that The Suicide Squad is behind it.  She runs a search on Rick Flag and explains that he headed up the squad before reportedly being killed by Zod’s attack on The Castle last season.  Oliver informs her that Flag is still alive, and the two guess that he’s also tracking Clark.  I love that while Ollie and Tess are a bit estranged, they make a great team despite themselves.  Their scenes together really flow well, and I do hope we get more of them.

Before her father had him killed for some unknown reason, Lois had learned a great deal from her subtlety coach.

When we pick back up with the Kent Farm story line, Lois is working overtime, running interference for with the General for Clark as he blurs off to put out a refinery fire.  Naturally, the General still isn’t impressed, accusing The Blur of turning the fire into a photo op.  I was reminded a little here of the scene we got in Season 9 with Clark putting out a fire and speeding back to The Daily Planet before Lois knew what he was doing (Clark evidently has a knack for getting ash smudges on his cheek while doing these things), and it’s so awesome that Lois is now in on everything and is helping him spot emergencies.  As much as I enjoyed the Clois relationship in Season 9, I have little doubt that I’ll refer back to these Season 10 episodes even more in the years to come.  Seeing the General get progressively more suspicious as Lois does her best to hold him off while covering for Clark is just so enjoyable.  It’s even endearing in a way to see the lengths to which Lois is willing to go to preserve and support both relationships in her life.  Breaking this up is a phone call from Ollie, who tells Clark to meet him in the barn.  As he leaves, we see that General Lane isn’t buying his story and makes a call to have someone check up on Clark’s past.

"Hey, Lois. I was just asking Lucy here if she wanted to try out some of this Smallvillian hemp. It's spiced with meteor rock and let me tell you, this stuff is totally nuclear".

Ollie scans Clark and finds that he, too, was tagged by Rick Flag and The Suicide Squad back in “Shield”, and we get yet another great Superman moment from Clark where he defends Tess in making the discovery in the first place.  I like how Oliver’s apprehension is being played up as not so much a problem with Tess anymore as it is unwillingness to give up on Chloe running things.  I can swallow that excuse a lot more readily than his continued, blanket mistrust for Tess on a weekly basis.  Clark hears Lucy coming and tells Oliver to make a discrete exit.  I had to laugh at Ollie’s patented swooping somersault-in-the-air leap from the barn.  Was it cool?  Pretty much.  But it’s also kind of hilariously unnecessary to make such a production out of what effectively amounts to a relatively safe fall into a pile of hay bales.  We soon see that Lucy is her old trouble-making self that we met way back in Season 4, as she attempts to seduce Clark.  At first, I thought this was being set up by the General to test Clark’s loyalty to Lois (and in my defense, the score did seem to suggest as much at the beginning), but I had underestimated “Ambush” a bit with that assumption.  This isn’t another episode with a singular, easily-dissectible narrative.  There are several different threads and relationships going on here, not the least of which is Lois’s nearly-broken one with her own sister.  Lucy has her own motivations for trying to dirty the waters of Lois’s life, and it’s telling that Lois seems to have expected this kind of behavior from Lucy from the start.  I really liked that when Lois walks in on Lucy planting an unexpected kiss on Clark that she immediately knows what’s going on and doesn’t jump to some silly conclusion like anyone else might have in this situation.  She instantly knows that Lucy instigated all of this and takes a leadership role in standing up for Clark.  This was perfect, not only for the Clois relationship, but in establishing Lucy’s mental state for her next scene.

One disastrous leap and trip over a tree stump later, Lois and Clark agreed to never again attempt the "Dirty Dancing" lift.

After speaking with Lucy, Lois goes back to the barn to talk with Clark about what happened.  This was one of my favorite scenes in the episode.  It was the first of several in “Ambush” that made me inadvertently think about how truly sad I was that this series is ending so soon.  Erica and Tom have such an incredible chemistry and presence onscreen together, and I believe them completely as Lois and Clark.  They so embody who these characters are and should be to me that it upsets me to think that we won’t be able to continue growing with the two of them like we get to do in scenes like this one.  Clark tells Lois that he’s let down that she couldn’t stand up to her father, and she tries explaining to him what she has to contend with.  I really liked the reference to Clark not truly having a father anymore or a family to which to answer any longer.  Being in two different places in their lives is something that Smallville hasn’t ever really tackled with these two characters, but things like that matter a great deal in the real world.  I’m happy that that fact is at least being acknowledged for a change.  It isn’t that Lois doesn’t love Clark, and it isn’t as simple as her love for him being strong enough (or not) to stand up to her family.  The two relationships are simply mutually exclusive until they’re not, and right now, for Lois, they have to be.  You can see that this hurts Clark on some level, but to his credit, he also knows that making Lois choose between him and her father would not only be unfair, but would only push her away in the long run.

