Voice of Reason: Season Five: Vengeance

Vengeance

Overall

This episode reminded me of an amoeba - very simple (just one cell), its movement caused by hurtling in several directions at once, and appearing, with a few brief exceptions, to be purposeless. However, those brief exceptions are definitely worth noting.

The good news:

Martha and Chloe talking about Clark. It was very real that Martha would need to share the secret with someone. Also, I've been waiting for Chloe to have the family moments that Pete had of sharing the joys and burdens of Clark's secret. This followed both paths very naturally. Martha needing someone to talk to, Chloe sharing her responsibility of dealing with Clark's anger, and the fact that, since Chloe did not have the same pain of loss, she was not so handicapped in her communication with Clark and so was a support to Martha - it all meshed.
Clark's search for the watch, Lana finding the watch, Clark putting the watch on by himself. The one part of Clark's angry role that I found compelling was the watch angle – the symbol that he needed to hold on to. I believed his painful search for it (his crime-fighting would otherwise have seemed as far-fetched as Andrea's), and I liked the idea of his taking off his own watch to put his father's on. I appreciated the fact that Lana was again positively involved in his life, helping him move on instead of playing the inescapable ball and chain; it was believable that she would give him space, assuring him that he didn't have to tell her anything and then retreating quietly, yet would not desert him. The relationship went back to the friendship and quiet connection of the pilot, and that's the way I like it.
Chloe's quick, intelligent dialogue. The new writers had a better handle on Chloe's knack with words than the old ones, with the exception of a few lines. Sometimes when writers work with the same cast of characters, they get so accustomed to them that gradually the idiosyncrasies they carefully crafted in the beginning get filled in and worn down as focus shifts. These writers brought back the clever reporter in the loyal friend – this was again the girl who told Lex frankly, "You are what they euphemistically call the lesser of two evils." Unfortunately, they didn't spend quite enough time in crafting the dialogue – more mundane lines sprinkled in resulted in a sort of "dialogue hopskotch". On the other hand, as she matures she learns to connect with people on their own level, and her dialogue with Martha and her dialogue with Clark and her dialogue with Lana is likely to be very different. (Not to mention her dialogue with Lionel.) The problem comes when she hopskotches in the middle of a conversation.
Moving the Luthors back into the Luthorcorp office and business game. This was an element in the second and third seasons that greatly increased potential for beneath-the-surface dialogue and pitted the two Luthors against each other strategically. When father and son are pitted against each other domestically, we get lines like Season Four's "If you want to play games, there's a deck of cards in the parlor." When they are pitted against each other in business – the foundation of their relationship, the realization of Lionel's goal of "training" and "testing" – then their real selves come out, in the risks they are willing to take. Moreover Lex repeatedly learns that whenever he puts trust in anyone, that person betrays him; in business, these chess games become both cold-blooded and poignant. Recently Lex has been less believable in his chess games, complaining very openly about his father's neglect – as opposed to the protective business in "Insurgence": "I've discovered a bug problem right here in my very own home." Business makes Lex collected, poised – even when he makes mistakes, he falls gracefully, because anything is better than looking vulnerable in front of his father. In a way, Lionel figuratively stabs at him with a knife, while Lex evades him, only glancing at the scratches he gets, even though he's close to bleeding to death… Business stories form a dramatic, and often heartwrenching, creative dance. I'm ready to see that again…if only the writers handle them better than they are handling the domestic disputes.
The camera shot of Clark and Lionel in the window. While I still find it entirely unbelievable that Clark accepts Lionel's words and pat on the back (see Bad News), that camera shot was worth a thousand words. The fact that Lionel called him "son" and expressed that frank, respectful interest he showed in "Insurgence" after being rescued (while his files on Clark were smoldering upstairs) told a great deal about his relationship with Martha and Clark – at least, the relationship he wanted to have.* And the camera shot of Clark standing there thoughtfully in the open window, the wind brushing past him into the room, Lionel behind him with his hand on his shoulder…it said a lot about where this relationship could be going. While I don't know if I like that direction (and feel like I probably don't), the use of this image and the brief dialogue between the two was expertly done.
Jonathan waving good-bye. The whole video - Martha's worry, the "Man of Steel" line, and of course, "Say good-bye to Mommy, son. Buh-bye." This episode really could have been wonderful. If only it had been.

