The "Smallville" Last Scene Was Inspired By "24" Season 8 Finale Says Tom Welling

Dan Lalonde
Nov 6, 2025
2 min read

What is your favorite series finale's last scene?

Tom Welling is talking about the final scene of 'Smallville' at Comic Con Stockholm, where Clark finally puts on the Superman suit: "In one of the final scenes Clark opens his shirt and finally leaps off the building. That was written in a completely different way. They had written where Clark sees the suit, then cut to him, pulling it on and putting the boots on."

Welling then talked about how the '24' Season 8 finale inspired him to ask for a change: "Do you guys remember Kiefer Sutherland's 24? That show just ended, and one of the things they did in that show, it's a satellite image from space, and he's talking to [the] satellite imaging, knowing that Chloe, who he works with, is watching, and he's saying goodbye. He's saying, 'I can't stay, but I gotta go.'"

"I remember the takeaway from that to me was here's a guy who's gonna go out there, is gonna fight the good fight. We can't go with him, but it allows our imagination to believe he's still out there. I took that and when we were trying to figure it out in the series, I referenced that the idea that this character is gonna go out there, he's gonna be out there. We can't go with. And that's how that all came about."

Welling said he forced them to end it on his terms for the final shot: "There was a bit of a discussion and limitation on what shots we were going to use, it was me, and Greg Beeman, who directed the episode. But the idea was I was going to force them on a crane shot to come into gear. After that, the show was over, and because it was a crane shot, and no, I wouldn't allow them to shoot any other angles of it, because that's what I wanted."

What is your favorite series finale? Comment below with your thoughts.