THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 3
Score: 7.4 / 10 
21: Goodbye, Good Ol' Pete
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.
Sinead and Lana are sitting in front of the fireplace at the mansion. Sinead is showering Lana with plane ticket gifts and advice on how to deal with Paris. ("A smile goes a long way" he assures her. "Low cut tops work well too.")
Superlad bursts in like a clod and ruins the tone of everything, as you'd expect.
"When are you abandoning me?" he asks.
"I'm not abandoning you," replies Sinead.
"No, her," says Superlad.
"Saturday," replies Lana, leaving to pack and exfoliate.
More interesting than that, though (and it is startling to think that there could be anything more interesting. Startling, but true) is the re-emergence of Spooky Dead Girl who, as we recall is the clone of a dead childhood friend of Lana's.
Anyway she escapes from her minimum security holding cell in the back halls of Luthorcorp, makes her way to The Death Claw and kills a random interior decorator, all before you can say 'where the heck are the opening credits?'.
We emerge from the opening credits into a man-to-man chat and one-on-one basketball game between Superlad and Good Ol' Pete. Good Ol' Pete fills us in on last week's subplot that I couldn't be bothered recounting. Some gibberish about his mother and father getting divorced and his mother moving to Wichita. Superlad feigns interest and sympathy but not so much that he loses the game. He has, after all, a rep to maintain.
Superlad also reveals to Good Ol' Pete that his latest strategy for dealing with the whole 'Lana moving to Paris' thing is to either a) drop an atom bomb in the Eiffel Tower or b) tell Lana his secret.
Good Ol' Pete points out that option a) is destined to be covered in Superman 2, so he'd better see if he can polish up option b).
Superlad therefore tricks Lana into having a date with him by being all mysterious like. ("There's something I should have told you a long time ago," he says. "Sigh," says Lana. "Really?" "Yes," says Superlad, interlocking his fingers and bringing both hands to his chin in a bid to look deep and pondering. Lana has, by now, wandered away of course.)
"Spooky Dead Girl ... apparently now ages very rapidly for plot purposes."
Hey, let's check in on Porthos. He's being all cranky about the escape of Spooky Dead Girl, who apparently now ages very rapidly for plot purposes. He tells Spooky Dead Girl's dad that he wants her back by dinner time or there'll be hell to pay.
Meanwhile, Spooky Dead Girl is now pretending to be the new owner of The Death Claw. She wants to be best friends with Lana and is of the opinion that removing Mexican foodstuffs from the menu is the best way to accomplish this.
Lana sighs again. For the love of... Why is everybody so determined to be her friend and/or lover? Is it her flawless features? Her pert breasts? It's surely not her sparkling wit or sense of fun, is it?
No, Lana, it's not.
Anyway, before they can become best friends Spooky Dead Girl's Dad shows up.
"Is Spooky Dead Girl here?" he asks.
"Yes," says Lana. "She's right behind you stabbing you through the back with her now-intangible, now-not-so-much hand."
"Understood," says Spooky Dead Girl's Dad and dies.
Spooky Dead Girl then knocks Lana out and takes her to a holding cell at the back of her childhood farm and locks her in it.
Superlad, meanwhile, has gone home to tell Boring Old Ma that he's going to tell Lana his secret.
Anybody want to guess whether Boring Old Ma thinks this is a good idea?
That's correct. She does not.
But still because she's tedious she claims that she 'trusts him' and 'whatever he decides is fine with her'. Way to sit on the fence, Boring Old Ma.
It's halfway through the episode and there hasn't been a Luthorian chat, so let's rectify that immediately, shall we?
Turns out that this particular discussion is about whether or not Sinead can be trusted by Porthos (he cannot). This is couched in all manner of hypotheticals about 'aspiring employees' and 'mentorship'. It ends, as you would expect, with Porthos tearing Sinead's shirt open.
And is startled to find a listening device planted on Sinead's person.
"Is this one of those iPods I've heard about?" says Porthos.
"Um, yes."
"Excellent," says Porthos. And presses Shuffle mode.
