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Info:

• Title: Smallville
• Season: 8
• Episode: #20 - The Beast
• Starring: Tom Welling, Allison Mack, Aaron Ashmore, Sam Witwer and Justin Hartley
• Written by: Genevieve Sparling
• Directed by: Mike Rohl
• Network: The CW
• Original Air Date: April 30, 2009
• Series: Smallville

SMALLVILLE 8.20 - "Beast"

Review: SMALLVILLE 8.20 - "Beast"
© Mania

Chloe (Allison Mack) is officially in the mother of all creepy relationships. Davis (Sam Witwer) calls her in the middle of the night in a panic, begging her to come down to the basement and wipe the sweat off his bone-spike-laden forehead. When she arrives, she finds candles and rose petals strewn seductively about: his attempt to thank her for keeping him safe. She lets him kiss her in a "rounding second and headed for third" kind of way… before discovering the blood trail leading to Clark's (Tom Welling) disemboweled corpse.

Surprise! It's all a dream. Chloe's just dealing with some unresolved emotions, which seem to be devouring her subconscious whole. The overall creepiness remains, however, even when Clark comes over for cappuccino in the morning. He has a copy of the Planet with him: the whole front page is devoted to Davis's serial killer proclivities. He believes Davis is still alive, despite Chloe's attempts to assuage his concerns.

Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan in SMALLVILLE, on The CW Network. Photo: Michael Courtney

© The CW Network, LLC

Across town, Jimmy (Aaron Ashmore) interrupts Oliver's (Justin Hartley) business meeting to ask for money. Oliver deduces the reason and gives him a "winners don't use drugs" speech, but Jimmy's having none of it and stomps off in a huff.

Chloe reveals her secret to Dr. Hamilton (Alessandro Juliani) and asks for help in curing Davis. He says he needs to examine "the patient" in person, but that he can run some tests on Davis's DNA samples in the meantime. As he drives off, Davis appears: he followed Chloe and now claims that his darker half comes clawing out whenever she leaves him. She shows him the paper headlines and tells him he needs to stay in the basement. If the police track them down, she says, they'll have to run away together and never look back. "Why wait?" he replies, which is apparently good enough for her. She begins preparing a new life for the two of them as gypsy fugitives.

Clark meets Oliver and tells him that he checked Doomsday's grave: it was empty. Oliver admonishes him to kill Doomsday, but that's not how Clark rolls. Instead, he plans to use a crystal from the Fortress of Solitude to open a portal to the Phantom Zone and toss Doomsday in. He stops by Chloe's place to tell her, only to have her send him on a wild goose chase to Alaska in order to slow him down.

Oliver pops by Chloe's place later that evening to find Jimmy rooting around for drug money. They're both set upon by Davis, who knocks them unconscious and chains them to steam pipes in the basement. Further bits of nastiness are postponed when Chloe calls and gives Davis a stern lecture about not eating intruders. He tries to keep it together until she gets home, but the jonesing Jimmy insists on pushing his hot buttons. He won't kill Jimmy--Chloe's ex still means a lot to her--which means that Oliver must suffer the brunt of his wrath. Clark arrives in the nick of time, pulling Davis off to the Fortress of Solitude and leaving the gratefully non-devoured Oliver to wiggle free on his own.

Sam Witwer as Davis Bloom in SMALLVILLE, on The CW Network. Photo: Michael Courtney

© The CW Network, LLC

Chloe arrives home to find paramedics crawling all over. Jimmy tells her to stay away from Davis, while Oliver asks her what the hell she was thinking. She assures him that she can make it all better, but he tells her it's in Clark's hands now. She responds by teleporting to the Fortress, where Clark is getting ready to send Davis to the Phantom Zone. Scolding Clark for condemning Davis to an eternity of living hell, she deactivates the portal and teleports away with Doomsday in tow.

Afterwards, Oliver calls Jimmy with a job offer, inviting him to become a part of his team. Jimmy agrees; the rest of his life isn't exactly brimming with alternatives, so why not? Having secured a fresh new employee, Oliver then heads down to the Watchtower, where Clark continues to search for Chloe. He tells him to stop wasting his time, but Clark refuses to believe that Chloe lied to him. Oliver remains unimpressed; sooner or later, he tells Clark, he's going to have start seeing the world for what it is and making some tough choices.

Chloe calls Clark on an encrypted line to assure him that she's okay. He swears he's going to find her and admonishes her not to throw her life away. She tells him that keeping Davis under control is anything but a wasted gesture.

The Good

Tom Welling as Clark Kent in SMALLVILLE, on The CW Network. Photo: Michael Courtney

© The CW Network, LLC

Smallville's official foray into Fatal Attraction territory is chock full of deliciously skin-crawling moments. That Davis fully embraces his loony-tunes Chloe fixation is expected, of course. ("I tried looking at pictures of you. I tried holding strands of your hair. None of it works.") But the really freaky parts come with Chloe's enablement/reciprocation of his behavior. She plays desperate spin control, lies to everyone who cares about her, and even has the gall to tsk-tsk Clark after hiding Davis's blood-soaked leftovers in a dumpster, all in the name of keeping Davis human. Director Mike Rohl develops that into a supremely unsettling downward spiral, one which even the Man of Steel seems powerless to prevent. And it arrives in true Smallville fashion: not through fistfights or effects shots, but a slow compromise of the characters' souls stemming from the very best intentions and the road they help pave.

Also, Jimmy's still hopped up on goof balls and that still makes me smile.

The Bad

As a Green Arrow fan, I'm distressed at how often Oliver ends up chained to a post and helpless these days. Of all the regular cast, he's the only one who shouldn't need to wait for Clark to rescue him. Furthermore, hiring Jimmy may not be the smartest of moves--Olsen clearly can't be trusted with a burnt-out match, and while it's swell that Oliver is trying to be a good friend, it doesn't sell us on Green Arrow's supposed cunning intelligence. A typically cluttered Smallville plot gets in the way fairly often as well--cast members rushing back and forth, missing each other by inches, and hurriedly coughing up plot exposition in order to keep everything straight. Viewers may become inoculated after awhile, but one would hope that sooner or later this show could boast a smooth and elegant narrative structure.

The Prognosis

Chloe never gets to be smug and self-righteous to anyone ever again. Ever. Beyond that… do you think they're going anywhere with these references to Oliver's international crime-fighting, or is that just a way of reminding us that Green Arrow has been dropping the hammer on copious bad guys off-screen?