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Smallville: "Instinct" Review
by Doom and Black Goliath
I WANT YOUR SUPERCOCK, MR. KENT!
I always ask where this show can go, since all useable material has been mined to death. For once, I have a decent answer: Smut. Yes, after seven seasons of angst, drama, and shitty special effects, the show decides to spice things up with all the tits and ass allowed on network TV. This was all the softcore porn Smallville audiences could handle, but it was still valid. "Instinct" is all about a new villain who needs to find a mate. Right. Add the mention the two subplots involving a couple on the rocks (Jimmy and Chloe) and a whore's latest conquest (Lois and Clark), and you have a winning formula for cockteasing and hilarity. You have to give credit where credit is due. The show was interesting for once. Shitty, but not boring. And 100% less Doomsday. Sure, that plot is still going on, but at least it wasn't here. This episode you get sex, allusions to sex, and Jimmy in a hospital bed. A true success in my book.
Very progressive of Smallville to use a female villain whose quest is to have Superman's babies. What next, guys? A girl afflicted with meteor rock powers which increase her housewife abilities tenfold?
And the slutty girl doesn't come from the fevered imaginations of the masturbating Smallville gentry; no sir, they took that shit from the comics. Remember Maxima? No? Well, I'll clue you in. The character - bitch who wants to fuck the Traveler - is very similar to her comics incarnation. Good job, Smallville, you managed to stay close to the comics for once. Too bad their sticking to comics continuity consists of Super Fucking Alien. "Sexy and slutty and psychotic...no changes necessary here!" Tess and one of her lackeys test some artifact from the Fortress of Solitude and it creates a signal which apparently tells outer space about the huge Kryptonian penis we have on Earth. Maxima searches for the delicious Kryptocock, but her first few tries are failures. Her superkiss causes men to die, except when they're members of the cast, meaning Jimmy Olsen unfortunately survives "macking on" (as noted pedophile Dan Slott would say...and Chloe...) the chick. FUCK!
Jimmy attempts to cheat on Chloe because earlier he finds a letter Chloe wrote to Clark when they were both 15. Everyone knows Chloe wanted to fuck Clark for several years, yet nobody seems to care about it other than Jimmy. He doesn't appreciate the love letter containing a more romantic tone than anything she's ever said to him. Of course not, you're fucking Jimmy Olsen. Motherfucker's lucky no one threw him into a mental institution for immense and irreparable brain damage. The desire to "make her jealous" comes from the advice of a bartender at the Ace of Clubs (I'm still waiting for the club to transform into the Royal Flush Gang). Despite the stereotype of bartenders as sage dispensers of wisdom, cheating on your fiancee in order to show her why she ought to desire you only makes sense if you've got a retard disease like Jimmy Olsen does. He doesn't die because Clark manages to take him to the hospital soon enough. Goddamn you, Clark Kent. The experience causes Jimmy and Chloe to become more solidified in their relationship, as if the show wants us to think the relationship will last or not undergo this tedious bullshit every other episode. Fuck you, show.
Translation: Jimmy is a fucking idiot who unfortunately has a monster cock. I am compelled by the monster cock.
Maxima finally finds Clark and starts kissing him in the elevator, which progresses into fondling and so on. Clark submits because of endorphins or pheromones or something. Lois catches them in the act, hurting her feelings or something because she really wants to bang Clark as well for some shitty, poorly explained reason. Oh, you know, angst angst angst. Lois pining over Clark while Clark barely recognizes her existence. Yet Maxima reveals Clark is attracted to Lois, and this is why he resists her space vagina, apparently. I don't know; Smallville logic is fucking impenetrable. Maxima returns to her home planet when Clark activates her magic spacefaring bracelet. Again, Smallville logic. What a fucking anti-climax. The villain, dispatched by minute 34. The rest of the episode deals with the various romantic relationships as well as gives some not-so-subtle clues about the dead or alive status of one Alexander Bethany Luthor. He steals the Fortress of Fuckoff crystal and appears as a computer message, telling Tess she's not ready yet. Not ready yet? For what? Anal sex? The secrets of the crystal? The message is attributed to "X". X...Lex...I get it! I like how Lex assumes Tess is fucking dense as fuck and the writers think the viewers are fucking dense as fuck. Sad thing is they're right on both counts.
"Instinct" puts relationships at the forefront whilst nominally adapting the story of Maxima. Some other non-intrigue occurs, sure, but the show devotes most of the running time to Jimmy/Chloe and Clark/Lois, with some occasional Ollie/Tess and Lex/Tess horseshit thrown in for good measure. Adding in a character from DC Comics beyond the main cast gives the executive producers the opportunity to trick stupid fucking comics fanboys into watching for curiosity's sake and then give them minute after minute of Jimmy and Chloe arguing about their relationship, secrets (did you know Jimmy Olsen loves ABBA and bass fishing? I bet you wish you didn't!), etc. Quite the gambit, Souders and Peterson! I have to imagine any sick, delusional people who watched Smallville for its own merits left seasons ago as fake pregnancies and love dodecahedrons collapsed any sort of realism to the character relationships irrevocably. So one ends up with rubbish like this, with Chloe writing a love letter to Clark when he was sick, and his thinking the letter's words were being spoken by Lana during his haze. What the fuck? Who does such things? No one normal. I expect a little more from television than 90210-level hysterical retardation. Bad enough Aaron Spelling's corpse resurrected that dross for an updated incarnation with more blowjobs inside cars...
