Thankfully, Smallville this week didn’t bash us on the head with an overly obvious and contrived Halloween theme. What we got was a harvest-themed episode and some development concerning Lois and Clark’s new dynamics as well as Tess and her efforts at raising this new child that’s been brought into her little world of secrets. Be prepared for spoilers after the jump, of course.
The episode started off with an expectantly humorous and endearing exchange between our two protagonists as they make light of everything that Clark’s life entails. One flat tire later and they end up stranded by the side of the road in front of what appears at a glance to be a rickety old house where an unassuming little girl offers to watch over Lois while Clark is forced to hoof it (at everyday person speed) down the road to retrieve a new tire for the car. Upon his return, Lois has disappeared – she’s been taken on a carriage ride back to the girl’s village to have dinner with the folks while the annual harvest festival kicks off. Clark is left confused as a police officer tries to calm him down, assuring that his girlfriend is likely just on her way back home. When Clark realizes that their tire was popped by a chunk of wood with nails that just happened to be sitting on the road, suspicions flare. It’s at this point that we realize the little twist with the episode: the village resides near a body of water that was impacted by blue Kryptonite, meaning its people all have traces of it running through their system. Essentially, this sets things up to be an episode where Lois is given an excuse to show Clark that she can in fact take care of herself – to a point, at least.
It was very entertaining to see the new mechanics of the relationship between Clark and Lois, which is dashed with humor and spice at every impasse. At least this episode didn’t have a token villain – just a whole village of unfortunately creepy zealots who sacrifice girls every year to commemorate when a meteor rock destroyed one of their own. Every since the girl’s death, twenty years ago, they’ve been blessed by the mystical powers of the Krytonite, and decided in their super religiousness that obviously this was a result of the girl’s sacrifice. I don’t particularly appreciate how religious folks get portrayed in this manner, but I’m sure there are some people like this out there in the world. In either case, it didn’t feel quite as forced and ridiculous as previous episodes, and allowed for some very charming and amusing interactions between Lois and Clark.
On the other token, we are given more insight into the development of our little Alexander Luthor, who decides that his real name is Lex, much to Tess’s disapproval. It seems that Lex’s DNA wasn’t the only thing copied over – this little Lex actually has his memories, too, meaning he’s pretty ticked at Clark Kent, and is aware of his powers, viewing him as a threat. Tess struggles to control this but to no avail, and eventually her anger gives in when she strikes the child. It all promotes the message about Lex’s character we’ve been shown from the beginning – he just seems fated to be a corrupted human being. Using a clone to prove this point may be a bit much but the writers have already dug themselves a whole so they might as well find their out of it, I suppose. I’m not a big fan of this entire plot device but after this episode, I have a better sense of where it could be heading and how it could still end up making…’sense.’ Enough sense, anyway. The actors played their parts, the plot wasn’t too ham-fisted and offered some romance, humor, and some serious plot development concerning our favorite bald villain.
