Smallville’s Michael Rosenbaum Opens Up About His Controversial Lex Luthor Ending 13 Years After It Aired

Michael Rosenbaum looks back at the Smallville series finale and how the DC TV show finished Lex Luthor’s storyline. One of the live-action Superman TV shows that came to define DC’s media legacy was Smallville, a decade’s worth of stories on how Clark Kent became the Man of Steel. But Smallville also followed Lex’s trajectory in becoming Superman’s ultimate nemesis, with Rosenbaum portraying him for seven seasons before making his major return in the 2011 series finale.

In a new exclusive interview with Screen Rant, Rosenbaum was asked how he felt about how the Smallville ending dealt with Lex, almost a decade and a half after the series finale aired. As Lex lost his memories, the Smallville veteran shared the following about how he looks at his character’s story arc being wrapped up:

Screen Rant: I know you’ve talked about it before where you felt a little bit iffy about how Lex lost his memories and all that went down in the series finale. How are you dealing with it today, do you feel ‘I am OK with the way it ended’ or ‘I would have wanted something else for my ending.’

Michael Rosenbaum: I don’t know. I didn’t watch the show, not one episode after I left. In fact, I didn’t watch many episodes while I was on the show. That’s why we’re doing Talk Ville Podcast with Tom. We watch every episode, and I’m forced to watch them. But I watched the series finale, and I invited some friends over. My friend Joe who had kept watching the show, and my other friend were telling me what’s happening. Because I didn’t know what the hell was going on, I’m going, ‘Wait, Lois and Clark are getting married?’ and they started explaining to me. But when I watched it, I go, ‘It’s got a good energy to it.’ I loved my scene with Clark and Lex. I thought that was really good, and it was a nice way to end it. I love that I killed my sister [Tess Mercer, played by Cassidy Freeman.] For someone who shot for just one day, to see that, I was proud of it. I was happy, and I was glad that it was all over.

Lex Luthor’s Ending In The Smallville Series Finale Explained

When Rosenbaum returned as Lex in the Smallville series finale, the show had to deal with the fact that his character had initially died and was in need of resurrection. Through a deal with Darkseid, the Earth-2 Lionel Luthor was able to revive Lex from the dead. However, while he may have been brought back into the land of the living, the Smallville series finale had one final surprise in store for the iconic Superman villain.

As Lex ended up killing his half-sister Tess, she ended up rubbing Summerholt’s neurotoxin, which caused his memories to get wiped. This allowed the Smallville writers to line up with the mythology by having Lex not know that Clark is Superman. Nevertheless, erasing all of Lex’s memories and his entire journey in Smallville was still controversial with the audience.

The Smallville season 11 tie-in comic, which is canon to the TV show, would later on explore Lex trying to get his memories back. If Smallville ever made a comeback, this could be a storyline they could continue fleshing out to the point where Lex perhaps regains all of his memories. Until then, the DC audience can relive every season of Smallville through Blu-Ray/DVD or stream it on Hulu (in the U.S.)

Catch new episodes of Michael Rosenbaum’s podcasts, Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum and Talk Ville Podcast, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, respectively, on YouTube and every available podcast platform.