Greetings-
Tonight, the mid season premiere of Smallville airs on The CW. Tonight's episode was originally scheduled for last week, but The CW rescheduled for this week instead.
Smallville stars Tom Welling as Clark Kent, Justin Hartley as Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) and Erica Durance as Lois Lane.
Here's what
TV Guide has to say about tonight's installment:
The VRA releases Clark, Oliver, Lois and Dinah, who all have flashbacks of Chloe's involvement in their capture. Trust becomes an issue when Chloe returns to town and Dinah fears she is now a traitor.
When we last saw our band of heroes, they had just finished the funeral ceremony of Hawkman (Michael Shanks). After the burial, a strange device came up out of the sands and detonated, leaving members of the Justice League unconscious. Tonight we find out what happened.
We open the episode at the Kent farm where an anxious Lois is on hold with the Vigilante Registration Agency. When someone finally gets on the line, Lois gives the person on the other end a butt chewing and threatens to go after the agent that she's speaking to. The agent hangs up on Lois. While cleaning up a broken glass, Lois hears a noise and runs to the front hallway to see Clark coming home. Clark informs her that the VRA was behind their abduction and tells her that they'll get answers tomorrow. Lois runs off to the kitchen to fix Clark something to eat. Clark follows her and assures her that he's fine. Lois isn't convinced. Clark squats down to pick up the broken glass on the floor and cuts himself. He tells Lois that the VRA somehow removed Clark's powers. They try to compare notes about what happened to them while in the custody of the VRA, but neither of them have a clear memory of what happened to them. Clark then has a wicked flashback where he's strapped into some kind of containment unit. He gets an injection in his neck and remembers Chloe being there at the containment unit.
At Luthorcorp, Oliver Queen is standing at his office doors which have been sealed off by the VRA. He tears down the official VRA notices and enters his office. Ollie pours himself a stiff drink. He notices his phone, picks it up and stares at the picture of Chloe that is his main background image and flashes back to his time in the custody of the agency. He's also strapped into some kind of containment unit having experiments performed on him while Chloe watches.
At the now abandoned Watchtower, Clark (in his Daily Planet uniform of shirt and tie) enters. Dinah (Alaina Huffman) steps out of the shadows. Dinah tells Clark that her powers are gone as well. She doesn't remember anything about her time in custody except for flashbacks that she's been having. She begins to tell Clark about the flashbacks and he knows that she's experiencing the same thing that both he and Ollie have experienced. Chloe is in all of their flashbacks watching. Dinah suspects that Chloe may have something to do with the absence of their powers, but Clark tells Dinah that Chloe wouldn't tell the VRA anything. Dinah is not convinced and asks Clark if he'll do what needs to be done if they find out that Chloe has turned on the League. Before Clark can answer, Dinah's phone rings. She tells Clark that Ollie is up at Metropolis General Hospital and things are not going well.
At Met-Gen, we see Ollie hunched in the corner of a glass enclosed room wearing a straitjacket. The thought that Chloe is somehow behind their abductions has pushed him over the edge. Clark enters the adjoining room and calls out to Oliver. Ollie tells Clark that the VRA is in his head. He tells Clark that they have him believing that Chloe is behind their time in custody. He tells Clark about the flashbacks that he's been having. Clark's face tells Oliver that Clark saw Chloe too, but Clark won't tell Oliver what he saw. Clark tells Ollie that he's going to find a way out of all this and leaves the hospital. The lights in the observation room begin to spark and explode. The walls begin to ripple. Chloe, or a vision of Chloe, steps out through the wall.
Ollie tells the vision of Chloe that whatever drugs they have him on are working. Chloe tells Oliver that he's not hallucinating. Chloe explains that she's there to save him, but Oliver isn't buying it. He tells the vision of Chloe that he remembers her being there when experiments were being performed on him. He also explains that Clark remembers the same thing. Chloe then explains that they are still in the custody of the VRA hooked up to a mainframe where their minds are being held prisoner in a virtual world. She explains that it's like they are playing a video game powered by their subconsciouses. Their own personal hells. Oliver tells Chloe that she's not real, and she explains how she is there.
She broke into the facility where they are being held, hacked into the computer and created an avatar of herself so that she could warn them about what was happening to them. She explains that the flashbacks that they've all been experiencing were flashes of reality when she tried to unplug them from the virtual world. When she unplugged them, their bodies flat-lined and she had no other choice but to plug them back into the mainframe. Chloe then goes into an explanation that since she knows that everything around them is fake, it gives her power (stealing an idea from "The Matrix"). She shows Oliver how she's going to rescue them all. Oliver buys her theory and the straitjacket disappears. Chloe tells Ollie to follow her out of there.
