[happy mom]

Checkmate
April 9th, 8/7c

Tess (Cassidy Freeman) creates an elaborate hoax in order to kidnap Green Arrow (Justin Hartley), and delivers him to Amanda Waller (guest star Pam Grier), who tells him that that the government is recruiting him to serve his country. However, Green Arrow escapes before they can reveal his identity.

After Oliver brings Clark (Tom Welling) and Chloe (Allison Mack) up to speed, the three investigate and Clark is surprised to find John Jones (guest star Phil Morris) investigating Oliver's kidnapping too. Clark senses that John is keeping information from him.

Oliver and Clark are shocked when Tess reveals that Amanda is after something called "Watchtower." Waller threatens to kill Chloe unless Clark gives her the names and locations of the rest of the Justice League.

Tim Scanlan directed the episode written by John Chisholm.

Shows - Smallville - Episode Guide - Checkmate

Discuss!

[ocfan27]

better than i thought...not bad at all!

[starryeyedmvp]

Once again, Clark is shoved aside and forced to bow down at YET another female's feet. If Clark didn't have Lois and his mom, I don't understand how he could shoulder all this burden. How does man do it? Why does he think it's worth it, when all through his life, he's had person after person using and abusing him? And I'm tired of them making Chloe his sidekick. I thought this season proved that he doesn't NEED her and that he does better without her? But they have nothing else to do with her character, so they have to shoehorn her in yet again.

[now.it.all.begins]

So for this week’s review I’m going to do it a little differently. I didn’t like it well enough to go into great detail for each character so I’ll just split it into 2 parts, what I liked and what I disliked.

Things I liked:

1. Martian Manhunter/John Jones: MM was so so awesome in this ep! I loved how we got to see him use so many of his abilities like when we see him getting that agent’s memories and then later when he gets out of the ring of fire by pretending to be Waller. That was amazing! Also I loved how he got in and destroyed that blood sample then later mind-wiped Waller. His last scene with Clark was the only scene of Clark’s that I really liked in this ep. It was nice to see him acting as Clark’s mentor once again and I loved his line about Clark being an ambassador and bridging the gap between the two sides.

2. Amanda Waller: Pam Grier is fierce! I thought her scene with Cassidy was terrific. It was a nice change of pace to see Tess on the receiving end of threats of termination, since we saw her threatening Stuart earlier this season in Crossfire and even back in Odyssey she was threatening Reagan. This kind of makes me wonder though if Tess learned her threatening techniques from Checkmate. I also liked her scene with MM and how she tricked him and trapped him in the fire. Poor MM, fortunately he’s clever and was able to get out. Lastly, her frustration at being blocked in the last scene was palpable and I’d love to know exactly who the red queen is/ who MM’s working for.

3. Tess: To me it felt like they were trying to make up for Cassidy’s lack of screentime all season with this one episode alone, but I was okay with that. I think this is probably Tess’ best episode so far since she’s been on the show and it was really cool to see her acting as Checkmate agent and catching GA in her net. Tess is a bad ass mofo! Like I already said, I liked her scenes with Waller and I also liked her scenes with Oliver, except for the last one. The scene where they discover each other’s secret identities was well done. It was clever of them to use lines from their first scene together in the episode as the key that made them realize that Ollie was the GA and Tess was a Checkmate agent. On a shallow note, Cassidy looked gorgeous in that dress. Their scene together in the bedroom was my favourite scene in this episode. The crack Tess made about his tights is hilarious and I liked the continuity with them bringing up Ollie tasering her in Bloodline and Tess getting pissed at him for that. I also love how she throwed a knife at his head that he blocked with a book and the way he yells, “This isn’t a cartoon” . Cassidy also did a fantastic job in her scene with Clark when he held her up on a roof. The poor girl was petrified! I also liked how she showed genuine remorse for her actions at the end of the episode and tried to appeal to Ollie to help her. IMO, Cassidy was the MVP of this ep and I’m very concerned about what’s going to happen to her character now.

4. Ollie’s line about Uncle Sam: Heh, I thought his crack about the Uncle Sam posters and that giving a whole new meaning to “I want you” was very funny and I loved Justin’s delivery of that line.

Things I didn’t like:

1. Clark: Clark felt very OOC to me in this ep and I just didn’t like his characterization at all. I felt like he took several steps backwards with regards to his character development and I’ll outline the reasons why below.

A.) Clark’s attitude towards John Jones regarding the Checkmate agent: So Clark saw that John was the last person with this Checkmate Agent and he immediately believed the worst and thought that John was responsible for his murder, while Ollie was the one arguing for his innocence. The Clark Kent I know always believes the best in people until proven otherwise. Like in Disciple when it looked like Ollie was responsible for shooting Lois, Clark refused to believe that Ollie did that. So yeah, that’s one thing that didn’t work for me.

