TV Recap: ‘Smallville,’ “Kandor”

Image courtesy of the great Starkville’s House of El Podcast. If you love the show, it’s a must-listen.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh boy. Is it to early to declare this the best season of the show since S3?

“Kandor” was much-anticipated and it delivered in almost every way. They even did pretty well with continuity!

I was a little worried about this one because I wasn’t sold on Julian Sands as young Jor-El or how the writers were going to use him in this episode*, but thankfully Sands was as good as can be and the character of Jor-El fit into the episode well while pushing the characters between him — Clark and Zod — together.

*Obviously, he had to die

The flashbacks were really solid in “Kandor,” especially at making us believe that Zod and Jor-El were true best friends pretty quickly. Obviously that’s a testament to the actors and Sands and Callum Blue had dynamite chemistry. No offense to Terrence Stamp, but Blue is quickly taking up my mind as the Zod. His faith and admiration for Jor-El in the earlier flashback scenes were great, but his reaction once he realized that Jor-El would not bring back his family (specifically his son) after Kandor is destroyed were just so on-point.

The flashbacks also worked for me for two reasons: First, things looked really good — even if they were a little “Terminator”-esque. Secondly, they tied together a few questions that I’m sure a lot of viewers had. We’ve been wondering exactly how the Kandorians were in the orb at their current state all season, and this one explicitly explained it for us. It seems the TPTP on Krypton wanted Jor-El to use the orb to do just exactly what it was eventually used for — taking the DNA of the world’s strongest and keeping clone replicas of them in their best form in case something bad happened — even if he wanted to use it to save people from disease. And although the inclusion of the stones of knowledge being sent with the orb messes up that continuity — they were supposed to be on Earth dating way back to the 16th century and that math doesn’t quite work  – it does tie in the S7 use of the orb to control Clark. I’m guessing we’re supposed to infer that since the orb robbed Zod and his team of their powers, it did the same to Clark. Why, exactly, I’m not sure, but at least that works continuity wise.

Anyway, while Clark and Ollie searched for Jor-El where he landed — which led to the best line of the night from Ollie: “For Christmas I’m getting you a sense of humor” and the best effect* of CK blowing the sand everywhere — he was actually already in Smallville at the Kent Farm. Again, this was a nice callback, since we know that he visited the farm when he was a young man. Hell, he even mentioned it! Way to go writers. Most interestingly though is that Jor-El doesn’t know he has a son, since the cloned version of him hadn’t gotten to that point in his life. Nor does he know about Zod, but exposition machine, er, I mean Chloe gives him all the lowdown, which looks to break Jor-El’s heart.

*SERIOUSLY?!? Where did all the effects money come from this year?

But before Chloe can spread the word about Zod being evil too much, Tess has her thugs raid the farm and capture Jor-El. She locks him in the wine cellar but lets him know that she just wants to use him to protect Clark — you know, the real blur — and Jor-El agrees. So Tess plays dumb, lets Zod verbally undress her and take Jor-El, because it’s all a part of her plan. When Clark and Ollie return, they find out about Tess’ plan and though Chloe and Ollie try to stop him, Clark blows a gasket and nearly chokes the life out of Tess trying to get some info. However, he does finally reveal his secret to her and so she helps.

Meanwhile, Zod is smart enough — thank you — to realize that Jor-El is full of shit when trying to take credit for being the Blur. He figures out that Jor-El might have a son himself and that perhaps he’s the Blur. And wouldn’t you know it, he’s right! Zod and his team wound Jor-El just enough that he can morph over to the Kent farm in time for Clark to watch him die. Ouch, that’s two dads who he has watched die in his arms. Even worse, this opens up the opportunity for Zod to figure out who Clark is, which can only mean bad things moving forward.

Other observations:

• Chloe is spying on Clark, and though her reasoning made sense, you gotta tell him.
• Let us not forget that she also saw Jor-El hide something in the Kent household. How long before she tells Clark about it? God tell me it’s not long.
• Surprisingly, the lack of Lois worked perfectly here. No reason to waste Erica’s episode count on this one for a few scenes. Especially since the next two eps are very Lois-heavy, I’m guessing.
• I would watch an Oliver-Clark sitcom. It’s almost as good as Sam-Dean on Supernatural