THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 4
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5: Flash! The Fastest Dude Alive

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.

The word that springs to mind is: Flashtacular!

We open in the Metropolis warehouse of some fence (not one of Bo's Farm Fences of Eternal Fixing but, y'know, a criminal fence). He's talking to some young punk kid who has some trinkets and baubles to sell him. The fence doesn't offer him an awful lot of money for his illegally acquired goods so the young punk kid grabs the trinkets and baubles and also the proposed finder's fee the fence was offering and takes off at superspeed.

Cut to Superlad and Bo wandering around the streets of Metropolis. They're about to go see a football game via tickets that Sinead has given Superlad as part of his (Sinead's) ongoing desperate bid to regain Superlad's friendship.

Even though we're not in Smallville, it's not surprising to find that there's still a truck out of control about to collide into Bo who's buying a magazine (The Farm Disciplinarian's Gazette). Superlad is about to sprint to his rescue but the young punk kid beats Superlad to it!

And then runs off, but not before helping himself to Bo's wallet. In this recessionary day and age it's difficult to get members of the public to cough up rewards to heroic superbeings. I applaud the Flash's proactive stance on this issue.

Anyway, we head back to the farm.

"Are you all right?" is the first tedious question asked by Boring Old Ma.

"Yes," says Bo. "But I'm going to call the credit card company and report it stolen."

"Report the credit card company stolen?" says Superlad.

"Who trusts us with money?" asks Boring Old Ma, coming to the more salient point.

Before Bo can answer, Superlad has a better (or, at least, different) idea. He thinks that TIAC might be able to trace where the credit card is being used and thereby track down the Flash. Because TIAC has a modem.

Bo decides to make the best of a bad situation. He turns to Boring Old Ma. "Why don't you and I have a romantic dinner down by the lake?" he says.

"She knows how horny the lake makes Bo."

That sounds like a far too interesting notion for Boring Old Ma to entertain. She knows how horny the lake makes Bo. She claims instead that she has important accounting to do at The Death Claw.

In complete defiance of security protocols and any realistic knowledge of how the internet works, TIAC does manage to track down the Flash. Oh, that dangerous, dangerous world wide web. Can complete anarchy be far away?

So Superlad dashes down to Metropolis and breaks into the Flash's apartment.

"Dude," says the Flash. "What are you doing?"

"Taking Bo's wallet back."

"That's my wallet, dude," says Flash.

"Nuh-uh."

"It is."

"No way."

"Way."

Etcetera.

Before this riveting dialogue can go much further, the Flash (who has been using the assorted aliases of Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West, Ben Johnson, John Wesley Shipp, etc) runs off.

Superlad gives chase.

They sprint like maniacs across town until the Flash decides to run across a lake.

"Well, that's a neat trick," thinks Superlad. He doesn't try to pursue because he's not sure he can do the whole liquid as a running surface thing, and he doesn't want to get his hair all mussed up and wet.

So he runs home instead, where the Flash is waiting for him. "Dude, what took you so long?" he says.

So now the Flash and Superlad are best friends, bonding over their kinetic oddities. The Flash offers his origin (something to do with a lightning strike, a Red Bull factory and a Kodak camera) which Superlad finds odd.

"Was the camera film laced with Kryptonite?" he asks.

"Que?" says Flash.

"I've never met anyone with powers like yours who wasn't from around Smallville," explains Superlad.

"You should get out more, dude," shoots back Flash. This is an extremely valid point.

So they're hanging out. They run down to Florida. They sprint over to Canada. Run, run, run. Race, race, race. Dude, dude, dude.

Sinead makes an appearance at this point, inviting Superlad over to admire a tedious fourteenth century document that was once owned by Rasputin and Boney M.

"Hmmmm...." says Superlad, pretending to find this interesting.

"Look at the symbols around the side," says Sinead. "They're like the ones in the cave."

Oh man, thinks Superlad. "I thought you'd stopped being interested in this stuff."

"I've stopped being obsessed with it," clarifies Sinead. "Now I just spend every waking hour studying it."

"Um, okay," says Superlad. He uses his x-ray vision to look a bit closer at the document. There's some kind of secret map behind it. Well, isn't there always?

"Spot anything interesting?" asks Sinead.

"Define 'interesting'," says Superlad.

"Then Sinead has a business appointment. At, like, 10:30 pm."

Then Sinead has a business appointment. At, like, 10:30 pm. He asks Superlad to leave. Superlad bumps into the Flash out in the Luthor mansion corridors.

"What are you doing here?" says Superlad.

"Just scoping out the Luthor mansion."

"Well, don't," says Superlad. I should mention at this point that Superlad's being a big-time naysayer on the whole Flash 'I'm faster than you so I'll just steal anything I want and never get caught for it' lifestyle. Superlad's all morals this and ethics that and right and wrong the other. "Now get outta here," he says.

Flash runs off. Sinead comes out. "Who you talking to, Superlad?"

Superlad looks around. "Ummmm..." He starts to laugh insanely.

He heads back to the farm for a chat with Bo. Superlad wants to check out the map further and then gather the magic artifacts of... zzzzz... ya, ya, ya. "I should stop running from what I really am," he concludes.

"Superlad," says Bo. "What you really are is a 17 year old boy (being portrayed by a 27 year old actor)."

"It doesn't matter how old I am. I'm just going to sneak into the mansion and take a peek at the document."

And he does. But the Flash breaks in too and steals the document. The alarms go off and Superlad just stands there while Sinead and his security guards come in.

"What are you doing here?" says Sinead.

"Ummm..." says Superlad. "I popped in for a chat?"

"Bit late, isn't it?" says Sinead.

"I thought you'd be up watching Singlets and Tank Tops: One And The Same? on Fox."

Sinead ignores him. "Do you know who took this?" he asks.

"No, I didn't see anyone."

"Well, I believe you," says Sinead. "I know a real friend would never lie to me."

Superlad looks down at his feet.

Sinead goes on. "The thief is going to learn that there's nowhere on Earth that he can run from me."

Superlad looks up into Sinead's suspicious glare. He looks hurriedly back down again.

So now we're back at the fence from the opening scene. The Flash tries to sell the document, but turns his back, so the fence's henchman knocks him down, then Sinead shows up and he gets in a fight too and he gets knocked down, then Superlad shows up and knocks down the fence and his henchman but then the Flash gets up and uses Kryptonite to knock down Superlad, but then the Flash has a change of heart and takes the Kryptonite away and runs off.

Phew.

And that's more or less that.

There was a whole other subplot I'm ignoring about Lana and her Kryptonian tattoo and how she had to trust WM2 sufficiently to share the truth with him and also one where Boring Old Ma has to learn to not be such a boring old workaholic, so she does. Oh, and I should assume that it's obvious that Sinead has also found the secret map behind the document that was returned to him. And also, equi-obviously, he's not telling Superlad about it.

Then we conclude with Flash showing up.

"Why don't you hang out in Smallville and we can form the Justice League?" says Superlad.

"I'll think about it, dude, if you can catch me," says Flash, a wily negotiator.

And off he runs. Superlad gives pursuit. But can't catch him. Flash grins, accelerates and disappears across the horizon. Hmmm, thinks Superlad. I guess I'll have to give that young kid who likes dressing up as a bat a call instead...

A purely Flashtastic episode full of high octane goodness. Several out of several.

Next week: Superlad and Porthos swap bodies, just like in Freaky Friday or Vice Versa. Happily, it looks as if we're skipping zany hijinks of Porthos trying to deal with an overdue history essay and moving straight to areas that I'm assured are "twisted, inappropriate, and disturbing".

Begone,

Indy

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