THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 5
Score: 7.4 / 10 
2: The Young And The Shirtless
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.
We open with Sinead in the bughouse visiting Porthos, who is still in gibber-gibber mode. This imprisonment is Sinead's punishment for Porthos scraping Kryptonian symbols into his floor last episode. Let that be a lesson to him.
On the way out of the nuthouse, Sinead bumps into a Keifer Sutherland lookalike and (oh no!) accidentally bumps the on-off switch on his electric handcuffs. Suddenly, the Keifer-lookalike busts out of his cuffs, grabs an electrical powerline and hurls the electric current at the guards. Electric Keifer then frees two funny-looking twin brothers (think male version of the Olsen twins) who are bald and able to emit force fields (think the Olsen twin secrets they try to keep from the media's pointed gaze). The three of them bust out into the funky new opening credits.
Over to Smallville where the entire town has gotten together, Little House on the Prairie-style to rebuild Bo's barn. A few people are asking Bo how come he's never needed the townfolk's help previously on his major farmyard constructions.
"Well, it's sure not because my son used to be able to build entire barns single-handedly with his unearthly superhuman strength and speed," says Bo. "Right, son?"
Superlad's paying no attention at all. Because he has no powers, the writers have decided that the show would work best as some form of daytime soap. Perhaps The Young And The Shirtless. Or The Bald And The Beautiful.
So we have fifteen minutes of Superlad and Lana playing kissy-kissy in the barn when they're supposed to be collecting nails. Eventually shirts come off and things start to heat up.
"This is my first time," says Superlad.
"You've taken your shirt off lots of times," says Lana.
"No, my first time having sex."
"Mmmmmm... that was wonderful. Even better than I thought it would be."
"Oh, is it over already?" says Lana. "Mmmmmm... that was wonderful. Even better than I thought it would be."
"Oh, no. We haven't done it yet," says Superlad. Then second-guesses himself. "Have we?" Then another pause. "Wait. Is this your first time too?"
"Sure," says Lana.
"What about Whitney, WM2, Bug Boy, Morph Lass, Creepy Physiotherapist, Underwater Breathing Guy--"
"Nope," says Lana, cutting him off. "I'm a fantastic tease." She tries to reciprocate. "What about, um, Krypto?"
"Not yet," says Superlad.
Suddenly there's a clang outside. Oh no!! It's Bo and Boring Old Ma. And Boring Old Ma's going to be pissed about the nails. You don't slack off when Boring Old Ma asks you to pick up nails. It makes her mighty uppity.
But it's not Bo and Boring Old Ma. It's Electric Keifer and The Olsen Twins. They use their powers to hurl Superlad into the roof. "Oh, thank Krypton," says Superlad. Because that's nothing compared to the fury he would have copped from his Ma.
Electric Keifer and The Olsen Twins take Superlad back into the barn and explain that Superlad's a 'legend' back in the nuthouse.
"Half the freaks in there were put in there by Mr Superlad Kent."
"What?" says Lana. Because she's never actually sat down to watch an entire episode of the show.
"Sure," says Electric Keifer. "They're all talking about how Superlad is just the hottest piece of supermeat around."
So it's a good thing that in future years when, y'know, the cape is donned and he starts calling himself Superman, none of these criminal types are going to be able to piece things together. Because that would probably be enough to kill Bo stone dead with lack of secret identity fury. Ah, spectacles, is there any secret they cannot hide?
Anyway, Electric Keifer gives another sample of how he can sap electricity from the house and hurl it around and hurt people. So Superlad does the sensible thing and smashes the power out. From there he easily punches Electric Keifer and The Olsen Twins out and is declared a top-notch hero.
No, wait. If he did that, the show would be over half an hour early and we could watch a repeat of Cheers. So instead we have to pad it out by breaking into the Luthorcorp factories and picking up some Kryptonite juice. Or some damn thing. No sensible rationale is offered for this (other than the time padding, of course).
Superlad's still kinda 'engh' about the whole idea. Couldn't his stunt double do this? But, uh-oh, what's this?
Bo and Boring Old Ma are walking back up the road.
"Where on Earth is Superlad with those nails??" says Boring Old Ma. "I'll tan his hide."
Bo doesn't say anything. You don't want to mess with Boring Old Ma when she's in this kind of mood.
"When you ask somebody to get you some nails, you expect them to get you nails"
"When you ask somebody to get you some nails, you expect them to get you nails," continues Boring Old Ma. "You don't expect them to dilly-dally. The nails are the thing..."
Etcetera. Eventually they're captured too and Superlad gets the hell out of there.
He enlists TIAC to help him. Apparently Electric Keifer and The Olsen Twins can't break in because Sinead has all kinds of defences set up to stop them. But these defences are nothing compared to TIAC who has a computer and a surprisingly large arsenal in the back of her car.
She hacks her way through some systems, Superlad climbs his way through some elevator shafts, they fake their way through some of that pesky fingerprint identification and get within spitting distance of the kryptonite juice. Superlad spits at it.
"Ooh, gross," says TIAC.
"I was just checking."
Back at the farmhouse, The Lazy Old Smallville Cops show up to investigate one of the crimes committed in Season Three. Sherriff Whatsername invites herself in for coffee, while the criminals hide in the back holding Boring Old Ma hostage.
"Where's Boring Old Ma?" says Sherriff Whatsername.
"Lana and I are having an affair," says Bo. "So we've left her back at the barn-raising."
"I see. Who owns that packet of cigarettes?"
"They're mine," says Lana. "I love their smooth, tarry taste after a roll in the hay with Bo."
"Excellent. And that 'Escapee from the Lunatic Asylum' Badge over there."
"Oh, that's mine," says Bo. "They were giving them out for free at the premiere of the Dukes of Hazzard movie."
"Fine. Well, if you see any sign of those three nuthouse inmates, you let me know, y'hear?"
And she heads off. Just to make sure of things, The Olsen Twins put a forcefield around the barn. Which is a good thing, because the cops arrive back a few hours later to investigate the murdered brunette from Season Four.
Superlad and TIAC eventually can't work out how to get past the laser defences, so they squabble about the fact that Good Ol' Pete knew the secret ('Good Ol' Pete??' says TIAC. 'He could barely act!') until they've padded out the show long enough. Then Superlad heads back, knocks out the power and beats up Electric Keifer and the Olsen Twins.
Then, full of testosterone and fury and lack of superpower gumption, he heads over to the Luthor Mansion and does the same to Sinead. Because Sinead apparently set the whole thing up. The pair of them trade insults and punches and it's all very manly in a pub brawl kind of way.
And that's that. There was another funny scene where TIAC was talking to herself in the caves about Superlad's alien heritage (because that's how one best keeps such secrets) and Sinead half-overheard her. Sinead then inexplicably insulted TIAC about being a 'third wheel' in the Superlad-Lana relationship. Which was out of the blue, but funny and cruel, so fair enough.
A kinda dumb episode, salvaged by the end-of-show fist fight. If more of the dumb episodes ended with a fist fight between a random pair of Smallvilleans, the show would probably not have received the critical pasting that Season Four deserved.
Next Week: TIAC and Boring Old Ma kickbox.
Begone,
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