THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 5
Score: 7.5 / 10 
10: Mr Bo Dangles
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.
Okay. So Bo's up on stage, giving a speech as part of his ludicrous run for Senate.
"Four score and seven years ago," he begins. "I had a dream. Ask not what your country can do for you, dream things that never were and say why not. I came, I saw, I conquered."
While Bo rambles on we cut away to a sniper lining him up. We see that the sniper is whatsername, with the dimples - Lois. The trigger is pulled, the bullet is fired and it heads straight for Bo's overly slicked back noggin.
Open those credits if you please.
Following the credits, we flash back 48 hours. One can only assume that this is to create the tension. Oh no, we are supposed to think. What will happen to Bo? What, or who, can possibly rescue him? They'd have to be faster than a, ahem, speeding bullet.
Regardless, let's play along, shall we?
We're in Luthor mansion, with Sinead giving a stirring speech to the 'Luthor for Senator Young Teens of Smallville University and Local Environs', or LSYTSULE. "We can not afford to be complacent," says Sinead. "We must go beyond the extra mile. We must go the extra ten miles. Defeat is not an option. Crush the opposition. Maybe go twenty miles. Never say die. Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em."
The leader of LSYTSULE, some nubile thing, starts snuggling up to Sinead. "Gosh, Sinead," she says. "Can I have my photograph taken with you in a compromising position?"
"Certainly not," says Sinead. For he knows the queasy Kansan voting electorate frowns upon the teen dalliances. He also knows they have an incontrovertible belief that cameras steal a person's soul.
Instead, he looks down her top and sees her kickin' 'I heart Sinead' necklace. He immediately makes a mental note to check his necklace inventory.
"We must consistently remind the public that you come from a town where glowing green rocks explode out of the sky and kill people ..."
Over at the Kent farm, Bo and Superlad and Boring Old Ma are all dressed up in Kryptonite Green. This is part of Bo's campaign manager's plan. "We must consistently remind the public that you come from a town where glowing green rocks explode out of the sky and kill people," he says.
"Why is that again?" says Lois, who is wandering around, offering her opinion in the usual fashion (ie with no credible explanation for her presence).
"Because of the, um, the... uh, the polls," says the campaign manager, fumbling around with some paper. "Is this graph upside down?" he mutters to himself, as he pours another whiskey.
Lois has had enough. She goes into a rant about how nobody in the campaign office knows the Kents. "Have any of you even seen Superlad naked?" she asks, rhetorically, ignoring the handful of interns raising their hands. She goes on for a bit until Bo fires everybody and hires Lois.
"But I don't know anything about running a campaign!" says Lois.
"And I don't know anything about being a Senator," says Bo. "Let's just have incompetence everywhere."
"Done," says Lois, already dreaming of even greater political heights.
Over to Metropolis U, where Lana is joining the dots on the constellations as part of her astronomy studies. Superlad shows up. They grope for a bit, and then suddenly stop.
"What happened," says Superlad, springing off her. "Did the Li'l Kal-El hurt you?"
"No," says Lana. "Y'know, we haven't had sex since you came back from the dead that time. Is there something wrong?"
"I'm, uh, not a necrophiliac," says Superlad.
"You dimbulb," says Lana. "If anyone's a necrophiliac here, I am."
"Haw!" says Superlad. "You are!"
"What?"
"Why are you studying astronomy all of a sudden?" says Superlad, changing tack. "Weren't you a witch last season? And some kind of Parisian art student the previous? Your character is all over the place!!" He storms off furiously.
The studio audience applauds.
Superlad heads over for a chat with TIAC. "So what's the problem?" she says. "You know you can talk to me about anything other than having sex with Lana."
"Excellent," says Superlad. "It's about sex with Lana. Since I got my powers back, I'm worried that in the heat of--"
"You worry that you might crush her with some kind of orgasmic muscle spasm."
"What?? No," says Superlad. "I was just worried the condom might break." He pauses again. "What?"
