Smallville Review: All in the Family

Right in time for Thanksgiving, when we'll all be dealing with our own families, comes this week's 'Smallville,' where Clark and Kara/Supergirl are visited by Clark's biological mother, Lara (or at least her replicate from the crystal) and Kara's father, Zor-El (again, his replicate). Plus, all sorts of other family drama to make your own family seem super normal. Let's begin ...

Clark is missing his mother, when he hears her voice calling out for him to save her. It's coming from Kara's crystal that he had hidden in the barn. Cut to Clark's fortress where he's holding the crystal and father Jor-El tells him not to release his mother. Of course, Clark doesn't listen. Why would he? Has he ever listened before?

So out comes mother Lara and Clark is happy to finally meet her. Kara, too, is excited to see her aunt. But Lara tells them that if she's been freed, then Kara's father Zor-El can't be far behind. And, of course, she's right. Zor-El comes and plays the sensitive father role to get Kara to the fortress. Come to find out he's manipulating her to get what he wants. He should hang out with Lionel!

Speaking of, Zor-El then pays a visit to Lionel, since he's Jor-El's body vessel. He wants Lion-El to manipulate Lara and Clark into doing what he wants since they will only listen to him. Lionel isn't having it and, as all Kryptionians do, Zor-El starts to do damage as punishment. Luckily, Clark comes and punches his uncle far, far away. Take that!

So what is Zor-El's ultimate goal? Well, as with all our extraterrestrial Smallville friends, he wants to take over Earth and start fresh with an all-Kryptonian race, started by himself and Lara (who, if you recall, he is/was in love with, but ultimately lost to Jor-El). Since Lionel wouldn't help him, he uses his manipulation and has Lara give Clark a ring with BLUE (!!!) kryptonite, which robs him of his powers and, therefore, disallows him any chance to win. Nice move, uncle Zor. Plus, the whole Lara calling out for help scheme was a trick to get Clark to release Zor-El in the first place. Shoulda listened to daddy!

In the fortress, Zor-El decides it's time to kill off the human race by causing an eclipse to get rid of the sun. Both Lara and Kara are upset and decide to kill him with one of Jor-El's hidden daggers. Kara decides to do the dirty work, but fails. Zor-El is angry that she would be willing to kill her own father (and understandably so!), and strangles her in retaliation. To stop him, Clark gets smart and realizes that he can use green kryptonite, since without powers Clark's unaffected. This almost works, but that Zor-El is a fast one and gets far enough out of range that the kryptonite doesn't affect him. As a last resort, Lara begs Clark to destroy the crystal to stop Zor-El, even though it means getting rid of her. To save Kara he does it. In a flash of light, Zor-El, Lara AND Kara disappear. So where is Kara? Detroit, Michigan of all places, and she has no memory left.

Back at the fortress, Clark asks for help from Jor-El to find Kara, but he refuses. It's yet another consequence of not listening to his warnings. WHEN will Clark finally listen? I'm guessing right about now after the trillionth screw-up that could've been avoided had he just done what his father said. The very end of the episode has Jor-El saying, "This defiance cannot go without consequence" as the fortress lights up and looks close to either a.) exploding or b.) sending Clark into another random realm where he'll have to learn a lesson the hard way. Sigh ...

In non-Clark-related-but-still-HUGE news: LEX'S SUPPOSEDLY DEAD BROTHER JULIAN ISN'T ACTUALLY DEAD!!!! AND IT'S EDITOR GRANT!!!! Comes out of nowhere and I totally didn't expect it. Lex won't let him tell Lionel, either. Now THIS will get interesting.

Thoughts on the episode???