As they begin to leave the hospital, they run into Smallville's version of Agent Smith. They need to avoid the anti-virus programs or else they are toast. She explains to Ollie that if the agents catch him, they will kill him. Major plot hole here. She just explained that everything there is fake and as long as he believes that everything is fake, nothing can stop them. Here she is, however, completely contradicting herself by saying that if he dies in the virtual world as the result of being caught by the agents, he'll die in the real world as well.
They round a corner and run into an agent. Chloe and Oliver duck back around the corner. Chloe asks Oliver if he trusts her. He tells her that he trusts her with his life. Chloe steps back around the corner, pulls out two guns, and shoots the agent in front of them. Then she fires back down the corridor that they are in and takes out another agent. They continue their escape.
At The Daily Planet, Lois and Clark are trying to find out where they were held. They are soon joined by Dinah who explains that Oliver has just escaped from Met-Gen. Dinah shows Clark and Lois video surveillance footage of Ollie's escape and that he's being helped by Chloe. Lois and Clark decide that they need to find her, but Dinah says that if Chloe wanted them to find her she would have contacted them by now. Clark explains that Chloe must have a good reason for what she's doing, but Dinah tries to explain that they both saw what she was doing to them in the lab from their flashbacks. Lois tells Dinah that Chloe would never hurt Oliver. Dinah then shows them the footage of Chloe taking out the agents in the hallway. Chloe and Lois begin to argue. Clark's phone rings; it's a text message from Chloe telling him to meet her on the roof. Clark leaves without being noticed by the two women.
Clark joins Chloe and Oliver up on the roof of The Daily Planet. Chloe and Oliver bring Clark up to speed about the whole virtual world thing. They also explain how the VRA wants the League working for the government by manipulating their powers and skills. By this time, the agents make it up to the rooftop access door. Chloe gives the whole spiel about how Clark has to believe that everything around him is fake so that they can escape. Chloe tells them that they have to jump off the roof in order to get through the portal back into the real world. Clark wants to trust her, but wants answers first. Chloe tells Clark that she will answer his questions later, but they have to go now. Clark tries, but can't accept that what Chloe is saying is the truth. The agents are almost through the door. Chloe and Oliver jump from the roof and make it through the portal.
The glass topped gurney opens and Oliver is awake. He unhooks himself from the machine and gets up off the table. He turns and Chloe is there waiting to give him a kiss. The camera changes angles and shows a group of guards taken out on the floor. Flag and Deadshot enter the room. Oliver goes to confront them and they pull weapons. Chloe orders the two men to stand down and that she'll explain everything to Ollie later.
Flag explains to Oliver that the VRA doesn't know that they've infiltrated their facility in order to free the members of the League. But they will be finding out soon. He tells Oliver that they are going to be up against the dangerous and lethal VRA operatives. They need to get the rest of the crew unplugged and mobilized. Chloe goes back into the matrix.
Chloe is confronted by Dinah just moments after she jumps into the world. Dinah wants to know what she's done with Oliver. Chloe then tries to explain that they are inside a virtual world, but Dinah doesn't believe her and still believes that Chloe is a traitor. Dinah tries to ram Chloe into a wall face first, but Chloe pulls off some Keanu Reeves moves and flips back behind Dinah. They square off. After a few moments, Dinah pulls out one of her throwing blades and chucks it at Chloe's head. Chloe makes the knife stop in front of her and plucks it from the air. She asks Dinah where Lois is.
Back in the real world, the VRA operatives are on the way to the facility. At the lab, the next pod opens and Dinah gets unhooked from the machine. Oliver brings Dinah up to speed, Flag informs the team that the VRA agents are on their way. Flag goes to take up his defensive position, followed closely by the Black Canary. Oliver stays behind for a moment and Chloe tells him that it's going to be hard to get Clark out. Clark doesn't trust her anymore since she left the team. They've got just about 17 minutes to get the rest of the team out of the machine. Oliver tells Chloe to keep trying.
