She also appeared on Michael Rosenbaum's show, which I felt was a fairly good interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajZ1V-VnLNI

I have watched all the documentaries on this NXIVM fiasco, from The Vow to Seduced, now these.  Each one delves deeper into the darkness.  However, one thing I took away from all of them, is that almost every single person went in WILLINGLY, and were all eventually victims to some degree.  They were often broken people, preyed on, often unsuspectingly.  The primary villain remains Keith Raniere.  Look, I think the whole self help thing is pointless, and this group was mostly fleecing customers like any other.  If you wish to be indoctrinated with this baloney, be my guest.  When it became a serious problem was when Keith began shifting to actual coercion, all to achieve his psychotic sexual predilections.  Resulting in (mainly women) pledging various levels of God-like devotion to him, leading to committing crimes themselves.  As I said, the subjects were all fully gung ho on this group, right up until they weren't.  Family members and outside persuasion did nothing.  One thing I got from Allison's comments, was similar to others, they truly did not understand or even question what was going on.  They understand it now, but at the time, they were in trance-like obedience to Keith, who had entirely designed it this way.  There's an entire story about the Mexican branch of NXIVM which has yet to be covered as well, which I've read may have had worse abuses than anywhere else.  But they involve wealthy and connected Mexican families, and down there, they control the press and law so you won't hear about it. 

On Allison specifically, she's remorseful, and seems to have taken her time in jail and experience at large to wish to now help those who have been incarcerated or abused, by obtaining higher degrees and certifications.  She's still on probation, but has already been doing a number of these things.  Her husband is a reformed white supremacist who has become a community activist.  Unsurprisingly, one could point to much of her problems back to an episode of sexual exploitation as a young girl, as well as an abusive boyfriend years later.  Keith used that to bend her fears and emotions at his will.  Again, it's easy to sit here and scoff at all of this.  But psychological manipulation of vulnerable people is a very real thing.  Many many lives were seriously damaged by this monster.  I don't believe in lives destroyed.  These people were good people, before then, and they all have the capacity of reform and to get a second chance.  I don't know if Ms. Mack would ever appear on screen again, and honestly don't care.  She seems well, and is contributing to society in a way I would never find myself doing. 

The whole thing is nuanced and not pretty.  And sadly, not unique or rare.

I don't think any rehabilitation of her image is possible. She should never work as an actress again.

However, there is a certain value to knowing how someone can be tricked into a cult and turned into a fanatic and fleeced for all they're worth. Allison Mack was paid $40,000 an episode when she first started on SMALLVILLE, she was making even more money for nine years, and according to the podcast, by the time she was arrested, her total assets amounted to $40,000 in the bank. Nearly a decade of earnings reduced to one episode of wages; the rest had gone to the cult.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P … LQyT09sQIu

*shudders*

Standing with Lois and his son Jon on the roof of the Daily Planet, Superman hears news report upon news report: police have shot an unarmed man. A couple have been scammed of their life's savings. A school has been attacked. A bomb has been detonated. A shelter has been looted. War. Poverty. Starvation. Loss. Superman is almost buried by all the word balloons of all these terrible, everyday horrors as he lowers his head in grief.

"Are you alright, Clark?" asks Lois.

Clark looks at her, stricken. "People are losing hope, Lois."

He begins to lift off the ground.

"Where are you going, Dad?" Jon asks.

Clark soars into the sky, preparing to fly into the fray. "Back to work," Superman declares and the story ends there.

i was thinking about how different Superman actors would have played this scene.

I imagine Christopher Reeve playing this scene. The simple confidence cracking, replaced by grief and anger -- then supplanted by him forcing himself into the charismatic certainty of the Superman persona.

I imagine Dean Cain: he wavers and stoops, crushed by the weight of what he's hearing... but then he stands tall.

I imagine Brandon Routh: a solemn, quiet absorption of the horrors he's hearing and a muted and subtle reaction to show his concern and burning resolve.

Tyler Hoechlin tends to react to everything with stunned concern converting to hardy determination, so I think this would be the same but with more of a bent posture before converting it to a crouch as he prepares to lift off.

But I think this scene is best suited to Tom Welling. Reacting with shock. Horror. Rage. Sadness. Despair.

Except, on Smallville, I think all the audio resolves into a single repeated word in a thousand voices.

"Help."

