Smallville: Toxic

[norwich36]

Ok, I confess that for the first twenty minutes or so I was not at all engaged and thought this episode was going to suck. But a lot of things redeemed it for me.

Things I loved

--There can never, never, never be too much barechested Oliver Queen in the world. For serious. That is one pretty man.

--Lois/Ollie may well be my OTP on this show. Even now that they're over, they have more chemistry than any other SV couple, ever, and despite the fact that I am enjoying the Clark/Lois vibe this season, if they wanted to go back to Lois/Ollie? I'd be there in a heartbeat. God, Lois nursing a dying Oliver was just completely, completely breaking my heart. That speech she made, about how she let him go and so he was supposed to save the world, not die? I was *weeping.* And then that wonderful rant to Davis about how he had to reach into his little tackle box and pull out a miracle? Yeah, I just loved that whole entire scene.

But I also loved her whole sense of humor at herself. Best line of the season so far: "I may have played nurse with Oliver but it never progressed to doctor."


-- TESS IS MERCY!!!!!!!!!!! Holy, holy crap. Suddenly I am forgiving them everything, because if anyone can swoop in and literally take over for Lex, it's Mercy.

And while in the first part of the episode, I was thinking "Oh, geez, do we really need lame backstory on the origin of Green Arrow on this completely and obviously fake island, with ridiculous antics like Ollie comically stalking that pig-thing on his hands and knees, and oh gosh, now here is Tess to create backstory and comically use leeches to cure him--by the end of the episode I was actually completely sold on the Olliver/Tess thing. (I am guessing we're supposed to assume that after he rescued her they had a relationship that ended really badly?)

I liked it first of all because it sets up so many interesting parallels--it makes Tess's desire to set Lois after Ollie's story much more complicated and backstabby, for one thing. And Tess/Ollie sets up an interesting parallel to Lex/Clark; friends (lovers) who have each saved the other's life, and there's bitterness between them but also enough friendship that Tess can drop bombs like "Lionel killed Oliver's parents" in a way that looks like she's looking out for Oliver's best interests when in fact she's deliberately sabotaging his relationship with Clark. Damn. That was quite Machiavellian--one might even say Lexian--of her.

And I also loved how kickass she was to her kidnapper, first putting up a very decent physical fight, then deliberately getting him released from jail so she could poison him with the flower. YES!!!!

(Oh, and the femslash side of Tess continues, with her relationship with her "best friend" whose bracelet she still wears. )

Things that made me go hmmm

So are they really setting up Chloe to be taken over by Brainiac? (Don't spoil me if you actually know one way or another, please). It certainly looks that way, with both Clark AND Davis freaking out about her sudden knowledge base, and with Chloe sticking her fingers in her ears and saying *Lalalalala I'm ignoring you now*


Hey, how long do I need to wait to use an icon from this episode? I made a new Oliver icon to celebrate his chest of barenekkidness, and I almost used it on this post (it is the first comment below) and I want to know when I can use it on an entry without spoiling people. One week? Two weeks? What do you think?