Ugh! I get it Smallville, you don’t like conservatives, or the tea party. Stop hitting me over the head with it. There are so many little digs at conservative politics in the dialog it interrupts the moment of the show, and causes so many headaches. As you berate me with your one sided, poorly thought out politics you could at least give me a decent superhero adventure but no such luck.
Our last episode of Smallville ended with a glowing pyramid knocking out everyone at the funeral of Hawkman. I theorized that this was the New Gods trying to contact Earth. After all, why is Darkseid allowed to run rampant and his counter balance on the side of good is MIA. Instead the government knocked out the heroes, plugged them into a virtual world, in some convoluted attempt to control them. Chloe has to appear via an avatar to help them escape. Turns out she is working with the Suicide Squad to overturn the Vigilante Registration Act. I want to point out that the Suicide Squad are terrorists. They’ve employed assassins to kill well intentioned if not misguided characters, and blown up buildings. They even targeted Lois Lane’s dad. They tow the darker side of the line between good and evil. As a concept there’s nothing wrong with that, especially if you’re trying to make a gritty show. Yet when applied to the Smallville universe, this episode has unfortunate implications coming out the wazoo. As I’ve previously complained, this pro-registration movement is portrayed as being similar to the Tea Party. They have a Glen Beck analog in the form of Glorious Godfrey, and this movement is lead by the DC universe’s god of evil. The superheroes have to work with murderers and terrorists to save the world. Whatever happened to the idea “I don’t agree with a word you say but I defend to the death of me your right to say it.”? Basically this story arch is implying that there is no room for political discourse in America. I may not like the logic or philosophy of someone of a different political point of view, but I’ll respect it. I’ll listen to it. When someone as righteous as Superman is willing to side with killers to defeat those evil evil conservatives, its the writers saying we’re right, you’re wrong and you’re not even worth our respect. Superman is supposed to be the hero of truth, justice, and the American Way. The American way is supposed to be freedom of thought, speech, assembly, and where everyone is accepted. Not blind political screeching.
On top of that this episode wasn’t even remotely original. The virtual world was dumb and cliche. They’re dreaming in Matrix/Inception style program. They need to wake up to reality to save the day, but they don’t know what is real. Yawn. The visual elements, fight scenes, and the even the score were all echoing the Matrix. They only show Green Arrow, Black Canary, Clark, and Lois emerge from the fantasy. We’rent all the heroes knocked out? Is that even going to be addressed? Will it turn out that Flash, and Cyborg will come back as programed government agents? Nah Smallville isn’t going to be that sophisticated.
On a scale of 1 to Epic, (Epic= 10) I’d give it a 5.0