THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 2
Score: 7.3 / 10 
17: You'll Believe A Man Can Guest Star
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.
It's a beautiful day to be flying around Smallville and zooming into a cave where you can put the mysterious octagonal key into an equally mysterious and octagonal hole in the cave wall and then be blasted by a shining beam of light. So that's what Superlad's doing.
Or, at least, that's what he's dreaming he's doing. Still, he wakes up in the middle of the road, so who the hell knows what is going on here? Certainly not Sinead who, out on one of his 3am drives around Smallville almost runs Superlad over.
Superlad heads on home the next morning. "Where have you been?" demands a furious (and curious) Bo.
"Sleeping in the middle of the road," replied Superlad.
"I see." Bo pauses. "Go do your chores. And whatever you do, don't steal the octagonal spaceship key and put it in any octagonal holes in any caves."
Hmmmmm... thinks Superlad.
But then it's off to class and everybody has been called upon to research their family trees. Good Ol' Pete is gloating because he's the only one who has a normal family that hasn't been killed by meteor rocks or rocketed forth from the exploding planet Krypton. "This is wicked scopin' project!" he exclaims, stiltedly and jives off.
Suddenly a loud drilling sound pierces Superlad's skull, hurting his head. He holds his head in his hands, writhing in agony.
"Do you hear that?" he says.
"Hear what?" says TIAC.
"That mind-destroying buzzing noise echoing through my skull."
"Oh, that's just the latest Ben Folds Five single," says Lana.
"You get used to it," assures TIAC.
But Superlad senses that the sound has something to do with something even more horrifying than Ben Folds Five. He follows the sound to a box and then into the box where it is revealed that the sound is coming from the (you guessed it) octagonal spaceship key.
Superlad therefore decides that he has no choice but to put this intergalactic mp3 player into the cave wall (because how else could he defy Bo?). This in turn causes a magic rainbow of data to shoot through his body and knock him out (this is much how an iPod works, I believe).
Sinead and his cave archaelogist Dr CunningLinguist find him and help him to his feet.
"How did you get past the guards?" asks Dr CunningLinguist. "What's your secret?"
"Secret? Well, I'm an alien with powers and abilities far beyond those of mort--" begins Superlad, but before he can say any more Sinead interrupts.
"Back off, Dr CunningLinguist, can't you see he's hurt?"
Meanwhile, back at TIAC and Lana's house, Lana has borrowed TIAC's computer for a bit, ostensibly to research her lame family tree project. Instead, however, she sees a folder marked 'Secret Files That Prove TIAC Still Loves Superlad And Which Lana Had Better Never Open Ever Lest It Cause A Minor Subplot'. She opens it up and a minor subplot erupts as TIAC catches her doing so.
"Um, I'm sorry?" says Lana.
"This is a gross violation of privacy," says TIAC, oblivious to the irony.
"If you're still in love with Superlad, you should tell him," suggests Lana.
"Yawn! Boring!!" says TIAC. "Besides, I did that last episode and he deliriously called out your name instead."
"Because, really, that is rather amusing."
Lana starts to giggle. Because, really, that is rather amusing.
Back at the barn and Superlad and Bo are loading bales of hay onto the Lieutenant Lee. They talk some nonsense about forthcoming babies and so forth and then suddenly Superlad's ears are hammered again by the Ben Folds Five single and heat bursts from his eyes and cause him to burn a Kryptonian symbol into the side of the barn.
TIAC is apparently in this scene too, now, because she takes a photo of the Kryptonian symbol to put on the front page of her silly newspaper.
While she's doing that, Superlad confesses to putting the octagonal spaceship key into the octagon hole in the caves.
"Well, gosh-darn it," says Bo. "Didn't I expressly forbid that?"
Superlad ignores him and explains that the rainbow beam of light taught him Kryptonian instantly, as if powered by a Tony Robbins Personal Power Power Talk Tape. He reveals that the symbol he just burned into the barn means 'hope', or possibly 'pyromaniac lives here'.
"Superlad, playing with octagonal spacekeys is dangerous in up to eight different ways!" says Bo.
"Some things are worth the risk!" shoots back Superlad.
"Like what?" says Bo.
"Like the truth."
Bo sighs. "The truth is overrated, son. Why not focus on justice? Or the American Way? These are fine things, too."
Superlad ignores him again and heads over to the Death Claw, where he draws a Kryptonian version of his family tree. This is rather careless, and needless to say, it winds up in Sinead's hands, via a set of predictably dubious circumstances.
