Smallville Series Rewatch: Episode 1.13-1.14 (Day Seven)
I lied about the "one paragraph" thing
Episode 13 Kintetic, original air date 2/26/2002, directed by Robert Singer, written by Philip Levens
There are three parts to this episode, none of which are directly related to Clark, but he's involved in all of them. I'll start with:
Lana: (because hers is the shortest) Lana walks into the Talon as Nell is packing things away. She says (again) that her parents met there and it means a lot to her. I wonder does Lana not have pictures of her parents to "hold on to"? Not to be mean, but Lex has a point when he says "So I'm supposed to preserve this monument to Lana Lang's sentimental memories." (I also can't help but think that if Clark had asked...) This is one of those scenes that directly contradicts the later-season assertions that Lex "always loved" Lana because he was pretty dismissive of her unless it came to Clark. There is a perfect example in Season 3 (Perry), but I'll save it for when I get there.
Lana and Clark talk about Whitney, and she later tells him about trying to get Lex to keep the Talon. Clark observes that Lex was probably not "rejecting" her but "challenging" her to get him to listen. So Clark, offscreen but it's implied, helps Lana with the plan to save the Talon. Instead of playing on sentiment, she gave Lex a business proposal. Lex asks how she came up with the plan, and Lana says that Clark gave her the idea with something he said wrt Lex. I may be reaching, but Lex seems to accept her proposal...after she mentions Clark.
Lex: Clark is manning a video camera as Chloe interviews Lex. The interview is a follow up to what happened in Jitters as Chloe asks about Level 3 (Continuity Abounds!) As the crooks are "phasing" through Lex's wall to the vault and stealing all sorts of crap, I'm wondering a) do they have a fence (because I watch too many caper movies, apparently) and b) why do the Luthors keep that much cash in the house? Anyway, the Burglary quickly turns into a Robbery as the crooks physically assault Clark and Chloe. Natch, Clark feels guilty that Chloe got hurt.
Sidebar: Why is lex always bringing the best "anyone" from Metropolis. Does he not have faith in Smalltown professionals? They went to medical/law school like everyone else in their field.
Anyway, Lex explains to Clark that the robbers took a disk that he doesn't want let known to the public, which is why he didn't call the police. Later the robbers meet Lex at the mansion and blackmail him, which leads us to...Whitney: Whitney at the beginning of the episode is "off" so to speak, but he doesn't tell Lana what his problem is. Ironically, Whitney does tell Clark that he lost his scholarship. He, in the same scene, meets Wade's crew and they invite him to a party. Clark is investigating the robbery, as Martha suggested, and discovers that Whitney has been hanging out with the tattoo guys, who he learned from Chloe were the ones that robbed Lex. After the failed drop with Lex, Whitney goes to Lana looking like a junky needing a fix. I wonder if it was Lana's idea to call Clark or Whitney's. Clark and Whitney go back to Wade's "lair" to find Lex's disk, but after Clark finds it, the crew comes back and Wade sticks his hand inside Clark's chest. Two of them leave with Whitney, leaving Clark in pain on the floor. Lex arrives and tasers the last member of the crew. Clark superspeeds away to find Whitney as Lex calls the police this time.
Clark arrives just in time to notice that Wade's tattoo has stopped glowing (no more phasing) and the second crew member drops a car on top of Wade and Whitney (thinking Wade will survive). Clark superspeeds Whitney out of the way and Wade is no more. Fortunately for them both, Lex called the police, telling them that Clark and Whitney were trying to play hero, thereby keeping them both out of trouble. Whitney's story is a thinly-veiled drug/gang metaphor. I think this is Smallville's PSA about joining gangs...and underage drinking. OH! And the tattoos are the equivalent to drug use. "You got the taste." (First of all, as someone with 3 tattoos, you don't let ANYONE ink you up without a template.) Drugs/Knite tattoos makes you jump in front of Mack trucks. Or it makes your friends throw you in front of one. Clark, for his part, is genuinely concerned about Whitney and it has nothing to do with Lana this time. He says he couldn't stop what happened to Chloe, but he can stop it from happening to Whitney. In another life where Clark isn't in love with Lana, he and Whitney could've been good friends. I wish there had been a last scene with Clark and Whitney to cement that maybe his opinion of Clark had changed, but I think subsequent episodes clarified that, so I'll let it go.
