THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 6
Score: 7.8 / 10 
12: You Don't Have To Be Crazy To Star In This Show, But It Helps
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.
When you stop to think about it, this whole 'last son of Krypton, powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, proliferation of LL initials, shirtless Justice League' talk doesn't... well, it doesn't sound like something a sane person would buy. Does it? I mean, really.
So, sensibly enough, we, as Smallville viewers don't stop to think about it. No point in questioning your sanity. Not in these environmentally unstable times. And yet, for this one particular episode, it appears as if we have little choice, with those damn fool writers dumping us right in the middle of an episode that picks away at the ludicrosity of the show's entire premise like a small boy picking at a ludicrous scab.
After a brief opening sequence where Superlad taunts his dog ('What? You think you can see something I can't?? You're dreaming, Krypto'), Superlad finds himself in a mental hospital. He is without powers and being ridiculed by his fellow nutbuggers ("I should smother you with a pillow and throw a water cooler through a window," says one). Dr Shrinkage, his psychiatrist, informs him that the entire five and a half seasons of Smallville to date have been part of an incredibly detailed and, for the most part, solidly-rating paranoid schizophrenic hallucinatory epiosde.
"Even Season Four?" says Superlad.
"We had you on some pretty powerful medication that year," admits Dr Shrinkage.
"Okay, I'll buy Season Four," says Superlad. "But the rest of it is real."
"No. You are a sick young man. But the good news is I've developed a treatment that will suck the crazy right out of your noddle and you can return to a normal, everyday life. Without superpowers. A normal human."
"Nuts to you!" says Superlad. And he comes up with a zany escape scheme which consists of him running across the beam of a flashlight to safety. That doesn't work as well as hoped, so he joins the queue for pills, hoping he can get enough to forge some kind of makeshift pill ladder.
Behind him in the queue is another crazy. "I believe you are a superhero," he says. "My name is J'onn J'onzz. And I am the last survivor of Mars."
"Look, Jonn--" begins Superlad.
"That's J'onn, with an apostrophe."
"That's J'onn, with an apostrophe."
"Jo'nn?"
"J'onn."
"Jon'n?"
"Just call me Martian Manhunter."
"Look, dude. You're a bit late. We formed the Justice League last episode. This is just some crazy bughouse thing."
"Last episode?" says J'onn. "Well, for the love of..." And he huffs off.
So Superlad simply dresses up as a cleaner and hightails it out of there, back to the barn. Lana is waiting for him. "Superlad," she says. "You're home."
Superlad looks around. Lana's redecorated the entire freakin' place with all her Barbie bullshit. "Oh, come on," says Superlad. "You got rid of the pool table?!?"
"I kept your telescope," says Lana.
"Where's my Wii™?" says Superlad, not giving a tinker's cuss for his telescope.
Lana ignores him. "The important thing is that we're back together now," she says. "Back in Season One you promised we'd never be apart. And now we're not."
Superlad knows his continuity. "Nuh-uh," he says. "You were with Whitney throughout Season One. We didn't get it on until Season Two."
"I can't be expected to keep track of such things," sniffs Lana. "I'm an art-loving, Francophile, former cheerleader astronomer."
"Where's my Ma?" shouts Superlad. "She won't be part of any conspiracies, nor crazy talk."
"She's shacked up with Porthos."
"What?!?" says Superlad. For, despite the supervision, sometimes you can't always see what's right in front of you.
Superlad runs over to the mansion. It takes him a lot longer without the superspeed and he spends the entire time hoping he doesn't catch Porthos and Senator Boring Old Ma, y'know, doing it.
He fnally gets there, three hours later. Out of breath. Senator Boring Old Ma emerges, dressed in one of Lionel's shirts. "You're mad as a cut snake, Superlad," she opines. "Now go back to the hospital and get the treatment you need."
In the distance, a bell rings and we hear Porthos claim that his 'sword has been sharpened' and he's ready for 'some more fencing'. "I have to go," says Senator Boring Old Ma, bosom heaving with lust. "Here. Let me get some security guards to escort you back to the hospital." She presses an alarm and a pair of security guards rush in.
But, alas, they're Luthor security guards so, even without superpowers, Superlad beats the pair of them to a pulp and runs into the Luthor Mansion grounds.
