Smallville: Season 1, Episode 9 "Rogue"

 Smallville: Season 1, Episode 9 "Rogue"

January 15, 2002

“Rogue” is an excellent episode of Smallville. The producers admitted that the whole villain-of-the-week storyline is growing a little stale. They decided to come up with original, relevant storylines to explore the Superman mythology. I also liked how someone else was a witness to the extraordinary powers of Clark Kent. Not just Lex Luthor but someone else. A corrupt cop of all people. Michael Rosenbaum continues to deliver an excellent performance as Lex. He has great lines (loved how he uses history to drive towards his ultimate goal) and guest star Kelly Brook is an interesting foil for him and his future plans. The characters continue to be well-developed. Chloe, in particular, is given lots to work with when Lana takes over the one thing she loves to do. Also, I need to credit the special-effects team. The VFX for the bus crash sequence is harrowing and realistic which is saying something for an episode that came out in 2002.

In this episode, Clark is in Metropolis visiting a LutherCorp exposition. He saves a homeless man from a bus spinning out of control. Sam Phelan, a corrupt cop, witnesses Clark in action. Phelan blackmails the Kent family forcing Clark to steal a valuable object from Luther Corporation or else he will release his secret. Meanwhile, Lex is visited by a former flame, Victoria Hardwick. She comes at him with an offer where they both take over their father’s companies and work together. Chloe is fired from the Torch, so Lana and Clark must run the paper.

Overall, this is an excellent episode with an original story that will have future implications. We learn more about Metropolis in the process. Also, the symbol “S”. I wonder what it could mean, hmmmmm. Each character has time to shine. Clark is never going to kill anyone, so it took restraint not to go over to the dark side with Phelan. Lex Luthor is up to no good and I wonder what plans he will have cooking. Great episode!

My Grade: A


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Image
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” Ah, wise words from our new young friend, Ferris Bueller. In John Hughes’s 1986 film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , all Ferris wants to do is take a day and have fun. That is the most simplistic theme the movie has. You can go deeper, but the main takeaway is that it is okay to have fun. That is a motto I have taken to heart. I really loved the film. People consider The Breakfast Club to be Hughes’s best and most important movie. That’s a fine statement to make, but I would personally rank the film number two behind this particular one. The teen characters are instantly relatable, it has a memorable antagonist for the children, and this is basically a thirty-year-old travel guide for Chicago. Just how Woody Allen creates his movies as love letters for New York, this is applicable for John Hughes. A Chicago love letter!   Like all of his films, Hughes wrote
Read more

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Image
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) The James Bond franchise is one of those franchises that will never die. It has been going strong since the first movie rolled out in the early 1960’s, and new James Bond movies are still produced today. What makes this series unique is they use multiple actors to play the titular character over the years. They all bring their own gravitas to the role, and each Bond is a different man when compared to each other (although the martini, shaken not stirred and the beautiful women among other things remain a constant.) So my first James Bond review for this blog is 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me. This wasn’t my first look at the series, but it was my first look at the older movies. I really liked what I saw. This is an old-fashioned story that combines a spy drama and an action-packed war movie into one package. Like many of the older Bond movies, the story can get borderline preposterous. The cheesiness of the plot did come to grow on me after awhile, even
Read more

Broadcast News (1987)

Image
  Broadcast News (1987) If you watched the trailer for James L. Brooks’s Broadcast News , you would be forgiven if you thought this film is about a romantic love triangle set in a news station. Yes, there are aspects of romance, but it is way more than that. Brooks is a very smart, adept director who makes a living in creating deep, meaningful characterizations. In my eyes, Brooks had ideas about how work can overtake personal lives and any romance for these workaholics is essentially just a front because quite frankly, these people love to work…as we see detailed with our main characters. In addition, this film is quite informative. Even in 1987, news stations were more about entertainment and the looks, rather than delivering the actual news itself. It was a newer trend that eventually took over networks. With all the insanity within the newsroom, this film manages to find humanity within its characters. This is a detailed human portrait that is engaging, emotional, and comedic. Ja
Read more