THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 5
Score: 8.4 / 10 
17: Bring Out Your Dead!
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 Lana's reacted to last episode's dumping in the usual way. That is, she's gone off to a creepy medical student to have herself injected with Kryptonite 'I see dead people' Juice so she can have a chinwag with her dead parents about how 'totally bogus' Superlad is.
"You're so pretty," say her dead parents, before Lana is dragged, smiling, back to life.
Whatever.
TIAC, meanwhile, has more important fish fingers to fry. She's consulted last week's script and seen evidence of Spike-iac down in Central America. She immediately tells Superlad this.
"There's a Central America now?" says Superlad.
"Did that joke last week," replies TIAC, and sends him on his way.
Over to Senator Boring Old Ma. She's talking tough with reporters, demanding a debate on the issues facing everyday Kansans.
"Why are we wasting money on roads and schools when there are important costume design decisions to make? Capes, yes or no? Red and blue, with a splash of yellow? An 'S' symbol, or something else? These are the issues the voters want answered!"
By the end of this rant, all of the reporters have drifted off, but not Porthos. He's shown up to continue his magnificent seduct-a-thon.
"Well said, Senator Boring Old Ma," he says. "Now, speaking of seduction, why don't you accompany me to The Big Political Dinner tomorrow night?"
"I will," says Senator Boring Old Ma. "But you must realise that it is only as friends. You and I will never, ever have a romantic relationship."
"Senator Boring Old Ma, suddenly very full of herself indeed."
Senator Boring Old Ma, suddenly very full of herself indeed.
"The thought never crossed my mind," lies Porthos, like the glorious deviant he is.
Superlad's had a wander around Honduras. He's doing this without a) a passport and b) clean underwear. Fortunately, with respect to b), he's still wearing it on the inside. For now, this is both sensible and hygienic. He finds a small urchin who is carving spaceship replicas out of wood. "That's kick ass!" says Superlad.
"Ten US Dollars!" says the urchin, because hey, he needs to eat.
"Five dollars and you'll show me where the spaceship is," says Superlad.
"Seven and I'll disappoint you by only showing you where it once was before being moved."
"Eight!" says Superlad, losing track of the haggling.
"Ten and your shoes as well."
"Done." Superlad hands over the money and his shoes, then sees the area where the ship used to sit and runs home, disappointed and unsure where he went so wrong. Also, he forgot to take the wooden spaceship carving.
"Spike-iac's down in Honduras, all right," he says to TIAC. "We need to do something about this."
"Perhaps in a future episode," says TIAC. "Right now we have to worry about Lana, who is messed up in something and looks like shit."
As if to prove this, Lana wanders in with a fellow user of the Kryptonite 'I see dead people' Juice. The makeup artists have put black marks under Lana's eyes to indicate how awful she looks.
"You look awful, Lana," says TIAC.
"Still hotter than you, though, bitch," says Lana, going on the offensive.
"Nuh-uh," says TIAC, gesturing to her push-up bra.
"Whatever," says Lana. "Tell her, dimbulb."
"You don't look that great, actually," says Superlad.
"Yeah? Well, you don't have any shoes."
And with that, Lana leaves. She heads off to Sinead's mansion to steal five grand, which is the required fee for the next dose. Once again, the mansion 'security' is less than ideal and it is up to Sinead himself to almost shoot Lana.
Tragically, he doesn't, but does give her a lecture on the thievery. "Also," he says. "You look like a junkie."
"Shut up!" says Lana. "I need to see my parents again. Creepy Medical Student kills me then brings me back and in the process I get to talk to my parents. It's a breakthrough like nothing you've ever seen before!"
Sinead ignores this claim, because he saw Flatliners. "Look, talking to dead people's not the way to solve whatever issues trouble you. Why don't you confide in me?"
"Okay," says Lana. But when Sinead heads off to prepare the boudoir, Lana steals his Porsche and heads off.
By now, TIAC's got it into her head to badger Lana's Doomed Friend about the Kryptonite Juice. Cleverly, she badgers her quite literally to death.
"Creepy Medical Student said this might happen," says Lana's Doomed Friend as she coughs forth blood and dies.
So that adds, I dunno, tension or something. Regardless, Lana's headed back to Creepy Medical Student. "Here's the keys to a Porsche," she says. "Gimme a shot."
"You stole a Porsche?"
"I borrowed a Porsche," says Lana, trying to avoid criminal prosecution with semantics. Just like a junkie. Or a lawyer.
"Well, if you borrowed it, how does that help me?" says Creepy Medical Student, eyes on the prize.
"Excellent question," says Sinead, emerging from the shadows. There's a bit of a scuffle and Sinead's injected with the 'I see dead people' juice. He heads off for a yak with his mother.
"What are you doing with your life, Alexander?" says Sinead's Mum.
"Stuff."
"Dunno," says Sinead. "Stuff."
"You haven't learned anything from the time I spoke to you in that ludicrous Christmas episode."
"Ew," says Sinead, for he, like most viewers, had blocked that episode out of his memory.
Then his mother gives the usual maternal advice about being destined to murder countless numbers of people and Sinead returns to life.
So Superlad shows up to try and stop Creepy Medical Student. He too gets stabbed with the 'I see dead people' juice and heads off to see Bo, making a Special Guest Appearance™.
Bo gives him a thrashing for all the stupid stuff he's done since Bo died. Then another one for the stupid stuff he did before then that Bo might not have noticed at the time. Then he tells Superlad that Porthos knows Superlad's secret.
"Now return to life and deal with that!" says Bo. "And don't let him shag your mother."
By now, of course, Lana's accidentally killed Creepy Medical Student by turning a Corpse-Splicer back on him. So that problem is solved. Superlad dashes back to the farm where Senator Boring Old Ma is dressed to the nines.
"You look hot," says Superlad, with more enthusiasm than might seem appropriate.
"Yes, she does," says Porthos, materialising beside him, tuxedo-clad and dashing as all get-out. "And you remain a fine specimen of Kryptonian yourself, young Superlad Kent."
The pair of them glower at one another. And we fade to black.
A pretty dumb episode. If you're going to steal ideas from bad '90s movies about dead people and build a Smallville episode around them, then can I respectfully suggest you use Weekend At Bernie's 2.
Next Week: Everybody needs to be convinced Bo is still alive, so Superlad and Sinead dig up his corpse and, in a series of wacky adventures, Bo's carcass water skis, regains the seat of senator from his wife and runs moonshine across the town borders in the General Lee! (See? It works, dammit!)
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Begone,
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