THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 3
Score: 7 / 10 
20: The Secret Origin Of Apache Chief (Director's Cut)
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 open with a pair of Native Americans, wandering through those bloody caves of Smallville. They bump into Porthos who has (typically) brought along a knife.
"What kind of knife is this?" asks Porthos, always eager for knowledge.
"A butter knife?" says Chief Running Water.
"No!" says his young companion, Dances With Aplomb. "It's a magical knife that will give me superpowers."
And whaddayaknow? He's right. He grabs it, it glows and voila! Powers for young Dances With Aplomb.
He dashes off into the opening credits while Porthos orders henchmen around furiously.
As many of you may have forgotten if you have been struck by a heavy implement (eg Superlad) and are now suffering from amnesia, the history of the Planet Krypton and Native Americans are (perhaps surprisingly) closely related. Indeed, it was the Kryptonians who first mistook North America for India and hence dubbed them 'Indians'. The 'Indians' took this in their stride - they, after all, had thought the Kryptonians to be superpowered beings from the planet Daxam. So, y'see, we're all human. Unless we are Kryptonians or Daxamites.
Anyhoo, it is for this reason that Chief Running Water pops up into the barn the next day to chat with Superlad.
"How's it going, Naman?" says Chief Running Water, for as we recall the Cave Indians are enamoured with palindromes. They could have called him Superepus, but they chose Naman instead. Whatever.
"I'm not Naman," says Superlad. He can't abide palindromes. He's more an anagram kinda guy.
"Dude, grow up," says Chief Running Water, and then corrects himself. "I mean, is not the mountain air like a... um... scalded tomcat?"
"Huh?" says Superlad.
He fills Superlad in on the whole knife superpowerey thing. Superlad, in turn, goes to Bo, who disapproves of other people using Superlad's powers.
"I'm not that keen on you flaunting them, let alone some other fool teen."
"I disapprove," says Bo. "Frankly, I'm not that keen on you flaunting them, let alone some other fool teen. Now excuse me, I must check the lighting." For Bo is directing this episode.
Director Bo cuts straight to a conversation between Sinead and Porthos where Porthos denies everything. He starts by denying stuff about the knife, but soon gets carried away and moves onto the denial of such self-evident truths as 'two points define a line', 'there exists an empty set' and 'Gigli is a foolish name for a movie'.
Sinead sees straight through Porthos's bizarre lies. So he's now on the trail of the knife-wielding, all-new superkiddie too.
Director Bo's had enough of this scene, so wraps for lunch and starts shooting the next scene - Lana deciding whether or not to go to Paris.
"I don't know," says Lana. "What if I have no money?"
"Oh, enough," says Director Bo. "Cut there. We'll see if we can fix this up in post-production."
Over to Superlad. He's off to visit Dances With Aplomb, but finds his office ransacked and occupied only by the ever-suave Sinead.
"Did you do this?" says Superlad.
Sinead snorts, refusing to dignify such idiocy with a coherent reply. "Why are you here?"
"Um, Dances With Aplomb was going to help me with a term paper."
Sinead raises an imperious eyebrow at this obvious lie. "A term paper on superpowered individuals?" he asks.
"Ummm... yes?" says Superlad, completely losing track of his web of lies.
They go on in this fashion, sniping and shooting forth hurtful remarks. Personally, I can't stand to see these two bicker and squabble like this. Superlad, Sinead. Work it out.
Porthos is working a different angle. He's busily bribing information out of Chief Running Water when Superlad drops by. Chief Running Water explains crucial plot points to the camera for us all. Namely, if the wrong person touches the knife it will crumble, where the 'wrong person' is defined as Naman's greatest enemy - um, Anti-Naman. Also, Dances With Aplomb is probably chillin' out at the local burial grounds.
Director Bo likes this scene, despite its obvious writing flaws. "That's a wrap!" he shouts.
Over to the local burial grounds and Superlad and Chief Running Water confront Dances With Aplomb, who now wants to be called Apache Chief.
