THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 1
Score: 7.5 / 10 
17: Let It Bee
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 bee-autiful episode of Smallville this week. It's class president election time and, much like most US Presidential elections, the choice has boiled down to the qualified nerd candidate, the glamorous style-over-substance candidate and a person with mental control over bees.
In this election, Bee Girl is determined (much like George W Bush in 2000) to use her insect overlord powers to destroy her fellow candidates. Wisely, she starts with the qualified nerd candidate and sends her bee minions off to sting him really, really badly.
Opening credits roll.
Meanwhile, Sinead is driving along, wondering where all the car accidents have been recently. Did he reinvoke his 'Drive Safely' decree and forget? The nearest thing he can find to a car accident is a hot babe with car troubles pulled over at the side of the road.
Like the noble, bald gent that he is, Sinead leaps out of his car and calls for assistance for the hot babe. They get to chatting and flirting in typical Sinead style. And then Sinead deduces that this is no hot babe with car troubles! This is a hot babe who is a reporter pretending to have car troubles! Sinead won't stand for that and roars off magnificently and with no comment.
Back at Smallville High, Good Ol' Pete has decided to nominate Superlad for Class President. TIAC thinks it's a fantastic idea as she would love to be his Marilyn Monroe. She purrs a sultry version of Happy Birthday, Mr President to him.
"It's not my birthday, TIAC," says Superlad, rather missing the point. He turns to Good Ol' Pete. "Chicks," he says, shaking his head.
Superlad then vows to drop out of the Presidential Race, because he doesn't want to be in the spotlight. Pshaw! This from a man who will spend his future days running around in a skin-tight red and blue uniform with a great big cape.
He heads home to tell Bo and Ma about how Good Ol' Pete nominated him for President but he's going to quit.
Boring Old Ma doesn't like the sound of that. "Why don't you run for President, Superlad? It might be fun."
"Yes," agrees Bo, and then tries to be wise. "Besides, once you start quitting things, it's awfully hard to quit quitting them."
Hmmm, thinks Superlad. "What about smoking? Lots of people try to quit that, and then quit their quitting."
"Yes, okay, Superlad," says Bo.
"And alcoholics. They try to quit drinking and then just quit their quitting. And people who eat too much junk food. And drug addicts. And people who listen to swing music--"
"That's enough, Superlad. Your point is made."
"In fact, most people quit quitting rather easily."
"Okay," says Bo, really fed up now. "Go to your room."
"...he has superpowers so what makes Bo think he's so tough, just because he was a Duke brother..."
And Superlad does so, mumbling the whole way about how it's not his fault that Bo's attempt at wisdom didn't work out and how besides he has superpowers so what makes Bo think he's so tough, just because he was a Duke brother who used to drive the General Lee so fast and what happened to the General Lee anyway and... etc.
"Bo, you can't keep sending Superlad to his room every time he denigrates your 'wisdom'," says Boring Old Ma. "He spends too much time there. It's too much solitude."
"Oh yeah??" sneers Bo. "Maybe you can go to your room, too." And Boring Old Ma slinks off. Bo smiles to himself. "I'll bring down a veritable fortress of solitude on you all if I have to." And then he gets in the General Lee and does a few circuits of the town for old times sake.
So Superlad goes to visit Lana, whose stupid theatre cafe thing is doing poor business and about to go broke. Superlad feigns interest for a bit and then Lana tells him not to quit running for President (Superlad leaps to the assumption that this is because she's been feeling rather Lewinsky-ish recently... hope springs eternal.)
And then he visits Sinead who reveals that he once ran for Class President.
"Did you win?" says Superlad.
Sinead just looks at him.
"Sorry," says Superlad. "Dumb question."
Then Sinead suggests a new slogan. 'Superlad - The Man of Tomorrow!'
"I like it," says Superlad. "Or... how about 'Superlad - Last Son of Krypton!'"
Sinead stares blankly at him.
"Or your idea," says Superlad. "Let's go with your idea."
So they do and Superlad is in the race and TIAC gets all jealous and thingey because she's read the script and flipped back a couple of pages and seen that Superlad's only doing it because he thinks that he might pull Lana if he's a politician.
And Good Ol' Pete is campaigning away heartily.
And then, of course, Bee Girl (remember her?) sends her bees to attack the other, really popular, style-over-substance candidate.
So this makes Superlad and TIAC a bit suspicious and TIAC digs around in the script and finds out the pseudo-scientific basis for Bee Girl's control of bees and that's all very interesting. (Apparently she was watching an episode of Sesame Street brought to you by the letter 'B' while munching on a Kryptonite bar. Or something.)
Meanwhile, the Hot Babe Reporter sneaks into Sinead's mansion and gives him a massage so he agrees to be interviewed. Perfectly understandable. I, too, am most comfortable with the press when they are working on my tight neck muscles.
Superlad has wandered over to Lana's deserted cafe again to work on his victory speech. (Oh, almost forgot. TIAC is sufficiently annoyed by Superlad's ongoing ignorance of her lust that she has punished him by endorsing the nerd candidate. Superlad is cross about this.)
"'What are you on about?' says Lana. And smiles cutely."
"How about this?" says Superlad. "'Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look, up in the sky, its a bird, its a plane, No! Its Superlad! Superlad, strange visitor from another planet, brought to earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superlad, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and who disguised as Clark Kent, a mild mannered student for a lame Smallville High School, fights a never ending battle for truth, justice, and... other stuff.'"
"What are you on about?" says Lana. And smiles cutely.
And then bees show up and Superlad throws Lana into a cupboard before killing all the bees with some Bee Swarm Remover he found in a different cupboard.
The next day he heads off to look for Bee Girl, who tells him he'd better drop out of the race.
"Nope. Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture," says Superlad.
Back at Lana's cafe, Sinead drops in and advises Lana to get nasty and destroy her competition if she wants to make her cafe a success and then heads off to destroy the Babe Reporter who did a hatchet job on him.
Which of course he does by promoting her (?). Not sure how this works, but I'm sure Sinead has something cunning in store. Or perhaps he just wants to utilise her massage skills more often. Who can say.
Anyway, Superlad runs off to Bee Girl's house. Bee Girl sends her bees off to kill Boring Old Ma, who is driving a tractor in a tediously safe fashion. Superlad dashes off, saves Boring Old Ma then runs back and inexplicably blows up Bee Girl's barn. Which kills the bees, sure, but, um, also destroys the barn! Not Superlad's most brilliantly thought out plan.
And, of course, Superlad loses the election to the boring nerd candidate, but becomes friends again with TIAC. They have a party at Lana's cafe which is now bursting with customers because Lana put RatSak in the salt shakers of her competitors! Hahaha! Nice one, Lana.
That's about it. An okay kind of episode. I give it a B. (Geddit?)
Next Week: Superlad and Lana get it on. Well, maybe. The ads would indicate so but I've been fooled by this before, so all I'm going to guarantee is that Sinead does something slick.
Begone,
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