Mar 7, 2009 12:00 PM
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Two characters will die in the season finale of Smallville and (shockingly) not come back to life, according to new rumors. We're kinda hoping they go wild. Speculative spoilers ahead.
Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello spilled the beans about the upcoming doom, and also revealed that one of the soon-to-die is a Smallville veteran, and another isn't... which, to me, sounds like we're going to lose Chloe and Davis, thereby bringing the season's Doomsday storyline to an appropriate climax, while also tying in with that "No Davis, Only Doomsday" rumor from Morning Spoilers yesterday.
I hope I'm wrong; Chloe is still one of my favorite characters in the show - Honestly, I don't care about Davis, and doubt the rest of you do, either - but she's also the only expendable veteran, because she's the only character left in the show who doesn't play a role in the Superman mythos as we know them; as much as I'd want to show to take a leap into the unknown by killing Jimmy Olsen, Lana (oh, please kill Lana) or Lois and making a definitive "All bets are off" statement about what the audience assumes is Clark's future, it's most likely never going to happen because the show, to its benefit and detriment, is completely devoted to Superman and the world around him that everyone knows about. Chloe is, sadly, the only long-running character who can be killed without changing the Superman stories that we love so much.
Thing is, I kind of want them to change the Superman stories that we love so much.
One of the main problems with Smallville, especially now that it's heading into its ninth year and has so much of the Superman world already in place (Metropolis, the Daily Planet, Lois) is that the sense of inevitability has completely overpowered any sense of real dramatic tension. We know who's going to live and die each week, because we "know" that Superman's best pal is Jimmy Olsen and his girlfriend is Lois Lane... or, for that matter, that Clark Kent will grow up to become Superman. And, really, there's no real reason that has to be the case.
Look at it this way; Smallville has already screwed up a lot of what we "know" about Superman - For one thing, there's already a Justice League going around fighting crime, and for another, Lex Luthor seems to have disappeared and been dealt with, alongside Brainiac, Zod and, by series' end, Doomsday. Jimmy is a contemporary of Clark's, and not a younger, overly-excitable cub reporter. Perry White is a washed-up hack, and not editor of the Daily Planet, and so on. So why can't Smallville go for broke in what must, surely, be its last season and completely throw out everything we think we know about the show and its characters in order to give us exactly what we don't expect? It's be a ballsy, unexpected move, and it could completely backfire - Let's face it, Smallville doesn't have the greatest track record for succeeding on the few occasions that they really have tried risks - but it would give Smallville something it's not had for years, if ever: The feeling that anything could happen at any moment, and that you should pay attention, just in case.
So here's hoping that Chloe survives, and that it's Clark's mom or someone who bites the speeding bullet that Clark wasn't faster than at the end of this season. It may not be what we'd expect, but that's kind of the point.
'Smallville' exclusive: Two characters will die [EW.com]
Send an email to Graeme McMillan, the author of this post, at graeme@io9.com.
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