Smallville Season 8 Review

I have just completed watching season eight of smallville, alot has happened this season, following of the back of the season 7 finale in which Lex and Clark faced off at the fort, Lex having discovered the secret of Veritas he uses the sphere on the main console at the fort, this results in the destruction of the fort. Clark is found by Ollie working in Russia and being kept as a slave essentially for a smuggler who found him wonder in the frozen Arctic, without his powers he is unable to escape. Ollie and Clark go to a 33.1 facility and rescue Chloe who thought she was in custody of the government and forced to use her new brain powers to crack codes. Clark who has no powers risks his life and during the rescue finds Lois undercover at the facility. Clark get shot by an arrow after Ollie was injected with a control serum, Clark dies and Chloe can not save him, the Martian hunter appears, taking Clark high into the sky and the sun gives him back his life and his powers but at a cost the Martian is stripped of his as the sun weakens him. Lex is missing still weeks after the fort was destroyed, Clark returns home to find that Lana has left, even though she loves Clark she sees that he has a higher calling and must follow his destiny. a new character has been added to the line up, Tess Mercer, she is relentless in her pursuit to find Lex, with Lex gone she is acting CEO of Luthorcorp. Tess Mercer has become a very important character after she takes over luthorcorp after Lex's disappearance. she was more complex in some aspects than Lex had become and her motivations are never clear is she out to help clark or harm him. there are a few things not fully answered during the season, such as did Tess kill two of her 33.1 team via the implants or was another party involved, why was she so obsessed with getting Clark to follow the texts of Lex's journal and for how long was she talking to zod in the sphere, why was zod in the sphere that was made to control Clark should he turn evil, that the veritas group had, perhaps this will be explained in Season 9. Davis is also introduced early in the season and at first we get hints that something is not all it seems with him, he becomes friends with Chloe and starts to develop feelings for her, but Chloe is with Jimmy so this causes tension, as the season progresses we learn he is doomsday, it was a bit of a let down in the end, they had built up doomsday to be this unbeatable foe, like the terminator it was meant to be indestructible and would only get stronger after any attack, its genetic make up was meant to evolve and adapt, but the show down in the end is fairly tame. Clark's mother Martha is hardly mentioned during the show and Lana is in only a few episodes, in a strange turn of events she uses Lex's technology to help build a super suit, she is infused with nanites and after going through extreme training she plans on working side by side with Clark, this works for a while and they are never happier, Lex has a bomb planted on the roof of the Daily planet, Lana's suit will absorb the kryptonite and prevent an explosion but Clark can not get within ten feet of Lana, she later leaves as she can't take not being able to be with Clark. while Lex does have some influence at the start of the season, he is shown to be injured and kept alive with machines, it is never made completely clear if his injuries were down to being lost in the frozen wastelands of the north or as the fort was destroyed, despite Tess sending a team to find Lex, Lex survives and goes into hiding. There is a big build up to Jimmy and Chloe's wedding, all is well till doomsday crashes the Party leaving Jimmy near death, Chloe is taken to the fort and again is taken over by brainiac. Only with help from the legion from the future can brainiac finally be defeated and Chloe saved. While the season was a good one, Davis bloom and doomsday were not that good a villain, Lex was always up to something but his motivation was often a mystery, professor fines was also good and he kept you guessing what he was up to but doomsday was fairly one dimensional, they over played their hand at trying to get the audience to sympathise with Davis, the story of Davis and Chloe also demonstrated just how far she would go to protect Clark. Jimmy was blowing hot and cold this season, at times he is the perfect boyfriend to Chloe and he could get in a huff over nothing like things like if she helped Clark, it is sad in the end that given the rough journey Jimmy had after the wedding attack by doomsday which left Jimmy in hospital for weeks and resulted in his addiction to pain medication, that in the end when he was getting his life back together and working things out with Chloe and had learn the truth about clark, this made things clear to Jimmy and helped explain so much, and in the end that the split "good" Davis kills him. The whole how to deal with Davis Bloom doomsday was a mess for Clark, Clark believed so strongly in doing the right thing and not taking Davis life but banishing him to the phantom zone that he came at odds with Ollie and his crew who thought that doomsday should just be destroyed and save humanity. Clark was right in principle and both Clark's and Chloe's actions had repercussion's that resulted in Jimmy's death, if Clark had not been stopped by Chloe when he had the portal to the phantom zone open then Jimmy would have lived. While it is said several times that Ollie had killed Lex, we know Lex was always too clever and always cheated death in the past, its not hinted but i would be no surprise to have Lex return down the road. During the early part of the season Lois does look like something might happen between her and Clark but Lana's arrival home ends that, Lois becomes obsessed with contacting the red blue blur and likes to see herself as his confidante, perhaps it hero worship after dating ollie to find our he is the green arrow. Last season Kara was a major character and this season she doesn't even appear, the man hunter makes one or two appearances but it would be nice to learn more about him and explore his character further, this season was good but not as strong as season seven, it was more disjointed and the doomsday build up took too long, it was good seeing Clark join the Daily planet and begin on the path to becoming Superman, working with Lois, in order for this to happen Chloe had to make room and find a new career, which she did heading up the ISIS foundation after Lana left. perhaps this season struggled without Lex or Lionel and trying to find a suitable replacement villain, from the hints it looks like zod will be the main feature villain next season with Tess as the stand in Lex.