THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 3
Score: 7.6 / 10 
19: It's Not Easy Being Bald
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 is a dark and stormy evening. Young Sinead is perched provocatively on the edge of the roof of a mansion which houses a downtown School For The Gifted And Destined To Be Evil. He is singing to his imaginary dead brother in the same crazy fashion to which we have previously been privy.
Porthos goes out to talk sense into him, which is perhaps not the most highly recommended solution to the problem.
"Sinead," he says. "If this is some pitiful ploy to get yourself expelled, then it's not going to work."
"Actually, I'm emotionally distraught at the death of my brother."
"Yes, yes, yes," sneers Porthos, dismissively. "But, really, is this any way to show it? Standing in the rain, on a rooftop, singing lullabies like a damn fool? How, exactly, does that help us increase the Luthor fortune?"
Sinead ponders and then accidentally drops the 'baby' and starts to scream. He wakes up in the present screaming and about to fall off one of those pesky present-day balconies at Luthor mansion. Fortunately, Lana happens to have dropped by in the middle of the night for no clear reason and prevents him from taking a tumble.
Well, thinks Sinead, comparing his experience as a ten year old to the current one, she's certainly prettier than Porthos.
This is true, but she's also a much bigger blathermouth so she's off to Superlad to tell him what happened. And, of course, Superlad responds by immediately popping over the mansion to ask Sinead "'sup?"
"'Sup?" he says.
"Well, I haven't lost my mind, Superlad. If that's what you mean." Sinead, coming straight to the sanity point.
"Dude," says Superlad. "You were on the edge of a balcony about to jump to your doom."
"Yeah, well I've seen you in some awkward predicaments and I don't run around questioning your mental health. I may ponder to myself on the possibility that you may have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, but I never question your sanity levels."
"What if I started dressing in tights?"
"What if I started dressing in tights?" asks Superlad.
Sinead dismisses Superlad from further conversation and heads down to the laboratories of Dr BrainResearch who has been conducting electroshock therapy on Sinead's noggin to see if he can recover his memories or, failing that, his hair.
He (Dr BrainResearch) plonks him (Sinead) into a giant vat of liquid kryptonite. Therefore, we have a flashback.
And it's Sinead's 10th birthday party. There's lots of presents and food but no other kids have bothered to show up. This saddens young Sinead.
"Nobody wants to be my friend because I look like a big bald goofball," he claims.
"That's not true," says Porthos, again apparently the only person around to offer parental wisdom. "Well," he goes on. "It is true that you look like a big bald goofball. What's not true is that that is the reason why nobody likes you. Nobody likes you because they're jealous."
"Of what?" says Sinead. "Surely not the parenting skills of my father."
Porthos chuckles to himself. "No, they're jealous of this box I'm about to give you for your birthday."
"Is this the box that was used by St George to slay the dragon?" asks Sinead.
"Sure, why not?" says Porthos, drifting out of the room.
Sinead finishes this flashback and heads out to his car. Sadly for him, Superlad is waiting outside by the Luthormobile and gives him grief about offering his brain cells up to Dr BrainResearch.
"Don't you remember what happened to Creepy Kid and Geek Girl?"
"No," says Sinead. "This is kind of the point of having experimental memory recovery procedures undertaken upon one's self."
And he roars off stylishly.
So Superlad goes to Porthos to tattle.
"Sinead's trying to recover memories," says Superlad.
"Now why would that bother me?" asks Porthos doing his whole mock-I'm not a criminal mastermind thing.
"Because he might remember something incriminating about your... I dunno... your murder of your parents," suggests Superlad.
"Ah," says Porthos. "There is that. But tell me, young Superlad, why are you so concerned? Could it be you who doesn't want him to recover his memory?"
"No," says Superlad, far too quickly.
And so it goes. Poor Superlad - it was a colossal error for him to try and take Porthos on in a battle of wits.
Of course, now it's Porthos's turn to dob. He runs straight back to Sinead and says 'Superlad thinks you're crazy!!'
"Porthos and Sinead's mother squabble over whose turn it is to love the new baby."
They joust at one another a little further before Sinead tires of the conversation and flashes back. We see Porthos and Sinead's mother squabble over whose turn it is to love the new baby. Sinead's mother wants a divorce. Porthos thinks that divorce is not at all becoming for a Luthor and insists that she fall immediately back in love with him or else he'll raise his sons to be hate-filled monsters locked in mortal combat with one another.
Then we fast-forward to baby Luthor dead in his cot with young Sinead poised over the top of him.
"I didn't do anything!" claims Sinead. "You've got to believe me."
"I don't have to believe you. I don't have to believe anything," says Porthos. "I'm a billionaire," he explains. He feigns fury at Sinead's murder but is secretly proud of the lad for securing such a swift victory.
Back to the present and Porthos has wandered over to the Kent farm. He flirts effortlessly with Boring Old Ma, offering her a job offering him 'sage advice'.
"I'm not sure about sage," says Boring Old Ma. "I've always been more a thyme kind of gal."
Porthos laughs uproariously at her wit. Boring Old Ma doesn't get it, so instead wanders upstairs to polish her spice rack. Porthos admires her butt, then tells Superlad he's done all he can to stop Sinead frying his synapses - possibly the only thing left to be done is for Superlad to go visit Dr BrainResearch, collapse by the liquid kryptonite, have his clothes cut off by scientists and be lowered into the Memory Recovery Vat himself, dressed only in skin-tight underwear.
This sounds like a perfect plan to Superlad, so off he trots.
Sinead wanders into the labs, only to be told that all his sessions with Dr BrainResearch have been cancelled. The receptionist doesn't come right out and tell Sinead that Porthos has made a deal with Dr BrainResearch where there will be no further memory research for Sinead in exchange for truckloads of memory research on Superlad. But Sinead gets it anyway. He calls Porthos and bluffs him into meeting him in the lobby.
While that's going on, Superlad does a flashback to his earliest days in Krypton. There's the SS Jor-El and that bloody octagonal key and, y'know, a planet exploding and such. The usual stuff.
It all sends Superlad a little off the deep end and his super brain cells start shorting out the entire building, interrupting the ongoing barbs between Porthos and Sinead.
Sinead heads into the Memory Recovery Vat Room and smashes Superlad free with just an axe and his usual bald determination and willingness to get the job done and that is more or less that.
Some yammering at the end from Superlad as he tries to come to terms with it all. He and Sinead have a chin wag about trust and turning into one's father and what it feels like to be lowered into vats of kryptonite wearing only one's underwear. He and Boring Old Ma also have a chinwag where Boring Old Ma makes up an implausible lie about Superlad's first word, a word she'd never understood until this very episode - 'kryptonitevat'.
Then we have our final flashback where we discover that it wasn't Sinead who murdered his little brother after all! It was Sinead's mother. Boy, when it comes to Sinead, I think a general rule of thumb to adopt is that whatever deep dark secrets he has in his past? He didn't do it.
Cunningly, however, he somehow makes Porthos feel the guilt about it. Well played, Sinead. Victory to you and yours.
Next Week: Some damn fool nonsense to do with the caves I hear.
Begone,
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