Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Any Worse

While the DVR is one of the greatest inventions since beer glass shaped like a boot, it can also have negative side effects. One of them being that if it fouls up, you pretty much get screwed. This happened to my buddy Seamus a few weeks ago when the last new “Smallville” (entitled “Gemini”) was on and his DVR didn’t recognize it as being new, so he didn’t get it. Being the friend I am, I figured I would review it for him. After watching it, he was the lucky one.

After we get the range of previous week’s clips and Remy Zero’s fifteen minutes of fame, we get to the action. It seems that two weeks have past since Clark was at the Fortress of Solitude and still no sign of Kara. He comes back and within the first few words to Lana, I knew something was up. Tom Welling isn’t that good of an actor. He has two styles, Clark and non-Clark. He was sporting non-Clark. He tells Lana he wants to see everything she has on Lex, so they can take him down together. We go to the Daily Planet where we see Lois sucking face with the new editor and finding out she has a big interview with Lex so she can do her expose. As a side note, her getting this huge story is about a pathetic as Hawaii’s offensive line in last night’s Sugar Bowl. Anyway, she gets a call from someone saying he’s a clone that Lex created, and if she doesn’t tell his story, he’s going to blow up Chloe. My question, why doesn’t he just post his crap on the internet like every other crack pot? Journalist do there own good job of soiling the name of newspapers, this guy doesn’t need to jump in. Anyway, she tries to send Chloe an email and the clone cut he wires so she has no internet access and he tells her Chloe dies if she tries to warn her or anyone else. Do-do-do.

Anyway, Clark and Lana go to her crib at the Isis Foundation and check out all her surveillance all Lex (which is way beyond stalker) and she tells him about this substance, which is basically Brainiac, and how it probably infected this chick that she just happens to have in the basement. Anyway, they get a bunch of binary code and take it to Chloe to figure it out. If it has to do with computers, Chloe is your girl. We go back to the Planet, and Lois uses a bunch of dots on an inter-office envelope to warn Chloe about the bomb on her. Chloe gets the envelope as she’s walking to the elevator and jumps on with Jimmy Olsen (remember when he was your classic drug dealer/suspected rapist on “Veronica Mars”?). As she looks at the envelope the elevator stops trapping them both inside. They search through her purse to find said bomb and find out its in box from her secret Santa. That’s a crappy Christmas gift, far worse than socks. One complaint about this. They open the box and there is the classic grey brick that says “C-4, Composite Explosive” on it. Some schmoo off the streets can just buy this? Shouldn’t he have made it from common household products? Again, no one is using the internet. Anyway, crazy clone guy wants Lois to ask Lex questions that he feeds her, and makes her wear a flower/camera broach and an ear piece to feed her questions. So, she gets to the editor’s office and starts asking him the crazy questions, and the clone makes her draw a gun and point it at the editor (who we learned was Lex’s long lost (and I thought dead) brother). Lex then doesn’t something we’ve all wanted to do and cracks Lois upside the head with a blunt instrument once the crazy clone shows up.

The crazy clone starts spouting all these memories he had as a kid, saying they were implanted by Lex. The crazy thing is that the editor has the same exact memories. It turns out that Lex tried to have a clone of Julian made before, and it failed, resulting in this crazy guy running around. He perfected it with the editor. Anyway, Lex shoots him, but not before he presses the button to set off the bomb to kill Chloe. In the mean time, Clark and Lana have shown up at the Planet looking for everyone’s favorite computer genius, only to find her not there. They stumble across Lois’s desk and find that email she tried to send Chloe warning her about the bomb. Back in the elevator, Chloe tells Jimmy she’s a meteor freak and they kiss as the bomb counts down closer and closer to zero. Clark, figuring they must be in the elevator, uses his superhuman speed and strength to run to the elevator, pry open the door, and hurl the bomb into the night’s sky, where it explodes harmlessly. Jimmy and Chloe talk and she performs her special ability on his cut finger. Since when did she learn to control her ability? The only time she used it before was when she accidentally cried on Lois, bringing her back to life. I guess now all she needs to do is lay a hand on a cut and think really hard. So, in the end, Julian breaks up with Lois and Chloe tells Clark that the binary code is Brainiac trying to “re-boot” and he is closing to doing so. She leaves and Clark and Lana hug, not before his face flashes steel and we find out its really Bizarro and real Clark is encased in stasis in the Fortress (I knew it!!!). The End.

So, we learned that Julian is a clone, that Bizarro is on the loose, that Clark is in stasis, that Chloe can control her healing ability, that Lex is up to something sinister, and that I lost 45 minutes of my life that I can never get back. Basically, I’m giving it * ½ stars (out of 5), and that's being generous.