Smallville Season 9 Premier Blasts Clark and Zod Toward Destiny

Smallville Season 9, Episode 1 Review

I thought that if Smallville was going to recover from last season's disastrous finale episode and rejuvenate itself for a decent run in Season 9, it would take awhile to win me back. Like many fans, I was frustrated and confused by the last show of an otherwise decent Season 8, in which the writers and producers killed off the Jimmy Olsen we knew and gave us an epic fight between Clark Kent and Doomsday that was neither epic nor much of a fight. I figured it would take a couple of outstanding episodes to get things back on track.

It took about three minutes. Smallville's Season 9 premier "Savior" begins with things literally going off track, with Lois Lane (Erica Durance) blasted from the future (along with a sleek, female Krytptonian assassin-type, no less) into an elevated train that goes flying towards destruction and ends up safely in the arms of a newly costumed Clark (Tom Wellling).

The sight of Clark, now all in black but with that familiar and long awaited "S" on his chest, out performing heroics and standing guard on the rooftops Metropolis with the sole idea of saving people on his mind is like a tonic for the ailing franchise. By the time, about halfway through the episode, we get an iconic shot of the dark-costumed Clark standing at the pinnacle of the Statue of Liberty, all is forgiven.

Smallville has plunged us into exactly what fans needed: a mythic arc with Clark firmly at its center. Clark may not yet be Superman, but with his rejection of humanity and his embrace of his destiny he has finally come to be the Man of Steel.

All that is left is to for Clark to find out that he can both save the human world and live in it. No matter how much he listens to and train with the spirit of his father Jor-El, we know Clark will never simply be a Kryptonian robot, or even a vigilante hero like Batman or Spider-Man, which is close to where he is now. For that to happen, he'll have to be thrown into a conflict where the loss and pain leave him with no room for doubt that he is, in the end, quite human.