THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 3
Score: 7 / 10 
10: I Can Hear Clearly Now My Sight Has Gone
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.
We commence, predictably enough, with Superlad foiling a jewel store robbery. With the disgraceful lack of nightclubs, botanical gardens and pinball parlours in the sleepy town of Smallville this is the only way for young teens to keep themselves entertained.
Anyway, through a set of circumstances for too convoluted to relate, Superlad has his heat vision turned in on himself and now he's blind as a battery hen.
Back to the barn with blind Superlad, and Boring Old Ma is suggesting they take Superlad to a doctor.
"No way," says Bo. "Modern medicine is for the weak of will, right son?"
"Uh, sure thing, Bo," says Superlad.
"Besides," continues Bo. "The last doctor that looked after Superlad sold his blood to Porthos."
"I'm reasonably sure that's part of the new Federal Government health policy," explains Martha, but Bo won't hear another word.
"Conversation over," he intones. "Bo Kent, out!"
Off to school with Good Ol' Pete. Lana pops up to help. "One thing I've learned about things like this is that it's not something you want to go through alone." She touches his hand tenderly.
"Lana," says Superlad. "Just because I'm blinded doesn't mean that the issues between us have gone away."
"Pow! Slapped her down."
Pow! Slapped her down. Apparently, being blind also doesn't mean that Superlad's predilection to behave like an insufferable jerk has gone away either. So that's good news.
Suddenly, super-hearing kicks in and Superlad is deafened by everything, even the smallest and most insignificant sounds, including, implausibly enough, a conversation between TIAC and Porthos.
TIAC: I don't want to do any more research on Superlad.
Porthos: Well, then you've broken the deal we set up at the end of last season wherein you would uncover all kinds of information on Superlad and, in return, I would get you a position on The Daily Planet. Now, I know you know that, but if there was somebody else listening in on this conversation either via a bugging device or super-enhanced hearing, they might not and so I just thought I'd clarify the situation as well as I could.
TIAC: Understood
Superlad heads back to the farm where Sinead has popped in for a visit.
"When Porthos lost his sight at the end of Season One, I put together a crack team of ophthalmologists," says Sinead. "Since he regained it they've just been filling in time playing beach volleyball at the back of the mansion. You say the word and I'll put them on the case."
"And what, exactly, is the word?" asks Superlad.
Sinead smiles enigmatically. "Oh," he eventually says. "I'm smiling enigmatically."
"I see," says Superlad. He pauses. "Actually, I don't."
And they laugh.
Sinead then rabbits on about how tough it is to be a crazy person sometimes. He reveals that he intends to return to Luthorcorp and work for Porthos.
This reminds Superlad of something else that Porthos said in the conversation with TIAC. Something like 'we're going to lock Sinead in a room and have him ponder Epimenides' paradox - he'll never solve that and, hence, never bother us with his madness again'.
"Sinead," says Superlad. "Do you think Porthos' job offer is for real?"
"Sure it is," says Sinead. "Besides, I've been studying up on this Epimenides clown. He's a real nutty kookster. Makes me look totally sane. If what he says is true, it's not true. And if what he says isn't, it is? I'll have to ponder about that for a while, but I'm sure I'll crack it soon enough..."
Then Good Ol' Pete's kidnapped by the jewel store robber's best friend and partner in crime (who also has the inexplicable ability to emit screams that make everybody in a thirty foot radius clutch their ears in agony - he's like a villainous version of Bjork). Because it turns out that Good Ol' Pete's mother is the judge who is going to try the jewel store robber.
Good Ol' Pete's mother's a judge, huh? Good for her.
The Lazy Smallville Cops show up to say that they're far too lazy to assist in solving this crime, but they're willing to turn its investigation over to any blind teen who feels like solving it.
So this inspires Superlad to go into the barn and train his superhearing. Bo helps by whispering advertising slogans amid the deafening machinery.
"Just do it," whispers Bo.
Superlad tunes his hearing in a bit.
"The ability to hear even the slightest whisper: Priceless."
"He flashes his Mastercard and buys a pair of Nikes."
Superlad cheers in triumph. Heard it! He flashes his Mastercard and buys a pair of Nikes.
Meanwhile, Sinead and Porthos face off at the mansion about Sinead's mock job.
"This is a perfectly serious job," says Porthos.
"It's a paradox!" says Sinead. "It makes no logical sense. It's mind-altering busy-work."
"But imagine the riches if we do solve it!" says Porthos. "True statements that are false. False statements that are true. We'll turn the legal fraternity on its head."
Superlad has meanwhile hitched a ride on a truck and gone off to rescue Good Ol' Pete. This doesn't work all that well, given the blindness, and Evil Bjork burns his eyes with an acetylene torch and runs off.
But it turns out that burning one's eyes with an acetylene torch is the Kryptonian equivalent of eye laser surgery, so now Superlad can see again. It's still a bit blurry, however, so he has to wear awful, thick spectacles and look like a nerd.
"I look like a nerd!" says Superlad.
"It's the perfect disguise," says Bo, rubbing his chin in thought and planning for the future.
Anyway, we're off to the courts the next day and Judge Ross is about to dismiss all charges against the jewel store robber on the legally underused grounds that they've successfully kidnapped her son. But luckily, Superlad dashes off, specs and all, crushes Evil Bjork under a pile of cars, rescues Good Ol' Pete from a car crushery and justice is seen to be done. (Jewel Store Robber is sentenced to the electric chair, but given twelve months' probation on appeal).
That's essentially it. There was also Superlad giving grief to TIAC in there for a bit. And Porthos threatening TIAC (Porthos thinks that TIAC told Sinead about the busy-work he'd lined up for him) with unholy doom. TIAC turned the threat back on Porthos ("I know I could interest the Daily PLanet with a story on an eccentric billionaire with an obsessive interest in a Kansas farm boy" she says). Porthos will have none of this ("They won't care. They've already got the Michael Jackson story," he says). TIAC's father gets sacked from her job by Sinead. Superlad complains to Sinead about this, but Sinead has a cunning scheme which is revealed by a bald, inner glow. Oh, and Lana's being all slutty again and then crying about it.
Next Week: It's mind control time, people! Somebody's sending spam that turns people into killers.
Begone,
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