TIAC pulls up in her car and ushers him inside. The pair of them race off to an abandoned warehouse.
"How did you find me?" says Superlad.
"I've been GPS'ing since I was IM'd this morning."
Superlad smiles grimly. Of all the people who could have retained their personalities in this grim alternative version of reality, it had to be TIAC and her freakin' conversational try-hardiness.
"Maybe I should go confront Sinead," he suggests.
"But I have to give you the 411 on this episode's d'etre a la raison."
"Definitely going to confront Sinead."
Off he goes. Straight past the security, in to confront Sinead.
"You've taken my powers," says Superlad. "But I won't let you ruin my life."
"Ruin your life?" says Sinead, coming out from behind his desk in a wheelchair and totally sans legs. "You caused this in this universe's equivalent of the season premiere where, instead of saving me from a car crash, you just made everything worse and leglessish."
"This is impossible," says Superlad. "It's some kind of trick."
"It's not a trick," says Sinead. "It's cutting edge CGI and you'd better appreciate it." He gives a thumbs up to the off-camera SFX team.
Yak, yak, yak, thinks Superlad. He heads back to see TIAC. But Lana's there instead.
"Y'know, TIAC's crazy too," she says.
"Well, duh," says Superlad. "But she's genuinely useful from the point of view of keeping a plot moving along."
But Lana has no time to appreciate TIAC's alleged plot strengths. She's instead playing loose with established continuity again, claiming Superlad gave her some cheap-ass ring and proposed to her when he was ten.
"That does sound like me," admits Superlad. "On both fronts."
TIAC interrupts. "Don't listen to her, Superlad. You have to respect continuity. Next she'll be telling you she's not really the descendant of a witch."
"But that's so implausible," says Superlad.
"I should have known you'd choose her over me," says TIAC. She storms out. Cranky as ever. Some random guy shoots her dead. Welling comes up with some vague emotional reaction to this.
"'Oliver Queen' was the transexual employee of the month."
Back to the asylum with Superlad. Dr Shrinkage explains how his entire Kryptonian heritage was built up from the things he saw in this very nuthouse room. For example, 'Jorel' is a form of hand wash. 'Milton Fine' is a type of comb. And 'Oliver Queen' was the transexual employee of the month.
Superlad tries to take all this in. "Am I... Am I Keyser Soze?" he asks.
"No, but that's where the writers did get the idea for this scene," he says, pointing to The Usual Suspects DVD on the table.
"Well, this all just sucks," says Superlad, finally.
"Now, let's wash that crazy right out of your cranium," says Dr Shrinkage. And off he goes to set up the equipment.
Superlad decides to have a nap. But J'onn J'onzz won't let him. "Don't give up, Superlad," he says.
"Martian Maneater?"
"Manhunter," corrects J'onn. "Listen here. This is all taking place in your head. You've been infected by a Phantom Zone parasite who is going to take over your body and unite all the Zoners and conquer the world. You can defeat him by killing Dr Shrinkage."
"That's the sanest thing I've heard all episode," says Superlad. So when Dr Shrinkage straps him down and starts up the brain drill, Superlad somehow breaks free and chokes the bejeezus out of him, ending this entire dream sequence. Superlad wakes up back at the barn, with Krypto barking like a damn fool mutt.
J'onn appears. "Well done, Superlad," he says. "Now I must fly off with glowing red eyes." And he does. Because that's what the Martian Manhunter stands for.
TIAC shows up and she and Superlad do a post-mortem on the episode, where TIAC uses the phrase 'dangling the Lana carrot'.
"I almost gave up everything for Lana," admits Superlad, even as he appreciates the Lana-vegetable metaphor.
"I thought you were over her," says TIAC.
"Guess not," says Superlad. "I still love her."
"Oh, for fuck's sake."
And there we have it. A strange little episode. The writers played a dangerous game, dangling their own implausibilities in front of us, but recovered with a smokin' Martian Manhunter appearance. Stick to the superheroes, guys. And leave the 'this is all preposterous nonsense' storylines to Grey's Anatomy.
Next week: A guest appearance from Ralph 'Elongated Man' Dibny.
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