Season 7, Episode 18: Apocalypse

"Apocalypse"

Episode 18

Air Date: May 1st, 2008

It's a Wonderful Smallville but with heavy fan service before a rushed conclusion to Brainiac's mission to kills baby Kal-El to change history.  Ok, maybe I'm being a bit too harsh!???  This was the show's 150th episode and they could have done faarrrr worse in my opinion, especially given the season we're stuck in. -_-  Like I said ending my last review, Clark immediately gives up on going back to the past to stop Brainiac on Krypton, even tho Jor-El can make it happen solely to stop the timeline from getting seriously messed up without Clark making it to Earth.  Now I get it Clark, you've been so dumb in making so many mistakes lately, you feel like the only way to make a permanent solution is to give up and doing nothing as you cease to exist.  But lacking common sense as usual, Clark's presence on Earth since he landed on Smallville cause a ripple effect of events that were meant to happen and him not existing would do possible more harm than he ever imagined.  Enter Jor-El with him using the octagonal disc to transport Clark to an alternate reality where he never arrived on Earth.  From there, Clark navigates this new world to discover all of the changes and is seemingly anxious to discover if all his loved ones are ok from Jonathan being alive and well to Chloe being engaged to the hottest guy I have ever seen (Uhhh damn girl! O_O) to Lana moving off to Paris to be happily married with two kids.  I say the rest of the episode is fan service out of the fact it's pretty much everyone else embodies their comic book counterpart outside of Kara and Brainiac.

Lois is a renowed reporter of the Daily Planet, Pulitzer and all, Jimmy is a bow tied working photographer with a following and Lex is the President of the United States with Kara as Linda Danvers, leader of his security team while Brainiac is his trusted advisor.  When it seems like the DDS has arrested Lois, Clark immediately springs into action and tries to track her down.  After a random cameo by a returning Sheriff Adams, Clark saves Lois (yeah he still has his powers but considering the yellow sun and him still existing and all! o_o) as she is very thankful and clearly crushing on him.  LOL She quickly tells him what she's been caught in with Luthor as the President is about to launch a full on nuclear war with the rest of the world which will seriously wipe out the majority of humanity.  I like how Clark and Lois quickly work together, especially her coming up with his disguise to sneak into Lex's new press conference (glasses and all!)  Gotta say, Michael is truly excellent as President Luthor, especially during that haunting scene of him telling Kara to look at him while he furiously directs her to keep quiet and follow his orders. Seriously, I gonna miss him again after this season! :(

Soon Clark discovers what's going and manages to confront Kara to convince her to help him stop Brainiac who is the real reason behind Lex wanting to pull the trigger on complete global annihilation.  But unfortunately, Lex was far too prepared with a gun full of kryptonite bullets he use to shot both Clark and Kara before Brainiac arrives to take her away and make she let launches all nuclear missiles.  Then from there the plot abruptly ends chillingly as the world breaks out in nuclear explosions before Brainiac kills Clark.  Of course, it was Jor-El showing Clark how dangerous a world without him is as well as his life having so much purpose on Earth, for him not to question that, blah, blah, blah.  Soon Clark is brought back to reality and immediately realizes he must head back to Krypton.  As epic as it is to finally be on Krypton, I wish the conclusion wasn't show.....rushed! In a handful of minutes we get the final battle between Clark, Kara and Brainiac before Clark takes his baby self to put him into the ship to fly off the planet while the two Krypto-cousins make it back home before the planet explodes!  I just feel like the episode never really has time to breath and really explore the conflict it has set up but like most of this season, would rather wrap things up when things are just getting interesting.  Even the epilogue of the episode feels tacked on when there could have been more time to delve into the endgame of Brainiac threat or at least stretch out the alternate reality a bit more??? There are A LOT of comic book stuff happening but it's kind thrown at us all at once with only a few moments to truly appreciate the very Superman world without Superman himself.  Also, it's clear Brainiac isn't so easily defeated as clearly Kara isn't Kara at all but that's for discussion for the season finale.  Apocalypse is a serviceable milestone episode for the series that tries to do too much in so little time by trying to give the fans what they want but having to speed through a world and storyline that could have been fleshed out so much more to be more emotionally and visually engaging.  Oh well.....:(

 

Final Kryptonite: C+