B.) Clark’s extreme violence with Tess: Seriously, Clark? This is ridiculous now. You’re not Batman. The way he treated Tess in Persuasion, I can let that slide b/c he wasn’t himself. In this ep though, Clark was in his right mind and he was still incredibly brutal with a defenceless woman. He dangled her over the edge of a building and then slammed her into a wall! How is it that Tess hasn’t told anyone his secret yet or that she still thinks Clark is a good guy?

C.) Clark showing Waller his face: Okay this might not be OOC but it still bugged me. Clark, if you want everyone to know who you are just rent out a blimp already. It’ll be faster. Martian Manhunter’s going to have his work cut out for him if Clark keeps doing that.

D.) Clark’s apology to Chloe: So earlier in this ep Chloe snipes at Clark for not following protocol and reporting to her...but wasn’t he just doing that in Escape in their first scene together? She acted like he never does that. Also, Clark’s going to be Superman. Superman doesn’t report to anyone. He’s his own boss and he doesn’t have a sidekick either. Furthermore, the actual concept of Clark apologizing to Chloe doesn’t bother me as much as the execution did. Yes, Clark has shut Chloe out this season and been a bit cold to her, but for the love of God, he was practically grovelling at her feet! And it was just so one-sided. Even as Clark’s apologizing to Chloe, she still feels the need to correct him. And when Clark says that maybe he was trying to keep her safe, she says, “Maybe you just didn't trust me. I've broken your confidence in me, Clark. You saw Watchtower as Big Brother and you turned away. The less you confided in me, the less you have to depend on me. Smart. Probably.” While it’s nice that she acknowledged that she broke his trust in her, this whole little speech and the way she said it sounded to me like she was saying, “Yes, Clark, I was right, you were wrong. You thought you were right by shutting me out, but oh look the world is going to pot and it’s all your fault because you shut me out.” Not once did she apologize for what anything she did or at least acknowledge that she may have been in the wrong. Saying that she broke Clark’s confidence in her isn’t the same thing as apologizing or acknowledging that was wrong to me. Another thing, they didn’t have Clark stop there. No they had to have him continue to grovel and say that Chloe was the one who brought them together and saw their potential. Now did Clark mean post-Doomsday or what exactly? B/c it almost sounds like he’s saying that Chloe was the one who found the heroes and started the JLA, when Clark was the one who first encountered these heroes and inspired them and Ollie was the one who first got them together. Maybe if Clark said something like, “You reunited us and brought us back together” it would have sat better with me. I just...no.

2. Waller saying that Clark left their most valuable asset vulnerable: It wasn’t Clark’s fault that Chloe got kidnapped. Chloe was the one who decided to go out into the field solo. And I really don’t care what her reasons for going out there solo were, my point is that she went out there by herself. Then she tries to get confidential information from a doctor without even trying to come up with some conceivable cover story as to why he should give her said info. Even if the doctor wasn’t connected to Checkmate, I think they still wouldn’t have released that kind of information to just any random person walking in from off the street. Then since the doctor isn’t playing nice with her, Chloe uses one of her gadgets to get info from him and he counters that with some kind of blocking thing and decides to give her the grand tour. Chloe should have suspected that something was off given the fact that this doctor was giving her the run around very vehemently only moments before. Also wouldn’t she have noticed that the gizmo wasn’t working? Chloe was the one who left herself vulnerable.

3. Tess and Ollie’s last scene together: Wow, just wow. Ollie could you have been anymore cold? Tess isn’t just some random floozy to him, he cared deeply about her at one point in time, so I’d think that he’d be at least a little bit concerned that Checkmate’s out to get her now. Also Tess showed genuine remorse for this scene and self-awareness that her actions got others hurt and Ollie just brushed that all aside. How is Tess’ betrayal any worse than what Chloe did with Davis last year? If I recall correctly Ollie got super pissed at Chloe and told her off for that, but now they’re all hunky dory, so why can’t Ollie forgive Tess for what she did? Now if Tess does get the axe, Ollie will be partly responsible for not helping her out when we had the chance. If this marks the return of dark!Ollie in S10, because he’ll be wracked with guilt, I’ll cut all my hair off...n o wait I already did that.

4. The overuse of slow-mo effects in this ep: Good lord they were over the top! It reminded me of Conspiracy when Zod was entering the DP. I didn’t like it then and I still don’t like it now. It’s distracting and gimmicky and takes me out of the scene.

5. Checkmate looking like morons with regards to Ollie: Are you seriously telling me that a big bad ass secret government agency wouldn’t have patted Ollie down to check for weapons and any other things he had on him? And that they wouldn’t have secured him with guards in the van? They didn’t just kidnap any random guy off the street. They should have known better.

So yeah that about sums it up for me. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it either. I am looking forward to BAG’s return next week though.

[TomsEnough]

I am closing this thread.

[livstevi21]

Thanks!

[TomsEnough]

You're Welcome.