Tom's eyes light up as he realizes he can't save everyone, but he can still act. A thoughtful gentleness forms from Tom's sadness. His grief doesn't crush him into a man of despair. It tempers him into a man of steel.

"Where are you going, Dad?"

Tom looks at Jon and unlike every other Superman who would speak forcefully and turn their next line into a battle cry, Welling delivers this as a heartfelt assurance to his son and with a gentle smile.

"Back to work."

Which is surprising to me because I think Rosenbaum is good about getting people to talk about controversial stuff.  But maybe Welling put his foot down or maybe he isn't legally allowed to talk about anything.

However, if the DUI had been discussed on Talkville, it would be all over Reddit and Bleeding Cool and every other news site that mines celebrity podcasts for clickbait. I haven't seen anything, so I think it's safe to assume Tom hasn't spoken on it.

... people screw up. Hopefully, he took his lumps, paid for what he did, and moved forward.

Tom Welling is a wealthy man. Are we really to believe he couldn't call a rideshare to drive him home? Send a personal assistant to drive his car home? Hire a tow truck to tow it home?

What excuse could there possibly be? I don't know, but I hope there is one.

I am just shocked.

I feel I speak for all SMALLVILLE fans when I say: what the actual fuck? Like, what?!

I'm just glad no one was hurt.

The problem is that "Doomsday" in the Superman mythology has a certain brand identity, and that brand identity is defined by SUPERMAN #75 where every page is a full-page panel and 90 percent of the issue is Superman fighting Doomsday.

The name is synonymous with an extended superpowered brawl, and despite SMALLVILLE clearly conveying that Doomsday is largely offscreen, too big for the camera, only ever going to be shown in obscured or dimly lit or appendage-focused shots -- it simply couldn't overcome the brand expectation of the name "Doomsday".

It might have been best to call "the Beast" and describe it as "an early surviving prototype of the Doomsday project" to explain that this wasn't the full-blown Doomsday but an earlier model from Zod's deranged genetics experiments.

But I concede that the SMALLVILLE writers probably saw the mythic power of the Doomsday name, and thought they could explain what fans could expect clearly. They... couldn't.

"I could hear you yelling," Clark says, and Tom Welling is an effortlessly reassuring, comforting presence to Oliver's terror and confusion. He's just perfect.

One near-universal criticism of Season 8 is that the entire season built to a Clark/Doomsday fight and failed to deliver with Doomsday knocking Clark across the city in one blow; Clark grabbing Doomsday and leaping into the geothermal facility that Oliver detonates with Clark throwing Doomsday to the bottom of a geothermal well with the collapsed structure entrapping Doomsday. The complaint is that the entire season built to a huge fight that consists of one punch, one leap, and an explosion.

... I don't see it. I don't see how Season 8 was offering any buildup to a big fight. At all. Throughout Season 8, Doomsday is always filmed at a distance or partially obscured or in shadow or simply off camera as he attacks. We see isolated portions of Doomsday's arms as he slashes Jimmy and claws Clark. Any full body shots are brief and darkly lit. We never get a good look at it.

To me, this is the show making it very clear: Doomsday is more of a force and a presence than an actual character. The visual language of Season 8 makes it very clear that Doomsday is a monster kept at a distance and in the dark, and there is going to be little to no overt portrayal of Doomsday except in the guise of Davis Bloome. Doomsday is a monstrosity beyond human comprehension, barely contained in human shell, so horrific that the camera on SMALLVILLE dares not look at him.

Also, the Doomsday costume doesn't really hold up well in full lighting.

I don't feel SMALLVILLE ever built up expectations that there would be a huge fight between Clark and Doomsday. If anything, it made it clear that Doomsday was going to always be a slightly out of focus, dimly lit figure. The emphasis was also on how Doomsday was more powerful than Clark and any straight fight between Clark and Doomsday would be short, brutal, and lethal for Clark -- which is why Clark's strategy was not to kill Doomsday but to bury him.

However, while that is clearly the message that SMALLVILLE conveyed to the audience, it's very clear to me that I'm in the minority and I was the only one who heard it. The universal criticism of Season 8 is that the fight with Doomsday was a huge disappointment and didn't pay off all the buildup... so clearly, the creators failed to convey the expectations they were setting to anyone but me. It's very clear to me that absolutely no one agrees with me on this.