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Smallville
Cravings
airdate 11-27-01
Tired as we may be of the weekly krypto-freaks, it's important to remember, as this episode does, that most of the people in Smallville actually blame LuthorCorp for the strange goings-on, not the meteor shower.
At her family's nursery, Jodi Melville is very uncomfortable with her bad fat suit, or rather, her "appearance" and puts herself on a strict diet of glowy green vegetables. (See, Melville, because … yeah, you get it.) Her mother is dead, she's good at math and she has a crush on Pete, so her mental state was probably none too good even before the krypto-shakes started melting the weight away.
After losing 40 pounds and most of the fat suit overnight, she looks pretty good and asks Pete to go with her to Lana's big birthday party at Lex's mansion. But it's not enough, and she downs another shake, dropping to 110 pounds. Clearly this is the actress' real weight, and except for the piss-poor fat suit, she looked a lot better at 140.
Her appearance is the least of Jodi's concerns now, though; she's starving. Her super-metabolism leads her to furious bingeing: on junk food, on roadkill, and eventually on a boy who'd mocked her when she was fat but got hot for her new thin self.
Chloe favors the "fat-sucking vampire theory" for her Wall of Weird, but Clark worries more about what to give Lana for her birthday. With Whitney out of town, Clark is lined up to escort Lana to her party, which can only mean he'll be drawn away by another emergency. And once they divine the truth behind Jodi's weight loss (in about ten seconds), Clark is off to save Pete from a fat-free fate.
In addition to hosting Lana's party, Lex is going through a series of physical examinations and begins to investigate the meteor shower more thoroughly. Having lived through it, he's affected on a personal level. At the same time, if he can prove LuthorCorp's lack of involvement in the Wall of Weirdness, he is exonerated.
To that end, he contacts Dr. Hamilton, a reclusive scientist researching the effects of these mysterious meteors on cellular makeup. Everyone in town might think he's crazy, but Lex is willing to gamble on his research, albeit against Hamilton's own wishes. It's not clear how much the good doctor knows or suspects at this point, but this poor man's S.T.A.R. Labs will surely come up again.
Trying to make up for his absence at her party, Clark brings Lana to a makeshift "drive-in" on the side of his barn, where they watch Bugs Bunny cartoons, just like Lana did on her last happy birthday with her parents. He's starting to realize that he can't put Lana's happiness before his need to help people, and he's not sure he likes it.
Combining an entertaining show with a mythology is a challenge, certainly, and the balance is hard to maintain. At this point, the tables need to turn on Lex and LuthorCorp; surely the fertilizer plant can be proved responsible for something unsavory, otherwise it seems like the residents of Smallville just have their heads in the (glowy green) sand.
