Smallville – "Doomsday"

Director: James Marshall
Writers: Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson

Every two years, like clockwork, Kyle Gallner returned to Smallville to reprise his role as Impulse. But sadly, this will turn out to be his briefest cameo yet. Wait, why am calling this a sad thing? I hate this show. And these passing glimpses of a character that's loosely based on Impulse is not enough to save it.

Our episode begins with Cosmic Boy (above) telling Clark that according to historical records, Doomsday is going to kill him tomorrow. Cosmic Boy tells Clark to send Doomsday to the future so the Legion of Super-Heroes can defeat him, but Clark refuses. For no good reason. At least, no good reason that I can see.

Quick note: Smallville's version of Doomsday may look like the classic villain from the comics, but he's quite different. On the show, he's essentially a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde situation — a monster living inside a man named Davis Bloome. And since this is a CW drama, Davis is caught up in an overly complicated love triangle with Clark's friend, Chloe.

On the day Clark is supposed to die, he summons two old friends to his barn — Black Canary and Impulse. At Clark's request, Bart has gathered maps and blueprints of a geothermal facility with a mine shaft that burrows more than one mile beneath the Earth's surface. Black Canary is surprised that Clark wants to bury Doomsday alive, but Clark believes he can split Doomsday from Davis with a piece of black kryptonite, which he gives to Bart.

Green Arrow suddenly arrives, saying they should kill Davis, as he fears simply splitting Doomsday from him would create an even worse unstoppable monster without a conscience. Clark refuses to consider this possibility. He tells the others that Green Arrow killed Lex Luthor and he sends him away, telling Oliver he's no longer one of them.

That night, Clark responds to a cry for help, only to find Black Canary and Impulse calmly waiting there for him. In his brief moment of confusion, Green Arrow shoots a kryptonite arrow into Clark's back to hold him back long enough for the three heroes to carry out Green Arrow's plan.

And that plan involves them knocking out Davis and bringing him to the geothermal plant. For some reason, they also knocked out Chloe and brought her along, too. Conveniently, Chloe quickly wakes up, and our heroes decide to tell her everything. The even mention Clark's plan with the black kryptonite, which Chloe conveniently sees in Bart's open backpack. Chloe insists that Davis doesn't change when she's around him, but Davis, who has woken up by this point, says he agrees with Green Arrow's plan.

Suddenly, Davis is overcome by the monster within him. His eyes glow red and he instantly knocks out Impulse and Black Canary. Green Arrow draws his bow, but Chloe beats him to the punch and shoves the black kryptonite into Davis' chest. Just as Clark predicted, Doomsday is pulled out of Davis as a separate being.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Olsen stumbles upon Clark and pulls the kryptonite arrow out of his back. Clark admits to Jimmy that he's the "Red and Blue Blur," then races off to the geothermal plant. He finds everyone bloodied and on the ground, except for Doomsday. They tell Clark what happened, and he says he'll go after Doomsday, asking them to prepare the tunnel and detonators to carry out his original plan.

Clark quickly finds Doomsday out on the streets, and after trading a few blows, Clark manages to get underneath the monster, lift him up high into the sky, and slam him down hard into the geothermal plant, setting off a large explosion.

The next day, Jimmy and Chloe take the still unconscious Davis to their loft apartment overlooking Metropolis that is still under renovation. They have a long heart-to-heart that ends with a romantic kiss, before Jimmy is suddenly stabbed from behind by Davis. Davis thought that Chloe really loved him, so he tries to kill her for betraying him. But with his last ounce of strength, Jimmy slams Davis onto a pile of equipment that included a conveniently sharp and pointy spike, which kills Davis.

Later, we see Bart, Dinah and Oliver and Jimmy's funeral. But Clark watches from afar, refusing to interact with anybody there. After the funeral, Clark visits Chloe at her apartment. He's unable to explain how he escaped the blast that buried Doomsday, and he reports that Lois Lane is missing. He blames himself for Jimmy's death, but Chloe insists that it was Davis, not the monster, who killed Jimmy. She says that Oliver, Dinah and Bart have disappeared, and she wants to set up her apartment as a Watchtower that they can use to bring the team back together. But Clark refuses, and dramatically walks away.




This was a terrible episode. Partly because of the unbearable, lengthy relationship monologues, and partly because of the inherent limitations of the show itself. They clearly wanted a massive Superman-Doomsday fight for the season finale, but were simply unable to do that. Although Doomsday did look very good, that rubber suit could not move — like, at all. This made it unbearable whenever they tried to show him throw a big punch or leap halfway across the city. So, the climatic fight scene was reduced to a few quick blows.

In a similar way, I feel like director James Marshall did everything he could to minimize Kyle Gallner's screen time. Two years is a long time between episodes on a show, and Kyle seems to have lost half a step in the art of playing Bart. He appeared a bit on the pudgy side in this episode and was mumbling his lines throughout. Not his best work.

Storywise, this episode fell flat. There were a lot of interesting ideas that were glossed over or shoved to the side. Like the idea of sending today's problems to the future. Or the debates of the merits of lethal force and man vs. beast. This show simply was not interested in exploring any of these deep ideas. For proof of this show's cowardice, just look at what they did with Jimmy Olsen. They were too worried about upsetting the status quo to allow Jimmy to live with the knowledge of Clark's secret identity — or to even live long enough to get married to Chloe.

Next time, we'll return to The Flash: Rebirth.