"It's something to think about," says TIAC, making mischief, as always.
"Oh, great," says Superlad. "I was just going to get Boring Old Ma to make some kind of kryptonite-laced rubber, but now with the whole crushing her with my uncontrolled abilities thing... sheesh. Curse my superhuman genitalia!!" he says, raising his fist to the sky.
"Anyway," says TIAC. "I think Lana's onto you. She's studying astronomy. She's always talking about you coming back from the dead. She's cut out an article from Cosmo entitled 'Is your boyfriend from Krypton?' Your game needs to switch from offense to defence. Because sooner or later Lana's going to start asking all the wrong people all the right questions."
"What? Slow down a tick. She's going to start asking the who the what now?" says Superlad. Alas, TIAC has already left the set. Offense? Defence? he thinks. Should I be trying out for the football team again?
He heads home to find Bo hanging upside down in the barn.
"Noo!!" says Boring Old Ma. So we know it's not some form of back pain treatment. Bo has been beaten up by those LSYTSULE hooligans, fresh from a campaign kegger.
They take him to the hospital, where Bo steals a passing stethoscope and self-diagnoses. "Fit as a fiddler," he declares. "Now, let's get back on the campaign trail."
"Is that a good idea?" says Superlad.
"... hanging upside down from his barn can make a man mighty surly."
"Shut your lip," says Bo, because hanging upside down from his barn can make a man mighty surly. "Sinead's not going to beat me this way."
Sinead? thinks Superlad. Ah yes, the opposing candidate. This makes much more sense than his original theory of a reincarnated Bug Boy from Season One. So when he bumps into Sinead in the hospital corridors, he doesn't even mention Bug Boy.
"You are not a cockroach!" he says to Sinead, who blinks at him, confused.
Back at LSYTSULE headquarters, those drunken kids are reviewing their antics. "I liked it when you hit him with a plank," says LSYTSULE Head Chick.
"I think we've gone too far," says one of the guys.
"Let's turn ourselves in," says the other.
So LSYTSULE Head Chick shoots them both for being pussies and shaves her head to look more like Sinead. She busts into the mansion and tells Sinead about her Bo-dangling antics, while stripping naked.
"Don't you ever hurt the Kents again!" says Sinead, furious and still without the most rudimentary security for his mansion. They scuffle and she knocks him out with a convenient Ming vase.
So now we're back at the opening scene. Bo is walking in to make his speech. "Great speech, Bo," says Lois. "Oh, Boring Old Ma wrote that," he says, modestly. "She's the one who knows all the English and that." LSYTSULE Head Chick has meanwhile set up a rifle. Lois heads up and interrupts her, so she talks Lois into aiming the rifle at Bo. She does so, because, y'know, LSYTSULE Head Chick is pointing a gun at her. But then Lois thinks 'actually, no' and they scuffle and LSYTSULE Head Chick knocks her out with a convenient Ming vase. She picks up the rifle. She shoots.
Superlad emerges from nowhere and intercepts the bullet in mid-air. We all feign surprise. And that's more or less that. By the time Superlad gets back to LSYTSULE Head Chick, Lois has woken up and beat the snot out of her with a convenient Ming vase.
There's a few more closing bits. Boring Old Ma accepts a cheque from Porthos. She'd been hesitant, partially because she knew Bo wouldn't approve of Luthor-financing, but mostly because Porthos wanted to smell her hair in exchange. She talked him down to buying her some conditioner instead and smelling that. Oh, Ma. You're boring, but you're a wily negotiator. Lois talks about seducing firefighters as part of a bold new campaign strategy to pick up the arsonist demographic. Bo gives her an idiotic and hearty thumbs up. Oh, and Lana confronts Superlad and tells him that she's deduced that an alien probably landed in the first meteor shower all those years ago and what if he's been living with them all these years? Superlad yawns.
"Well, duh," he says.
Next Week: Those Lazy Smallville Cops are up to no good again. Also, pictures of Lois in nothing but a fireman's helmet flood the internet.
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