After being caught going AWOL yet again, Colonel Flag had been dishonorably discharged and sentenced to 500 hours of shameful community towing.

It’s really no surprise that Lucy reacts as she does in our next scene, which has Flag posing as a Colonel who’s trying to protect her father from Clark, whom he claims is a vigilante sympathizer.  He asks Lucy to give the General a packet of information on Clark, and to plant a pen on him as a means of tracking his movements to better protect him.  I do have to wonder why Flag needed Lucy to plant another tracking device on General Lane at all when he was apparently able to track him just fine at the beginning of the episode, but I guess we just have to assume that whatever he was using to follow him to the farm was in his car and he’s now wanting something a bit more specific.  In any case, Lucy accepts the mission she’s given.  I like how Flag plays this scene, knowing pretty much exactly what to say to Lucy to get her to agree to help him.  He knows she’s after her father’s approval, and he presents all of this as something she could do to make him proud.  It’s a pretty slimy move to be sure, but it does get the job done.

It had been a few weeks, and yet despite breaking out his charming smile in his profile pic, the General still wasn't getting his money's worth out of eHarmony.com.

We get another scene at Watchtower with Ollie and Tess, but this is one of the few that I might actually chalk up to filler scenes.  The theme is pretty much more of the same, with Oliver taking his frustration out of Tess for not being able to find the answers as quickly as Chloe could have when she was running things.  He confesses to thinking of Chloe every time he’s at Watchtower and that his problem probably isn’t really with Tess herself but in having to get used to so many changes.  This wasn’t a bad scene at all, don’t get me wrong, but it really didn’t add anything above and beyond what we’ve been shown leading up to it.  Meanwhile, General Lane has been shown the “evidence” against Clark that Lucy was given (which turns out to be a few pictures of Clark with Kara), and begins questioning him.  I really enjoyed how all of this played out.  Knowing that Clark could have just laughed all of this off and gotten up and walked away any time he wanted to made it all the more satisfying to see him try his very best to talk things out with Lois’s father, even through being wrongfully persecuted for being who he was.  That said, I really loved the moment when Clark stood up and said the line “I’m not on trial, Sam”.  Taking that slight veil of civility away and speaking to the General as an equal, man to man, really felt right in context.  It was a great moment for Clark’s relationship with the General, and you could almost see the moment of surprise on his face when Clark stopped calling him sir long enough to fully stand up for both himself and his love for Lois.  Still, the General’s mind is made up, and he gets ready to leave the farm with both Lucy and Lois.

The room had fallen deathly silent. Everything had gone off without a hitch so far, but Lois knew that forgetting Cool Whip for her dad's Pumpkin Pie was tantamount to treason.

The scene that follows started off as my one problem with “Ambush” when I first saw it, but I’ve since warmed up to it quite a bit.  Things finally come to a head with Lois, her family and Clark here, and at first, I was a little upset that, when finally forced into making a decision, Lois appears to be unwilling to fight for her relationship with Clark.  There’s this moment where Lois looks at Clark and says “I’m sorry” and goes off with the General, and I don’t mind admitting that I felt like yelling at my television when it happened.  I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  It could have been my own personal history coloring how I viewed all of this, but I could really relate to how much it hurt Clark to feel that Lois’s love for him just wasn’t enough of a motivation to overcome the pressures placed upon her by her father, even when she knew in her heart that he was wrong.  Lucy also takes the opportunity to place the homing pen on the General, setting up our final act with Rick Flag plotting to launch a missile toward his location.  As for the family face off, I’m not going to further analyze the scene at the Kent Farm, because what happens in the following sequence actually changes its entire meaning in my opinion, and so I’ll deal with it there instead.

Erica was all for method acting, but Petry's insistence that she think about the death of her first pet in preparation for a scene in which she was only making a pot of hot tea did seem a tad excessive.

