Joe, I enjoyed your review more than the finale.  Anyone who can make me laugh out loud five or six times while I'm sitting at my laptop.  You will be missed my friend.

Hey everyone, I'm running out the door to see Thor at the IMax, so I can't comment back individually just yet, but I will. Glad to see pretty much everyone is onboard with my review. This makes me evenn more certain that all the other glowing gushing reviews and comments on other genre sites have always been written by the Smallville cast and crew. It must be part of their contract.

Joe,

You and I butted heads a while back about Smallville. But, with one exception, your review was dead on. This was the biggest let down since ... since ... oh hell anything ever on genre TV. I just knew they were holding back all season so they could give the fans a finale they deserved. Even when he wore the suit was lame. When he looked through the plane's window at Lois, it looked like the FX crew greenscreened the cape to the back of  Clark's big head. Speaking of cape's, The Cape finale was better than this!

My dumb ass actually cleared my scedule, cut the phone ringer off and made my girlfriend watch it with me. Basically, because of my faith in Smallville, I have to sit through "Something Borrowed," and "Jumping The Broom."

The only thing I disagree with you is the "Hangover" episode when Chloe and Oli got hitched. Seeing a hungover Clark Kent accidentally super-speed into a brick wall was priceless.

Joe, maybe you can start reviewing Fringe when it comes back on. I'd like to see your take on that since it involves some of the Lost crew. Or maybe even the rest of Game of Thrones. Then Fringe when it comes back on. Ha, ha.

Joe,

Man I can't tell you how much I'm gonna miss your reviews of this show more than I'll ever miss the show itself!

I stopped watching this shortly after they killed Jonathan Kent, not in retaliation or anger, just loss of interest, I've never stopped watching a show because they killed a character so it's always more than that, it just happened to coincide.  I did check-in regularly over the years because it only ever took 5mins to get caught up and 6mins to catch up to why I stopped watching but I mostly lurked here and read your reviews to keep up with things and yeah........I agree with your assesment of the finale having seen it myself. 

One of the most entertaining reviews I've read in a long time, I can get every fucking emotion you put into it and it really really hit it out of the solar system!

The endurance and success of this series makes less cents than a peso.

The reviews will be missed, the show will not.

Joe, enjoyable column as always, and I agree with your take on the finale. John Williams' music is still amazing. I could film myself shaving, and if I'd add Williams' amazing music, it would make shaving seem heroic.

The finale was a let down in so many ways and the writing and plotting of the storylines was absolutely horrible.

The one thing I've always really liked about the show, and really the only reason I watched, was the interaction between Lois and Clark. I really wish Durance would have gotten the chance to play Lois on the big screen because I really think she nailed Lois. With good writing and some helpful direction she would have turned in a terrific film performance. I will really miss seeing her every week, and not just because she's a visual knockout. That goes without saying. She really gave Lois a depth on so many fronts.

I was hoping to see Welling in the suit a little more, but I'm sure WB wanted to keep it as minimal as possible.

It's a shame the Smallville team blew the finale, but that really was a perfect representation of the 10 years the show was on; a few flashes of brilliance surrounded by a lot of terrible, head scratching moments. A big disappointment.

I can't believe you guys.  Not only did I LOVE the finale.  I thought it was the best episode of the series.

freestrike,

You and I must be mindless, immature morons with really bad taste, because I loved it, too.  I cried through much of it.  I thought they did everything their two-hour time slot and budget allowed them to.

This show always had a Man V. Himself conflict.  It was never about superheroics, stunts, or effects.  I thought they resolved Clark's dilemma in a nice, memorable way.

Smallville has been on longer than I've known my wife, and I will miss it.

