If nothing else Smallville is a nice watered down version of the DC Universe. I watch it to see aspects of the comics I loved as a kid in live action, that I wouldn’t have a chance to see otherwise. That being said we got to see the anti-matter universe where all the heroes are villains and all the villains are heroes… kind of.
Clark is exposed to a Kryptonian device that switches him with his evil doppelganger. In this world Lionel Luthor has raised him as his son, with Lex Luthor, and Tess Luthor as siblings. This world is an Oedipal nightmare, with Clark Luthor trying to take his fathers power, and sleeping with his sister. An evil Clark Kent isn’t anything new. We’ve had that before with red kryptonite, and bizarro copies, but there was some interesting attention to details which I though made this episode fun.
Instead of being ‘the Blur” a hidden avenger of justice, and vigilante, he is the “Ultraman” the serial killer terror of Metropolis. It was cool to see him wearing the same type of costume with a U instead of an S. The saturated colors of the good world and black white and grey of the bad world were a nice visual element. I particularly liked how in the bad world had multiple Luthor towers. The moral of the story was nurture over nature. Luthor blood didn’t make Lex evil, his upbringing and choices did. However this episode played it too safe. I wanted to see all the heroes as villains. Oliver Queen could have been Red Arrow, and assassin for higher. Watchtower could have been a terrorist organization. The same moral could have been covered with Lex Luthor (or Lionel) being the hero of that world.
This episode was an epic missed opportunity but oh well. At least the angsty romantic drama was kept to a minimum.
On a scale of 1 to Epic, (Epic= 10) I’d give it a 6.