The Future Under a Blood Red Sun

Smallville: “Pandora”

The CW Network, Fridays at 8 p.m.

By Anthony Schiavino

I highly anticipated this episode of Smallville for a number of reasons. It was the mid-season finale which means some of the plot lines come to a close and others, most times bigger, are presented. All season we’ve been getting glimpses of the future under a red sun from Lois and her trip courtesy of the Legion ring. There wasn’t much hope in these glimpses, and much of it held death and despair. But anyone who has seen any kind of time travel television, movies, or even read books knows that the future is rarely ever set in stone.

Lois made it back to the present. From that point on the course of history has changed. What we don’t know was if it was a better future or worse. Still, much of how these characters could find those answers still lay in the brain of our favorite reporter, not Clark Kent, and others wanted to find them. Namely Tess Mercer who kidnaps Lois from the hospital (after she went into a coma last episode) and hooks her up to some sort of machine with the help of her super-brain sidekick Stuart.

It was indeed a grim future. The towers that Lexcorp and RAO, Inc have been built it seems. Tess doesn’t know how since this future is less than a year away, and yet the towers stand in full. The plans haven’t been made public yet which means things are happening behind the scenes and without her knowledge. She may not be a Luthor but it’s something she won’t tolerate. The images coming through are still fuzzy and the only way she can see them clearly, to see the whole picture, is to hook herself up to the machine as well. It would make her brain waves merge with Lois and she does it, risks be damned.

Lois wakes up at the Daily Planet, the last place she wrestled with Tess in the Season 8 finale, to find a post-apocalyptic kind of world under a red sun. Essentially the Kryptonians rule and the humans are placed into camps. A true Nazi-like scenario. The humans are forbidden from areas within the city. When Lois walks outside she’s confronted by one the Kryptonians. He asks here where her uniform is and when he finds out she’s human he’s none too happy. Lois brings up the Blur and the Kryptonian tells her that he’s dead. We cut to his black shirt waving in the wind. If anyone has read the Death of Superman story from years back the image will look familiar to you.

Lois awakens in the future

Superman/The Blur/Clark died because he loses his powers under a red sun. This is generally why the Kryptonians didn’t have powers on their home planet of Krypton. However, for some reason, the other Kryptonians in this world have them. Lois is transported to one of the camps, which for the purpose of the show, is the Kent farmhouse. It’s a true World War II type of ghetto with starving and sick people who are bartering for food.

This is where we meet Clark, who didn’t die but in fact went in to some kind of hiding. When Lois asks for food the Kryptonian, who would be the assasin that would follow her back to the present, ask what she has to barter with. All of the sudden we see a watch thrust in front of the screen. It’s Clark. He’s bartered his father’s watch for Lois. When she asks him why he did that, that the watch meant so much to him, all he can tell her is that she means more. Well done Clark.

We’ll find out he’s split from the Scooby Gang and abandoned them. He would ultimately confront Zod and fail although we never find out how or why. In the “real world” Clark finds out that Lois was kidnapped and assumes it was Chloe because she’s been looking up Lois’ medical files. He’s done this countless times and always comes out looking like the bad guy. Regardless of what Chloe has done recently it’s nothing more than looking into her cousin’s condition and trying to find a cure. The bells some how go off in Clark’s head and he realizes that maybe, just maybe, its Tess Mercer. We still haven’t had a proper confrontation scene between her and Clark after she found out his secret.

Lois is brought to Zod. Clark told her before she was taken away that she needs to guard the Legion Ring. Clark never knew how or why she disappeared because in that reality she just vanished without a trace. She never lived out the year that we’ve been seeing through this season. It was only that when she went back she changed the course of this timeline. If Zod got his hands on the ring, however, there’s no telling what would happen. Of course you know he does get his hands on it although he doesn’t know exactly what it is. To him it’s just a ring and he must not care for its design because he never puts it on. Thank the Legion for that.

Throughout this scene we learn that Zod at least thinks he was trying to help the world, regardless of the conditions. Tess comes in as well. We find out she’s been the go between for the Kryptonians and the humans. They thought Clark would have been the person that would unite both sides but it never happened. Lois has no idea what she’s talking about.