When the Lanes arrive at The Talon, we can see that they’ve spent the trip there continuing the argument that they started back on the farm.  When push comes to shove here, though, Lois finally stands her ground with her father and tells him in no uncertain terms that she loves Clark, is staying with him, and if he loves her, he’ll respect that.  Now again, upon my first viewing, this upset me somewhat.  Why did Lois do this, I wondered.  She had the chance to just stick up for Clark while she was with him, but instead, she left him standing there heartbroken, thinking that she had chosen her father over their relationship.  This made no sense to me until a friend of mine who was watching with me explained that she would never have undermined her own father’s authority in front of anyone outside of her family, even if she had every intention of standing her ground to begin with.  When I started looking at this scene – and the preceding one – in this new light, I began to fall in love with both of them for all the right reasons.  Lois is walking a tightrope in “Ambush”, and it’s one that virtually every woman has to face at some point in her life.  The way she handles it, though, is so incredibly, amazingly perfect here.  She has the courage to be her own woman, and yet she holds on to that respect for her father that she’s always maintained in the process.  What a fantastic, wonderful female character for people to look up to.  I honestly can’t think of anyone on television that’s this great of a role model for young women growing up.  There’s a fine line between asserting yourself with your parents and causing an unnecessary rift with them just to prove that you’re independent.  The way Lois was written in these two scenes could not possibly have been better in my opinion.  She manages, through handling this in precisely this manner, to be loyal to Clark and her father simultaneously.  And in re-watching the episode, that “I’m sorry” to Clark came off far more like an “I’m sorry this happened” than an “I’m sorry, but I can’t be with you”.  I’m really floored at how cleverly all of this was done, and I grow fonder of it every time I see it.

One benefit of moving faster than light, Clark mused, was that one could conceivably break into disco dancing anywhere, at any time. It so ruled to be him.

Next up is a truly great series of quick-cuts that comprise one of the most exciting climaxes on Smallville we’ve had in quite a while – possibly since “Salvation”.  We see Rick Flag launching his missile toward The Talon.  We see Clark finally wearing his new outfit for heroism and piecing together Flag’s plan to take out the General.  We see Sam and Lucy exiting The Talon just as the missile hits its mark.  We see a dramatic rescue (in one of the best uses of slow-motion the series has employed in quite a while) as Clark swoops in, literally at the last second, and saves Lois from the blast.  And out of nowhere, we see the complete obliteration of The Talon.  I was so not expecting this, but wow did it feel like a breath of unpredictable air!  This was such an iconic piece of Smallville history, and it was suddenly gone in the blink of an eye.  In fairness, though, I think The Talon, for better or worse, had already over-stayed its welcome by a season or two on this show.  Lana hasn’t been a permanent fixture on Smallville since Season 7, and The Talon loft really has no purpose for being outside of its connection with that character, Lois’s undisclosed, intentionally vague commute having long ago become its own inside joke.  In any case, I loved this moment.  It felt just like it should.  It was epic and powerful.  And I must say, Clark’s new look comes off a lot less hokey in action than it does perched atop The Daily Planet building in a heroic (if unrealistic) stance.  The General actually changes his tune about The Blur when he realizes that he just saved Lois’s life, which was a welcome bit of development for what could easily have been a one-dimensional character for Michael Ironside.

"Oliver, he's over here. And incidentally, I know they're part of your outfit, but the shades are becoming a serious issue in the field, man".

Unless I missed something, I don’t think it was really made clear how they knew where to find him, but Clark and Oliver track down Flag’s truck and attempt to bring him in, but he uses the abilities of one of his super-powered followers to transport away before they have the chance.  I like that they’re writing Flag as someone who genuinely believes he’s helping both his country and the superheroes by using the tactics he’s resorted to.  When he begins talking about the Vigilante Registration Act, he actually makes a few valid points about how the law could be twisted into something that would put everyone Clark and Ollie care about at risk.  It’s great that they’re actually drawing even Smallville’s villains as three-dimensional people these days.  You can actually sympathize with where Flag’s coming from in his speech.  Much like we could relate to Zod somewhat last season.  And while I don’t think Flag is interesting or charismatic enough to have been Season 10’s main villain, I’m glad he’s there as a more grounded foil for our heroes than something otherworldly like Darkseid.  Keeping one foot in reality is what gives Smallville so much of its weight and sets it apart from other shows that have been based on Superman’s mythology.  It’s one of the show’s greatest strengths, and I’m glad the creative team behind our final season seems to understand that so well.

"Plaid is what I want, Luce. It's what I chose, and if you love me, you'll respect that".

Lois and Lucy have a final scene together and try sorting out their issues with one another.  I’ll admit that I did find all of this just a little bit on the after school special side as these types of scenes go, but if one thing really stood out for me, it was Lucy’s response to Lois’s assertion that they’d both spent so much time trying to be the perfect daughter that they’d forgotten how to be sisters.  Lucy telling Lois that she’d always been a great sister was exactly what Lois needed to hear to put this chapter of her life behind her, lay down the guilt of not being able to be all things to all people (including her family), and move on with forging her own path in life.  I can’t think of a better resolution to Lucy’s character than that, so overtly sappy or not, I have to give this scene resounding praise for satisfactorily wrapping up one of Smallville’s most glaring dangling plot threads.

