Smallville Series Rewatch: Episode 1.9 (Day Four)
Episode 9 Rogue, original air date 1/15/2002, directed by David Carson, written by Mark Verheidan.
I just want the record to show that Mark Verheidan is a comics writer, and he has written for the Superman titles on several occasions, so when I see that he's written an episode, I know that he knows this character and will do him justice.
Holy obvious Anvil (#12), Batman: Say what you will about the Superman suit, but that "Alexander the Great" breastplate was a gaudy monstrosity. I just had a thought: now that we know that Kryptonians have been leaving things on Earth since ancient times (or they used a time wormhole to go back and leave things for Clark to find), did Alexander the Great somehow find one of the symbols/artifacts and that's why he used the House of El symbol on his breastplate? (By the way, there were, like, 4 anvils in that one 10 second scene between Clark and Lex.)
Lex invited Lana in more of his "covert" Clark-pimping plans. Too bad it backfired because Lana brought Whitney.
Random Fact: If Lex would just put Clark on a corner like I suggested in the last post, he would make a KILLING in Metropolis' redlight district. Clark could've shown Mia how to turn tricks with the best of 'em.
Lex refers to Whitney as Clark's "enemy" for Lana's affections. Clark insists that they aren't enemies, but Lex says "Keep your friends close and the quarterback closer". Now, while I'm of the camp that believes that Lex went after Lana in later seasons because it was the closest he was going to get to having Clark, it also makes sense that Lex adopted this philosophy in Season 4 when he started to display his feelings for Lana because he kept Jason close.
Enter victoria Hardwick, wow this chick got a lot of attention in Clex fics.
Stop! Freeze! An Anvil!(#13): Phelan's badge is in the shape of the \S/.
Clark steps outside for some air, but a bus driver has a heart attack while driving. Clark jumps in an stops the runaway bus that is barrelling towards a sleeping homeless man...and his dog. Clark thinks the dog is the only one that saw him, and he runs off as the museum party hurries outside to see what the commotion was. Phelan steps from around the bus, and it's unclear so far how much he's seen, but it turns out that its "a lot".
Credits
Clark tells his parents about the bus accident outside the museum. Jonathan asks "What if someone had seen you do it?" My initial reaction is "So you would rather he let some homeless person get mowed down by a bus to protect Clark's secret?" But...I'm trying to see Jonathan's perspective. Even still I can't help but wonder if a lot of the reason Clark stayed on the farm in seasons 6 and 7 is because of this kind of thinking from his father. Martha at least is being reasonable; she was the family mediator, wasn't she. And at least Jonathan stopped long enough to tell Clark he's proud of him, and we're rewarded with a sweet smile from our boy.
Meanwhile, back in Metropolis, Phelan is being a dirty cop looking for info on Clark. He has pictures of Clark and Lex at the museum. (Those pictures have been used in many-a Clex vid as "evidence", lol.)
Lex and Victoria at the mansion plotting against their neglectful fathers. I remember this plot not interesting me very much, but it was probably because it had nothing to do with Lex's obsession with Clark, but rather his obsession with beating Lionel...and while both obsessions led to Lex's downfall, it was the former that captured my slashy little heart at the time I started watching the show.
Clark and Chloe have a flirty moment until Lana (innocently, really) walks in. Chloe's face falls and I kind of feel bad for her, but not enough to tolerate her spiteful digs at Clark.
Principal Kwan walks in an tells Chloe that parents have been calling in about her article in the Torch (headline reads Smallville: Mutant Capital of the World). You'd think that with this being a school sponsered activity, they'd have a teacher sponser, so where was s/he before that article went to press? Doesn't the school principle have to give a final ok for these types of things? Where was he before that article went to press. But at the same time, Chloe is treating the Torch as her own personal sounding board (and like it's a real newspaper) rather than doing what she's supposed to be doing which is report on things that go on within the school. So Kwan suspends her until they find a new editor.
Random fact: Lex says that Smallville is "a couple of counties" away from Metropolis. Little does he know that the town has a meteor ability to shorten that distance.
Continuity Abounds: Phelan got paid by Lionel to have charges dropped and keep things out of the paper. Call back to X-Ray and Lex's conversations with Roger Nixon.
Lex tries to protect Clark by telling Phelan he knows nothing about him.
This goes to show how ruthless Phelan was: he dropped a frickin GENERATOR on top of a 14/15 year-old boy. But this is where my original argument about Jonathan is rendered moot because this is just the kind of people he's trying to protect his son from. And to think that there are actually worse people out there (Lionel, Checkmate).
I love that Clark immediately went to his parents with this. Martha suggests calling the police, but Clark says he IS the police. Clark apologizes to Jonathan, but God love him, Jonathan tells him that he didn't do anything wrong. This is why I miss Jonathan and can't stay mad at him for long periods of time.
Clark/Lex loft scene. Lex tells Clark that Phelan asked about him and he tells Clark that he knows Phelan and to stay away from him.
Are we supposed to assume that no one heard Jonathan say that Phelan dropped a generator on Clark?
Smallville Police records has Clark's name mentioned a lot.
"I want your son." Sounds like a sex offender to me. I need to be able to turn off my P.O. (Probation Officer) radar.
Oh, Jonathan we don't assault police officers (even dirty ones) in front of a room full of witnesses. You do that in your barn.
Clark is researching Phelan at the Torch. Lana walks in and informs Chloe that she has her job back at the Torch, but Kwan made Lana the editor. Chloe takes it the wrong way as if Lana is trying to steal her life (the Torch, Clark). Chloe is reasonably upset, but she's taking it out on Lana (and Clark when he tries to get her to see the good side of it) when she doesn't deserve it. *chants* She's a teenager, she's a teenager, she's a teenager*
Phelan is harassing Clark, threatening him to get in the car. Clark should've used the tried and true "STRANGER DANGER!!!"