* It's been suggested that Lionel calling Clark "son" was a manifestation of Jor-El lingering in him. In that case, Lionel would be himself when creeping around Martha (unless Jor-El's undergone a drastic character revamp) and for most of the time around Clark, until Jor-El interjects the word "son" at the end of the sentence. Or else, Jor-El's dwelling inside him makes Lionel feel paternal instincts. However, if Jor-El is still, in a way, inhabiting Lionel and affecting his instincts and affections, why is Lionel still infatuated with Martha, who incurred Jor-El's displeasure? My interpretation of the "son" moment was that this was a continuation of "Insurgence". Lionel is intrigued with Clark, he feels a slimy form of affection for Martha, and he treats Clark both as Martha's son and as Clark in his own mystery, calling him "remarkable" with both pride and intrigue. A premature possession, as it were. He's always wanted to possess Clark's secret, and calling him "son" so possessively was his worming his way inward, to the center of the secrets.

The bad news:

The Angel of Vengeance. Part of the problem was her unconvincing acting. Part of the problem was also the fact that the writers gave us no reason to like her. Perhaps we were supposed to be endeared to Andrea because of what she's gone through. But plenty of people who go through bad experiences become jerks. Instead we should have been endeared to her by how she met her challenges. The writers meant for her to be mysterious and wild, but many shallow people are mysterious and wild. They showed her savage pain, but not her equally fierce joy - they showed that she was driven but did not show what was driving her and where it was taking her. As a result, she did not come across as tortured, but as unsympathetic. She had an undefined personality - the only character quality that we saw in her was arrogance. We had almost no reason to sympathize with her.
The same almost goes for Clark. Although last episode gave us reason to sympathize with Clark, this episode leaned too heavily on that episode's power. Until the playing of the home video, nothing forced me to put myself in Clark's place. His anger was unconvincing, partially because he's very often angry nowadays, so there was nothing new about it; and partially because we didn't see instances of his missing Jonathan. We didn't visually see him wanting to tell Jonathan something and then realizing he couldn't, see him trying to handle the bills with Jonathan gone - we didn't see either the huge gaping hole in his life or the new set of responsibilities he was struggling with. All we saw was his anger. Until the end, when he switched off auto-pilot and began to think again, I didn't sympathize with him.
I'm not sure if this was because of poor editing, but all the acting seemed very purposeless. The scenes didn't flow right. A good scene has a clear emotional direction or atmosphere (dark like the Clark-Lex confrontation in "Splinter", other-worldly like Lex getting shot in "Lexmas", quirky like Clark climbing through air vents in "Mortal", triumphant like the first half of "Reckoning", poignant like Lana's and Jonathan's eyes meeting in "Reckoning"). The scenes of "Vengeance" didn't have that strong mood dominating a scene or even a conversation; the way the actors acted didn't fit, like a jigsaw piece, into a bigger picture. It was all patchwork of active/worried/amused/subdued, and we were left not knowing what to feel.
They had a different young Clark. Perhaps this was unavoidable, but it's only been about two years since they showed the original one - he could have been a little older and it wouldn't have been out of place. Martha's worry still isn't over, and Clark's eighteen: he could have been ten in the video and it still would have made sense.
Andrea's mask. Its design contributed to a feeling of corniness that even the great music couldn't make up for.
The blatant, out-of-place Acuvue promotion.
Chloe yelling "Stooop!" Comical but over the top.
Everyone was strangely accepting of Lionel. With Jonathan gone, it's more likely they'd be remembering his words of hatred and distrust for Lionel and be drawing away (consciously or not). Besides, of course, the forgotten fact that Lionel had Clark experimented on…
The special effects were minimal and a bit cheap looking. Andrea's initial leap offscreen, her leaps to the top of the roof, Clark grabbing Lionel from the window - it was almost like something made on a budget in a pilot. However, the special effects in Smallville's pilot were much more convincing.
Long periods of dialogue without action, like the rooftop scene, or all the conversation in the Daily Planet. It was more like a group of people trailing after each other (with Clark as the sidekick, whether he likes it or not) than an active expression of anger. More planning than doing. When I think over the episode, those large sections of gab in the Daily Planet and on the roof are what I think of. The action (Clark roughing up the guy, Andrea killing the guy, Clark rescuing Lionel) was like an afterthought after the bulk of the story had passed.
In Season Three, Clark roughed up several people while in his right mind. In "Shattered" he tackled Darius and almost broke his arm ("Not if you tell me how you drugged Lex!") and threatened to strangle the sniper (calmly, "Tell me where to find the guy you're working for or I keep squeezing."). His impersonal encounter with the watch-stealer was not half so driven. (This may be because the third season was about how his experiences in Metropolis as his alter ego Kal had changed him. This episode did not build up the same sort of context through Jonathan's death.)
And a very minor detail. It would have been stronger if they'd explained why Martha was watching the home video. Did she turn it on to torment herself? It would be better to show that she was going through the closet looking through Jonathan's things, came across some old videos that weren't labeled; or something else to make it seem less arbitrary and, on the way, more poignant.

