THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 3
Score: 7.2 / 10 
2: The Return of Brer Superlad
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.
Cue Superlad and Bo plummeting out the window in a mano a mano super struggle. They fall through a skylight into a deserted warehousey kind of area and fight for about ten minutes, making a total mess of the place and quite the racket to boot.
Finally Superlad pins Bo up against the wall and threatens to unleash a killer blow. Bo decides that bluffing is the key at this point.
"Go ahead then, Superlad. If I've raised a son that could kill me with one Super-punch then go ahead... do it... throw me in that there briar patch."
Superlad's not falling for this briar patch talk - he throws the punch anyway... but misses and hits the wall, which has the handy side-effect of shattering the red K ring into a quadrillion pieces (give or take a dozen). This, in turn, has the effect of returning Superlad to his tedious non-criminal personality.
And that is that. Bo and Superlad wander on home to Smallville. Superlad hugs Boring Old Ma. "I'm so sorry," he says. "For everything. For the baby..."
"We never blamed you," explains Boring Old Ma.
Bo raises his eyebrows at this. Then why in blazes did he just power-up and fight a super-powered teen son to the point of near-death?? Thank you, Ma. And he collapses in protest.
The others decide this is nothing to worry about. Bo's always collapsing when the super-strength provided to him by the SS Jor-El leaves him.
Back in Metropolis and Porthos is examining the debris left behind by the Superlad-Bo skirmish. Suddenly Sinead wanders around the corner.
"Yo, Porthos. I'm back."
And, as with all Luthor family reunions, somebody pulls a gun. This time around it's Sinead.
"Put the gun down," suggests Porthos, getting straight to the point. "Why would I murder you?"
Well, heck, Porthos. Let's just take a minute to consider this, shall we? Because you're the embodiment of all that is evil, perhaps??
Then I can only assume that Porthos pleads with Sinead not to throw the gun in the briar patch because suddenly this particular father-son conflict is terminated as well.
Back at the cave and Superlad and Bo are trying to make sense of the actions of the SS Jor-El.
"Why?" asks Superlad, speaking for the entire studio audience. "Why would the SS Jor-El send you out to bring me home when he was the one who sent me away?"
"Ummm... yes," says Bo. "That is an excellent question. And I will tell you the answer to that question in a few episode's time when the writers have had a chance to come up with something."
"You made some kind of deal with the SS Jor-El, didn't you?" says Superlad.
"Ummm... " says Bo, looking off-set for a second. "Maybe..." He is instructed to swiftly change the subject. "The important thing is that you're back in Smallville."
"... I kind of enjoyed hanging out in Metropolis ... having the letter 'S' burned into my chest on a regular basis ..."
"Well, maybe I don't want to be back in Smallville. I kind of enjoyed hanging out in Metropolis, avoiding my responsibilities, having the letter 'S' burned into my chest on a regular basis, teasing the cops with my invulnerable hide..."
"Look, son," says Bo. "I'm not saying that staying behind will solve all your problems. You're far too riddled with them for a mere locale to make a difference. But at least in Smallville, we can solve them together as a family."
Superlad snorts. "Well, that's not going to help. You're completely powerless and puny again."
"Also," continues Bo, ignoring that. "The name of the show will be a lot more relevant if you stay."
They wander back to the barn and check out the box that Superlad stole from Porthos. It contains the wandering vial of Superlad's blood.
"Well, how did that get in Porthos's safe?" asks Superlad.
Bo hurls the vial into the wall shattering it. "It doesn't matter now. We've managed to stay one step ahead of Porthos this whole time," adds the sorely deluded Bo. "No reason why we can't continue to do so."
Back to Metropolis and Porthos and the Replicant Rutger Hauer are having a chat. Porthos has photos of Dr TotalBabe with the Replicant Rutger Hauer (RRH). Boy, that trampy Dr TotalBabe gets around, doesn't she?
Porthos has somehow managed to blackmail RRH into recovering the vial of blood that Superlad just stole. Not quite sure how Porthos managed this - I think it had something to do with some explicit love letters from Sean Young.
By now, of course, Superlad has wandered into The Death Claw to say 'hi' to Lana.
"Hi???" says Lana. "I don't even know what to say to that."
"It's a form of greeting," explains Superlad. "Like 'Hello' or 'Ahoy!' or 'Yowzer, show us yer tits!'"
Weirdly, this doesn't thaw Lana out. She accuses Superlad of being a troublemaker and the only one who really hurts her.
"Ahem," says Superlad. "Perhaps you've forgotten about, oh, Bug Boy and Morph Lass and Bee Girl and the giant twister and... need I go on?"
But Lana has already wandered off.
Over at Luthor Mansion and Sinead has done his spooky 'back from the dead' reveal thing again. This time to Dr TotalBabe.
"Holy sh--" says Dr TotalBabe. "Oh. It's you. Ummm..." She hugs him. "Thank God you're safe."
Sinead doesn't buy this. "Yes," he says. "Funny, though, the way the plane went down without you or the pilot on board..."
"Ah... let me explain," says Dr TotalBabe. And concocts a wild story about wedding terrorists and birds flying into engines and a parachute embargo by the Swiss and Sinead's narcolepsy and his camouflage tuxedo and... and... and, to cut a long story short, they all just jumped out and left him there.
