THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 2
Score: 7.4 / 10 
8: ESP Gives You Cancer
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.
Hmmmm?? Oh, is that the time already? Wow, it hardly seemed like Smallville had gone at all and suddenly... a mere seven and a half months later it's back. Gosh, thanks Channel Nine.
Naturally enough we open with some poor kid undergoing rigorous testing of his telepathic abilities. An evil scientist (by far the worst kind by my reckoning) is looking at pictures and asking ESP Kid to tell him what he (Evil Scientist) is looking at.
Click. "A giant penguin covered in filth." Correct.
Click. "A singing pencil sharpener." Correct.
Click. "A publicity shot of Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft." Correct again.
Alas, this last shot almost has ESP Kid's eye out and so Evil Scientist takes some pity and sends a henchman off to get some anti-Jolie medicine. Then ESP Kid decides that he should become Bruce Willis in the original Die Hard and starts crawling through the elevator shaft. He finds a phone and calls Superlad.
At first you think... wow, what a lucky wrong number to have dialled. Being held hostage by wicked researchers, accidentally call the only Kryptonian on the planet. Phew. But no, that's too much of a coincidence to be taken plausibly, even for Smallville, and so instead one recalls that ESP Kid is Creepy Kid from an episode in the previous season who, happily for the continuity people, had ESP.
"Yo, Creepy Kid," says Superlad. "Wassup?"
"I'm being held hostage by an Evil Scientist doing Jolie-based research on me and my freak show telepathic powers. I've only got a few seconds before they recapture me and lock me away for the night. Please, Superlad. Please help me. I'm not sure I can handle much more of their experiments. I'm in terrible danger." And then he sobs down the phone line before the guards come in and take him away screaming.
"Hold on a second," says Superlad. "I'll just grab a pen."
Cue my favourite opening credit sequence in the world. As far as I'm concerned the rest of the show is just an excuse for me to bop around to the credits. But I digress.
Anyway, Bo and Ma are useless in trying to track down Creepy Kid so Superlad asks TIAC to check the script. She does so and discovers that Creepy Kid is being held at The ESP Clinic a top research facility and part-Starbucks in Metropolis.
"But why?" says TIAC. "Why would Creepy Kid be being studied by The ESP Clinic??"
Superlad looks at Pete and shrugs. If only everybody were so oblivious to blatant clues about superpowers.
Over to Luthor Mansion and Sinead is having a discussion with the Mayor who, as with all mayors, is corrupt to the bone. There is veiled innuendo (the best kind) that Porthos used to bribe Mayor Corrupto on a regular basis.
"Pish-tosh and away with you."
Sinead will have none of it. "Skullduggery??" he says. "Pish-tosh and away with you."
Mayor Corrupto makes another threat on the way out - something to do with how much Sinead would regret it if the extensions to Luthor Mansion weren't approved (Sinead is tearing down the servants' quarters and replacing them with an underground fortress of terror! Y'know, just in case).
Sinead's skull furrows. Problems.
Also with problems is Lana. Aunt Ricki has shown up and told her that she's to move to Metropolis. Her (Aunt Ricki's) new stud has gotten himself a regular employment-like situation down there and he gets paid real money and everything! So it's movin' day for the Langs!!
Of course, Aunt Ricki isn't stupid. So much. She tries to cushion the blow with a more positive spin.
"Hey," she says. "What would you say if I told you that you could ride at a really cool riding place in Metropolis and didn't have to hang around in Smallville - which stinks by the way, and where the corpses of your parents rot as we speak?"
"You mean, ride my horse?" says Lana.
Aunt Ricki stops and thinks. "Yes, of course," she finally says. "Ride your horse." She pulls a weirded-out face at the camera.
"I would never move away from my friends," says Lana.
Aunt Ricki mugs a bit more for the camera. "But you don't have any friends," she helpfully points out.
But Lana is not convinced. Superlad's kind of a friend, isn't he? In a 'I'd really like to jump into your panties' kinda way.
Back to the main plot and Bo has forbidden Superlad to go down to Metropolis and rescue Creepy Kid. Obviously, Superlad pays no attention to Bo whatsoever, sprints down there, uses the ol' super-peepers to locate Creepy Kid then busts him out, beats up a passing security guard who was merely trying to get the coffee machine to work and then runs back to Smallville and Sinead's place.
Sinead provides some beverages.
Creepy Kid explains that his Aunt Beru sold him to The ESP Clinic for over 500 drachmas! Superlad whistles, impressed. Sinead is less so.
"Strange such a place would want to study you," says Sinead.
Superlad shrugs again. Boy, some people just never have their super-powers questioned at all, do they?
Sinead takes Superlad outside and, once more, comes over all goody-goody.
"Hey, Big Fella," says Sinead. "The whole breaking people out of hospital thing... not really on so much. a) Far more difficult to cure them when they're not present and b) technically, like, kidnapping."
"Ah," says Superlad. "I didn't think of that - I just saw him hooked up to wires and thought I'd bust him out."
"Heee-eeyy," says Sinead. "How did you manage to break him out of a heavily guarded research facility all by yourself and sprint with him all the way back to Smallville??"