Random Things:
This may be the first time this season that Chloe was tolerable and semi-cute. I liked her "blaming" Clark for the Chicago fire and the fall of the Roman Empire. It was cute and pointed out how ludicrous Clark's guilty conscience is.
I'm still trying to understand how the k-nite works because THIS time it's speeding up the robbers metabolism so that they're molecules are moving at hyperspeed, allowing them to phase through solid objects...yeah. And how many meteor freaks does Pete have to see before he stops calling Chloe's theories "crazy"?
Anvil #18: "Clark Kent, investigative reporter."--Chloe
Jesus Christ!: Lex says that Clark can't save everyone, otherwise he'll end up with a "messiah complex"
Favorite Quote
Chloe: "These so called health-care professionals, all they want me to do is stay in bed and eat Jell-o"
Clark: "Those fascists."
Lex makes a patented Lex Luthor threat to the robbers.
"[Whitney's] taking it one day at a time." More drug-use parallels.
Episode 14 Zero, original air date 3/12/2002, directed by Michael Katleman, written by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar
Lex: Finally all of those hints at Lex's "wild youth" get some light shed on them in this episode. This is also the first time Smallville has done the "so-much-tme earlier" episode. (I'm wondering if Club Zero is the same place that became Club Atlantis.) Okay, so 3 years ago (Lex is 18, and since they are serving alcohol, I'm sure he isn't supposed to be there...unless your last name is Luthor) and Lex purposefully brings Amanda to Club Zero to catch her fiance Jude cheating on her. This leads to VERY bad consequences...ironically because Club Zero's motto is "Zero Consequences". We see the stabbing that Toby alluded to in Hug. According to Lex's version of the story, his bodyguard is the one that killed Jude. "JUde" is the one holding Lex hostage...upside down in a straightjacket.
"One Week earlier" and Lex is approached by the bodyguard/friend. He says he's seen "Jude" and Lex says it's not possible. Lex gets rid of him when he sees Clark walking up. They go into the Talon where Lana tells them about "Jude". Lex is not amused, but he plays it cool...until he gets in his car. "Jude" is messing with him. Clark wants to know what's going on, but Lex rightfully says that it doesn't concern him. Lex is trying to keep Clark out of it (at this point it's to keep a secret, later it's to protect Clark) in an interesting role reversal to Rogue (both episodes involving Phelan). At this point it's not any of Clark's business. But Lex says, hypocritically, that for the sake of their friendship to leave it alone, that some secrets are best kept hidden. It's not technically Lex's fault since it wasn't really LuthorCorp that dumped on the Kents property, but Clark correctly guesses it has to do with Club Zero and that this isn't just Lex's problem anymore. I really feel bad for Lex because for all his ambiguity, he was never out to hurt Clark or his family at this point in the series. Clark is probably the only person he genuinely cares for, and he's already stated in Cool that he considers Clark as his little brother. So while Lex thought he had the situation under control (even with a severed hand), he realized he lost control when Clark and his family were affected.
In the end, just as "Jude" (who has kidnapped Lex) is about to shoot Lex, "Jude" is shot by...the contractor. Who turns out to be Amanda's brother (from Central City). We and Lex learn that Amanda committed suicide and the brother blames Lex for it. The "Jude" guy is just a dead-ringer and not at all the real Jude. Finally Lex tells the truth about Jude's death. It was Amanda the whole time that shot Jude, and Lex was protecting her. This makes more sense why she committed suicide. Fortunately Clark, having found out who "Jude" really is NOT, gets to the club in time to save Lex and stop the bad guy (all in superspeed and without Lex seeing). Clark says he found Lex with "a little help from my friends." Everybody join me in a Beatles singalong.
At the Talon opening, Clark and Lex talk and Lex explains that he took the fall for Amanda, because he would do anything to protect his friends.
Clark/Chloe: We have the Smallville Scooby Gang (not to be confused with the Sunnydale Scooby Gang) in the halls of Smallville high discussing a class project where they have to interview their classmates. Chloe got Clark, Clark got Lana (story of the next 4 seasons). Chloe, for her part of the assignment, interviews the Kents while Clark is out and is asking about his adoption. This is the first indication that something was off about the Kents adoption of Clark/Kal-El. Chloe is so intrigued by some possible information about Clark that she isn't even jumping on the fact that there was a severed hand in a box at the Talon. At the Torch, Chloe tells Clark that she did her own research on him since he wasn't around to interview. She discovered that Metropolis United Charities were the ones that handled his adoption, and only his adoption. As you can imagine, Clark blows up because, yes, Chloe is prying into his private life without his permission when that's not what the assignment calls for. Should he have been more accomodating with the assignment? Yes, but what right does Chloe have to treat a simple interview as if this were 60 minutes. "I'm not some mystery for you to solve." Now I would probably be more forgiving and say that Clark could've been more reasonable and understand that Chloe went too far. She even goes to the farm and is contrite enough to admit she was wrong and offer to back off. Clark is even just as contrite and admits that he's done the same thing Chloe did by researching Lex's past the way Chloe researched Clark's.