Verdict: The bad news countered the good news.4

Details

When the Angel of Vengeance wore her mask, all the skin that showed was coated with black; but when she took the mask off, she was wearing normal makeup.
One of the names on the list of numbers called was "Fantasy Fone".
The folders Andrea dropped were Superman colors - red, blue, yellow.
The first sentence of Chloe's article was very badly written. "Fiction has become fact as the reports of the vigilante scouring the streets of Suicide Slums has been proven true." Fiction doesn't become fact, at least not in this instance, and "reports" is plural, so they "have been" proven true, not "has been". Not to mention that even with those errors corrected...it'd still be badly written.




Vengeance Overall This episode reminded me of an amoeba - very simple (just one cell), its movement caused by hurtling in several directions at once, and appearing, with a few brief exceptions, to be purposeless. However, those brief exceptions are definitely worth noting. The good news: Martha and Chloe talking about Clark. It was very real that Martha would need to share the secret with someone. Also, I've been waiting for Chloe to have the family moments that Pete had of sharing the joys and burdens of Clark's secret. This followed both paths very naturally. Martha needing someone to talk to, Chloe sharing her responsibility of dealing with Clark's anger, and the fact that, since Chloe did not have the same pain of loss, she was not so handicapped in her communication with Clark and so was a support to Martha - it all meshed. Clark's search for the watch, Lana finding the watch, Clark putting the watch on by himself. The one part of Clark's angry role that I found compelling was the watch angle – the symbol that he needed to hold on to. I believed his painful search for it (his crime-fighting would otherwise have seemed as far-fetched as Andrea's), and I liked the idea of his taking off his own watch to put his father's on. I appreciated the fact that Lana was again positively involved in his life, helping him move on instead of playing the inescapable ball and chain; it was believable that she would give him space, assuring him that he didn't have to tell her anything and then retreating quietly, yet would not desert him. The relationship went back to the friendship and quiet connection of the pilot, and that's the way I like it. Chloe's quick, intelligent dialogue. The new writers had a better handle on Chloe's knack with words than the old ones, with the exception of a few lines. Sometimes when writers work with the same cast of characters, they get so accustomed to them that gradually the idiosyncrasies they carefully crafted in the beginning get filled in and worn down as focus shifts. These writers brought back the clever reporter in the loyal friend – this was again the girl who told Lex frankly, "You are what they euphemistically call the lesser of two evils." Unfortunately, they didn't spend quite enough time in crafting the dialogue – more mundane lines sprinkled in resulted in a sort of "dialogue hopskotch". On the other hand, as she matures she learns to connect with people on their own level, and her dialogue with Martha and her dialogue with Clark and her dialogue with Lana is likely to be very different. (Not to mention her dialogue with Lionel.) The problem comes when she hopskotches in the middle of a conversation. Moving the Luthors back into the Luthorcorp office and business game. This was an element in the second and third seasons that greatly increased potential for beneath-the-surface dialogue and pitted the two Luthors against each other strategically. When father and son are pitted against each other domestically, we get lines like Season Four's "If you want to play games, there's a deck of cards in the parlor." When they are pitted against each other in business – the foundation of their relationship, the realization of Lionel's goal of "training" and "testing" – then their real selves come out, in the risks they are willing to take. Moreover Lex repeatedly learns that whenever he puts trust in anyone, that person betrays him; in business, these chess games become both cold-blooded and poignant. Recently Lex has been less believable in his chess games, complaining very openly