THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 1
Score: 7.2 / 10 
16: Touch of the Reaper
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 rather strange Smallville this week. It starts with an old woman in a hospital bed. Her son comes in and she tells him to kill her. 'But mother,' he says. 'It's only appendicitis.' She doesn't care. 'Kill me anyway,' she says. He shrugs and starts smothering her with a pillow. A couple of nurses come in, get completely the wrong idea and throw the son out the window to his death, as standard hospital policy dictates.
Completely against standard policy, however, the son rises from the dead and turns the coroner into a pile of ash and then runs spookily into the opening credits.
Allrightey, so we have Sinead sitting in his office being audited by one of his father's accountants who wants to know just what, precisely, it is that Sinead spends all his time doing in Smallville.
"That's for me to know and you to find out," he says, loading up a quick game of Civilization on his laptop.
Elsewhere, Bo is getting everything ready for his annual fishing trip with Superlad. In a moment which has been circled in the script with an arrow to the hastily-scrawled word 'conflict' it is revealed that Superlad hates fishing, apparently because when you're fishing you have to sit very still as opposed to, like, running about at super-speed like an idiot.
But Superlad doesn't tell Bo this because he knows how much Bo looks forward to it, what with his lack of social life and boring wife and all.
Boring Old Ma instead has told Superlad to come help her deliver high-quality fertiliser to the elderly. "But I don't think they want it Ma," says Superlad. "They'll want what I tell them to want," says Boring Old Ma.
Guess who volunteers to help out too? That's right. Death Touch Boy. They go visit an old bag who is busy coughing up a spleen and Death Touch Boy is so inspired by this that he promises to come back the next day and 'give her a white rose', which is, of course, secret code for 'turn you to a pile of ashes'. Both Superlad and Boring Old Ma miss the secret code meaning. Oh, Smallville, how you must regret ostracising Alan Turing now.
Also, Whit's dad is dying again. Yawn. So Lana cries. So Superlad turns to putty. Yawn.
Sinead, meanwhile, listens obediently to Superlad tell him that he hates fishing and wishes he could get out of the lame fishing expedition with Bo.
"'Why not concoct a Machiavellian scheme in which you cunningly manipulate Bo, maneuvering him into a steel cage...'"
"Why not concoct a Machiavellian scheme in which you cunningly manipulate Bo, maneuvering him into a steel cage that will keep him incarcerated for the entire weekend, allowing you to do what you want?" suggests Sinead.
"Hmmmm..." says Superlad, a bit unsure. "Maybe..."
"Or how about I just give you tickets to a footy game instead?"
Superlad pounces. There are definite upsides to having billionaire best friends.
Anyway, Death Touch Boy has meanwhile gone over and given the death touch to yesterday's old bag. TIAC reads about it in the script and immediately decides to drag Superlad over there to investigate.
Which they do.
By this stage, Sinead's father's nosey accountant has wandered in to visit Bo, told him about how Sinead has been investigating them and this gets Bo so uppity that he tries to set fire to the nosey accountant with one of those weldy things.
So then Bo gives Superlad grief about Sinead a-spyin' on them. "I thought you'd be pleased," says Superlad. And then suddenly bursts out with "And besides, I hate fishing with you!" Which kind of throws everybody for a loop.
Next day, Sinead also shows up to say 'howdy there' and Bo rags on Sinead for investigating them. "Superlad said he thought you'd be pleased," says Sinead, and then storms out.
Meanwhile, Superlad has spoken to Whit and told him to go visit his dying dad. Whit says 'nope, ain't gonna do it. My dad always promised that he'd see me throw a pass for the Metropolis ManStallions football team one day and until he comes good on that promise I ain't going to waste time with his dying attitude.'
So Superlad instead goes to visit Sinead. (Everybody has at this point apparently forgotten all about Death Touch Boy) Sinead tells Superlad to go fishing with Bo. I think this was a touching counterpoint to Sinead's shambolic relationship with his own dad, funny old Porthos Luthor, because Porthos didn't let Sinead eat fish when he was a boy because he was bald... Maybe... I dunno. I kind of got bored with it all at that point because there weren't any car crashes.
Speaking of bored, Death Touch Boy tracks down Boring Old Ma and threatens to touch her, but doesn't, 'cause Superlad rocks up and punches him out instead. But not properly, because Death Lad Boy somehow escapes.
"...Death Lad Boy goes to kill Whit's dad, because he's sick of the whole Whit's Dying Dad subplot..."
And then for some reason Death Lad Boy goes to kill Whit's dad, because he's sick of the whole Whit's Dying Dad subplot and while nobody can really blame him, Superlad still beats him up and that's about it.
Oh, and Sinead drugs his father's nosey accountant, locks him in the boot (or 'trunk' as they say in America, and Zimbabwe Elephant Country) of the car and gives him back to Porthos. Which makes Porthos laugh. Which makes Sinead momentarily forget about his whole 'never-been-fishing' vibe.
I think. All a bit hazy.
Oh yeah, and also right at the very, very end, Superlad and Sinead play a really cruel prank on Whit's Dad, by whisking his drug-addled mind out of hospital and forcing him to watch the apparent debut of his son as the starting quarterback for the Metropolis ManStallions despite this all being just an elaborate hoax in one of the empty back fields of Smallville High. I have zero idea why they did this. Very strange. Very cruel. Very funny though.
Something very weird in the pacing of this week's episode. The more I think about it, the more I'm quite certain that nothing at all happened. And yet, an hour went by. OTOH, I was drugged out on anti-sinus medication as I was watching so I may very well have my noggin completely around the wrong direction of this particular episode. I will hence mark it 'Undecided', giving it a glorious benefit of the doubt.
Next week: Ummmmmmmmmmmm... Superlad gets a really bad sinus headache?
Begone,
This here item has so far scored 7.2 / 10 on the patented Astonishing Tales Funny-o-meter.
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