"Oh, sure," says Superlad. "Query my flagrant flaunting of unearthly abailities. That's real fair." And he goes home and sulks.
But, alas, he can't because Evil Scientist has roused the Lazy Smallville Cops from their afternoon nap and found an old search warrant and they're there to arrest him and search the entire house including all '... Spaceship-Holding Cellars, Attics and Barns'
"Hmmm..." thinks Superlad. "Can you come back tomorrow?"
"Oh sure," says the Lazy Smallville Cops. "It's past my early evening nap time anyway."
This is good. Every time I've found the police coming to arrest me for one of my felonious actions, I always ask them to come back the next day. I find that the extra night's leeway can be ever-so-handy in, like, destroying evidence, fleeing the country, framing other innocent parties, alerting the British tabloids and so forth. Kudos to Superlad for adopting this tactic.
So what happens next?
"Oh Sinead, bless you and you litigious ways."
Well, Superlad stupidly doesn't take advantage of his day's grace and instead of, I dunno, disguising Creepy Kid with some thick-rimmed glasses or turning the world back in time or something, he just agrees to let Evil Scientist and the Lazy Smallville Cops take him away. Bo puts up a bit of a counter-argument ('Hey, Evil Scientist, being guardian to a kid is not like owning a car, y'know,' says Bo. 'It sure isn't,' retorts Evil Scientist. 'For one thing, his clutch keeps sticking and his airbags don't conform to federal standards either') but it's Sinead who roars up in the Sineadmobile and puts things right with some more of his incomprehensible legal mumbo-jumbo. Oh Sinead, bless you and your litigious ways.
TIAC then throws a party for no clear reason. Perhaps it's to celebrate Smallville returning to Australian television. Perhaps it's to honour the latest Meat Loaf tour. Who can say? Creepy Kid tells Superlad that Good Ol' Pete knows his (Superlad's) secret. "Yeah, no worries," says Superlad. "Pretty much every second person who appears on the show works that one out these days." And then he glowers and mutters to himself: "... not fair... snooping about superpowers... nobody cares about ESP, do they... why can't I have ESP..." Creepy Kid also dobs Lana in on the whole 'moving to Metropolis' thing.
Lana comes over to the barn later and Superlad feigns sensitivity ("I know something's wrong, Lana. Please... tell me what troubles you...") and so Lana confesses. "How would you feel if you were just uprooted and sent to some strange place where you didn't know anybody?" she asks. "That would suck," replies Superlad. "Unless, of course, the new environment, with its lower gravity and yellow sun combined to give you powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men." He pauses. "Also, if you got to fly there in a kick-ass spaceship." Lana smiles uncomprehendingly and wrinkles her nose cutely.
Oh, yes, and Interesting Old Ma has a secret! Creepy Kid reveals that he knows this, but no more is offered. Way to go, Interesting Old Ma. Never again shall you be called boring.
Sinead shares his comics with Creepy Kid and the two of them discuss the philosophical issues raised by issue #251 'Hyperman and Devilicus vs The Immortal Frogmen of the Undercity'. "Why do you think Devilicus went bad?" asks Creepy Kid. "Maybe the name?" says Sinead, and rolls his eyes. "Duh!" But then he also explains about how the path to evil is not a light switch, it's a path or some damn thing. And how sometimes when your name is Lex Luthor and you are the arch-nemesis of the last survivor of the planet Krypton it's pretty much your destiny to be a supervillain of the highest order. Luckily, by this stage, Creepy Kid has slipped into some kind of coma.
Creepy Kid wakes up briefly and says "Oh yeah, BTW, I have a brain tumour and I'm going to die." Superlad finds this 'way bogus', so he visits Sinead, who tells Superlad about the bestest doctor in the world at removing ESP-based brain tumours. Unfortunately, the doctor's just about to fly to Helsinki to appear on Survivor: Finland and won't be back until he's evicted from his tribe. Superlad sprints to the airport, organises a coup against Dr Anti-Tumour's alliance and votes him out of the game.
Dr Anti-Tumour comes back and operates on Creepy Kid, but so distraught is he at losing the immunity challenge that the operation is botched and Creepy Kid is still going to die. So, the moral of the story is clearly: Don't Develop ESP. For it gives you brain cancer. Much like mobile phones and Farrelly brother films.
And that's pretty much it. Lana eventually decides to move in with TIAC. Not sure what TIAC thought about this, but Lana can be persuasive. Oh, and Mayor Corrupto comes back and picks a fight with Sinead, who makes some peculiar analogy about Winston Churchill being set on fire. Didn't really follow that bit, but I'm pretty sure it's bad news for Mayor Corrupto.
A fine episode. Glad to see the bald chap back on my screen, wielding his wily ways. Oh, and all the others, too. All is clearly right with the world again. (Except, of course, for Creepy Kid who is, y'know, um, dead like.)
Next week: Some guy who can split in two suggests a foursome with TIAC and Lana. Well, hey, thinks Superlad. Not much difference between four and five is there?
Begone,
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