about his father's neglect – as opposed to the protective business in "Insurgence": "I've discovered a bug problem right here in my very own home." Business makes Lex collected, poised – even when he makes mistakes, he falls gracefully, because anything is better than looking vulnerable in front of his father. In a way, Lionel figuratively stabs at him with a knife, while Lex evades him, only glancing at the scratches he gets, even though he's close to bleeding to death… Business stories form a dramatic, and often heartwrenching, creative dance. I'm ready to see that again…if only the writers handle them better than they are handling the domestic disputes. The camera shot of Clark and Lionel in the window. While I still find it entirely unbelievable that Clark accepts Lionel's words and pat on the back (see Bad News), that camera shot was worth a thousand words. The fact that Lionel called him "son" and expressed that frank, respectful interest he showed in "Insurgence" after being rescued (while his files on Clark were smoldering upstairs) told a great deal about his relationship with Martha and Clark – at least, the relationship he wanted to have.* And the camera shot of Clark standing there thoughtfully in the open window, the wind brushing past him into the room, Lionel behind him with his hand on his shoulder…it said a lot about where this relationship could be going. While I don't know if I like that direction (and feel like I probably don't), the use of this image and the brief dialogue between the two was expertly done. Jonathan waving good-bye. The whole video - Martha's worry, the "Man of Steel" line, and of course, "Say good-bye to Mommy, son. Buh-bye." This episode really could have been wonderful. If only it had been. * It's been suggested that Lionel calling Clark "son" was a manifestation of Jor-El lingering in him. In that case, Lionel would be himself when creeping around Martha (unless Jor-El's undergone a drastic character revamp) and for most of the time around Clark, until Jor-El interjects the word "son" at the end of the sentence. Or else, Jor-El's dwelling inside him makes Lionel feel paternal instincts. However, if Jor-El is still, in a way, inhabiting Lionel and affecting his instincts and affections, why is Lionel still infatuated with Martha, who incurred Jor-El's displeasure? My interpretation of the "son" moment was that this was a continuation of "Insurgence". Lionel is intrigued with Clark, he feels a slimy form of affection for Martha, and he treats Clark both as Martha's son and as Clark in his own mystery, calling him "remarkable" with both pride and intrigue. A premature possession, as it were. He's always wanted to possess Clark's secret, and calling him "son" so possessively was his worming his way inward, to the center of the secrets. The bad news: The Angel of Vengeance. Part of the problem was her unconvincing acting. Part of the problem was also the fact that the writers gave us no reason to like her. Perhaps we were supposed to be endeared to Andrea because of what she's gone through. But plenty of people who go through bad experiences become jerks. Instead we should have been endeared to her by how she met her challenges. The writers meant for her to be mysterious and wild, but many shallow people are mysterious and wild. They showed her savage pain, but not her equally fierce joy - they showed that she was driven but did not show what was driving her and where it was taking her. As a result, she did not come across as tortured, but as unsympathetic. She had an undefined personality - the only character quality that we saw in her was arrogance. We had almost no reason to sympathize with her. The same almost goes for Clark. Although last episode gave us reason to sympathize with Clark, this episode leaned too heavily on that episode's power. Until the playing of the home video, nothing forced me to put myself in Clark's place. His anger was unconvincing, partially because he's very often angry nowadays, so there was nothing new about it; and partially because we didn't see instances of his missing Jonathan. We didn't visually see him wanting to tell Jonathan something and then realizing he couldn't, see him trying to handle the bills with Jonathan gone - we didn't see either the huge gaping hole in