I should probably be interested in this Lex/Victoria scene...but I'm not. Get back to Clark!
Phelan takes Clark to Metropolis. He tells Clark that the "bad guys" are Internal Affairs and that he wants Clark to retrieve some files. Know what's great about this scene? Clark outsmarted Phelan (first of two times he does that in this episode). He tossed the safe onto Phelan's car (Car Fatality #8) and called the cops. *hugs him*
Random Fact: Hey, whoever edited the scene with Clark x-raying the safe flipped the screen. I know Tom's face, and his beauty mark is supposed to be on his right cheek, not the left.
Unfortunately, Phelan had another trick up his sleeve. Why would Jonathan shoot a man and leave him in the barn just laying there. (Jonathan told Clark to call Bill Ross, but it's Pete's mom that's the judge. Is Bill Ross a lawyer?)
Wow, Clark is beyond pissed...and he's really scary when he's pissed. Even now when Tom is a newby actor, he has this thing going on with his eyes where they literally flash when he's angry. It's...freaky in a hot sort of way. But this scene is classic Angry!Superman. It's not OOC for Clark to get pissed because it does happen in the comics (Superman/Batman: Public Enemies/Superman/Absolute Power come to mind in particular. Or really, anytime Lois is in serious danger, lol).
I'm glad I'm watching the show more objectively because it feels nice to see Lana in a positive light. She really was just trying to help Chloe out, and she feels like she screwed everything up. But this was a good scene to show the potential Clark and Lana had to be really good friends. I mourn that.
Jonathan's "You cannot protect your mom and I by lying to us" sounds pretty hypocritical, though I get what he means. But I love this talk between them. Clark admitted to wanting to kill Phelan. This is why Superman is my favorite superhero/fictional character ever: not because be doesn't have the desire to kill his enemies, but because he has the very human emotions of anger, fear, and sometimes wrath, but he doesn't act on them. He knows that he CAN'T act on them because a) it would make him no better than the ones he's fighting and b) he has to be that example to the world, that symbol of hope. That's why he's a hero. (This is main reason Salvation kicked so much ass.)
Lex sees Clark walking past the Beanery and offers his help. But he's also, once again, asking Clark :What's [Phelan] got on you?" Now, while Lex could probably very well have helped, he has to learn boundaries. Clark has a secret he hasn't even told his very best friends Chloe and Pete, let alone the girl he's crushed on since kindergarten, so he's probably not going to tell the billionaire he met only three months ago.
Phelan is back. He's playing on Clark's naivete, poor pumpkin.
And Lex is following Phelan and Clark.
Why is Lex opening the newspaper stand to get the "bomb" while the rent-a-cops stand around watching?
Clark uses his brain again. He waits til Phelan gets his fingerprints all over the breastplate before he grabs it and tosses it out the museum.
"You may be strong, but you're not bulletproof"...well, maybe not yet, but he's faster than a, say it with me class...
This was the first time Clark dodged a bullet. I love how he looks as he watches it go past, like he can't believe he's that fast.
And as Phelan is dying, Lex is still trying to find out what Phelan knows about Clark. And Phelan seems to die just to spite Lex.
Jonathan is out of jail and we get a nice Kent family scene where Clark offers to stop using his abilities so that no one would try to come after their family like Phelan did. Martha tells him not to live in fear and that his gifts are a part of who he is. Good advice, Martha.
Lana grows a pair and publishes an article in the Torch about censorship. She points out that it meets Kwan's requirements when he questions her about it. Lana is a WAY better person than I, because after the way Chloe talked to her in the beginning, I would not have tried to do anything else for her. But Chloe confirms what we all knew, that she felt that Lana was trying to take Clark from her (as if he were a possession...kind of like how the Chlois fans feel), and she admits she was being irrational. Aww, I miss when Chloe's apologies were genuine.
Lex and Victoria again. This is another piece of evidence for how obsessed Lex was with Clark: he'd rather watch a security tape of a "blur" than have meaningless sex with Victoria. Shameful.
Conclusions: Yep, I still love this episode and it is definitely up there with Pilot, Hourglass, and Jitters. This was the first time Clark came face-to-face with just the type of person/people/situation his parents have been trying to protect him from. We saw Clark outsmart Phelan twice, and we truly saw for the first time why Clark HAS to be that "Boy Scout". He can't let that anger he felt with Phelan be the catalyst that makes him cross that line. Clark isn't above manhandling someone, but he won't go too far. He can't. He didn't like feeling like that, and you could see in his face that he didn't like feeling like he wanted to kill someone. Hey, so-called Superman fans, Clark/Kal-El/Superman does have human emotions. He's not an alien automaton; he was raised by humans and we've seen evidence that although Kryptonians like to think they are above just "petty" emotions, they are still capable of them. So to subscribe to the Silver Age notion that Superman is Superman because he NEVER gets angry, he NEVER wavers or doubts or feels rage...well, that's garbage. And truth be told, I wouldn't trust a superhero that doesn't have human emotions because that's the kind of person that will one day see himself as better than everyone and maybe even start to disregard human life because of it. That's when the superhero becomes the supervillain.
I don't know why I keep getting all editorial.
Minor quibbles are just things that didn't make sense plotwise, like the so-called police allowing a civilian (I don't care what Lex's last name is, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen) to open a potential bomb. That was just dumb and they could've just as easily wrote the scene to have a cop open the package while Lex watches.
Sam Phelan gets my third nomination for Most Competant Villain.
Anyway, Rogue gets an A-, a 4.5 out of 5.
I think I'm going to keep a tally of Clark's smart deeds because I'm petty and like to tell people to STFU *sweet innocent smile*