THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 4
Score: 7.4 / 10 
22: The Showering Inferno
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.
At long last, the season finale is upon us, and with any kind of luck, the ongoing saga of those bloody stones will be finally put to rest.
You may remember from last episode if you hadn't kicked through the screen in righteous anger that Dr Quinn was heading off to give Lana what-for about the stone she had on her.
It's taken her a week to get there, but finally she's made it.
"Hand over the stone, Lana," says Dr Quinn, dispensing with cumbersome chit-chat.
"Haw, you are!" says Lana, not listening very closely.
And there's a struggle and Lana stabs Dr Quinn through the heart with the stone. We are supposed to believe that Lana has been possessed by that damn witch again, but really, can any of us honestly say that we would pass up the opportunity to drive a sharp-edged weapon through the heart of Dr Quinn? Of course not.
Still, it does make you wonder how, exactly, Dr Quinn's been getting by on the evil supervillain front all these years. I mean, her son has been defeated by a pair of bound Luthors. Perhaps that's forgivable. They are, after all, Luthors and their combined rat cunning has defeated far more worthy foes than feeble-minded WM2. But to be defeated and killed by Lana?? That's just amateurish.
I should probably mention at this point that all this has taken place before the opening credits have even rolled. Which is a damn good thing, because we've got one other bit of pre-opening credit plot development to get through - namely, Superlad having a nightmare!!
Oh, and also a shot of a fresh meteor storm heading to Earth.
But let's not concern ourselves with that just yet.
Lana's on the run from the pigs. She's concerned that even in Smallville this may be one murder too many. She goes to see Sinead, who gives her access to his blood-cleaning bowl. Unfortunately, despite his immeasurable wealth, Sinead has no access to running water, so this slows Lana down on the hand-washing somewhat.
"Bo and Superlad subtly cover their groin region."
Over at the farm, Superlad's woken up half the house up with his snoozy shenanigans. And then, indeed, the other half. Lois comes wandering down the stairs in her jammies. Bo and Superlad subtly cover their groin region.
"Oh yeah," says Lois. "I suppose 2am in the morning's the best time to tell you I'll be leaving your house tomorrow. Thanks and that, I suppose."
"Oh, thank Krypton," says Superlad. Perhaps now he'll finally be able to sleep at night. The nightmares of the Earth's destruction he can handle. The half-naked hottie in the next room? Not so much.
Bo nods in agreement.
Meanwhile, Sinead's off to Lana's place to, I dunno, snoop around and mooch from her fridge.
Sinead flicks on the light and Porthos is there.
"I just thought I'd clean up the bloody remains of Dr Quinn that Lana left here," says Porthos, once again the voice of reason.
"And then sit alone in the middle of the room in the dark?" shoots back Sinead.
"Of course."
Next day, Superlad and TIAC are getting ready for their high school graduation. Superlad, for all his powers, is incapable of tying the simplest Windsor knot. Fortunately, Lois comes in wearing one of her awesome singlets (this one has 'my other shirt is a tank top' embroidered on the front). She knots the tie for Superlad and then remarks on how moderately handsome he looks.
"Yeah, your norgs are working well, also," says Superlad, always one to return a compliment.
And then they have a touching moment where they recognise that they don't actually loathe one another. But, y'know, don't confess to their irresistible attraction either. So, trapped in the nether world.
Anyway, off to graduation. Lana's not there, what with her hiding from a murder rap. But all the other students of Smallville High who haven't become raving, superpowered lunatics over the previous four seasons graduate. All six of them.
It looks like Lana's going to miss her graduation but the US Military will have none of that. They storm in, all jeeplike, and declare the graduation over. Wow, thinks the less observant viewer, Lana's got some clout. But then we remember it's more to do with the impending meteor strike. The town has to evacuate and run for the hills.
"Panic! Panic!!" shout the army.
TIAC takes the opportunity to taunt Superlad some more about his secretive superpowers, saying things like 'you seem to be able to get things done in half the time it takes a normal person' and 'wow, meteors, extra-terrestrials must love Smallville' and 'hey, what's your cape size?'
Back to the farm and Bo and Boring Old Ma are packing the General Custer frantically. Superlad refuses to help. He instead wants to go to the rescue of, well, somebody. It's an overwhelming urge, but one without a current focus. So he instead decides to ask the SS Jor-El for some advice.
On the way to the bloody caves with one of those bloody stones he bumps into Sinead. Sinead offers him a ride in a helicopter.
"I hardly think this is the time!" says Superlad.