Chloe Sullivan Badass Resistance Leader

Then all hell breaks loose and it’s a hell worse than anything we’ve seen. For the Kryptonians at least. As Tess is being christened into Zod’s army, people break through the ceiling shooting all of them with green kryptonite filled arrows. It’s Oliver Queen and his band of merry men although when Lois says that he tells her they aren’t his men. Chloe is the one leading the rebels (it always comes back to Star Wars folks). There is, however, a casualty. Tess was hit with one of the arrows. Oliver consoles her as she dies, shedding true tears for the woman that he loved. But it wasn’t his arrow that killed her. Chloe saw the shot and took it. It’s apparent that this world we’re in now is miles and years from the Smallville that we know, no matter how dark certain characters actions have been lately. Zod is still alive and is forced to flee. He may have all the powers under the red sun but he also has the weaknesses as well.

Oliver buries his love as Lois looks on. It’s breaking her heart because Oliver once meant something so much more to her and there’s nothing she can do now. As the dirt hits Tess’s face she wakes up in the real world. She’s frightened. She wants Stuart to mindwipe Lois so she doesn’t remember anything. But he won’t do it. Nobody says no to Tess Mercer and in the process she shoots him in the back. Then Clark blurs in. But the room is filled with Kryptonite, of course, and he goes down. Tess makes her escape.

We cut back to the future and the team has been reunited along with Clark. Clark and Lois explain how she came from the past with the Legion ring and the story therein. They’re not happy. Clark abandoned them in their hour of need. Chloe asks him why should she trust him now? He thought he could stop Zod by himself. He took him on by himself and he failed. Lois however doesn’t know why or what the yellow sun has to do with any of it. They all agree getting the sun back is the way to go, with a complicated plan involving distraction and everything else, but what the sun has to do with Clark, Lois will never know.

Once again with everything that’s happened, with everything that Lois has been through, all Clark can tell her is that he has a history with Zod. He still can’t tell her who his is and it’s the only infuriating thing about the episode. I completely understand they want to make it count when he finally tells Lois. It’s sort of the whole point of the show and would make up for the lackluster telling to Lana from past seasons. But it’s past due. The way characters are written these days are smarter and when Clark lies to Lois it’s beyond making excuses. It sounds like he’s treating her like she’s stupid and that isn’t the case.

The two have a heart to heart in his bedroom. We all know where that will lead and it does. Under a red sun he’s essentially human even if the biological aspects aren’t the same. But it sort of feels like, even though he love her, he’s still lying to her. I wouldn’t say he’s using her. It’s the calm before the storm. The two make love before the plan needs to unfold to save the Earth.

Clark and Lois before Zod

At this point Tess is gone in the present but Clark somehow has been hooked up to the machine just as she was. Which means he’s going to remember the saucy night in the bedroom. Dr. Emil was called in and he wants to take Clark off the machine before it kills him. Chloe stops him. She says if Clark doesn’t know what went wrong in the future there’s no way that he can fix it. We also find out that Stuart is still alive. Which means he’ll be returning most likely, albeit on the side of the angels in the Watchtower. Then we cut back to the future.

We’re in the Watchtower again. The team suits up, ready for a fight. The plan goes down. Green Arrow is back and he tells Lois they need all the heroes they can get. He gives her a knife made out of Kryptonite to kills the Kryptonians when the yellow sun comes back. If you’re really picking up the little thing here and there in this episode you can tell where it’s all going to go. Predictable yes but it comes off effortlessly.

Lois and Chloe are out on the streets well into the plan at this point. Chloe is falling behind and as she runs she’s confronted by the Kryptonian assassin that went after Lois. Within a moment Chloe is stabbed with a sword and run through. Dead. What we saw in the visions has come true. Oliver comes to the rescue but is too late. He tells Lois that the best way to avenge her death is to get the Legion ring from Zod. Chloe is still alive in the past. She needs to get back to save her and the rest of the world. Chloe is one of my favorite characters on the show. I always wonder what will happen to her, and Allison Mack, one of the show ultimately ends. The character is only in Smallville. She not in the comics or anything else and while I thought this would be the case I did worry. Yeah the world can end but without Chloe Sullivan it doesn’t much matter either way.

What happens next can only be compared to the arrows blocking out the sky in the movie 300. Thousands of Kryptonians fills the sky and come after Oliver, with only one arrow in his bow. We never see what happens next but now two of our beloved team are dead.

Zod is dragging Clark through the streets. His confrontation did not go well. Or was it planned this way? All Zod wanted to do was to build a new world with Clark. If they only just stopped fighting and joined him Metropolis would have never been destroyed. From behind a car Lois throws Clark the Kryptonite dagger. Zod kicks Clark blocks away. In his human condition there’s no way he could have survived. Lois comes running out and is now face to face with him. But something is happening at the tower. The red sun is gone and so are Zod’s powers.

