From the moment Lex Luthor drove his car into Clark Kent at 60 miles per hour on Loeb Bridge, "Smallville" has always told the stories of two journies: Clark Kent's AND Lex Luthor's. While the two of them came from completely different worlds and upbringings, this last son of Krypton and bald billionaire formed a friendship that "would be the stuff of legend." Over the course of seven years, we saw how the presence of love, friendship, compassion, and trust, or lack there of, led to the iconic men that these two would become. In last night's series finale, Clark made peace with his trusted ally Oliver Queen, he came to terms with presence of his earth father's ghost in his life, he finally recieved the approval and blessing of Jor-El, he took flight, he married the love of his life, and finally became Superman. It was every bit a proper send off for the Man of Steel.
However, as a 10 year fan of the series who has been there for every episode as they aired since October 16, 2001 when we first got to see "Pilot", I feel that Lex Luthor was not given the same respect. For seven years, we were with Lex just as much as we were with Clark. We were there for every failed relationship, every lie, every disappointment, and every abusive moment dished out to him from his father, Lionel. We witnessed how the total absence of love is what led Lex Luthor to becoming the ultimate evil that would threaten a future Superman. But, in the end, the writers of the series gave Lex a rather weak send off, as if they had thrown it together at the last moment with a half-assed memory wipe.
One of my favorite quotes of Lex's from the series was in season two, when he was talking to Ryan and he said, "In life, the road to darkness is a journey, not a light switch." Witnessing every traumatic moment from Lex's childhood, ranging from his abusive and overbearing father to his warped childhood due to hazing from his peers, made us all appreciate how normal Lex was when the series first started out. Then, through all the troubles and disappointments through the seven years as a regular character on the series, Lex finally fell into the abyss of darkness and became the villain that we were all anticipating. But it was because of that seven year journey that we were able to comprehend why Lex is the way he is.
One of the biggest influences in Lex's development into a villain was Lionel Luthor. His constant challenges, coups, lies, mistrust, and total absence of affection created the son he always wanted and in turn created the ultimate enemy for Clark. For so long in the comics and the movies, we had always seen Lex Luthor as an evil, sinister being who was constantly trying to best the Man of Steel, but we never knew why he was so evil and twisted. It was through seeing how Lionel raised Lex and treated him that we FINALLY could see and understand how such a person could come to be. While on the polar opposite end of that scale, we saw Jonathon and Clark's relationship as father and son. We saw how the presence of trust, love, compassion, and hope turned a young man into the world's savior. It was always interesting to see how the difference in their fathers made these two very different sons.
To even prove just how influential a father is in a son's life, this season we saw an alternate earth where Clark wasn't found by the Kents in that field, but was instead found by Lionel Luthor. Clark Luthor was an evil despot who took what he wanted and killed whomever crossed his path, proving that it's not the blood who makes the man, it's the father who raises him. THIS is what bothered me with how the finale ended. When Lex was rubbed with that sub-dermal neurotoxin that was developed at Summerholt Institute to purge a person's memories and he forgot his entire life up to the present, I feel that we lost the Lex Luthor that will become Superman's greatest villain. He no longer remembers all the pain and angst he went through all his life with his father, so he really is not the same man. In the finale, after Clark told Lex he had a second chance, Lex responded, "But that's the thing about memories: You can't forget them." This further proves that Lex NEEDS his memories to be the villain that he is.
Another of his tainted relationships that pushed him towards his dark path was his failed friendship with Clark Kent. The constant lies, mistrust, and doubt between Clark and Lex created a sense in Lex's mind that he could never have a true friend; that no one would ever truly trust him. Living with the thought that even his best friend couldn't trust him with his secrets pushed Lex away from people who could have loved him and closer to his ambitions that would bend him into the evil man we all know from the comics. Over the seven years that Lex was a regular character on the series, Clark and Lex became bitter enemies who hated nearly every inch of each other, but it was because of their history in the past seven years that caused it. Without his memories of everything that happened between him and Clark, why is Lex going to hate Superman so much in the future? I'm sorry, but in my opinion the idea that Superman represents a perfection that no human could ever achieve and Lex hates that about him just doesn't work for "Smallville". The show devoted seven plus years to creating so much bad blood between these characters so that we could all understand why these two men are each other's greatest enemies.
Over the course of 10 years, Smallville did a lot of things that were out of continuity with the comics. From creating characters to changing how DC Comics characters met Clark Kent, we all understood that "Smallville" was in it's own universe. In the finale, they even went so far as to keep Chloe and Oliver married and even have a son together. I think that I can speak for nearly every fan out there when I say that if the writers were so ballsy as to let Lex know about Clark's secret and powers, THEN STICK TO YOUR GUNS! Let Lex continue to know about him. This version of Lex, and even in the comics, is such a creature of ego, that he wouldn't tell anyone else what he knows because he wants to be the one who destroys him. To have the two of them know each other so totally and completely, yet hate each other so much would have been a great send off for the two of them as future enemies, in my opinion.
In the end, I think that the writers of this episode psyched themselves out. They knew that they were dealing with the second biggest character on the series and the most fan anticipated return that they tried so hard to set everything up to match with the comics and the movies. I can understand that desire, but you can't think that way. They spent 10 years creating their own stories and reinventing the early days of Superman in Smallville, they should have kept going with that. I feel that Lex's send off/setup for the future was extremely weak. The only aspect of his send off that I DID like was when we saw the "uthor" part of "Luthor Corp" fall off the side of the buidling to then spell "LX Corp". It really does disappoint me that a character whose journey and ultimate destiny that we were as invested in as we were with Clark's was cheated of as epic a send off. I think that a full memory wipe was way too excessive and there are countless other routes that the writers could and should have taken. If you agree or disagree with me, please comment in the usual place.