Dawn Stiles is every high school movie’s stereotypical prom queen. She’s stuck up, annoying, mean and not terribly bright. Come to think of it, isn’t that every real high school’s prom queen?

Anyway, her life couldn’t possibly get any worse after her boyfriend dumps her right before prom. Oh, except for the fact that while drooling over a yearbook picture of Clark, she drives off the road and into a ravine full of Kryptonite. She crawls out of the wreckage, but doesn’t realize she’s dead. She probably gets an idea that she’s dead when Martha Kent drives right into her and she finds herself now inhabiting Martha’s body.

Even though in life Dawn was obsessed with prom, you would think she’d be a little distraught at the fact that she’s dead. Well, you’d be wrong. Dawn’s thoughts as a body snatching ghost revolve solely around prom. Back at the Kents’ house she tries to get Clark to take her to prom and becomes upset when she discovers that Clark wants to take Lana.

Quite a bit of body snatching takes place. It goes something like this. Lana gets taken over and asks Clark to the prom. More importantly, she tries to kill her (Dawn’s) ex-boyfriend, but Clark saves him. More body snatching and Dawn’s spirit ends up at the hospital where she kills her own body upon finding out she was horribly disfigured. Actually, she didn’t look very disfigured at all. She just looked like she wasn’t wearing make up and had a few scratches.

Around this time Clark and Chloe figure out that Dawn’s spirit has been taking over people’s bodies. It’s kind of amusing because they don’t even consider any other option. Hey, Martha was acting kind of like Dawn and then Lana, too. Oh, I know it must be Dawn’s spirit possessing people. It’s so obvious. Duh.

Also, they don’t seem terribly concerned about this homicidal spirit running around invading people’s bodies. They just sort of go about their getting ready for prom business. I suppose after enough freakish events in one small town, you would start to get used to them and take them for granted.

Anyway, Dawn must make it to prom with Clark so she possesses Lois. How can Clark refuse her when she’s all dressed up and demanding that he has to go or regret it for the rest of his life. What’s the deal with that anyway? Do people really lie on their deathbeds and think, “Man, I’m about to kick the bucket and I really wish I had gone to prom all those years ago.”

At prom Dawn is thinking she’ll win prom queen, but instead Chloe is chosen. Naturally, Dawn takes over Chloe. In her speech she talks about how Dawn deserved this honor more. Then everyone starts to snicker and laugh. What’s wrong with these people at Smallville High? I mean, sure, Dawn was quite nasty, but who laughs about dead people? And it’s not as if they knew she tried to kill her ex. As far as they knew she was just mean and dead.

Dawn is not a fan of everyone laughing at her and finding out that nobody liked her. In the style of any psychotic prom queen, she grabs an axe from the corridor and decides to cause some damage. She starts out by whacking Mr. Kent in the face with the butt of the axe. Now, I have to mention that when Clark finds him and wakes him up he says, “Chloe wasn’t being herself,” as if she had just told a dirty joke instead of hitting him in the face with an axe. He didn’t really seem very concerned. Everyone in this episode is so ok with everything that’s going on. It was really quite funny.

Clark finds Chloe in a basement of the school where she has broken a valve releasing oil and is about to throw a fiery mop into the oil. During the next few minutes of the show the whole point is to keep the mop from starting a fire and/or blowing up part of the school. Yet somehow that mop ends up on the floor repeatedly and nothing happens. Clark even throws it on the floor after going to extremes to catch it.

Dawn enters Clarks’ body and starts talking big when Mr. Kent comes in with Kryptonite and tells Dawn to leave his body. Does Mr. Kent just walk around with Kryptonite in his pocket or what? Seems like that’s something he wouldn’t want to carry around. Anyway, Dawn leaves his body and sort of goes poof into the darkness. Now everyone can go back and enjoy the prom. Clark even gets to dance with Lana who shows up alone. Awww...

Oh, and one more thing that they didn’t spend much time on, but is probably important. The body of a woman named Bridget Crosby (that would be Margot Kidder's character) was found on Lex’s property. She was in touch with Lex about the artifacts. Jason sticks his nose in and even brings the sheriff to the site later on, but of course the body is gone. He then calls his mom and says that Lex took care of the body just like they knew he would. The assumption is, of course, that Jason and his mom had something to do with her death. I knew Jason was rubbing me the wrong way for a reason, now I know why. Scumbag.

Honda Dimitriu