Sinead slinks off, while Porthos orders a random FBI henchman to beat up Good Ol' Pete. Not quite sure why, but, on the other hand, why not?
Back to the barn and Bo's there for a chat with Superlad. He's also not keen on the whole spilling of the secret to Lana thing, but unlike Boring Old Ma isn't going to be so wishy-washy about it. Not that it matters, because Lana has stood Superlad up, causing Bo to rub his hands together in gleeful secretive triumph.
He then says something profound about fatherhood that I missed.
Superlad heads off to the Death Claw the next day to find out what Lana's all about with the standing up thing, bitch! Spooky Dead Girl tells him that Lana left for Paris early.
"She wouldn't do that without saying goodbye to me," protests Superlad.
"She said something about hating you," lies SDG.
"Really??"
"No, hating goodbyes," corrects SDG. "Sorry. Hard to keep one's head straight when you are a rapidly-aging super-speed sometimes-intangible clone."
"You're what now?" says Superlad, who'd been distracted by one of the new waitresses.
"Nothing."
"Okay."
So, it's time for another painful squabble between Superlad and Sinead. Both accuse the other of being a crappy and untrustworthy friend who lies and keeps secrets behind one another's backs. This week, Superlad is cranky about Sinead buying Lana's plane ticket. (Presumably he is worried about who gets the frequent flyer points.) Sinead is cranky because he can't get any more dirt on Porthos. They squabble for a while until Sinead tells Superlad that Lana, in fact, hasn't already gone to Paris and this was a lie.
Superlad immediately consults TIAC so that she has a scene. While Superlad and TIAC try to work out what's going on in the whole Spooky Dead Girl front, things have deteriorated over in the Lana holding cell. Following a half-assed escape attempt, SDG has decided that she doesn't want to be friends with Lana any more so has tied her up and started to gas her to death.
Luckily, Superlad and TIAC have talked things through to a sensible conclusion and Superlad can dash to Lana's rescue, save her with a thundering crash and make a water tank explode on top of Spooky Dead Girl. All in an episode's work, really.
Meanwhile, Porthos's FBI henchman has pulled Good Ol' Pete over, ostensibly for driving like a maniac eight episodes ago. He drives Good Ol' Pete away and starts beating him up, as is standard FBI procedure.
Sinead, however, comes along and puts an end to this (eventually) with his usual suave style and aplomb. FBI henchman tells Sinead that Good Ol' Pete is 'sitting on a secret bigger than anything!', then gets one last good kick in for good measure.
"And what might that secret be?" asks Sinead, while dabbing Good Ol' Pete's cuts and scrapes with Betadine.
"Oh Sinead, you are a sly'un."
Good Ol' Pete almost slips and tells him before catching himself at the last second. Oh Sinead, you are a sly'un. Good Ol' Pete wags his finger in wry admiration of Sinead's foxlike cunning and leaves.
He heads back to visit Superlad where they have another man-to-man chat out by the barn. Out of nowhere, Good Ol' Pete says something like, "Well, I guess I'll be leaving the show forever," and Superlad says he guesses that's okay, and then there's a manly hug, during which Good Ol' Pete manages some real tears while distant-eyed Superlad wonders if Boring Old Ma is going to do a roast lamb tonight.
Then Lana shows up. "Hey Superlad," she says. "You have something to tell me?"
"Nope," says Superlad. Perhaps because he's worried about Good Ol' Pete's recent beating, more likely because he's forgotten what he was going to say in the first place.
Oh, and TIAC? She's got Porthos's confession to his parents' murder on tape. She tells Sinead and volunteers to help him (Sinead) take him (Porthos) down. So during yet another Luthor family discussion, the FBI show up at Porthos's house and arrest him. Porthos finds this irritating and quotes the bible to prove it.
So there we are. Bit lame for a pre-season finale, really. Nevertheless, let's say goodbye to Good Ol' Pete. Catch you around, Good Ol' Pete. Or, y'know, more likely not.
Next Week: The season three finale. I'm going to assume that Porthos is not just going to idly sit back and go to jail.
Begone,
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