Call me naïve, but I think Smallville’s Tess Mercer may actually be one of the good guys. The new CEO of LuthorCorp has all the makings of a villain, and most of the time she acts like one too. But reading between the lines, understanding her actions in the first three episodes, there’s a chance she’s not as evil as Smallville would like us to think she is.

In last night’s episode, we learned all about the backstory of Tess and Oliver, how they met on an island and grew closer while facing some very bad kidnappers. In some ways, this makes them the Jack and Kate of Smallville.

To determine whether Tess is good or evil, we simply need to examine her actions thus far. She dismantled the Montana facility and she wanted to find Bette alive rather than dead so she could recruit her for her own superhero team. While it’s possible Tess is actually going to use these people with powers for evil, there’s no proof of it.

It all depends on how you look at a situation. Fans are drawn to Chloe, so they were angry when she was under investigation by the Department of Domestic Security. But if you look at it from their side, she really was a hacker working with a group of rogue superheroes acting unilaterally. There are two sides to every coin, and while Smallville mostly shows one side, you have to remember that there’s another.

Tess Mercer’s approach to violence is also key. She refused to kill Bette in episode 2 even though Lex would have. Last night Tess did kill someone, and while it was cold and merciless, he was the kidnapper who shot her best friend, held her captive and then tried to kill her again. I’m not in favor of vigilante murder, but her actions in “Toxic” are at least understandable.

Her motivations for rising to the level of CEO are equally understandable. While Lex wanted the power to feed his own ambition and supremacy, Tess is doing it out of spite for a former lover. The island romance between her and Oliver Queen saved her life, and based on their conversation, it seems that Oliver left without saying goodbye shortly after returning to the mainland.

Any woman in that position would be crushed and out to spite her ex-lover. So Tess joined Queen Industries’ biggest rival and vowed to destroy him in the corporate world. It’s basically the same thing as if she simply dated a hotter guy and flaunted it in front of Oliver, just on a much bigger scale.

As Davis Bloom said on last night’s episode, there are two sides to everyone. For Chloe, the second side is a Brainiac super genius. For Clark and Oliver, it’s their superhero alter egos. For Davis, the second side is Doomsday, an insane murderer. And for Tess, the apparent ruthless CEO of LuthorCorp, that second side might be humanitarian.


-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of the CW)