THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 3
Score: 7.5 / 10 
13: Jump In My Car
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.
Turns out Bo is okay. A pitiful coronary bypass isn't enough to keep him down. "I'll be right as chips to go home shortly," he says, even as the doctors are sewing his chest cavity up.
"Well, don't you rush it, Bo," says Boring Old Ma. "Not all Kents are blessed with superinvulnerability."
"No," says Bo and glares hatefully at Superlad.
So Boring Old Ma and Superlad drive home without the earthling Bo Kent and are involved in a near car crash with a dangerously speeding car. No news there, of course. This is Smallville, but Superlad still roars off in pursuit.
Turns out the driver is young Pete Ross, now a hot car racer of some renown.
Opening credits time.
After the credits we move into the bulk of the plot. It's frighteningly stupid and reeking of nonsense, with Superlad trying to convince Good Ol' Pete to give up life as a racing car driver through the backstreets of Smallville and Good Ol' Pete, um, resisting Superlad's chatter.
Good Ol' Pete loves racing his cars. It makes him feel alive and loved and 'boss'. He tries to lay assorted guilt trips on Superlad about how he (Superlad) wouldn't know what it felt like to be ignored and part of the background and not at all buff. Superlad can only agree with this, but is still all snooty about Good Ol' Pete's determination to drive like a maniac throughout Smallville. Why Good Ol' Pete should be made a scapegoat for the driving antics of the town remains a question for the interested viewer (whoever he or she might be).
"Powered by kryptonite-laced petroleum."
Oh, yes, and Good Ol' Pete's car? Powered by kryptonite-laced petroleum. I mean, obviously.
It also turns out that Good Ol' Pete has been doing this dangerous car racing thing for 'months now', which makes sense, given all the foreshadowing we've seen of this through the season to date. Like, when, um, Good Ol' Pete was in a car that time in episode 5. And when he said 'scary' in episode 3, which has the word 'car' in the middle of it. So, well done, writers.
Anyway, Good Ol' Pete gets himself into trouble with big time Indian bookmakers who, uh, make a living out of betting on Smallville backstreet car racing. Good Ol' Pete refuses to throw a race when he said he would and this results in him owing the bookies thirty thousand dollars. At first he doesn't think this is so bad, but then the bookies explain about the murderin' and stuff.
Good Ol' Pete suggests that perhaps Superlad could rush down to Metropolis and bust open a few ATMs to help him out, but no way, says Superlad. That's not his style. At least, not this particular episode.
Superlad does, however, volunteer to go chat to Sinead about it. Any excuse really for a chinwag with the bald one.
"Hey, Sinead," he says. "Do you want to give Good Ol' Pete thirty grand?"
"Not particularly," says Sinead. "Let's play snooker."
And they do.
In the end, there's all kinds of elaborate scamming nonsense involving Superlad 'borrowing' Sinead's Porsche and then using it as collateral for a bet against the bookie where Good Ol' Pete has to do some more insane driving while Superlad has a nap in the boot (or 'trunk') of the car and some kind of bomb is involved.
All precisely as ridiculous as it sounds. And we conclude with Good Ol' Pete and Superlad having a chat.
"Hey, thanks for stopping me from being killed," says Good Ol' Pete. "That would have been so totally skeevy."
"I hate you, and will now endeavour to get you written out of the show"
"Shut up Good Ol' Pete, I hate you, and will now endeavour to get you written out of the show," says Superlad.
Superlad, pulling out his generally underused super-grudge-holding powers there.
So that's the main plot. Completely mad. So, what went on in the subplots? Surely nothing quite as ludicrous as the main plot...
Well, actually...
It turns out that Creepy Physiotherapist has risen from the dead and his eyeballs now bleed when he gets cross. Lana confronts him about this but CP explains that it's just 'a simple case of zombie bloodeye' and surely 'nothing to get all worked up about'.
Sinead and TIAC are also highly interested in Creepy Physiotherapist's behaviour for some reason. I think I'm correct in saying that they're the only ones who are. Certainly most of the audience is not.
They spend a lot of time together, discussing his undead status and generally bonding over it in the usual fashion. Sinead then decides to track down Dr Zombie, the physician that raised Creepy Physiotherapist from the dead and continues to supply him with those, um, life drugs.
"What's going on with CP?" says Sinead.
"I can't tell you," says Dr Zombie. "That would be a gross violation of doctor-patient privilege."
"Dude," says Sinead. "Have you seen this show??"
Needless to say, Sinead blackmails Dr Zombie into providing exactly the kind of information he's been looking for. So that's all good.
Sinead also buys Bo a DVD player, a thoughtful gift you might think for a man trapped in a hospital room, but less thoughtful when you consider that the only DVDs he supplied were a collection of Pauly Shore films. Bo checks himself out fifteen minutes later. Heart or no heart, he's going home.
And that's that. A colossally stupid episode, what with the idiocy and all. However, the Superlad-Good Ol' Pete grudge could be funny for future subplots. Here's hoping Good Ol' Pete develops some kind of power suit and becomes, I dunno, the all new Metallo or something.
Next Week: Some young lady is obsessed with Superlad's cheek bones. She's also a teleporter, however, so I guess that rules out some people I know...
Begone,
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