Season 7, Episode 14: Traveler

"Traveler"

Episode 14

Air Date: March 20th, 2008

Well, this episode officially jumps starts the Veritas/Traveler arc this season and honestly, Traveler fairs better than the rest of this episodes of this sorry excuse of a retelling of things that were previously established but apparently weren't!? O_o  It's because the episode moves at a very fast pace; leaving the viewers with LOTS of questions that you don't have time to ask during it and simply go along for the very intense time limit thriller the episode goes for.  Immediately we are thrown into the story harder than Clark being captured by a multiple armed soldiers with kryptonite tasers and locked into a cage refined by meteor rock to make sure he is unable to escape.  While Chloe and Lana witness the aftermath of the attack and begin trying to track Clark down, Lionel has a meeting with Patricia Swan aka Dr. Swan's daughter.  So what is this whole Veritas deal??? So it seems years ago, prior to the first meteor shower in Smallville, Lionel, the Teagues, the Queens and Dr. Swann would meet up yearly to talk about the arrival of the Traveler, some prophesied alien savior send to Earth to save it.  Yeah, all sounds so exciting and intriguing until you start remembering what you've seen from the series thus far and certain things absolutely not adding up; but it does leave a lot of tension as to why Lionel set up Clark's abduction and imprisonment in the first place.  Apparently it was because Patricia had inherited her father's research and threatened Lionel about confronting Clark but seriously, once again, Lionel's extremely evil, cruel methods don't justify the whole "I'm trying to protect you" thing the writers keep forcing on characters who know Clark's secret.

Not to mention, didn't Lionel and Dr. Swan first meet in Legacy in Season 3 as they clearly seemed to NOT have a history together before then. O_o It just makes a lot of things seem so vague and not connecting in terms of what the show has previously established, especially when you're binge watching the show from start to finish straight through.  All of sudden, that Veritas symbol is behind Lex's desk in the mansion when the previous 6 seasons that thing was NOT THERE TO BEGIN WITH!!! -_-  I suppose it does make sense that the Teagues would be involved given the stones in Season 4, but everything else just seems convenient for the writers to re-write the history of the show to try to make sense out of previous storylines but once again, no it just makes things more nonsensical as you scratch your head as to why Lionel has kept this a secret since finding out about Clark at the end of Season 4/beginning of Season 5??? He's been building this elaborate cell for Clark for little over 2 years now in case of Veritas??? O_o See what I mean by the episode leaving so much unanswered! -_- But like I said, I enjoyed the ride for what it was even if things seemed a bit rushed....like Kara getting her memories and powers back! Once again defeating the purpose of a storyline that looked like it was going somewhere but clearly the writers just wrap it up because.....it was pointless apparently! I mean it was great to see Lana and Chloe teaming up to save Clark, not to mention Chloe standing up to Jor-El to bring Kara back to normal to save Clark (Tho one wonders why he answered her at all??? Guess it was just for Clark's sake??? O_o)  Also, where the hell did Lana go after they busted Kara out of the mansion.  Just bizarre! O_o

Of course, it wouldn't be Smallville if some hired gun didn't have his own agenda by going rouge and disobeying his boss aka Pierce, who was the head of Lex's security team for 33.1 facilities.  Since Lionel is too soft for him and he seriously has a history of protecting normal people from meteor freaks, he sees Clark as too big of a threat and needs to be killed.  Luckily after Kara's restoration, we get an awesome sequence of her Supergirling to save her cousin....before Lionel knocks Pierce out to protect them; revealing he was behind this the whole time!  Poor Lionel, I just wish the writers would make his motivations clear.  I swear ever since finding out Clark's secret, he keeps shifting between necessary ally and deceitful betrayer all for the sake of the story and NOT because the character's own agenda makes sense.  Now Clark has made it clear that Lionel is back to being his enemy and all I can think is maybe they just needed a reason to write Lionel out of the show soon??  The only other interesting aspect of the episode is Patricia unfortunately revealing the secret society that was Veritas to Lex as his curiosity for the truth from the past 7 years is beginning to push him down his destined persona of evil mastermind.  It's a shame Patricia had to die.  She was a great character and I really liked Gina Holden in the role, especially being a new ally to Clark as Lionel is now forced at odds with Clark.  But her death clearly served a greater purpose to carter Lex's final descent (Hehehe ;) into turning completely evil and no way of turning back.  So at least some good is coming out of this bizarre arc out of nowhere that belittles the show's continuity. O_O

Final Kryptonite: B-