Sinead takes it straight back to Dr CunningLinguist who shamefully has no time for Superlad's genealogy.
"Maybe this is a hoax," opines Dr CunningLinguist. "Or something else not at all to do with his ability to translate Kryptonian."
"It's not a hoax," says Sinead. His scalp baldens a little in deep thought.
Back to school and somebody's emailed TIAC in a bid to get to Superlad. Which makes sense, of course, because Superlad keeps his email address as well hidden as possible to avoid criminal vendettas and spam.
Superlad checks out the message - it's somebody sending him another Kryptonian symbol complete with translation. He decides he'd rather not read this on TIAC's computer (he's heard of how snootily protective she can be of her hard drive), so logs on to AOL (login: superdood, password: lana69) and makes contact with Dr Kryptonese.
Back at the caves and Dr CunningLinguist has found the infamous octagonal spaceship key and put it in the cave hole. He also gets shot by the Magic Kryptonian Rainbow Of Knowledge. Alas, for him, it sends him into a catatonic state (key quote from Smallville Hospital: "He's catatonic, the doctors have never seen anything like it before" so, y'know, perhaps not the physicians you want treating you).
Superlad heads back to chat to TIAC about Dr Kryptonese. TIAC has consulted the script and discovered that he is a multi-billionaire genius scientist who controls all the satellites in the world and now lives in complete isolation from everybody (much like Axl Rose).
"Cool!" says Superlad.
"What does he want with you though?" asks TIAC, curiosity swelling like a throbbing head wound.
"He's not interested in me, he's interested in my barn," says Superlad, hurriedly.
"He hasn't spoken to anybody in thirteen years and now he wants to be your best friend?" says TIAC. "He must think that symbol's pretty important."
"Um, it's just a hoax," suggests Superlad, as his concoction of lies slowly begins to unravel. "Or some kind of wordplay! Like an acrostic. Or a pun. Hahahahahaha hahahahahha!"
TIAC doesn't buy it.
"'Maybe it's a Far Side cartoon!' tries Superlad ..."
"Maybe it's a Far Side cartoon!" tries Superlad, then laughs insanely some more.
TIAC heads back to Lana and forgives her for her snooping, because she knows all about the curiosity nodes and how they can turn one into an irrepressible snoop. TIAC also shows Lana her family tree. Apparently, TIAC has put 'Lana' down as sister.
"Why'd you do that?" says Lana.
"Thought it'd be kind of touching."
"Well, I guess..." says Lana, hesitant and rolling her eyes. "It's more kind of creepy and pathetic. But I forgive you for getting mad at me for invading your private files that you really should have encrypted anyway."
And that's that for that subplot. Superlad now heads off to visit Dr Kryptonese, who is being played by Christopher Reeve (who, apparently, comes complete with original John Williams score from Superman: The Movie, as this plays intermittently throughout the entire conversation). A conversation which goes thus:
"Yo, Superlad. Your name is Kal-El. You're the last survivor from Krypton which exploded."
"Righty-o!"
(I paraphrased somewhat, but that was the gist.)
So Superlad comes home and he and Bo decide to open up the spaceship and rummage aroud and perhaps hold a garage sale of whatever they find in there.
But what they find in there is a message from Marlon Brando (played by Jor-El). "Superlad - glad you've settled in on Earth. Now... why don't you go conquer it? Should be a doddle for one with your unearthly powers and good looks."
Superlad blushes, but it's all true.
"Now," says Bo. "You don't have to conquer the world, just because your biological father Marlon Brando told you to."
"Don't I??" says Superlad, terrified and concerned. "Don't I now??"
Oh sure, thinks Bo, and hugs him. You'll listen to your real father.
And that's that. One of the all-time great episodes of Smallville. Christopher Reeve bringing the soundtrack along, Superlad learning that Marlon wants him to be evil. TIAC making a bizarre sisterly pass at Lana. And so forth. Several million out of ten.
Next week: According to the DVD liner notes, one of the other kids in Smallville thinks he's an alien too. Which is perhaps going a little against the odds, but then again, his name is Anakin.
Begone,
blog comments powered by Disqus
This here item has so far scored 7.3 / 10 on the patented Astonishing Tales Funny-o-meter.
If it should be higher, click the green arrow:
And if you think it should be lower, try the red one:
To receive this kind of stuff via a convenient regular email, visit the subscription page
Or don't. I'm not the boss of you.