"Fine, I'll take Lana instead," says Sinead. Hurt. But hiding it.
Oh, and somewhere in that conversation, also chit-chat about the caves. And how meteor showers that destroy your hair totally suck.
Superlad pops down to the caves for his end-of-season chat with the SS Jor-El. The SS Jor-El explains that because Superlad didn't gather all the stones together earlier in the season and also because Lana killed Dr Quinn, the Earth is going to be destroyed unless Superlad somehow managed to get all the stones together before the episode is over.
Wow, SS Jor-EL. Way to offer a plot throughline.
Back to the farm. Boring Old Ma packs a yellow rug. Bo crams the rest of the entire farm into the truck.
Superlad explains to them about the SS Jor-El's proposed plotline. Boring Old Ma doesn't think much of it and suggests that a better fundamental conflict might be getting in the truck and getting the hell out of here!! But Bo is inexplicably on Superlad and the SS Jor-El's side. He explains how the meteor shower's liable to be full of Kryptonite but, hell, if Superlad's too chicken to face up to Kryptonite, then what's the use of him? He makes 'cluck-cluck' noises.
So Superlad's off to find the other two stones. Luckily, hanging out in the barn is Lana, who gives him one.
Well, that was easy, thinks Superlad. He runs off, leaving Lana to ramble on about how she may never see Superlad again and yak, yak, yak.
Lana eventually dribbles to a stop and heads back to the mansion. Sinead pops in and suggests she should put the stone in his vault because, it's, y'know, a murder weapon and stuff.
"I'm not putting the stone in your vault," says Lana.
"Then I'm not letting you go on a helicopter ride."
"They ... are confronted by WM2, who ... has 'done an Aragorn'.
Bo and Boring Old Ma have finally managed to cram the entire barn into the back of the truck. They drive off but are confronted by WM2, who (as sisters of wiser viewers than me have pointed out) has 'done an Aragorn'. He's survived the cliff fall and is back to life with a shotgun and he's decided, what the hell, I'll hold the Kents hostage.
TIAC and Lois, meanwhile, are off to pick up Lana. There's a roadblock which leads to a painful scene with Lois taunting a soldier while TIAC takes the back route to the mansion.
Meanwhile, in the mansion, Sinead and Porthos are trading brandy shots. No rush fellas. Just a meteor storm on the way.
Anyway, Sinead and Porthos are busily lying to one another about stones when Superlad plonks Lana's one in the cave stone-slot. For no good reason, this stone plonking causes Porthos to have an epileptic fit and blast Sinead into a wall. Something to do with the stone in Porthos's pocket. The one he'd denied having. So, liar liar, brain cells on fire.
Back at the farm, WM2 is busily tying up Bo and Boring Old Ma. Perhaps he's incapable of keeping a pair of tied-up Luthors under control while armed only with a piddling shotgun. But he figures he can take the Kents, especially the ones without superpowers.
Sinead's finally convinced Lana to take the helicopter ride. Admission price: One magic stone. But, of course, Lana doesn't have it, which infuriates Sinead. Is it right for him to look the other way for a friend? No, of course not. So he does. Lana gets in the helicopter and off they go for a first-hand tour of the impending meteor shower.
TIAC's ducked into the mansion, meanwhile, and so too has Superlad who is doing the whole coughing up blood thing beause of some spare mansion Kryptonite. She drags him to safety and he dashes off to the caves with Porthos's stone, just as Sinead wanders back in.
Sinead's getting really cranky now. These blasted meddling kids!! He grabs TIAC by the hair and storms out with her.
Back at the farm, poor old WM2 can't even keep control of Kents!! We cut him slack on the Luthor front, but this is worse than Dr Quinn being butchered by Lana.
He sort of gets control of them again, but as he does so the meteors decide to finally strike, shooting through the roof of the barn.
And, indeed, through the rest of Smallville. Footage is recycled from the pilot episode. Superlad rescues a small child. Lana's helicopter goes down. Superlad heads back to the caves, joins the stones together and is transported to Antarctica (obviously). Porthos has Kryptonian symbols whirring through his eyeballs (ouch!). TIAC and Sinead play pushy-shovey in the caves. Lois cries about, y'know, the devastation of Smallville (the town and the show). And Lana crawls out of the helicopter wreckage and finds another damn spaceship.
And there we end it. Let's hang on that particular cliff for several months shall we?
Next Season: Smallville: The College Years. Promises to be the best season yet, if the college years of such shows as Beverly Hills, 90210, Dawson's Creek and The Smurfs are anything to go by.
Begone,
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