Smallville “Rabid” Review

Spoilers

Like “Stiletto” from last season, this episode was way better than I thought it would be based on its description.  I’m no expert on Zombie movies, but I think that was a pretty good one in general, as opposed to Smallville’s usually poor attempts to copy whatever horror movie is popular around Halloween.  The direction was excellent and zombies looked real.

I’m still kind of on the fence about Zod and company being responsible for the zombies, as they created Metallo last week as well.  Hopefully not everything bad will be their fault.  Although I will say I liked how the Zombie virus was more like a Doomsday virus, as they used Davis’s red-eyes and his DNA to make them.

I also loved that the doctor was a Kryptonian sleeper agent.  I did not see that coming at all and was totally taken back.  Now I’m going to be wondering all season who is really a Kryptonian, and I couldn’t like that any better.  The case of mistaken identity with Jor-El at the end was very cool as well.  I can’t wait for Clark and Zod to meet.

The romance between Lois and Clark is really developing in a good direction.  I like this so much better than the Clark/Lana one, which seemed to be based more on hormones and obsession.  This feels more mature to me.  Plus, they’ve finally introduced the love triangle.  Now I’m waiting for Clark to admit that he’s jealous of himself.

My only problems with this episode were Oliver’s character spiral (although he was cool with the shotgun), and level of technology at Dr. Hamilton’s disposal, like in the season premier when he “detected a rip in space and time,” how exactly?  Here he was able to whip up an antidote to the Kryptonian virus and make it rain.  Seemed a little deus ex machina.

But in the end this was a really great episode that balanced out a zombie invasion with the smaller moments between Lois and Clark.  The best comparison is the beginning where Clark wanders through the deserted city and the end when he is holding Lois in the rain.  My expectations for this episode were really low, and I’m delighted to have been so wrong.