I DID scream at the ending. When he stepped up on that ledge and had his arms held out, I thought he was just basking in the world that would be his. I thought they would stop right there. But then he dropped and so did my jaw. And once the screen hit the producers’ names, I started screaming in excitement. I thought it was awesome! And now we have to wait five weeks!

What really grills my keester, though, is that when I was on the kryptonsite forums afterwards, mostly all I saw from people was, “That was so predictable” and “That was so STUPID!” and “I don’t want to see anyone else fly, I want to see Clark fly!”

So many people, all they do is whine. Yeah, yeah, people are entitled to their own opinion, but I just want to yell “SHUT UP! Stop your whining and enjoy the show!” Sheesh. I thought it was awesome. I thought Clark’s blood bringing Zod back to life was a great call back to “Resurrection” from S3. And I didn’t see the flying thing coming, Callum did such an awesome job faking me out.

Man, I loved the episode. The chemistry between Clark and Lois was back (which I haven’t REALLY seen since “Pandora”), even with their limited screen time together. The scenes between Clark and Zod, which had been boring and annoying to me previously, crackled with electricity in this episode. And I really liked Clark. Recently I think he has been off his game, the character and Tom Welling. But this episode was very good. All characters, even Faora, were used well and acted well. Even though I’m not completely sure of Chissholm, just the fact that he was played by someone that was a recurring character on Stargate makes me love the episode more. Also, even though it was a small part, the Checkmate stuff was well done, keeping Waller there without having Pam Grier onscreen. I’m just wondering how the heck she got the blood sample out of the box and replaced it with a chess piece when it was in her desk. Either she has someone on her team that could speed in and get it (which I think would be too easy for Clark to notice with him there), or she has someone else on the inside at the Daily Planet who slyly got it out of her desk while Lois and Clark were talking.

There were really only a couple down points for me in the episode, some of that dealing with the direction. I checked afterwards and found out that this was Turi Meyer’s first time directing and it shows. Tom’s directing debut, “Fragile”, was VERY well done and I thought Allison’s debut, “Power”, looked fantastic; dark and raw.

There were a lot of missteps for Turi, though. He overused slow motion, especially in the scene with Zod at the Daily Planet. It was a lot of strange “swoosh” shots, mixed with slow motion, that didn’t really play well. I get what he was trying to do, but it didn’t come off very well. Also, when Zod gets shot… I wouldn’t have used slow motion there. Too much of it. It might have been fine if it had started after he got shot and when he fell, but right before he got shot and then we see the fake spurt of blood? It just didn’t work well.

I also would have done a slight different bit of editing. Where he should have cut off the teaser was in the midst of all that smoke/gas during the capture. Well, when we zoom in on the mask. That would have left us with a big sense of mystery and a great shot. Having us pull back for those last few seconds and see where she is and have her scream? … Eh. Would have been better to leave the reveal for that later scene and have her wake up then. However, I did love what Turi did in that scene, having us be in the chamber with her at several points. Not only did it give us a cool sense of what she was going through, but when she was talking to Chissholm and we could see her reflection on the glass, it allowed for us to be getting reaction shots from both actors at the same time, not having to cut back and forth between the two all the time. That was very well done.

Okay, done rambling. Loved the episode. These next five weeks are going to be torture. AH!!!!!

Hey Ian,

You know, I totally agree with you about all the whining. I try to stay away from forums as much as possible because I don’t like reading all the negativity rambling that goes on. Just freakin’ enjoy the show folks!

I just read a few comments on website giving a review of the show and some folks were rambling about Clark’s terrorist act in last week’s episode. Geez people. Just enjoy the show for what is is…a sci-fi fantasy television show…it’s not real life.*sigh*

I’ll reiterate again by saying I loved this episode. I did scream at the television though when Clark gave Zod his blood – I don’t like the idea that Zod now has super-powers, but it’s an interesting twist. I wish Clark and Lois had more screen time in this episode…their scenes are always fun to watch and brings in some of that romantic-comedy aspect to the show.

I gotta say that I did not expect the Oliver and Chloe thing so quick. It looks as though they already have something going on there already. Couldn’t they ease into that one for a bit…it seems kind of sudden. Also, although I can understand why Chloe is excluding Clark in what she’s doing, I don’t like her hiding so much from him. I’m not liking the direction their friendship is going this season.

Yeah I wondered about the blood sample/chess piece switcheroo also. I want Clark to find out about Lois working with Amanda Waller and Checkmate. It looks as though Clark finds out about Waller and that organization from the recent promo, but I guess we’ll have to tune in to see how much he finds out.

I thought Turi Meyer did a great job directing this episode. I’ll need to watch it a second time to see some of the things you pointed out about his direction and overuse of slow motion, etc., but I really enjoyed it!

What I don’t enjoy is this 5-week hiatus. This is wishful thinking of course, but I hope this is the last one before this season ends! There are too many breaks, darn it!