Smallville: "Justice"

Season Six, Episode Eleven: Justice
Written by: Steven S. DeKnight
Directed by: Steven S. DeKnight
Original Air Date: January 18, 2007

This episode of Smallville is the second of (so far) Aquaman's three appearances on the show--and this time he has some friends!


Plucky Chloe Sullivan runs into some trouble when her investigation into some LuthorCorp business leads her srating down the barrel of a gun, held by a corrupt doctor under Lex's employ.

A red blur comes into the room, dispatches the gun man, and leaves. Seconds later, Clark arrives, and Chloe thanks him for the save. Clark says he had nothing to do with it, but knows who did.

Clark follows the red blur out onto the streets of Metropolis, only catching up to the young man--Bart Allen, dressed in red with a lightning bolt on his back--because Bart wanted him to do. He then takes off:

Clark catches Chloe up to speed (no pun intended), and Bart shows up again. Calrk wants to know why Bart was in the offices of the Daily Planet, and Bart refuses to tell him the truth, innocently saying he was there to visit Chloe, who he's trying to woo.

Meanwhile, Oliver Queen and Lois Lane--who are now dating--are getting back from a long romantic lunch. Their romantic interlude is cut short when Oliver gets a call, and says he has to leave on business. Lois is more than a little angry that she's being stood up by Oliver--again.

Oliver responds by promising they're going to take a vacation together, but he has to take care of something first. As Lois leaves to pack, he gets another message:

Meanwhile, Lionel Luthor and his son Lex discuss the fact that their secret labs for experimenting on people with extraordinary powers are being broken into. Lex shows his father a surveillance photo of someone they think is doing the break-ins: a small man, wearing a red hooded sweatshirt.

That night, we find Bart Allen breaking into yet another LexCorp facility, taking away some vital information. He meets his associate outside--Green Arrow!

The next morning, we see that Bart is staying at the Kent's. Ma Kent is delighted to have the charming young man around, but after Clark finds out LuthorCorp has been broken into, he confronts Bart, who admits to doing it, but won't say why.

Meanwhile, Lois is talking to Chloe while packing. One of the items she packs is a flimsy piece of lingerie, a green one-piece (Chloe thinks the color--an inadvertent choice on Lois' part--in particular will grab Oliver's attention). In the middle of the conversation, Clark shows up, surprising them both:

Clark is there to talk to Chloe, and privately he tells her of Bart's abilities, and his LuthorCorp break-ins.

Chloe does some tracking of Bart's cell-phone calls, and they learn that Bart has been making a lot of calls...to Oliver Queen.

That night, Bart does another break-in, except this time Lex is waiting for him, along with an army of goons. They zap Bart with some sort of high-tech weapon, knocking him out.

Clark shows up at Oliver's high-tech office, wanting to know why he has gotten Bart involved. Queen defends his decision, citing LuthorCorp's nefarious experiments, and also tells Clark that Bart has gone missing. Clark offers to try and find him, and Oliver then says he's put his "team" into place to do just that, and we see who he means:

...Aquaman and Cyborg!

Back at LuthorCorp, Lex puts Bart in a cell with a floor that grows so hot that Bart has to keep running in ever-faster circles to keep from frying (a pretty cool death-trap, I have to say), promising to turn it off if Bart will reveal who he's working for.

Back at Oliver's HQ, Clark learns how A.C. and Victor got involved with Oliver. A.C. says he ran into some legal trouble with a Japanese whaling ship, and infers Oliver and Victor helped get him out of it. Oliver and Victor bust on A.C. saying they saved him from being sliced up and packed into tiny cans of tuna:

"Fish jokes...all I get are fish jokes."

Chloe helps figure out where Lex is holding Bart, and while she delivers the info to Oliver, Clark shows up to try and rescue Bart.

Unfortunately, after Clark leaves Chloe figures out that the reason the LexCorp building is lead-shielded is because its a trap. We see that she's right--Clark breaks in, only to find himself face-to-face with a roomful of Kryptonite! Clark, trapped, collapses the floor.

Later, Oliver and Victor break their way into the building, while A.C. makes his way in through an underwater pipe:

As Bart starts to weaken from exhaustion, Oliver, Victor, and A.C. all make their way to the heart of the building. Oliver rescues Clark, whom he calls "Boy Scout" (Clark protests, but Oliver--calling himself Green Arrow--says "If you were part of the team, you could've picked your own code name.")

Aquaman, having found his way to the building's main computer room, opens it to Cyborg. Cyborg taps into the building's mainframe, shutting down the death-trap Bart was in.

Green Arrow runs into Lex, and GA shoots an arrow just past him, into a pressure valve (and nicking Lex's cheek in the process). The valve will cause the building to explode, which Clark objects to, worrying about any possible casualties.

Green Arrow assures him everyone has been evacuated, and that the only way to make sure no one else ends up imprisoned and experimented on is to blow the place up. Clark agrees, and our five heroes stroll out of the place as it explodes:

Later, Lois is ready to leave on their vacation, but Oliver tells her he can't go, claiming important business. Lois, deeply hurt, breaks it off with Oliver. Oliver is upset, but insists that there are things "more important" than what he wants.

Back at the Kent's, Clark, A.C., Victor, Bart, and Chloe talk about how The Daily Planet will be running a story that a "vacant" LexCorp building blew up in an accident. Bart flirts with Chloe again, and A.C. refers to him as "Impulse":

Clark asks, with all of them now having code names, what they call their little team. Oliver shows up, and suggests, "Something with the word 'justice' in it."

He also says that they've learned that LexCorp is opening branch labs all over the country, all for the same evil purpose. With their next target in sight, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Impulse plan to head out. They ask Clark to come along, but he says he has other issues to deal with right now.

Oliver promises they'll be back. And with that, he and his team take off:

...the end!


I think by this point, I had given up watching Smallville regularly--I just couldn't stand how painfully slow the show's story arcs were moving (Clark doesn't know Lex is evil yet? Really?), but I always came back for the "guest hero" episodes like this one.

And I have to give the show credit--its ambitious as hell. Would anyone have guessed when Smallville debuted back in 2001 that by Season Five they'd be doing quasi-Justice League episodes? Also, the use of Green Arrow (standing in for Batman, who I guess the show can't use) as the ringleader is fun, and of course its just great seeing Alan Ritchson as the live-action Aquaman again.

Oliver officially calls A.C. "Aquaman" at one point in this episode, marking the first time he was actually called that on the show.

After Lois' brief flirtation with Aquaman in "Aqua", and now her relationship with Green Arrow, I'm wondering if she isn't just working her way through the JLA membership. That's going to lead to a lot of smart-ass comments on the satellite...