Smallville 6.19 Progeny

[norwich36]

Edited to add: This review contains material that most would characterize as Lex bashing, so please read at your own discretion.

You know, I've been watching Smallville from the beginning, and Chloe and Lex have always been my favorite characters, and I never thought I could choose between them. But one thing I was certain of, and that was that I would always love both of them. I certainly never thought that Smallville could ever actually make me hate Lex.

Apparently I was wrong. I haven't felt this kind of passionate hatred toward an SV character since Lionel in "Shattered" and "Asylum." I'm sure I'll eventually recover my Lex love--I eventually forgave Lionel, after all, and I do like villains--just not when they're targeting characters I love. I honestly feel guilty, since all season I've been wanting Lex to be an effective villain, and he was nothing if not effective in this episode--downright masterful, really--and I found myself actually wanting Chloe to shoot him. And I was actually happy he got hurt when Clark saved him from the bullet.

Targeting Moira was brilliant, and the way he manipulated her and then the way he kept Chloe from releasing the story--grade A effective villainy. Not only that, but his desire to control Moira made sense--he feels he needs to control the mutants both to reduce their danger to society and to counter the alien threat--I could actually kind of see that in this episode. And I still wanted to crush his skull ever time he was gloating at Moira or Chloe.

ARGH. Cognitive dissonance!! I don't want to hate Lex! I wanted sexy villainy, not really evil villainy, dammit.

I don't actually have a lot else to say about the episode. It was a very effective piece of Chloe characterization; I loved getting to see how similar her 8-year-old self was to her adult self, both in her interest in the weird and her sharp perceptions of people. And it was, of course, heartbreaking to see her regain and lose her mom. I was a little disappointed we didn't get to see what Chloe's meteor power was in this, but I loved that her mom didn't actually abandon her, but had herself committed just to protect Chloe.

When Lex played the motherless card as part of his attempt to manipulate Moira, I realized that at this point every single main character on SV has lost at least one parent, which just serves to reinforce the idea that it's not the loss, it's how you deal with it. And speaking of loss, I wonder how Lana's going to deal with her double loss--first losing the baby, and then losing all faith in Lex when she finds out there never was a baby. She told Clark "I'm going to come through this like I always do," and I actually hope that's true--and that she manages to wound Lex and Lionel on her way out. Look at me, rooting for Lana against Lex and Lionel! It's like the whole world has turned upside down or something.

P.S. I am UNSPOILED for future episodes and would really, really appreciate it if people are careful about what they say in the comments so that I can remain unspoiled.

Comments

[jakrar.livejournal.com]

Second of two posts.

Do I think Moira had a right to ask to see some evidence (like proof that the escapee was indeed a violent psychopath) before deciding Lex was sincere in his goals? Certainly...but she never bothered to ask. She clearly didn't care about seeing proof. She didn't care about innocent people getting hurt. She was perfectly prepared to let a psychopath roam the countryside, killing at will, rather than lift a finger to help -- and when Lex verbally pressed her on that point, she did her best to have him killed -- despite the fact that Lex had used no lethal force, and had threatened no lethal force. The worst he had done was to respond to her repeated lies and probable assault (via Chloe) by letting someone bat her around, just a little, and scare her a little more. (There's no doubt in my mind that the mutant Lex put her in with had already been ordered not to hurt her badly. There would, after all, be no point in killing her, especially if she could still be recruited.)

As for the initial offer Lex made Chloe, it was essentially a gift. Chloe has no right as a reporter to print a story for which she has no proof. She also has no right as a person to endanger the entire human race in order to settle a personal grudge. Lex has as yet done nothing worse to her than to reunite her with her mother, which was exactly what she'd wanted. (The fact that her mother slipped back into catatonia afterwards is not Lex's fault; he would have provided the medicine to keep her conscious if Moira had chosen to be even slightly cooperative.) Yet, for purely petty reasons, Chloe is willing to undermine Lex's efforts at readying the world for Armageddon -- and, yes, I do hold her responsible for that, even if she's too blind to see that that's just what she's doing.

In short, Lex tried to recruit a woman who could have been of great assistance in saving the Earth, but she turned out to be dangerously unbalanced and homicidal, and he was unable to convince her that protecting not just herself and her daughter, but everyone else as well, was more important than her personal anger with him for daring to ask her to step up and fulfill her responsibility to the rest of the human race.

If Lex does, at some point, have to eliminate Chloe and/or Moira, I will not blame him -- he tried his best to save them, but he has greater responsibilities. Or, to put it another way, when you can't fit everyone into the life boat, you get in as many as you can, and let the rest take their chances, because it's better that way than by overcrowding and sinking the boat and letting everyone drown.