Smallville Series Rewatch: Episode 1.17-1.20 (Day Nine)
My mom decided to join me, so my thinky thoughts aren't so thinky (I didn't have the opportunity to pause and refllect while I type). But she's kind of adorable because she kept saying "where's the next one [episode]? Come on, you got me started, might as well keep going."
Episode 17 Reaper, original air date 4/23/2002, directed by Terrence O'Hara, written by Cameron Litvack
The episode has only just started and I'm remembering how it's one of my least favorites. I can already figure out what the problem is: it's not that they started the episode with a non-regular cast member, because it was successful in Jitters. It's that Tyler is not as compelling as Earl was, so I can't sympathize with his plight the way I could with Earl.
Dominic is back to get on Lex's nerve. He says that Lionel has spotted some accounting irregularities and sent Dominic to find out what Lex is spending his money on, since it isn't cars or women. I have a feelin I know where the money is going (can anyone say Cadmus?). Dominic later goes to see Jonathan and informs him that Lex is investigating Clark. So I was wrong about Cadmus; that's where the money went.
Clark and Jonathan are supposed to go on a fishing trip, but Clark thinks he's getting to old for it, so Lex offers to give them tickets to see the Sharks. Think Jonathan's gonna go for it? Yeah, me either. This is where we get a typical father/son argument. Clark, in typical teenage fashion, tells Jonathan that he never liked fishing and only did it to make Jonathan happy. It hurts to see them at odds because of how close they've been. When Lex goes to see Jonathan, Jonathan lets him know (without the aid of a flower) how he views Lex's relationship with his family. I'm wondering if Lex poisoning Dominic had anything to do with him jeapordizing Lex's friendship with Clark. Probably the truth is that Lex wanted to one-up his father again, but it's startling how many times the two motives seem to coinside. (The fact that Lex mentions Clark in a round about way to Lionel seems to confirm my first theory. OH, and he did poison Dominic because he "bothered the Kents". Damn, I'm good.)
Lana is crying and tells Clark that Whitney's father had another heart attack. I do love the Clark/Whitney scene though. It's interesting how Clark is the one person Whitney can talk to. And since it came after Clark's fight with his own father, both boys gain a new perspective from each other. And I love that Clark, instead of going to the Sharks game, asks Lex to help Whitney fulfill both his and his father's dream to see Whit playing with the Sharks (Lex will do anything for Clark, wouldn't he, even help Clark's "enemy"). And Jonathan got to see a good side to Lex. This is probably the most civil conversation they've had since the series started.
Conclusions: I could care less about the meteor freak this episode. The best stuff was the Jonathan/Clark/Lex and Clark/Whitney stuff that we got out of it. This is what I mean about starting to like Whitney, because notice that after Kinetic how much more civil he's been to Clark. He didn't even get grouchy that Lana asked Clark to talk to him about his father.
More smart!Clark: He realizes something is up at Mrs. Sykes house when there is no dog barking and he realizes who the culprit is when he finds the white rose that Tyler promised to bring her.
Favorite Quote: "When my father dies, Kings will come to his funeral, but when your's dies, his friends will come." This quote turned out to be only half true because no one came to Lex's funeral except Lex and Clark.
Episode 18 Drone, original air date 4/30/2002, directed by Michael Katleman, written by Michael Green & Philip Levens
This episode was about a overzealous girl that could control bees, but she was almost secondary so I won't talk about her.
After one of the candidates running for class president gets stung by over a hudred bees, Pete thinks it's a good idea to nominate Clark for the position. Ironically it's Clark's parents that push him to run for president. Of course Lana pushes him over the ledge. So we have Lana, who believes that Clark could do a good job, and Chloe who all but calls him a loser. Why doesn't Clark fall for Chloe again? They try to cover it by having Chloe be "principled". Why can't she for once be supportive?
On the other hand, Clark was unreasonable about Chloe's endorcement. She represents the "press" and she can't endorse Clark just because she's his friend, no matter what Washington may try to tell you. And Lana agrees with me, lol. And Clark being Clark apologizes to Chloe for overreacting.
In other news, the Beanery is playing dirty trying to put the Talon out of business. This is more proof that Lex could care less about the Talon. Clark has to push Lex to even just show up and support Lana. But he does give Lana some advice to "go to the mattresses" (my favorite movie, btw) and she solves the problem on her own and in a legal way.