In the virtual world, Clark meets up with Lois in front of the Daily Planet. Clark wants to know what's going on and get back his powers so that he can stop Chloe. He thinks he's beginning to go crazy. He's seeing things that can't be real. He tells Lois that he saw Chloe and Oliver jump from the roof of the Planet, but when he went to check down below at the ground, they had vanished. Lois tries to explain the whole virtual reality thing to Clark. Clark still isn't buying it because he still doesn't trust Chloe. He's a little ticked that Lois is going along with the whole VR thing just because Chloe says so. Clark explains to Lois that he doesn't trust Chloe not because she left, but because she didn't explain why she was leaving. She just went. Lois tells Clark that Chloe has earned his trust and that he should respect her secrets and still believe in her despite the things that she's keeping from him. Lois tells Clark that they can't make him believe that the VR world is fake, he has to believe it all on his own.
Back in the real world, time is ticking away and the VRA agents are closing in. Chloe is pistol whipped from behind by Lt. Trotter as she's trying to get the rest of the team out of VR. Trotter's team then infiltrates the virtual world using Chloe's avatar.
The Chloe avatar seems to have something wrong with it. The Chloe avatar makes her way into the bullpen of the Planet and confronts Lois and Clark. The Chloe avatar tries to make Lois and Clark think that they are losing their minds by contradicting everything that the real Chloe tried to tell them earlier in the episode. Lois notices something is off about this version of Chloe. Lois backhands the Chloe avatar and sends her flying through a set of doors across the room. The Chloe avatar seems to be down for the count as Lois and Clark take to the elevator.
In the real world, the VRA agent that hijacked Chloe's avatar gets left alone in the pod room as Trotter and the rest of her team go to transport Chloe. Trotter tells the techie to not let Clark out of the VR world. Once the agents are outside they come under attack by gunfire. Flag walks calmly down the alley firing as he comes. When he stops to take cover, the VRA agents toss Chloe to the ground and are preparing to kill her when Deadshot saves the day with a couple of well placed bullets. Chloe runs and is stopped by a VRA agent. A green arrow slices through the night and Oliver jumps in to save Chloe. He uses his communicator to tell Canary that Trotter is coming. Trotter is firing as she runs, and Black Canary is acrobatically dodging the shots. When Trotter runs out of ammunition, Black Canary hits Trotter with he sonic scream taking Trotter out of the picture. The VRA agents are out for the count.
Back in VR land, Lois and Clark have made it up to the roof of the Planet, but they are stopped by the Chloe avatar who keeps trying to convince them that the VR world is the real world and that it would be suicide to jump from the rooftop. In another plot point ripped off from the Matrix movies a buttload of Chloe avatars appear on the rooftop. Lois tells Clark to not listen to the Chloe avatar and to trust in himself and take a leap of faith. Clark grabs Lois in his arms and he takes flight! Sure, it's in a virtual world, but we are seeing Clark Kent fly! Clark flies Lois through the portal.
Some time passes during the commercial break and when we come back we're at the Kent Farm. Chloe is looking through some pictures and Clark comes in the room to talk to her. She then explains how she took control of the Suicide Squad. She took out their missile capabilities and then gave Flag a choice. She could either report them to the government or they could work for her. Clark and Chloe then share a little chick flick moment about trust. Lois comes in from a grocery run and tells them that she just heard from Tess that Trotter and the rest of the VRA agents are now hooked up to their own VR hell. The League's secret is safe once again. Lois then asks Chloe if she'll be the maid of honor at the wedding. Chloe gives Lois a great big hug (I guess that means yes in the Smallville universe).
Later we join Oliver at Watchtower holding a rather large bouquet of flowers. Chloe comes in wearing a dress and tells Oliver that the flowers are beautiful. We have another chick flick moment about trust and Chloe tells Oliver how the helmet of Dr. Fate warned her to stay away. Oliver explains how he felt while Chloe was gone. Oliver asks if she's going to be sticking around for a while. Chloe says yes, and then they share some smooch-time.
In the barn at the Kent farm, Clark is reading through Carter's journal. Lois comes up behind him and lets him know that she's done picking out the flowers and bridesmaid dresses and it's safe to come back in the house. She notices he's looking through Carter's book and they share a moment about believing. They share some smooch time, and that's the end of this week's episode.
I had quite a bit of a problem with this episode and the borrowing of plot points from "The Matrix". It really took me out of the episode quite a few times. I was like "oh here we go again with the recycled plot points". Once the episode moved past the virtual world, though, I was back to enjoying things again.
Next week, we see some familiar faces return to the Smallville universe.
Until next time,
-Bill-