Shut the front door, but this is where I officially wrote Chloe off. What was so fascinating to her about this adoption thing that she would rather betray Clark's friendship by saving the documents? Why was it any of her business. Clark flat out said he didn't want to find his parents even though he was curious about them, but that's not her responsibility to do it for him. No one's life was at stake, and it never got to be "her problem". So this is where I officially never wanted her anywhere near Clark's secret because she couldn't even be trusted with the secret of his adoption. What if that info got out and someone with more pull looked into Clark's adoption? This was some of the first indications that Chloe and Lex's stories wrt Clark's secret paralleled, and this is why I'm equally ticked with both of them.
Lana: Lana's part of the story is pretty much peripheral with her preparing the Talon for the reopening and that "Jude" guy shows up asking for an application. He inquires about Lex, who is part owner in the Talon, and he warns Lana to stay away from him. When Lex and Clark walk in, she's weirded out...natch. After the "hand" incident later that night, Lana is even more suspicious of Lex. Clark gives Lana an old picture of the Talon as a gift. Her part of the story was just to serve the purpose of showing how Lex's past has caught up to not only him, but is extending to the people in his lives, both professional (Lana) and personal (Clark).
Conclusions: For all we like to blame Al and Miles for the destruction of Clark's character (and it's still true to this day), they did write some good episodes.
This is back in the day when all the story plotpoints intersected...in every episode. Most of the key characters were used either directly or indirectly to tell the overarching story of the Club Zero debacle. I love the continuity in this episode. From Nixon first mentioning Club Zero, to Phelan's involvment, to the veiled Toby mention (which you wouldn't get unless you've seen Hug). This was the first episode where Clark truly saw for the first time what a friendship with Lex entails. This was just one incident, but due to the fact that Lionel often had to get Lex out of trouble with the law, incidents like this could crop up all over again any day. And in later seasons they do. Although Lex's direct part in the incident was pretty tame (exposing a cheating boyfriend), you get the impression that Lex has done a range of ambiguous to immoral deeds in his past and he's trying to rectify that by not getting back into that scene and trying to do right by the town of Smallville through his management of the plant. The problem is that Lex doesn't realize he's falling back into old habits by inadvertently playing his father's game, and by investigating Clark.
We also get the first indication that Pete doesn't like Lex, and while I'm now seeing all the threads of Lex's...ambiguity without my rose-colored Clexy glasses on, I still don't see how Pete could blame Lex for what Lionel did to the Rosses. So it all points to jealousy that Lex and Clark are so close. Chloe will also display this jealousy of Clark's friendships with Lex.
Worthy of Note: When Clark is looking for Lex, he calls the mansion, the office, and his cell. What kind of 21-year old non-relative gives his 14-year-old friend all of his contact information, LOL!! I love how slashy this show is.
It's also important to note that Clark says he doesn't blame Lex and he continues to defend Lex to his parents and others, because Clark tries to look for the best in people. This is a pattern that will follow Clark even with his dealings with Clone!Zod. Even in Salvation, Clark tries one last time to get through to Zod, just as Clark continued to look for the best in Lex even in the episode Fractured. But in both cases, Clark had to accept the inevitable when both men went too far. No matter what some fans will tell you, Clark DID give Lex several chances, but when Lex went too far by endangering Clark's family to confirm Clark's secret (5.2 Mortal), Clark had had enough. But even after that, Clark still cared about him. Even when Lex and Lana were together, Clark went to the hospital to see if Lex was alright (Season 5, Fade). Hell, even in Cure (7.4?), at one of the points Clark thought Lex was a lost cause, he still went to the hospital to make sure Lex was alright. And might I mention that when Clark died (DIED!), all Lex cared about were Clark's medical records.
Favorite Quote
Clark: "We were 6-years-old, twice our size was 3 feet tall."