Smallville “Booster” 

Who do you call when you need help? The Justice League? The Blur? The Ghostbusters? Fear not…there’s a new hero in town and his name is Booster Gold.

In “Booster,” a new hero comes to Metropolis in the form of Booster Gold, an egotistical sell-out who’s more interested in becoming a star than a hero. His mission is to track down a scarab that can turn whoever it latches onto into a killing machine. Meanwhile, Lois is determined to get Clark’s image changed into that of a nerd so that the Blur can finally emerge as the city’s one true hero without fear of being discovered.  Undoubtedly, the star of this week’s episode was its namesake, Booster Gold. Booster Gold is like if The Rocketeer, Ron Burgundy, Iron Man, and Captain Amazing (if you’ve seen Mystery Men and get the reference you’re now my favorite person) all donated sperm to have one super-baby and out came this golden piece of entertainment. Tina Charles already wrote an excellent article praising Eric Martsolf’s performance, but I just want to reiterate how great of an addition Booster Gold was to this episode. It was fun watching him campaign and sell himself, which was a fresh little angle to the show. I’m glad his character was used for this one episode and he wasn’t a season long character. I think that makes it more special. It’s kind of like Las Vegas; fun to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

But let’s talk real quick about the other big character in the episode…the Blue Beetle. He’s a relatively new kid on the block so to speak when it comes to his comic book backlog, but he seems to have a cult following, especially since he’s a featured character on the animated show Batman: The Brave and the Bold (a hilarious and fun kids cartoon that I HIGHLY recommend). Granted his story was a little rushed in the episode and there were a lot of “ok, I guess I’ll go with this” moments, but I felt like it was a pretty accurate portrayal of the character and I loved the moment he had with Booster Gold in the climax.

Of course, Smallville is about Clark Kent/Superman, and just like last week, Tom Welling found a way to impress me. This was the first episode we got to see the bumbling, stumbling, nerdy Clark Kent go out and do some investigating and Tom played it marvelously! It was such a welcome and nostalgic scene where he went looking for clues about the scarab that it made me wish that he had been nerdy Clark a lot sooner in the series. Then again, when you get nerdy Clark you ache for some Superman, but watching him transform in the telephone booth into his Blur costume was ALMOST as good. Indeed that was the nerdy geek out moment of the night.

I have one major gripe with this episode and anybody who has read any of my Smallville thoughts before knows exactly what it is…Cat F’n Grant. After an amazing cold open introducing us to Booster Gold we then got a painful dose of Cat Grant. There are people who defend her (cough Kara Howland cough) but I’m sorry, she just ruins every scene she’s in. At one point, Lois likens her to nails on a chalkboard but I would never insult nails and chalkboards like that. I’ve already accepted her character isn’t going to die, but now that she’s desk mates with Clark, if she shows up more than usual for the last few episodes, I’m worried for the safety of my television as I have a tendency to throw things at it when I’m angry.

Next up, we get the return of not only Oliver (finally!) but also…General Zod!

PS : The CW has a new finale promo spot featuring footage of Michael Rosenbaum’s return as Lex Luthor!