THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 4
Score: 7.7 / 10 
20: They Grow Up So Fast
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's the middle of the night and there's a pregnant girl about to give birth. Is she in a hospital? A carefully regulated midwife-approved home birthing environment? No, she is in a car in Smallville and we all know that can't be good for anybody.
And so it proves. For the young father-to-be skids the car to a halt, the girl's womb glows a forboding green, the father-to-be makes the wise and cowardly decision to abandon both girl and her glowing green womb and then the entire car is disintegrated in a krypto-placental explosion.
All we are left with is an enormous crater with a baby crying in the middle of it.
Fortunately, for several years now, Lana has been dragging Superlad out on midnight baby searches. Once a week, they'd strap on their baby-hunting overalls and head off to look for abandoned infants. It may seem insane, but on the other hand, it is also highly obsessive. And yet this night, Lana's mad diligence pays off. The pair of them pick up the baby and take it to the hospital.
Once there, they are told that the hospital baby-hunters will do their best to track down the parents.
"Well, can't we be the parents?" asks Lana.
"Yeah," says Superlad. And cites Smallville 'finders keepers' law.
Faced with Superlad's legal nous, the hospital backs down and Superlad is allowed to take the baby back to the farm. Boring Old Ma is fine with this - she'd love to have a new baby in the house. Bo is instead hoping the baby might provide further super-help with the chores once he's a few years older. Hell, it worked once. No reason it can't work again.
Over to Porthos, who is hanging out with Dr Quinn. They have some quick lapdog banter and then start discussing those bloody stones again. Dr Quinn wants Porthos to get Sinead to give the stone to her.
"No, no, no," says Porthos. "Wasn't it WM2 who got ahold of the stone?" His memory is hazy, because it was such a dull episode.
"My son's as dumb as rock moss.
Dr Quinn snorts. "Oh come on, Porthos. My son's as dumb as rock moss. I think we both know that Sinead got the stone and if he doesn't give it to me, there'll be hell to pay."
Porthos glowers. "Nobody other than me threatens my family," he says.
He heads off to visit Sinead, regardless. They make their usual subtle threats against one another. Porthos claims to be worried about Sinead's safety. Sinead has a good laugh about this and eventually Porthos joins in too.
Oh, Porthos. You might be an insane megalomaniac, but you can laugh at yourself and that's something to admire.
Back to the barn and Superlad and Lana are naming the baby.
"Well," says Superlad. "We found him in Evan's Field. Why don't we call him that?"
"Done," says Lana. "Hello, little Fieldy," she coos.
But then the power dims and the baby glows and, what do you know, the baby has aged seven years.
Time for a family meeting. Boring Old Ma thinks they should take the kid back to the hospital. Bo thinks that's also a good idea but only after the kid's done some chores first. Superlad decries all this as crazy talk and suggests that Sinead is the only person who can be trusted to look after the baby.
Whatever.
Lana, meanwhile, is in the barn with Fieldy, who is reading out loud.
"You can read!?" says Lana.
"Sure," says Fieldy. "Literacy is my ally. I've read the encyclopedias all the way up to 'W'."
"Well, that's never going to get you anywhere," says Lana. "Let's discuss body image."
"I got up to 'windmills'," adds Fieldy.
This, as seasoned viewers of Smallville know, is bad news. Lana has long been obsessed with windmills and she now fosters this obsession in little Fieldy. Pretty soon, it's windmill this, and Holland that, and sustainable eco-electrical power the other.
To shut him up about the windmills, Superlad takes him off to Sinead who immediately has his scientists jabbing him with needles.
Sinead explains to the viewing audience the theory behind the growth spurts.
"Apparently little Fieldy is storing energy. Once it stockpiles to a certain point he undergoes a growth spurt and releases the energy." Sinead sighs. "The only cure is a bone marrow transplant," he adds, for the fun of it and without a shred of evidence.
"Can I supply my bone marrow??" says Lana, like a complete idiot.
"Wait a second," says Superlad. "Are you saying this kid is a rapidly aging exploding nuclear child?"
Sinead nods. Superlad takes a wary step back.
Over to TIAC who tells us that Fieldy's mother only got pregnant the week before. To a local mechanic. Who used the missionary position. Boy, those scripts are specific.
Anyway, Superlad heads off to see him about a bone marrow transplant. This idea doesn't go down too well. Because, y'know, ouch!
Superlad heads back to Fieldy to tell him his father doesn't want to save his life.
"Well, that sucks," says Fieldy.
"Engh," says Superlad, shrugging his shoulders. What can you do?
"Maybe I can convince him to give up his precious marrow."
Well, thinks Fieldy. Maybe I can convince him to give up his precious marrow.
And he tries. But he fails. And what's more, his father trips and falls on one of those pesky garage pitchforks. Which is bad, but not as painful as a bone marrow transplant.
Meanwhile Superlad has bumped into Sinead.
"BTW," says Sinead. "I forgot to mention earlier that the next time Fieldy does one of his rapid ageing things, he'll release enough energy to blow himself up along with half of Smallville."
"Oh, way to go Lana," says Superlad, cleverly blaming the mother.
"We need to track him down and seal him in a containment chamber in Luthorcorp," says Sinead.
"No," says Superlad, coming over all paternal and stupid. "He's my son."
"He's a walking fission reaction!" says Sinead.
"Oh yeah. Right. Let's go."
But by now Lana's decided to take him to visit those damn windmills. Power is blacking out all over the town thanks to Fieldy's unique power-sucking tendencies.
TIAC uses this knowledge and her online RSS feed of the town's electricity supply to track him down. Superlad dashes off.
So then there's windmill nonsense. Fieldy starts to explode. Superlad climbs up, gets Lana down, then climbs back up himself and blocks the blast with his body before coming down and consoling Lana and lying about how close he was to the blast.
And that's that. There's a bit of sadness about, y'know, the dead kid and that. And Lana's crying and learning valuable lessons about mortality and being in love with Superlad again. But in the end, it's overshadowed by Porthos, who is poisoning people again. He gives Dr Quinn a drink, she starts to die and then he gives her an antidote in exchange for one of those bloody stones. Oh, and a promise not to kill Sinead.
Ah, Porthos. I love your paternal side. Also, I'm not exactly sure how you managed the poisoning, given that Dr Quinn poured the wine. Maybe I wasn't watching closely enough. Perhaps I have been deceived yet again by Porthos's deft sleight of hand. He's evil and an amateur magician. That's what makes him so dangerous.
Oh, and Sinead is using his research on Fieldy to make squillions of dollars in the international medical markets. So everybody's turned out okay. Except for, y'know, Fieldy. Who is still dead.
Next week: Something to do with a renegade school photographer. By far the worst kind.
Begone,
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