"You can't do this," says Chief Running Water. "Your duty is to protect the blade for Naman!" He gestures to Superlad. "He's Naman."
Superlad puts his head in his hands. This is so embarrassing. Also, what the hell does he need with a knife? Has Chief Running Water not seen his kick-ass heat vision?
Anyway, Apache Chief (formerly Dances With Aplomb) doesn't buy any of this. He decides he's now the saviour of his people. And possibly an obscure member of The Superfriends.
"You must take it to Mordor and throw it into Mount Doom."
"The knife is corrupting you!" says Superlad. "You must take it to Mordor and throw it into Mount Doom."
Director Bo senses this scene is beginning to make no sense. So he orders an explosion and moves onto the next scene, which is him drinking tea with Boring Old Ma and advising Superlad to use Kryptonite against Apache Chief. The scene's a bit sloppy (there's no makeup and Boring Old Ma is being played by her stand-in) but Director Bo's had enough and boldly moves onto a new scene where Lana confronts Sinead, who is selling The Death Claw.
"You can't sell The Death Claw!" says Lana.
"I thought that's what you wanted me to do!" says Sinead. "Don't you want to go to Paris?"
"Oh," says Lana. "I get it."
"In some ways," continues Sinead. "You're the best partner I ever had. Pretty, not too bright, do all the work. Perfect."
Lana smiles vacantly.
So we're off to the barn now with Superlad and Porthos. Superlad is insisting that Porthos leave the Native American Cave People alone. Porthos says he will if Superlad does. Superlad says that's not fair. Porthos says it is, but if he prefers, he'll leave them alone if Apache Chief returns the knife. Superlad warns him it's dangerous. Porthos claims that nothing worthwhile in life comes without risk.
"Besides," he goes on to add. "I believe that knife is valuable... in more ways than one."
"What do you mean?" says Superlad.
Porthos exhales in an annoyed fashion. "Well, in two or more ways, Superlad. I mean, really." He storms off set to his dressing room. Director Bo has to coax him out with a promise that he will have no more scenes with Superlad this episode.
Anyway, Superlad and Chief Running Water set up some cockamamie trap. Apache Chief shows up, Superlad opens up a lead box full of Kryptonite at him. Doesn't affect him. He grabs it, weakens Superlad with it, then stabs him with the knife. Superlad falls over and starts to die, pondering to himself how such a brilliant plan could have gone so terribly wrong.
He gets better, though (stumbles into the kitchen where Boring Old Ma feeds him some chicken soup - oh, and also he is bathed in the latent super-energy that Bo had left over from his earlier super-escapades). Of course, by now Apache Chief has kidnapped Porthos and staked him out for a ritual stabbing. So no time to waste recovering from pesky knife wounds.
Instead, there's a massive fight between Superlad and Apache Chief. You will be staggered to hear that Superlad wins the battle, primarily through cunning wielding of sequoia trees. Somehow, in the process, the knife lands between Porthos and Sinead. They both grab it at the same time and it disintegrates.
And that's it. But of course the question that Director Bo poses to Superlad (and through him, to us, the delighted audience) is which of Porthos and Sinead is destined to be Superlad's (aka Naman's) greatest enemy.
To which we say, duh! It's Sinead. Don't you people know anything?
But we close with a different perspective from Sinead himself. Sinead puts forward the thesis that perhaps we should consider the possibility that everybody's misinterpreting the legend and it is Superlad/Naman who is the evil foe sent from the stars and it is Sinead/Anti-Naman who is the true hero, keeping humanity safe from his super-powered arrogance.
Which just goes to show what you can achieve if you have high quality spin doctors on your payroll. Kudos, Sinead.
And that's it. There was some stupid subplot with Good Ol' Pete and TIAC, but we'll ignore that until next week. Let's give this episode a 'D' for 'Damn fool episode' and focus our gaze firmly to the future.
Next Week: All kinds of foolishness. In particular, we bid farewell to Good Ol' Pete.
Begone,
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