his life or the new set of responsibilities he was struggling with. All we saw was his anger. Until the end, when he switched off auto-pilot and began to think again, I didn't sympathize with him. I'm not sure if this was because of poor editing, but all the acting seemed very purposeless. The scenes didn't flow right. A good scene has a clear emotional direction or atmosphere (dark like the Clark-Lex confrontation in "Splinter", other-worldly like Lex getting shot in "Lexmas", quirky like Clark climbing through air vents in "Mortal", triumphant like the first half of "Reckoning", poignant like Lana's and Jonathan's eyes meeting in "Reckoning"). The scenes of "Vengeance" didn't have that strong mood dominating a scene or even a conversation; the way the actors acted didn't fit, like a jigsaw piece, into a bigger picture. It was all patchwork of active/worried/amused/subdued, and we were left not knowing what to feel. They had a different young Clark. Perhaps this was unavoidable, but it's only been about two years since they showed the original one - he could have been a little older and it wouldn't have been out of place. Martha's worry still isn't over, and Clark's eighteen: he could have been ten in the video and it still would have made sense. Andrea's mask. Its design contributed to a feeling of corniness that even the great music couldn't make up for. The blatant, out-of-place Acuvue promotion. Chloe yelling "Stooop!" Comical but over the top. Everyone was strangely accepting of Lionel. With Jonathan gone, it's more likely they'd be remembering his words of hatred and distrust for Lionel and be drawing away (consciously or not). Besides, of course, the forgotten fact that Lionel had Clark experimented on… The special effects were minimal and a bit cheap looking. Andrea's initial leap offscreen, her leaps to the top of the roof, Clark grabbing Lionel from the window - it was almost like something made on a budget in a pilot. However, the special effects in Smallville's pilot were much more convincing. Long periods of dialogue without action, like the rooftop scene, or all the conversation in the Daily Planet. It was more like a group of people trailing after each other (with Clark as the sidekick, whether he likes it or not) than an active expression of anger. More planning than doing. When I think over the episode, those large sections of gab in the Daily Planet and on the roof are what I think of. The action (Clark roughing up the guy, Andrea killing the guy, Clark rescuing Lionel) was like an afterthought after the bulk of the story had passed. In Season Three, Clark roughed up several people while in his right mind. In "Shattered" he tackled Darius and almost broke his arm ("Not if you tell me how you drugged Lex!") and threatened to strangle the sniper (calmly, "Tell me where to find the guy you're working for or I keep squeezing."). His impersonal encounter with the watch-stealer was not half so driven. (This may be because the third season was about how his experiences in Metropolis as his alter ego Kal had changed him. This episode did not build up the same sort of context through Jonathan's death.) And a very minor detail. It would have been stronger if they'd explained why Martha was watching the home video. Did she turn it on to torment herself? It would be better to show that she was going through the closet looking through Jonathan's things, came across some old videos that weren't labeled; or something else to make it seem less arbitrary and, on the way, more poignant. Verdict: The bad news countered the good news.4 Details When the Angel of Vengeance wore her mask, all the skin that showed was coated with black; but when she took the mask off, she was wearing normal makeup. One of the names on the list of numbers called was "Fantasy Fone". The folders Andrea dropped were Superman colors - red, blue, yellow. The first sentence of Chloe's article was very badly written. "Fiction has become fact as the reports of the vigilante scouring the streets of Suicide Slums has been proven true." Fiction doesn't become fact, at least not in this instance, and "reports" is plural, so they "have been" proven true, not "has been". Not to mention that even with those errors corrected...it'd still be badly written. © Voice of Reason, 2007