I'm still liking this frienship between Clark and Lana. Can you imagine how great of friends they could've been without the drama?
Random Facts: Pete is the only one to point out Clark's full list of qualities "Looks, brains, and that farm-boy charm"
Anvils:
Paul's election posters had him dressed in Superman's gear, except the S obviously stands for Smallville
"Man of Tomorrow"
"Someday I'd like to be president"--Lex
Superman reference: "Shuster's Gorge"
Smart!Clark: Clark is the one that puts two and two together about Sasha controlling the bees. And his eidetic memory works again as he recalls information about hive mentality from watching Discovery channel, lol.
Episode 19 Crush, original air date 5/7/2002, directed by James Marshall, written by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar
So, the thing is I can completely sympathize with Justin because if I couldn't draw anymore because of an accident, I'd be depressed. I wouldn't start killing people, but I'd be depressed.
Chloe is pissed because Clark forgot to sign them up for the journalism conference. I'm actually with Chloe on this one, especially since he does blow her off for Lex and/or Lana. Chloe once again pits her two rivals for Clark's attention in the same category. Even with the hint from Ryan, Clark still doesn't catch on that Chloe has a crush on him. It takes Pete to point it out, which I guess if it comes directly from your best friend, you're more likely to get a clue. (But of course, Chloe takes it a step further because she has a tendency to be petty.) Now that Clark has a clue, he's starting to see Chloe as maybe more than a friend, and he's jealous of Justin and Chloe spending time together. Enter Lana, who learns that not only does Chloe like Clark, but Clark could possibly like Chloe, and now she's jealous.
Clark is suspicious of Justin though because of the article about his doctor losing his hands. The problem is that Clark is usually right about these things, which gets frustrating in later seasons because the girls always assume it's purely about jealousy.
We also meet Pamela in this episode, who used to be Lex's nanny, as Lex visits his mother's grave. Lionel had sent her away because she was too much of a positive influence on Lex. She came back for Lex's forgiveness because she's dying and wanted to repair their relationship.
Oh look, Whitney is smiling at Clark! Too bad that now that Whitney is likeable, Lana wants to dump him for Clark.
When Chloe learns about Justin's telekinesis, I think it was the writers way of saying that Chloe would be open-minded about Clark's secret.
I think this was the first time Clark read a book to try to understand humans, lol.
I miss the days when Chloe would apologize in the same episode as the "transgression" took place. What I love more is that Clark never rubs it in her face when she is wrong. Thus officially begins the Chlark. But Lana almost picks the wrong time to kill Chloe's happiness because Whitney's father has passed, and she would look like a supreme bitch if she broke up with him now.
Conclusions: Smallville's episode titles always have more than one meaning. Obviously Crush deals with this sort of Quadrangle of Clark's crush on Lana, Chloe's crush on Clark, Justin's crush on Chloe, and Clark finally thinking of Chloe as more than a friend...and how that prompts Lana to almost break up with Whitney until she's sucked back in due to guilt. This episode wasn't a shining moment for Lana because although she came across as supportive of Chlark, the fact that she seemingly lost Clark to Chloe was when she almost called it off with Whitney. I'm curious as to what she would've done if Whitney's father hadn't have died. Obviously she was going to break up with him, but was she going to come between Clark and Chloe? That never sat well with me.
Also, this wasn't the first time Clark has been shown as jealous of Chloe giving attention to someone else, but the one other time (Eric Summers) was because of Clark's powers (or lack thereof). Clark had been using his powers to save people and not taking credit for it, but for a brief time he saw how someone else with his powers was getting positive attention and I know it had to annoy him. So to have one of his best friends think more of this guy and less of himself would cause some jealousy. But here, Clark finally knows about Chloe's crush on him, and of course he's gonna start thinking about her differently. But as I've said, why would he think Chloe liked him at all considering the way she talks to him half the time. If I had a friend that took every other opportunity to talk down too or belittle me, I...probably wouldn't be friends with them. And she doesn't do it in a flirtatious or bantery (because banter implies give and take, and God forbid Clark give back to Chloe as good as she gives him. All hell would break loose in fandom).
Finally, Chloe. It's nice to see someone show her some positive attention because we finally got to see the softer side to her. It sucks that once again that attention was from a psycho. You'd think that after Sean Kelvin and Eric Summers, she would listen to Clark by now. And the sad thing is that this is not the last time either her or Lana pull the jealousy card on Clark when it comes to the guys they date. And the fucked up thing is that Clark is ALWAYS RIGHT.
