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Smallville
airdate 10/30/01
This week's episode of Smallville tackles the newest of the great eternal questions: Can a successful high school football coach not be an evil bastard? Can a man about to reach a great milestone in his career and capture the division title just be a really good guy who knows the game and cares about his players?
Uh, duh. You saw Varsity Blues. You saw The Faculty. And while Dan Lauria is neither Jon Voight nor Robert Patrick, he does fall somewhere in between as Coach Walt Arnold, 25-year veteran coach of the Smallville High Crows and - surprise! - another meteor-mutated freak.
Five years spent in his personal sweat box, pouring hot water on Kryptonian planetary fragments and breathing in the green steam has given Coach Walt something of a talent for pyrokinesis. He sets the principal's car on fire after several of his players are suspended for cheating, though it's not entirely clear if this first blaze was intentional. The later incidents, with sprinklers shooting flames and a fire that traps Chloe in the newspaper office, are certainly very calculated.
Who? Oh, Clark. Right. Well, he's joined the football team, against his father's wishes, but really only to serve this week's theme of adolescent uncertainty and blossoming independence. And to give him a good excuse to save the principal from his burning car. Lana, meanwhile, quits the cheerleading squad and goes to work at a coffee house; Lex tries to stand up to his father (John Glover! Yay! More John Glover, please!) and struggles to find his own spine.
So they're all striking out on their own, risking being led astray and making mistakes while their respective guardians are torn between a desire to protect their young charges and the reality that they must eventually let go. The Kents are particularly reluctant, knowing the potential consequences are much greater for Clark, especially on the football field. But they have to trust his judgement; they've raised him to be his own man, and now he's becoming one, even though Father still knows best.
As for Coach Walt, he descends into madness pretty quickly, locking Clark in the steam room with the hot meteors when confronted with his own complicity in the cheating scandal, then chasing Clark and Pa Kent around the locker room before finally losing control and burning himself to a crisp. Clark quits football, Lana gets fired, and Lex finds a way to defy his father's instructions but not his intent. None of them are ready to be on their own yet, which is particularly interesting considering that Lex is, in fact, a college graduate six years older than Clark and Lana.
The chemistry and characterization of the three leads (Tom Welling, Kristin Kreuk and Michael Rosenbaum) is growing stronger as the actors find their strides. The scene between the three in the coffee shop was natural and interesting, despite a predictable punchline about Lana's poor waitressing skills.
Smallville took a step back from the Wall of Weird this week, and moved in the direction of early Buffy episodes, where standard high school traumas take on a slightly paranormal cast without losing the base emotions. It's a better show for it, and it looks to continue with next week's episode - in super X-Ray vision!
