THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 4
Score: 7.4 / 10 
10: A Nightmare On Kal-Elm Street... Um, Again
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.
So it all starts with Lana talking to Superlad about her concerns about WM2.
"I'm just deeply suspicious about the reasons for him being here and how he seems to prefer living in Smallville than living in Paris and how his mother is apparently a 600 year old witch named Dr Quinn who burned my spiritual ancestor at the stake and so forth..." she says.
"Well, that does all sound suspicious," says Superlad. "All except the preferring Smallville to Paris bit. That makes perfect sense to me. After all, what does Paris have that Smallville doesn't?"
"Besides a complete lack of irradiated monster types trying to murder me every other episode?" says Lana.
"Besides that, yes."
Lana can't think of anything else, so instead professes her love to Superlad and pashes him frantically. WM2 bursts in, beats up Superlad and then is stabbed in the gut by Lana.
Oh, but luckily it then cross-fades to reality and we see that this was simply a dream sequence like you or I encounter every day. Phew! That's okay, then.
Except that, y'know, WM2 is still locked in a coma, heart beating frantically.
Superlad and TIAC dash over to the hospital set where they bump into Lana who explains that WM2 just came running out of the top of The Death Claw, before plummeting onto a table.
"A very expensive table!" says Lana. "Sinead will take this out of my pay." And she gives a little angry punch to the sky.
Superlad has little sympathy. Maybe next time Lana will think more carefully before she gets involved with nightmare-possessed table-breakers.
"TIAC and Superlad get into their heads that it would be good form to break into WM2's apartment and snoop around ..."
Anyway, TIAC and Superlad get into their heads that it would be good form to break into WM2's apartment and snoop around, possibly to see what ails him but more likely to see if they can scrounge up some more illicit schoolgirl affair gossip.
Sadly, they can't, but TIAC does find WM2's To Do list.
"Look at this!" says TIAC, pointing to the third item.
"Forge interesting subplot with Lana," reads Superlad.
"Not checked off," observes TIAC.
Superlad raises his eyebrows. No shit, he thinks.
"What about this one?" says TIAC, looking down further. "Go down to Luthor plant and become infected with mysterious nightmare toxin."
"Egh," says Superlad. "What else?"
But TIAC urges Superlad to think a little harder and eventually convinces him (despite his better instincts) to go down to visit Sinead and see what's going on with WM2.
It turns out that Sinead doesn't have time to deal with Superlad. (TIAC, sensing this, has already ducked down the hall and into a room labelled 'Warning: Deadly Nightmare-Releasing Toxin'... but we'll come back to her.) Instead Sinead suggests that Superlad might rather go for a ride with 'this nice security guard' on this big 'golf buggy thing'.
"Would I!!" says Superlad, and jumps on. Off they drive, with Superlad giggling and crying 'wheeeeeeee!!' all the way. Suddenly TIAC shows up, writhing around like a bucket of squid in a straitjacket and totally ruins Superlad's ride with her 'pay attention to me' antics.
For no clear reason, Superlad takes this out on the security guard, knocking him unconscious, before taking TIAC off to the hospital set.
"Wow!" says Lana. "What can possibly be causing them to relive their worst nightmares over and over?" Y'know, just in case, none of us have worked it out yet. (TIAC, by the way, apparently has a worst nightmare of discovering her mother is mute and insane and hidden deep in the Luthorcorp plant. Which, if nothing else, is unique.)
"I don't know," replies Superlad. "Perhaps some bad fish?" Because, let's face it, for a dimbulb like the Kryptonian lad, it can be awfully difficult to remember sources of mysterious infections, even when it has been overtly pointed out to you by fellow castmates.
So Lana and Superlad decide to go back and look at TIAC's computer. Happily, TIAC had foreseen the difficulties Superlad might be having in unravelling the situation, and so has left open a web page that has 'SINEAD IS RESPONSIBLE FOR NIGHTMARE COMA VICTIMS' flashing between a BLINK tag.
