THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 1
Score: 7.9 / 10 
10: Sinead Decrees 'Drive Safely' And It Is So
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.
A note before commencing:
In the 44th minute of this week's episode, Sinead uttered the following words:
"Drive safely"
Such is the respect for Sinead among the denizens of Smallville that his word is but law and, for this particular episode, they managed to curb their insane auto-maniacal tendencies. Kudos to Sinead and his concern for the community.
Approaching the problem from the other direction is Lana who, recognising that regular life-saving blood transfusions are a way of life in Smallville, is organising a blood drive.
Unfortunately for Lana her idiot boyfriend Whit does not want to provide any assistance whatsoever. He doesn't believe in blood and thinks that jabbing people with needles will only lead to hard drugs and grunge music, so refuses to be involved with it at all. A strong (if nonsensical) moral stance from Whit.
Naturally, Superlad takes the opportunity to step up to the mark. "Hey, Lana," he says. "I'll help you with your ghoulish blood-gathering." "Thanks, Superlad. That's so sweet." And then the nose-wrinkle thing. Poor Superlad. Such a pawn.
Back at Castle Luthor, Sinead is still getting it on with his British Babe, with the two of them planning to bring down one another's empires or undergarments or something. The details of the plan elude me but if it involves sharing a bath then it's surely a well thought out one.
In honour of the Britishness of his Babe, Sinead has managed to gather up some peasants to toil in the fields of his castle and provide various other basic functions of servitude, such as window-washing and mud-wrestling.
One of the peasants is some groupie who has the hots for Sinead and who therefore immediately steals his watch, as all servants and housekeepers are prone to do. (Disclaimer: clearly it is an exaggeration for humorous purposes to imply that all household workers are inveterate thieves. Obviously, many servants are honest and would never dream of stealing the belongings of their employers/overlords. A recent survey indicated that as many as 8% might fall into this category of honesty.)
Anyway, so when Superlad wanders over to Castle Luthor to brag about his new-found decision to (finally!!) make a move on Lana, he finds Sinead on hands and knees searching desperately for his watch. Superlad, ever eager to help, does a quick scan with the ol' X-Ray vision and can't see it anywhere and tells Sinead that "Nope. It's not about."
"What are you?" laughs Sinead. "Some form of super-optical person capable of spotting things that nobody else can spot?"
"Ummm..." says Superlad, backtracking swiftly. "No, it's one of the benefits of growing up on a farm... All farmers have X-Ray vision... I mean... not X-Ray vision, hahaha!! what am I saying?!?... no, all farmers have the other one... um, piglets and... uh... hoes." Phew, thinks Superlad. Got myself out of that pickle.
And indeed he has, for Sinead has paid no attention to his rambling whatsoever. So Superlad heads home and Sinead gives up on his watch to get a neck massage from British Babe.
(I forgot to mention that Sinead's peasant groupie hates British Babe... for obvious reasons. So she earlier spilled wine on her. "Oops, sorry!" she said but then while trying to clean it up spilled some cleaning fluid on her, and then a nearby vial of benzanoic acid. "I'm such a klutz!" she said, accidentally hurling some ninja stars at her. Is this relevant? Not at all.)
"Sadly, the verbal sparring does not escalate into swordplay"
Anyway, while Sinead's getting the neck massage from BB, who should show up but funny old Porthos Luthor, Sinead's Dad. He proceeds to verbally spar with Sinead about how BB is just using her sexual wiles to manipulate him. "I can't deny that," says Sinead, and sends BB off to run a bath. Sadly, the verbal sparring does not escalate into swordplay between the Luthor Senior and Junior (as it has so often in the past). But maybe next week.
The next night at Lana's place, Superlad is using his Super-Organising powers (one of the powers that is usually played down in the comic books) to convert Lana's shambolic blood drive into a super-efficient near-vampiric blood-extracting extravaganza. He also mentions in passing that he won't be donating. He could tell the truth that his enormously tough skin can not be penetrated by mere needles but instead opts to lie and claim that he's a needle wimp.
Against all odds, this tactic works and Lana decides that anybody scared of needles is probably worth slipping the tongue to. But before she can, Aunt Ricki comes out and shoos Superlad off. "Scat," she says, chasing after him with a broomstick. Before he disappears though he invites Lana over the next night to watch the sun set. 'Always with the sunsets,' thinks Lana. 'Can't this cheapskate ever spring for dinner and a movie?' But she smiles, wrinkles her nose cutely and says "sure".
So Superlad dashes over to Sinead's place the next night to tell him how he's going to make his move on Lana. "yes, yes, yes," says Sinead. "Just do it, already." (note: 'Just Do It' is a registered trademark of Nike, a wholly owned subsidiary of LuthorCorp.)
Then Sinead tells Superlad the story of his lost watch, how it was stolen from Napoleon Bonaparte when the big N was busying himself putting in stick figure representations of his dead mother into every painting in Paris. (Or something - I may have the details wrong, but the point is that it was a cool watch.)
And then British Babe has finally found the bathtub after a couple of days looking and has run herself a bath, disrobed and jumped in. Of course, a spooky invisible person immediately shows up and tries to drown her. Superlad dashes to the rescue, pulls the naked British Babe from the tub and has a bit of a fight with an invisible person - which is always spectacular visually - invisible fight-acting, great stuff.
Anyway, so what happens then?
BB heads back to Metropolis to have a bit of a rest. One does not expect to take a bath, be pushed under water by an invisible murderer and then regain consciousness in the buff being stood over by a super-powered teen. It's happened to me twice, and each time it's very unnerving.
"'I'm actually pretty cute, too, you know' she mutters beneath her breath."
TIAC takes Superlad aside and says to him "Y'know, if you go the pash on Lana it will change your friendship totally." "Well, duh!" says Superlad. TIAC looks at him, undisguised lust in her eyes. "I'm actually pretty cute, too, you know" she mutters beneath her breath. Superlad ignores her.
Superlad, in a gross abuse of the Superhero Hippocratic Oath spies on Whit and discovers that Whit's father has heart problems (he apparently keeps on searching for a heart of gold - this is known as Midas Heart Syndrome).
Lana, unaware of Whit's father's heart, encourages Superlad to pucker up and give her a big wet one while they're watching the sunset. Superlad, in a worrying display which shoots well past niceness and into suckerdom, tells her to instead go comfort Whit. Lana sighs and does so.
Then Sinead and Superlad finally discover that the Peasant Groupie stole Sinead's watch. She also has a bit of a shrine in her room with pictures of Sinead that have been digitally enhanced using Photoshop. While impressed and flattered, Sinead decides that his flirtation with keeping peasants inside the castle walls must come to an end and sends them packing - and at this point as they drive away utters his genre-shaking 'Drive Safely' phrase.
Peasant Groupie is upset at being banished and sings to herself as they are being driven (safely) away. "It's been seven hours and fifteen days Since u took your love away. I go out every night and sleep all day Since u took your love..." etc.
Then Peasant Groupie's invisible brother attacks Sinead and beats him up a little for being mean to his insane sister until Superlad wanders back and beats up the invisible boy and then (for a bit of a laugh) pours paint all over him. Oh Superlad, you can't do that on television.
And that's about it. A pretty good episode with a nude bathtub scene where you couldn't see anything - which is rather appropriate for a show about invisibility I feel. I shall invisibly write down a score after this colon:
Next week: TIAC ignores her own advice from this show and goes the pash on Superlad!! Also, Sinead orders everybody to 'Click-Clack, Front and Back'
Begone,
This here item has so far scored 7.9 / 10 on the patented Astonishing Tales Funny-o-meter.
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