I have enjoyed Smallville from the very begining. This being the finale was a complete joke. WTF really happened for it to end so poorly. Nothing fraking happened in the show. Oooo...pushing away a planet when he finally learned how to fly. Green Arrow doing really the only killing and that was just pointless. The actual cartoons were so much better with Darkside and the boom tube within the show. Anytime that you saw the cape, you couldn't see anything. This was a very very sad ending for a show that was on for so long. Blasted writers screwed up at the end....WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dead on, Joe.  What worked doesn't come close to making up for what hasn't worked on the show in years.  Some points I enjoyed:

5) The idea of a Darkseid-possessed Lionel seemed cool at first.  But it wasn't executed well and I really wanted to see the original 'Seid erupt out of Glover and give Clark a proper fight.

4) The returning cast.  It was brief, but I liked Ashmore's cameo, kinda like the creative team was making things up to him after the "fake Jimmy" story.  And I think Michael McKean did Perry's voice...why they couldn't just have him show up, no clue...

3) Superman- more than what I was expecting them to do, frankly.  Sure, it was a CG puppet and not Welling, but some of the images looked pretty cool.

2) Lex's scene with Clark.  I missed having these two interact.  I just wish Rosenbaum had showed up more.

1) Kent family in the barn and Jor-El & Jonathan seeing Clark off.  These were the only two scenes that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I'm an only child, so I have always gravitated to the Kent family dynamic.  It always reminded me of my own folks and I'm glad I got to see the 3 of them together again.  And I've stated before that Jonathan was one of my favorite characters, so to see him deliver Clark his superthreads felt right.

What I hated:

5) Everything up until the Clark/Oliver fight.  You hit it right on the head, Joe: severe backpedaling on the character development of Lois & Clark this season...and for no real reason other than extra melodrama!

4) That friggin' Smallville comic.  I'll deal with the fact that Chloe & Oliver are still married and have a kid (Ollie probably wasn't in the flash forward because he was cheating on her with Canary anyways).  What I can't understand is why that comic exists.  And all it would take is one line of dialogue to explain: a magic birthday gift for the kid whipped up by "Aunt" Zatanna, a gift from "Uncle" Clark after a trip to the 31st century, Oliver hired the DC team to make it for his son and then had them all immediately killed?  I refuse to accept this not-so-subtle wink to the audience.  JUST EXPLAIN!

3) Tess' send-off.  I had a feeling she was never going to make it (they love to kill off the interesting people in order to keep Chloe fans happy), but I'm more annoyed that we don't even see other characters acknowledge or honor her.  Tess has been the most entertaining character to watch this year and, ultimately, she finds her redemption through wiping Lex's mind clean (Oh, don't worry!  We're getting to that!).  The flash forward robbed us of a chance to see the League pay their respects and for Clark to fully accept her as a fallen ally and friend in his journey.  Tess deserved better.

2) Darkseid, the Minions & Apokolips.  So 'Seid's ultimate plan wasn't to corrupt the Earth but to put magnets in all of our heads to attract his planet?  And then, instead of invasion and enslavement, he just crashes his planet into ours?  Wow.  Smallville's Darkseid is a kind of a dipsh!t.  Sorry, he's a dipsh!t that didn't do anything all season long and apparently can be done in by a light breeze.  And all Superman had to do was push his planet away real hard?  Like Tess, they deserved better treatment.

1) Lex's mind-wipe.  I HATED THIS.  This is a straight-up Dallas move.  Get invested in a character's 10 year journey for it to amount to...nothing at all.  What's his motivation for being an evil jerk if he can't remember what made him an evil jerk?  If they'd just remove his knowledge of Clark's powers, I'd forgive.  But they erased EVERYTHING.  How can you qualify for the Presidency when you can't even remember your home address?  What if Clark just sped up to him to have another "talk-off?"  He'd probably have a heart attack seeing that (he does have Lionel's heart, after all)!  How embarrassing would it be to have everyone remind you of all the stupid things you did (like marrying some chick named Lana Lang)?  It would be maddening...maybe that's what turns him evil...AGAIN.

End result: Smallville's had its ups.  It's definitely had its downs.  But it's all done and I'll miss talking about it with you guys, most of all.  Joe, it's been a treat.  I'll be sure to catch your other reviews.  Are you doing Walking Dead when it comes back in fall?