If this wasn’t the best Smallville episode ever, I’m sure it’s close. I was so excited to see how the 200th episode would turn out, and it certainly met my expectations.
I can’t believe me and everyone that has been watching since the Pilot have dedicated almost 150 hours (or 7 full days!) into this show, and that’s just watching it.
From the moment this episode started, we knew it would play with our feelings of nostalgia. It has infinite past references, from simply the Smallville High set to the scene in which Jonathan Kent dies (from the 100th episode by the way) , which ‘present Clark’ knew, no matter how powerful he was, he couldn’t stop.
The episode starts with Clark looking at some magazines, one of them questioning, just as himself, if The Blur is really a hero. This feeling of doubt depresses him, but, as always, our lovely Lois Lane is there to cheer up the world, and puts a little confidence in him, enough for the two of them to go together to the Smallville High 5 year reunion, even though she attended there for only 23 days.
The scene cuts to an old lady. Just as this woman is tying everything together about the ‘meteor freaks’ and Clark in the school, the legendary Brainiac 5 arrives to change her mind (yep, literally), with words that define the episode and this final season.
“It’s time to move on from the past.”
So, Clark and Lois arrive at the reunion. The most hilarious moments of the episode then come, with Lois really excited to see old faces from school, but no one remembering her.
If the past is really holding Clark down, Lana Lang sure is one of the people included. A flashback makes us remember maybe the moment in which Clark falls in love with Lana, with a phrase that could have inspired his future alias.
“So, what are you? Man or superman?
Although Lana Lang defines young Clark Kent, she certainly isn’t the woman that defines Superman.
In another highlight of ‘Homecoming’, just as Clark was almost dying of shame and boredom wearing a crown, time is frozen and Brainiac arrives at the reunion, all cured from his evilness, from the 31st century, as the Legion member ‘Brainiac 5’.
“This is the moment that your life changes forever.”
Brainiac shows Clark defining moments of his life that are holding Clark to the past, like his father’s death and funeral.
In worrying too much about the world and strangers, he also learns he has forgotten about his closest friends, like Oliver, who waits a call of advice from Clark to face the public, alone, in his luxury office.
And then THE highlight of the episode comes. Clark Kent, after confronting Brainiac, accidentally arrives on the year 2017, a world where Superman is finally a superhero, and still has time to have a personal life with Lois, in a privileged office at the Daily Planet, away from the basement.
In a hurry, Lois makes Clark get on the elevator, where he finally becomes certain of the future that awaits him.
"How did I become so uptight…and nerdy?"
“That’s what I become”
Clark and Superman together save the day after a nuclear explosion makes the helicopter in which Lois was supposed to leave, malfunction. Brainiac 5 then finds Clark after being missing in the “Dark age”, and they return to the homecoming dance, while giving Clark a lesson about this “darkness”.
“Your darkness lies in your dwelling in the past and your fear of the future”
Clark goes visit the grave of his father to finally move on from his past.
“I have to say the one thing I never could. Bye, dad. I promise to be the man you knew I could be.”
Just as he’ll do in the future with the whole world, Clark gives hope to Oliver who's being bashed by the press. Oliver finally accepts he’s Green Arrow, a hero.
"You're damned right I'm a hero"
The epicness of the episode peeks with the closing scene. Clark and Lois finally have a calm moment to just dance under a disco-ball. As Clark forgets everything around him and just hugs Lois with his new acquired confidence of presencing his fate right before his eyes, he slowly begins to levitate in a moment that throws us back to Metamorphosis from Season 1, and the iconic moment in the Christopher Reeve's Superman film.
Homecoming dared to make us remember scenes from 10 years ago, dared to change the image of the future nerd Clark Kent, to a man that uses glasses just to hide his superhero persona that is Superman.
So, what did you fellow Smallville fans think?
