Smallville: A great show with one of the most powerful series finales in recent television history

That journey ended earlier tonight on The CW in one of the most powerful series finales that I’ve seen in recent television history. In fact, I absolutely did not want to write a recap blog post talking about my thoughts on the Smallville season finale. However, the final episode of this show – and really the final half an hour or so – was so powerful that I felt compelled to jump on the blog and at least give a few brief kudos to the entire team at Warner Brothers as well as the team at The CW for producing such a masterpiece.

But, of course, you can’t put together a television masterpiece without the right cast and Smallville has always had the right cast for this show. For my money, Tom Welling has got to be the best Superman in the character’s television history. No offense to Dean Cain, George Reeves, or even the movie-Superman actors (Brandon Routh and Christopher Reeve), but Welling recreated and gave definition to the psychological base that Superman operates from as a superhero. Welling’s performance over the last ten years was absolutely amazing; though I guess if you have ten years to perfect a role, you’re probably going to get it right!

But Welling was only the leader of an ensemble cast that came together tonight to highlight the entire ten year history of the show. From the persistent presence of both Annette O’Toole and John Schneider throughout the final episode as they reprised their roles as Martha and Jonathan Kent to Cassidy Freeman‘s demise as the ill-fated Tess Mercer to the return of Superman’s greatest enemy – Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor – tonight’s cast gave excellent performances.

And there are still so many more players in the game that made tonight’s final episode great. The freeing of Justin Hartley‘s Green Arrow from the grip of Darkseid, the emotional struggle of Erica Durance‘s Lois Lane, the quiet knowledge and knowing look of Allison Mack‘s Chloe Sullivan, the innately evil portrayal of Lionel Luthor by John Glover – it was all done to perfection. Even the scene where Clark Kent realizes that he has powers beyond his knowledge while watching a flashback of the show’s history was well done. On the topic of artfully performed flashbacks, I also liked the very well done scene where a dying Tess Mercer condemned her brother, Lex Luthor, to a future with no knowledge of his horribly troubled past. So much “happened” in the story of Superman during those two scenes and I think that the folks behind Smallville chose the right paths to bring those critical changes in each character’s history to the television audience.

I haven’t heard about or read any reports of a Smallville movie and, frankly, I can’t imagine that this absolutely brilliant series finale left room for a Smallville movie, per se. Sure, there is a seven year gap presented to the audience at the end of the show, but those seven years aren’t really focused on the story of Smallville. Instead, those are the seven years between the end of Clark Kent’s ascent to truly becoming Superman and his marriage to Lois Lane as well as Lex Luthor’s presidential victory. Is there a story to tell in that seven year period? Of course! Would Smallville fans eat up that movie? Yeah! But to revisit any portion of the Smallville universe (i.e. to go back and add additional information to any of the existing series canon) would do a disservice to the power in tonight’s finale.

Anyway, those are my quick thoughts. And a quick final thought on the Smallville series finale for my fellow long-time fans: how absolutely amazing was it to watch Tom Welling‘s Superman run in slow motion on the roof of The Daily Planet as he tore his Clark Kent outfit off and revealed the Superman suit… with the classic Superman theme playing?! It was awesome! That was an absolutely phenomenal payoff for this Smallville fan!

Well done, Smallville!

I enjoyed Smallville Season 3. The whole Clark in Metropolis to begin the season was sorta cool, especially since he was in a “Fuck the world, I’ll kill you” type of mode. I thought that Michael McKean’s guest appearance was a great twist to the show, especially when he starts digging into what makes Clark so damn weird.

Did you know that he’s married to Annette O’Toole (the woman who plays Clark’s mom)? Just some interesting trivia that I thought you may enjoy!

One of my favorite episodes was the one that takes place in the 1960’s where Lana and Clark’s families crossed paths once before. Interesting little mythology that they’re building there – that has potential for future storylines. Good creativity by the writers. Oh, and another good creative streak with the entire end of the season/Lionel’s trial. Excellent final episode.

Some good things came out of this season, such as the removal of Pete (the episode where he was a speed racer was pretty much when he started to be a useless character). I also enjoyed how – in true Smallville fashion – they ended the season by blowing up all of the previous storylines just enough so that they can almost start completely fresh in the next season. Sure, there may be some continuity problems with that, but the writers have pulled it off pretty well so far.

The season also had some really creepy moments…like when Clark’s blood was bringing people back to life. That was ridiculous. I mean, it was just weird. This isn’t really a bad thing, but I didn’t like that Dr. Swann was even contemplating talking with Lionel in the episode where they met up. That was just a bit of an awkward scene, I thought.

Overall I obviously recommend this season. As a new Smallville freak, I have to say that this season really did a lot to push aside some of the corny first and second season dialogue and storylines (anyone remember the coach who made things burn when he got mad?). And as I said earlier, the season ends with a cliffhanger that really makes you want to see the fourth season.