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Smallville
airdate 01-15-02
Now that's more like it.
Some real character development, a lot of action and nary a Freak of the Week in sight - Smallville has moved on to its second batch of episodes and away from the krypto-fueled plotlines without sacrificing the spooky overtones. Clark, we are now reminded, is plenty weird on his own.
Vancouver again stands in for Metropolis, with Clark, Lana, and Whitney joining Lex at the Luthor wing of the Metropolis Art Museum. Despite the fact that Smallville clearly ain't in Kansas anymore (or Metropolis is), our little hayseed boys are still too far from home to be comfortable, so Clark ducks outside to put the wheels of the episode in motion… er, get some air.
He stops a bus from plowing into a sleeping homeless man, seen only by the man's dog - and a crooked cop named Phelan, intent on harnessing Clark's "gifts" as a means to his own ends. He has also been in Lionel Luthor's pocket for a while, getting Lex out of trouble in his "wild" younger days, but when confronted Lex doesn't really feel he owes this cop anything.
Even Phelan's suspicion that Clark is involved doesn't stir Lex's interest. Mostly because he's getting some… er, plotting to overthrow two major corporations with his old flame, Victoria, who also works for her father, a distant, hateful and very wealthy capitalist mogul. Rich kids have tough lives. And death wishes.
After one too many meteor stories, Principal Kwan reappears to oust Chloe from the school paper. Lana, trying to help, is named the new editor, because "that's what you get when you try to be a hero." Clark and Lana bemoan the things they screw up, just trying to help. They revive the theme-o-the-week returns by overusing the word "complicated."
Here's where it starts to move: Phelan drops heavy machinery on Clark, then asks for his help. Pa Kent meets up with Phelan and throttles him, saying "I will not let you exploit my son." Phelan deduces that Clark's parents are his weak spot, essentially kidnaps him, drives him to Metropolis and demands that he break into an Internal Affairs safe. Clark drops said safe on Phelan's car and runs away. Phelan retaliates by planting a dead body in the Kent barn and having Pa arrested and put in jail. Clark takes his turn wringing Phelan's neck.
It's the first time we've seen Clark lose his temper, and as his father later reminds him, he can't afford to do that. But he's just a teenager, and at every turn he's being encouraged to live a "normal" life, which ought to include the luxury of throwing a tantrum or punching the occasional wall. Jonathan, an admitted hothead himself, is beginning to realize that his son's life is about to get a lot more complicated.
Clark heads back to the Metropolis Art Museum to help Phelan steal a jewel-encrusted breastplate (its coiled snake coincidentally reminiscent of a stylized 'S'). Lex, his suspicious nature reawakened, follows them and arrives just in time to intercept the stolen goods as Clark hurls them out the window. Phelan dies before giving up Clark's secret to Lex, but it does put Lex back on the hunt.
Jonathan is summarily released, and he and Martha reject Clark's suggestion that he stop using his "gifts." (We cringe and beg them to just say 'powers' or 'superpowers' instead.) "Your gifts are who you are." Chloe is reinstated as editor of the Torch on a probationary basis (the newspaper is who she is), she and Lana are friends, and both of them deny their secret crushes on Clark. Lex spurns Victoria's offer to come to bed in favor of pausing digital security footage of the museum. Viewers exhale.
Yes, it was complicated. Clark does make his parents' lives more difficult, but they chose to take him in and keep him. Friendships make it hard to keep a secret, and secrets make it harder to trust anyone, even your friends. Superpowers make keeping your cool and losing your temper more challenging.
And really good episodes raise the bar for the rest of this season.