Please enjoy Vigilante Justice responsibly. Do not operate heavy machinery, archery equipment, or grappling hooks while under the influence.

Back at Watchtower, Oliver resolves to cut himself off from using headquarters in the future to protect the identities of everyone else.  I felt unexpectedly upset at hearing this decision, even though I totally understood Oliver’s logic in making it.  I was really beginning to enjoy his interactions with Tess in these scenes.  And none so much as the one we get here at the end of “Ambush”.  As Tess and Ollie sit down to drink their beer and talk about how much they’ve gone through and how far they’ve come, I know I couldn’t have been the only one who got a little misty-eyed.  And it wasn’t for these characters so much as it was for the series.  I felt like what Justin and Cassidy were really discussing here was Smallville.  I could have read it wrong, but that’s just how it came across.  I watched this scene as if I were watching two actors that I’d come to know well and learn more about each week over the past several years sit down with each other and lament that their time together here was drawing inexorably to a close.  It made me nostalgic for a show that’s still airing, if that’s even possible.  This felt like a scene written to the fans from a writing team who understood the pains of letting go of something that means more to all of us than the sum of its episodes.  I’m going to miss Oliver and Tess at Watchtower together, and it’s with no small amount of melancholy that it now occurs to me that even if Ollie hadn’t chosen to leave, he’d have only had 15 more episodes in which to possibly be there anyway.

Clark tried not to be intimidated by Lois's father, but how could he ignore the obvious? I mean, the man dwarfed the tractor, for God's sake!

Next is my personal favorite scene in “Ambush”.  The General visits Clark at the farm and apologizes for his treatment of him earlier.  I really enjoyed the small flourishes that Michael put into his performance to indicate that perhaps Sam knows Clark’s secret, but chooses not to say.  That was a really nice touch that added a lot to their relationship and to the General’s character.  But my favorite moment has to be when the General admits that the tests for all of Lois’s boyfriends have actually always been tests for her.  I just love how this revelation turns the entire episode on its head and makes you want to re-watch it again immediately to catch all of the subtle ways that Lois was the one being gauged and observed throughout everything instead of Clark.  What I think is so perfect here is that it rings so true in life.  Parents can seem such an insurmountable mountain when we’re growing up.  Their importance in our lives is paramount, and their approval is something we need from the moment we’re old enough to take our first breath.  Many of us spend much of our adult lives worried about either gaining or maintaining that approval, when the true irony is that what most parents want most for their children is to see them self-assured enough to be their own people.  It’s only then that a parent can know that they’ve truly done their job well and nurtured someone to the point that they’re capable of taking care of themselves.  There’s nothing more heartbreaking – or more rewarding – than that moment when a parent can see that their child has found enough within themselves to know what their own truth is in life without needing it shown to them any longer.  Lois coming to that point in her life changed her father fundamentally.  It also earned her his respect while still granting it back to him.  And speaking of respect, it was a fantastic and extremely classy move to have Clark ask the engagement question while they actually had the General present and accounted for in an episode.  Some people are saying it was too soon for this, but honestly, come on, folks.  Lois and Clark have been courting for years!  And in any case, when you know, you really do know.  But I digress.

"Sure, Clark, they're 100% Vegan. Really. Try 'em, they're totally awesome". And yet there was something in her eyes that made Clark squint.

“Ambush” wraps up with a Thanksgiving dinner scene that, whether intentionally or not, reminded me a lot of the end of “Rage”, set to the great song “Cain and Able” by Josh Kelley.  Looking around the table, it amazed me in a way to see how much the canvas of Smallville had changed over the years, while still keeping the same spirit alive that’s kept us all watching for so long.  “Ambush” was a fine return to the mythology-driven episodes that I feel are one of this show’s greatest strengths.  It’s one of my favorite episodes so far this year not because of this plot point or that, but because everything was there for a purpose.  There was a real reason and motivation for everything that transpired in this episode, and it left almost every one of our characters somewhere other than where they started.  It succeeded in advancing the story and legend of Superman more in line with where we all know it’s headed, and left me anxious to see where things are headed in “Abandoned”.  But I think the best things about “Ambush” were the quiet moments that made me remember why I fell in love with Smallville in the first place, and episodes like this one are why I’m going to miss it so much.