Woo! Softcore pornography!
Some mytharc bullshit tries to temper the romance bullshit, but I don't find it successful. Firstly because I did watch The X-Files and their mythology made a lot more sense than Smallville, in spite of The X-Files collapsing in on itself after 4 or 5 seasons. Smallville plays with too many of the sci-fi clichés I hate the most - prophecies, keys, secret societies, crystals...basically all those painful MacGuffins. The program has them in no short supply. Really, any of the Tess scenes could have been, and probably were, done in prior seasons with Lex. Evil Luthorcorp person trying to coerce Chloe into hacking something, trying to find out information about some strange new artifact they found, consulting a generic Luthorcorp scientist...I could go on, but I don't want to. I want a fucking drink. "Instinct" suggests more will come of Chloe's Brainiac mental powers, although so far it just means a scene or two each episode of Clark saying "you gotta get that checked out, buddy". Like a cautionary tale in an educational film, she will either a) get pregnant, b) get breast cancer or c) die from shooting up "too much pixie dust". Clark meanwhile will live the model successful life of an All-American white teenager from the 1950s. Oh, Chloe, you shouldn't have had unprotected finger-brain fucking with Spike the Brainiac Professor!
"Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen to me..."
I want to tip my nonexistent hat to the writing of "Instinct", as it gives the world some of the worst fucking sub-Whedon dialogue ever witnessed through the cathode ray tube. Tess gives this as the first fucking line: "You know, Lex Luthor may have been wowed by your high-tech smoke and mirrors, Dr. Gruel, but I've come to expect more hard-core evidence from boys and their toys." I wish we lived under the rule of China, as Chinese authorities could abduct and kill the writer of that awful, awful piece of dialogue without repercussions on their end. The shock of such idiocy in the cold opener makes a lot of the smirking snark fly by even the most attentive viewer. Then comes Chloe to the daze dashing with "Now that Lois is riding shotgun in your Mystery Machine, your old sidekick's jonesing for a Scooby clue." Poor Allison Mack, always forced to read awkward pop culture referencing shit which fits worse in the mouth than Dikembe Mutombo's cock. Erica Durance valiantly offers a groaner ("That Sluttyanna wasn't even his type.", but none can "looks like the little hacker bird missed the worm". SOMEONE GET ME A SAWN OFF. Actually, you know what, let 'em live. Living with themselves day after day serves as good enough punishment.
Hahaha, Cassidy Freeman looks like a puppet! A puppet from a Charles Band production, no less!
The episode also shows what garbage occurs when a program with a 22 or 24 episode order needs a filler episode. With a show structured like Smallville is, you can only afford certain episodes to have noticeable impact on the rest of the season's story arc. This leads to a lot of stupid bullshit which only incrementally moves along the characters and situations, if at all. "Instinct" does nothing for the seasonal arc and for the characters it at best rehashes already evident developments. Ooh, Jimmy's jealous of Chloe's obvious love of Clark! Tess directs mixed feelings towards Ollie! Smallville teases a possible coupling of the iconic Lois and Clark (so iconic they got a shitty TV named that)! It won't fucking go anywhere, and for a person whose sick compulsion consists of watching Smallville, reviewing Smallville and drinking heavily during and between those two events, it's quite dispiriting. Would it really hurt to include some imaginary stories within the episode order? Shit like "Apocalypse" from last year doesn't cut it. I want to see Jimmy try to murder Clark or Oliver and Clark going on a dangerously homoerotic road trip across America to "find themselves". Give me something to work with.
I can't even fucking think of baseless Shield comparisons. At least Season 7 ripped off Shield Season 6 by having Lex blow up Lionel with a grenade and then Clark confronting him about it. I don't recall "All I was doing was following your gameplan, coach!" or Lex even bothering to mention the goat farm, but those may have happened. By contrast, what the fuck analogue can you construct for Chloe's Brainiac powers? Maxima? Nothing! All nonsense. Maybe I could try Breaking Bad....nah, it doesn't feel right. Plus, Clark would never cook meth, not under any extenuating circumstances. The best comparison to shows I enjoy and developed ridiculous drunken fandom for would be X-Files insofar as the mythological shit reads like Chris Carter if a horrible heroin addict who needed to bang out scripts and ideas as soon as possible to pay for the next fix. If the executive producers of Smallville live in a similar context, I propose a compromise: I will start a fund for heroin purchases if they end the show. Through a fund, they can receive money for acquisition of heroin without subjecting others to the jonesing junkie writing voice of shit sub-Hollywood assembly line trash producers. Come on, accept my proposal!