THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 3
Score: 6.8 / 10 
14: Men Are From Krypton, Women Are From Venus
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.
Now if there's one thing I hate to see it's when a red sunscreen user given a variety of powers by the yellow rays of Sol and a teleportin' chick have a lover's tiff that ends with lead paint being thrown all over one party.
If there's another thing I hate it's when you discover that the undead zombie living in your loft is spying on you and your ex for the benefit of a hairy, venomous billionaire.
And yet, that's precisely where the twin paths into this particular foray into Smallville lead us.
But let's backtrack a little and see how we got there, huh?
WARNING: Previous paragraphs contained spoilers.
We begin, as young kids are so prone to do in these troubled times, on a school excursion to Luthorcorp. Porthos is giving a manly and unusually powerful speech about spelling bees while Superlad and TIAC snicker up the back, making childish remarks about hair and money and unmitigated evil.
Their snark does not go unnoticed, however, and eventually Miss Boring, their teacher, splits them up. "You," she says, pointing to TIAC. "You catch this elevator with the rest of the class." TIAC complies.
Miss Boring turns to Superlad. "And you, Master Superlad. You catch this other out of order elevator whose cable is about to snap."
"Okey-doke," says Superlad.
"And take this toothsome babe with you to make it more difficult to use any superpowers you may or may not have to rescue yourself if the cable does snap."
"Okey-doke."
Off they go, cable snaps, Superlad burns out security camera with the red eyes, punches hand through wall, grabs cable, pulls elevator to halt.
"Please don't tell anybody about this," says Superlad.
The babe grins cutely, if slightly menacingly, at him, and promises that she won't.
And then, of course, teleports him away from any other prying eyes that might have been trying to break in.
"Your powers are amazing!" says Superlad.
"The teleporting?" says Teleportin' Chick. "It's something to do with quantum physics I believe--"
"Actually," says Superlad. "I was referring to your ability to come across as wholesome and sweet while wearing those butt-kickingly sexy leather boots."
"Superlad, eye, as always, on the main game."
Superlad, eye, as always, on the main game.
Meanwhile, back at The Death Claw, Lana has broken into Creepy Physiotherapist's attic and started to snoop around. She finds his journal. She opens and reads it.
Lana Lang, Landlord for the Ages.
Creepy Physiotherapist returns. And yet it is Lana who takes the moral high ground!! Go Lana!
"11th of January," she reads. "Lana still not over Superlad. Superlad trialling dashing red cape. Suggest he requires splash of yellow."
CP shrugs.
"14th of February," continues Lana. "Superlad leaping tall buildings in five to eight bounds. Tells me his goal to get it down to one. Wish him luck."
CP shrugs again. By now Lana is furious with rage (y'know, as opposed to, say, jello).
"CP, if you're going to be obsessed and creepy and all spyin' like, I insist that you spy on me. Look how pretty I am. Is this not enough of the cute for one person to obsess upon, without dragging Superlad into it?"
CP shrugs again. Lana orders him to leave. CP invokes tenancy laws and does not.
While all this is going on, Superlad has summoned up the courage to ask Teleportin' Chick out on a date. Or, to be more precise, to stammer like a dweeb until TC asks him out on the date. Either way works. There's a night of Superlad magic where they discuss superpowers and make fun of the fat kids at school and then there is a brief attempt at a goodnight kiss which they're both too shy and/or stupid to complete successfully.
Still, all in all, a fine date.
But it gets better. For, just as Superlad is about to drift off to dreamland, Teleportin' Chick teleports on in.
"What are you doing here?" says Superlad.
"... that little blanket-tent you've got going there just confirms it."
"I knew you wanted to make out with me," she says. "And that little blanket-tent you've got going there just confirms it. Now, let me straddle you."
So that's all going nicely. Superlad feigns protestation for a second but then remembers that he has a babe wrapped around him, keen for action. But before anybody can get too far along, Bo wanders into the room.
"Oops," says Superlad. Bo raises the parental eyebrow.
TC teleports home and Superlad heads off for a tongue lashing from Bo. As far as tongue behaviour goes, this is Superlad's least favourite of the evening. But he explains to Bo and Boring Old Ma about how he might want to have a relationship with TC. Or, at the very least, give her a 'frightful rodgering'.
Which is sweet, and timely, as TC has teleported back into the back of the room to listen in.
But now TC begins to go too far. She puts scantily clad pictures of herself in Superlad's locker. She nibbles on his ear during Home Ec. She makes tantalising sexual promises.
"Enough!!" says Superlad. "You're smothering me!" Because he is an old-fashioned teen with old-fashioned attitudes and superpowers. He breaks it off. No hot babe is going to shower affection on him.
Back to Lana's tedious subplot. She calls in Sinead to help. "Please get CP out of my attic," she says.
"What am I?" says Sinead. "A zombie remover??"
But Lana smiles prettily and so Sinead agrees to evict the undead monster.
By now, of course, TC has pushed her father down the stairs and so Superlad (with the aid of TIAC) has been left with no choice but to trick her into wandering into a room lined with lead paint which (according to the quantum physics so carefully developed by Einstein, Bohr et al) prevents her from teleporting.
It doesn't, however, prevent her from unleashing some Kryptonite and dropping it on Superlad's chest and then just wandering out. So that's poorly thought out from the super-powered kid.
TC then teleports over to the Death Claw where she threatens to cut Lana's throat. Y'know, because Superlad still loves her. And, presumably, her throat as well.
Luckily, Superlad has kicked over the can of lead paint onto the Kryptonite. This also cures him, because lead cures everything. So he picks up the rest of the paint, dashes over to the Death Claw, throws paint all over TC so she can't teleport and declares this episode over.
Which it more or less is. But there's another scene between Superlad and Lana which goes thus:
Lana: TC told me that you told her secrets you never told me.
Superlad: Well, she was crazy as a leaf insect.
Lana: She also said you still loved me. Was that crazy too?
Superlad: Oh, hell. (sighs) I suppose so. Damn the rigour of your internally consistent logic.
Oh, and then there's a final scene between Lana and Sinead where Lana thanks Sinead for removing Creepy Physiotherapist and Sinead says 'hmm? I did what now??'
And then it turns out (as previously spoiled) that Creepy Physiotherapist is being held prisoner by Porthos, who decides that he's not the zombie spy he could be and who therefore does not deserve any more of that precious life serum. So there, that will teach him.
A perfectly acceptable episode, although there seemed to be far too little Sinead for my liking. A couple of shoddy scenes with Lana does not a satisfactory Sinead appearance make. Still, I'm all for insanely obsessive murderin' type chicks, so I'll give this episode a thumbs up.
Next Week: I can only imagine that Creepy Physiotherapist returns from the dead and goes totally nuttily zombie on the town.
Begone,
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