Clark appears. He’s sending Lois back to the past. Again Zod tells him how they could have made the world a paradise. Clark tells him it always was and takes the Legion Ring. But the story isn’t over. Zod has the Kryptonite dagger and stabbed Clark who, with powers now back, is run through. A dagger of any other kind would have bent from him skin of steel. This pierces through and poisons him. Zod is able to hold the knife without feeling the effects now that he’s back to his “human” form.

For the second time Lois runs back out yelling after Clark. Clark wants her to take the ring and go back. She’s afraid she won’t see Clark again but he kisses her and says she will. As she puts the ring on the assassin from the first episode comes running out and we’re transported back to the beginning of the season.

We’re back in modern day and Clark wakes up. Lois is still in a coma but due to whatever drugs Dr. Emil gave Lois she won’t remember anything. I don’t understand why this is so important. For her own protection? For theirs? Clark obviously knows most of the story now. What little he didn’t see before he arrived doesn’t really matter. But why Lois shouldn’t know is one of those frustrating things. Everyone on the cast seems to know everything now except her but for what reason?

We’re back at the paper in the end. Clark even bought her a maple donut that she loves. He tells her she needs to take it slow. But then he looks over to her and asks her what they’re doing? She tells him she’s eating the donut. He says he means about them. She freaks out somewhat and says how she doesn’t want to go from nothing to 110 mile per hour in two seconds flat. She still can’t stay up on her feet and he tells her to lean on him. He feels stronger when she’s around anyway. True Lois and Clark banter and it’s perfect. But he tells her that they should take it slow and do it right.

She fine with it too surprisingly, and I say that based on past episodes from past seasons. If they’re going to date then they’re going to go get coffee and many other things. The scene ends with the two of them in an elevator and we get a closeup of Lois grabbing Clark’s hand to hold as the doors shut. Still, I have to hope that they’ll actually be together and not break up at some point for the sake of drawing things out. I’ve said it before but I want a season 10 with Clark and his full powers and a relationship with Lois. True Lois and Clark and Lois knowing everything. That would be the only thing in my mind that could end the show on a good note.

We cut to the Watchtower to talk about what’s going to happen. Chloe tells Oliver that Clark gave Lois five dozen roses in the hospital. She doesn’t understand why the two of them are dating due to the fact they’re all about to die tragic deaths in the near future. I know Chloe has lost her husband, Jimmy Olsen (last season), but it seems too much out of character for even her to says Clark tells Oliver and Chloe he knows how to fix thing. In the future every time he went up again Zod he failed. People died and things got progressively worse.

So Clark is now going to find and befriend Zod. Believe me the characters argue the point and I know many of you won’t like this either. But look at it from this perspective if you will. In the end Zod and Clark could in fact be the best of friends and if it doesn’t go that way, at least some, I would be surprised. You have to remember that this isn’t General Zod from Superman II or any of the comics. This is a Zod clone. He didn’t live through his military coup of Krypton. He doesn’t have any memories from just after the fall of Kandor until the destruction of his world. So because of that those experiences that made him truly evil, not just at odds with Jor-El over the cloning of his son, are not there yet. You could argue he’s evil by nature and I wouldn’t disagree with you.

But to make the two of them friends, or at the very least allies, will show you would things could have been. We know before the end of this show, or perhaps the end of the season, Zod will have to die. There’s no way really around it to fit in continuity. But just imagine how much of a bigger fall and ultimately a tragedy it would be when that happens if they were on the same side. In the last scene Zod tells his forces to kneel before Kal-El. He has that much respect for this man. He wasn’t seeking him out to hunt him down. Or maybe he was. Either way it’s a scene none of us as viewers could have predicted.

At the end of it all we’re teased with another trailer that puts every movie of Superman ever made to shame and I mean that with the utmost respect. But we’ll have to wait until the end of January to start seeing what I predict to be some of the best Smallville episodes to date. I just hope they’ll give us a tenth season. Either way we know Metallo with be back along with Zatanna (from Season in addition to all the greatness that’s in the trailer. I mean Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Stargirl, and Sandman? I’m there and I’ll be chomping at the bit until January.

Photos courtesy of Kryptonsite.com

Anthony Schiavino can be found talking comics, movies, television and all things pulp on Facebook, and Twitter.