"Of course!" says Superlad, slapping his forehead, but before he can dash off to visit Sinead again, Lana starts having her worst nightmare - which is apparently seeing her mother and father and everybody she's ever loved lying dead in a morgue. Because, after all, if everybody she knows is dead, over whom will she be able to gloat that she's prettier?
Exactly.
Oh, and she's also terrified that her witch predecessor will wake up and return to life. Because a) the witch is just as pretty, but b) far sexier in a bad girl way. So that's pretty terrifying.
She pops into a coma and Superlad races off to the hospital where he decides to also relive his worst fear. By this, of course, we don't mean a lifetime spent flying about in a skintight leotard, although I'm certain that's in the top five. Instead, Superlad's top fear is that there'll be another meteor shower strike Smallville.
So another meteor shower strikes Smallville and Superlad tries to protect Lana, but gets a bit knocked down by, like, the Kryptonite.
"Of course," says Lana, waking up and witnessing this. "I feel so stupidly pretty. I should have known that you came down with the meteor shower and are therefore an alien from the planet Krypton!!"
"I've been meaning to tell you that, yes," says Superlad.
"... I have to stab you to death with this handy dagger-shaped piece of Kryptonite."
"But even though we have been friends and lovers lo these handful of seasons, your alien status means that I have to stab you to death with this handy dagger-shaped piece of Kryptonite."
"You're doing what now?" says Superlad.
"You killed my parents!!" screams Lana.
"Dude," says Superlad. "I was a baby and my freaking planet exploded!! How, exactly, am I to blame for this?"
But Lana won't listen. She stabs him. But then he wakes up.
Doctor Random runs over. "You're the first person to wake up from the condition!" he says. "We need to study you!"
"Maybe later," says Superlad. Sinead wanders around the corner. "Hey, Sinead, wassup?" says Superlad.
"I wish I could understand how these infections are spreading away from my plant," says Sinead.
"Oh yeah," says Superlad. Forgotten already. "What are we going to do about that?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I'm going to run off to check on Bo and Boring Old Ma and I'll meet you back at the plant."
"Rightey-o," says Sinead.
And yep, Bo and Boring Old Ma are predictably down for the count. Superlad nods knowingly, then dashes over to visit Sinead who is being told by his top scientist that it's too risky to trial the vaccine on a human because it could kill them and, in fact, did so in an earlier scene I couldn't be bothered chronicling.
"Trial it on me," says Superlad. "I'm not huma--"
"Shut up a tick," says Top Scientist. "We also have to heat it to a zillion degrees Kelvin before it can be used and that's going to take a few more hours."
Superlad glances at it with burney-eyes. "Done, so let's try this thing out--"
"Way ahead of you," says Sinead, and trials it on himself before anybody can stop him. It innoculates him by infecting him with a weakened version of the virus.
Sinead's greatest fear? That he will be President and wear a resplendent white suit and then detonate a whole heap of nuclear bombs and destroy the world.
Yep. That's his number one fear. As wiser Smallville viewers than myself have pointed out: stand back in awe of the Luthor ego, people. I, personally, would have thought Sinead's greatest fear might be having to hang out with people his own age. But no. The destruction of the world trumps it.
Anyway, that's more of less it. Everybody is cured and they all have a bit of a laugh about it all. WM2 and Lana break up or don't or something. Superlad, Bo and Boring Old Ma have a chat about how Superlad now sees that he couldn't ever share his secret with Lana. ("Maybe you will be able to share it with somebody one day," says Boring Old Ma. "And maybe she'll even have the same initials as Lana," says Bo, smiling wisely. He turns to the camera and unleashes a sly wink. "Right, gang?" he says. Bo, apparently completely abandoning the fourth wall these days.) Oh, and Porthos has been released from prison (despite his born-again protestations) by a mysterious benefactor (possibly Darkseid the Destroyer, possibly a reborn Good Ol' Pete).
Next week: Apparently, we take a great big breather during December and start paying attention again come the New Year. See y'all then.
Begone,
blog comments powered by Disqus
This here item has so far scored 7.4 / 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.