"Well," says Sinead. "That sounds exactly like the behaviour I'd expect from a Luthor." He then accuses her of selling the vial of blood to Porthos.
"Um, yes again... " says Dr TotalBabe. "I can explain that too." And off she goes again into her fantasy lie-web.
Sinead doesn't buy it again. Dr TotalBabe pouts her almighty lips.
"If you want to annul this marriage and throw it into a briar patch then I'll understand."
"The two run to one another in slo-mo and embrace."
Sinead sighs and heads over to the Kent farm. He sees Superlad. Superlad sees Sinead. The music swells. The two run to one another in slo-mo and embrace.
"Hey, Sinead. I thought you died!"
"Nope," says Sinead.
"Awesome!" says Superlad.
Sinead then goes onto a meandering soliloquy about how even trapped alone on an island he found an enemy and how that enemy was himself and how it's made him face his dark side and how he wants to reconsider his entire life and where his destiny might take him.
He stops, and smiles sagely. There is a poignant pause.
"Awesome!" says Superlad, again.
Back to the Death Claw and there's a bit of a squabble between TIAC and Lana. Lana's not happy because TIAC didn't tell her about Superlad's hiding hole in Metropolis. TIAC's not happy because... hell, I dunno, because Lana's wearing nicer earrings. Anyway, they squabble.
"Let's face it," says TIAC at one point. "Superlad has more issues than Rolling Stone."
"Yes," says Lana. "I guess Mick Jagger does have a lot of issues."
TIAC sighs. Despite the forced nature of the analogy, she still had hoped that Lana would get it. But, alas, the expectations of Lana's intellect have once again been placed too high.
I should have mentioned this earlier but the Kents have had to sell their farm. Without Superlad there to do the chores of thirty Earthmen for the past three months, Bo's run this place into the ground, what with his insistence on growing crops of wild polyester. So Superlad's driving the moving van in to pick up the last few boxes when he suddenly sees RRH.
"Where's my package," says RRH.
Superlad is wary of sexual innuendo for a moment, but then realises RRH is talking about that damned vial of blood. "Don't have it," he says.
"Okay," says RRH. And drives off.
No, of course he doesn't. What kind of Metropolis crime lord gives up that easily? No, he sneaks back a little bit later when Superlad's at school getting a dressing down from TIAC (she tells him that he can't leave Smallville because 'sometimes you just have to stay and face your demons'. Superlad: 'we have demons on the show this week?') and ties up Bo and Boring Old Ma.
So what happens then?
Superlad agrees to give some more blood to RRH because he can't be bothered rescuing Bo and Boring Old Ma from their predicament. He feels that his knot-untying skills have grown lax in the three months he spent in Metropolis. Metropolis, home of velcro! So he ties some Kryptonite to his chest (?!), weakening himself and allowing blood to be drawn from his skin.
RRH takes the blood back to Porthos who tells him there's an extra fiver in it for him if he can deliver the donor of the blood as well. RRH likes this idea and tells his henchmen to bundle Superlad into the moving van and drive him down to the Metropolis docks.
Porthos waits patiently at the docks with RRH for a few hours. They have brunch (sardines on toast) until eventually the moving van comes rumbling around the corner. Porthos goes to check out who, exactly, it is who donated the super blood when suddenly the van explodes due to a unique mixture of heat vision and one of Bo's patented boxes full of nitroglycerine. Porthos immediately declares a gang war on RRH.
Back in Smallville, Lana wanders into the barn, does what Superlad couldn't be bothered doing and rescues Bo and Boring Old Ma, kicking an evil henchmen into a pitchfork in the process! Ouch!!!
Oh, and Sinead? He calls Dr TotalBabe's bluff and somehow gets her onto another plane for another honeymoon where he confronts Dr TotalBabe about the previous crash. "Can't you see that it was clearly your father who tried to murder you?" says Dr TotalBabe. "Oh," says Sinead. "I don't think so. You see, when blood Luthors try to murder somebody, they succeed. That is the Luthor way." And he jumps out of the plane (with a parachute), giggling like a banshee. And of course, he lands in the backyard of the mansion where he asks Porthos if he (Porthos) can be his (Sinead's) mentor. "Um, okay," says Porthos, warily. They eye one another off like a pair of, I dunno, cyclopses.
And that's more or less that. Of course, Sinead buys the Kent farm and then gives it back to Bo, who does his whole 'I couldn't possibly' thing but eventually agrees when Sinead explains that Bo gave him a compass that cushioned him from the force of the plane crash or some damn thing. Anyway, all the loose ends tied up. Except, y'know, for the fact that RRH now knows where Superlad lives and about his weakness for Kryptonite and so on and so forth. Apart from that, job well done. I give this episode a B for 'bluff' and 'briar patch'.
Next week: Superlad gets shot with a Kryptonite bullet. Ouch! That's got to hurt.
Begone,
blog comments powered by Disqus
This here item has so far scored 7.2 / 10 on the patented Astonishing Tales Funny-o-meter.
If it should be higher, click the green arrow:
And if you think it should be lower, try the red one:
To receive this kind of stuff via a convenient regular email, visit the subscription page
Or don't. I'm not the boss of you.