Oh Well.
Ah, convenient head injury: Chloe meets a horseshoe just in time to miss Clark's superheroics.
Anvil: "I see you in a uniform flying."
Random Fact: I don't think anyone does rain scenes quite like Smallville's directors.
Episode 20 Obscura, original air date 5/14/2002, directed by Terrence O'Hara, written by Mark Verheiden & Michael Green
So, after the explosion, the first one to reach Lana was officer Watts. Lana has a vision of Chloe getting kidnaped outside of the hospital. Thanks to Lana's visions, Clark is able to find Chloe after she's buried alive.
The cousin whose dorm Chloe is crashing in can't be Lois, because she would then be too old. If it took Met U thre years to realize Lois never graduated high school, that would be ridiculous. And making a 21 year old go back to high school to get one credit is even more ridiculous.
Continuity from Zero: Mentioning the chemical spill
Nixon is the one that leads Lex to a man who had a front row seat to the meteor shower. Mr. Cole says he saw a ship crash, and Lex doesn't believe him...until they excavate the field. It isn't until this episode that Jonathan informs Clark that this was the same field that Clark's field crashed in. Jonathan is afraid Lex will come across something that could be traced back to Clark. And Dr. Hamilton comes to Lex with an octagonal disk. The disk is made of an alloy not found on Earth, and we cut immediately to a scene of the spaceship in the Kents cellar where the octagonal disk has a slot that fits it perfectly. The great thing about the disk is that it has survived continuity for 9 seasons.
"Slamming the door in [Lex's] face over and over only helps turn him into what you already think he is."--Clark to Jonathan. This is true, but the only problem with this quote is that even with Jonathan being reasonably unreasonable, Clark DID give Lex several chances, and Lex still went too far on one of them.
Random: Hey Gabe!
Clark tells Lana about the day he met Chloe, which we got to see in Abyss seven seasons later.
Sidebar: I LOVE the small clues to Clark's abilities with scenes like the one with Jonathan struggling to heft the bags of feed one at a time, while Clark is grabbing three or four at time.
Meanwhile, Whitney is going through his father's things and comes across his medals from fighting in Vietnam.
Smart!Clark: He calls Whitney to the Torch for help figuring out who Lana is psychically linked to at the explosion. Clark figures out (on his own, again) that because of the meteor rocks, whoever had gotten to Lana first after the explosion is the one she's connected to.
Well hell, I don't remember Nixon being at the carnival when everything went down.
Conclusions: Something that is worthy of note, Lex did tell Nixon to find what he could on Clark. Nevermind he put Clark on Nixon's radar in the first place. He may not have known how psycho Nixon would turn out to be, but that's almost irrelevant. He knows this is an unethical man that tried to blackmail him already. If Nixon has enough balls to blackmail the billionaire son of Lionel Luthor, why wouldn't he do the same to the son of a farmer? It's amazing how blinded by the shiny Clex I was that I can now see exactly what Lex had actually done in the first season. He really straddled the line and the only thing keeping him from going completely over was his love for Clark (I don't even mean that in a slashy way because Lex himself said in Arctic that he loves Clark like a brother...which was amazing even after everything they'd been through. And you can tell in Requiem that Clark felt the same after the way he scattered "Lex's" ashes.)
Look how far Clark and Whitney had come if Clark felt comfortable enough to call Whitney for help figuring out who Chloe's kidnapper was. That's progress, people.
The Chlark in this episode was pretty cute. Probably because Chloe wasn't snarking at him too roughly, and she was smiling and being human and stuff. Aww, it's amazing what a little Clark-attention will do for a girl.
This episode was the first time that the lone "meteor freak" was a full protagonist. In Craving and Jitters, the meteor freak was the victim, but they still hurt people, whether intentionally or not. In Hourglass, Hug, and Kinetic, there was an "innocent" meteor freak mixed with a morally deplorable one (Cassandra/Harry, Kyle/Bob, Whitney/Wade). But here Lana was infected and was completely innocent from beginning to end, also her antagonist wasn't one of the meteor infected at all. I wish that in later seasons the writers would've remembered that not all of the meteor infected were bad/crazy. So far season 1 has done a good job of showing that there are those that are true victims of their infections, and those that just take that power and run with it. And then we have Clark who is the counterbalance to that by using his powers to help people.