Dan Liebke's Astonishing Tales

Starring Clark Kent (Tom Welling) as Superlad, Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) as Sinead, Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) as TIAC, Jonathan Kent (John Schneider) as Bo, Martha Kent (Annette O’Toole) as Boring Old Ma, Lionel Luthor (John Glover) as Porthos, Kara Kent (Laura Vandervoort) as SBH and Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) as herself. For more information on these people and more, consult the scorecard.

An exciting parable about eating disorders is the subject of this week’s episode of Smallville. And about time too, I say.

We open with some fat girl being unhappy about her appearance. She has clearly been influenced by women’s magazines and their worship of the painfully thin supermodel. In a happily ironic twist, however, this self-same magazine contains a ‘Kilo-Killing Kryptonite Krash Diet’ which the fat girl pounces on with gusto. Sometimes evil contains the seed of good, and vice versa. (It also contains ‘Seven Sizzling Sex Tips To Satisfy Your Super-Stallion’ but that doesn’t seem relevant.)

Also, it’s Lana’s birthday on Saturday and she plans to throw one ripsnorting party at Sinead’s mansion. I’m not sure Sinead is aware of this but he’s an easygoing kind of teen billionaire. He’ll adapt.

Sadly, Lana’s idiot football-playing boyfriend Whit has been accepted to try out for the LA Dodgers, and so drives over to tell her he won’t be able to make it to the party. Lana doesn’t have the heart to tell him that the Dodgers play baseball, so just starts kissing him passionately and groping him.

Superlad, forced to witness this, decides to head elsewhere. The love of a babe for an idiot is always a magical thing to observe, but that doesn’t mean he has to put up with it. “Seeya,” he says. They ignore him and continue their gropefest.

We have also by now had the obligatory ‘teasing the fat chick’ scene. Good Ol’ Pete and The Increasingly Annoying Chloe disapprove of such behaviour, but don’t actually do anything to prevent it. Fat Girl runs off.

She heads home and blends up some kryptonite juice, which she consumes eagerly. She heads to the bathroom scales and before you can sing the 80s pop classic Skinny Girls, she immediately loses 30 pounds. ‘What a fantastic diet!’ she thinks. ‘Now, about those sex tips…’

Back to school the next day and the new Skinny Girl is dazzling all, especially a dumbstruck and horny Pete, who (with the assistance of Superlad, acting as some form of Super-Puppeteer) agrees to take her to Lana’s birthday do.

Lana meets up with Superlad after school and he suggests that, seeing as Whit is off trying out for the Dodgers, he (Superlad) might agree to be her escort for the evening and perhaps fill in on some of the groping activities with which Whit normally assists.

“That would be nice, Superlad. Thanks,”says Lana, who is developing into quite the two-timer.

“I promise I won’t stand you up by rescuing any of my idiot friends like I did a few weeks ago,” lies Superlad.

“You’d better not.”

Lana disappears and Superlad asks Ma Kent for an opinion on what kind of present he should get for Lana’s birthday.

“Well, my mother used to always say that the best gifts were ones that come from the heart,”says boring old Ma Kent.

‘I should give her some of my blood?!?’ says Superlad.

“I should give her some of my blood?!?” says Superlad.

Meanwhile, Skinny Girl has decided that she is still insufficiently skinny and knocks down another brew of kryptonite juice. This brew does not go down as well as the first one and now she becomes too skinny and so decides to binge.

When the binge doesn’t satiate her, she immediately panics and gets into a car. With obvious consequences.

This week’s car crash is with a deer and once she has recovered from the collision, she thinks ‘Mmmmm… venison‘ and digs in.

Nothing much of interest happens after that. Sinead shows up at school and chats with TIAC and Superlad about the weird shenanigans of Smallville. “What weird shenanigans?” asks Sinead. “What small country town doesn’t have a bald millionaire teen playboy, wielding invisible spheres of influence wherever he goes?”

But his curiosity is sufficiently piqued to go visit some crazy old scientist on the outskirts of town and offer him money. Not exactly clear why, but Sinead’s motives are his own.

Also, Skinny Girl, having eaten venison, takes the inevitable next step of cannibalism and sucks all the fat out of the guy who made fun of her the other day, leaving him a husk of a cretin.

So now it’s Lana’s birthday and Good Ol’ Pete has shown up to take Skinny Girl to the party. There’s some nervous flirting and then Skinny Girl realises that her insatiable metabolism will soon compel her to consume yet more fat. Her stomach rumbles and she looks unwell.

“Maybe we should take you to a doctor,” says Good Ol’ Pete.

“No, Pete. Please. Just let me be. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop myself from sucking your fat.” And she runs inside.

Well, that wakes Good Ol’ Pete up and he follows her inside.

All of a sudden, TIAC shows up with a copy of this week’s script and points out how Good Ol’ Pete is in danger.

Back at the Kent Farm, Superlad is getting ready to dazzle Lana with his Super-Charm.All of a sudden, TIAC shows up with a copy of this week’s script and points out how Good Ol’ Pete is in danger.

“Oh, bloody hell,” says Superlad. “Can’t any of you people look after yourself?”

“Haha! Good one, Superlad,” saysTIAC.

So off Superlad dashes to Skinny Girl’s house and there’s the obligatory fight scene (fight, Kryptonite, weakness, then no Kryptonite, no weakness, Superlad wins) although this time, Skinny Girl decides to blow up a greenhouse as well in the process, whic hwas a bit dangerous but nobody seemed to mind so much.

But Superlad has, of course, stood Lana up again with his heroic antics. Sinead tries to cover for him – “hey, Lana,” he says. “Boy, I think it’s a real sign of devotion that somebody as super as Superlad would go out of his way to be so very fashionably late on your birthday. Must make you feel special.”

Lana almost buys it. Boy, Sinead is slick.

Superlad eventually shows up well after the party is over and gives Lana a present – a private screening of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. (There was some relevance to this, something to do with drive-ins and childhood memories, but I think Superlad kinda ruined the mood by singing along at the top of his lungs to Kill Da Wabbit and mimicking the Elmer Fudd laugh long after it ceased being funny.)

Sinead sees this and slaps his forehead in dismay. What a doofus, he thinks.

A rather average episode. A powerful message on eating disorders and how they inevitably lead to cannibalism and stomach cramps, but not much more to offer than that. I give it a not so super 6 out of 10 and look super-heroically forward to…

Next Week: Superlad blows his cover. Also, another car crash!

Discuss this episode at KryptonSite

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