THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 6
Score: 7.8 / 10 
15: Born Freak
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.
Hands up anybody who doesn't think TIAC's a freak? No, I thought not. And yet the writers are proposing that this episode's revelation of that very fact should be considered a surprising startle.
Anyways, we'll get to that (assuming I can remember to be bothered). For now, let's enjoy the raucousosity of the Lana Lang Hen's Night. While Sinead is out getting his jollies, stripper style and having his bollocks shaved by Darkseid the Destroyer and other fellow buck's night supervillains, Lana is, uh, ten-pin bowling with TIAC.
"Isn't this awesome!!" exclaims Lana.
"Oh yeah," says the ever-sardonic TIAC. "Drinking ginger ale and hurling hefty spheres at harmless ten pins. That's my idea of a totally radical night out."
TIAC, still using 'radical' as an adjective of choice.
Lana ignores her, as always. "And I'm spending the night with my best friend."
"Oh," says TIAC. "Yeah. Right."
But then a boy shows up, so Lana discards TIAC to flirt with him. He's a kryptovillain of course, specialising in telekinetically toppling ten pins. He knocks over a couple of Lana's for her, earning her undying devotion (where 'undying' equals 'up until the time when TIAC reminds her about Sinead'. TIAC also notices the blatant telekinesis and follows The Telekinetic Tenpin outside to watch him be kidnapped, before almost being run down herself.
As you might imagine, Sinead is furious and hung over about this the next day.
"Why did TIAC follow the Sultan of Strikes outside?" he demands.
"Who can say?!" shrieks Lana, like the monstrous banshee she has become. "I'm not her freakin' mother!"
"TIAC's your only female friend and, hence, Maid of Honour."
"Calm down, Lana," says Sinead. "I'm just concerned is all. TIAC's your only female friend and, hence, Maid of Honour. If she is crushed beneath the chassis of a motor vehicle while pursuing the Prince of Pins, we'll have to completely re-choreograph the entire wedding."
And Lana smiles at Sinead's soft side.
Meanwhile, TIAC has enlisted Superlad to help her track down the Bigshot of Bowling. He completes this task by simply wandering into the bowling alley and pointing at him. For he is standing there, totally unabducted, like.
"Weren't you kidnapped?" says TIAC.
"I couldn't say," says the Guru of Gutter Balls. "I was totally off my tits last night."
TIAC doesn't believe a word of it. But instead remembers a blind boy who they used to go to school with and who came in and pointed at the Sheik of Splits, just prior to him being kidnapped.
"He's the one behind these nefarious deeds!" declares TIAC.
"What nefarious deeds?" says Superlad, who, to be fair, has only been privy to a bowling attendant with a hangover, and fails to see it as the basis for any kind of an interesting episode. "Why don't we have Lois strip to her underwear for reasons we can workshop later?"
The writers like his thinking, and take notes for future (and, surprisingly, past) episodes. But still insist we persevere with the current storyline, lame as it may be.
So TIAC and Superlad are off to visit Blind Lemon Toby, who is being denied a corneal transplant by Sinead. Sinead has (obviously) cornered the cornea market and is celebrating by wearing a tuxedo. He makes a deal with Blind Lemon Toby's doctor, Doctor Sloppy, that if Blind Lemon Toby brings him five (5) more kryptovillains (Blind Lemon Toby can see kryptovillains - did I mention that?) then Sinead might give him one of the bluer set of corneas.
"Blue sees best, y'know," says Sinead, without one scrap of evidence for this outlandish lie.
Dr Sloppy has no idea whether this is true or not, for he skipped Corneas 101 to go to a Wa Wa Nee concert. Doesn't he feel the fool now?
By now, Superlad and TIAC have popped in to visit Blind Lemon Toby. He offers them a tea.
"I don't drink tea," says Superlad, barely hiding his contempt. "Do you have any margaritas?"
Blind Lemon Toby reaches up for the blender and, in the process, drops the tequila. Superlad races into action, plucking the bottle up milliseconds from hitting the ground.
Blind Lemon Toby's dark glasses fall off and he screams in kryptovillain-recognisin' pain. He makes up a lie ("time for my lute lesson") to get rid of Superlad and TIAC.
"That was peculiar," says TIAC, who has hacked into the Local Lute Tutor's RSS feed.
"Maybe," says Superlad. "But I got us some tequila!" And he holds the bottle up as a trophy and does a little Mexican victory dance.
TIAC senses Superlad is not taking this episode seriously and makes him straighten up and listen in on Blind Lemon Toby's phone conversation.
"I've found another freak," Blind Lemon Toby's saying.
"Excellent," says Dr Sloppy, doing a Mr Burns impression, solely for the amusement of himself and a passing nurse.
So Superlad's off to visit Dr Sloppy. "You wait somewhere kidnappable," he says to TIAC. "I'll be right back."
"Will do," says TIAC. And is promply kidnapped, off-camera to save tape.
Superlad is now visiting Dr Sloppy, where he distracts both him and the Simpsons-loving nurse with a neatly-timed blast of superbreath. He steals Dr Sloppy's laptop faster than the eye can see and saunters off back to TIAC's place. She can hack. He can get wasted on tequila. Lois might come over and strip down to her underwear. Everybody's happy.
But Lois isn't there. And nor is TIAC (see previous off-camera kidnapping for details). However, Lois's underwear is there. Disturbingly, however, it's being worn by Jimmy-James Olsen. How he got ahold of it is never made clear, but it's not having the calming effect it usually does.
For Jimmy-James is in a dither. "TIAC's been kidnapped!!" he says, because he knows Superlad doesn't pay any attention to anything that happens off-camera.
"Egad!" says Superlad, without even questioning the dialogue. He rushes off to visit Blind Lemon Toby. "Why have they kidnapped TIAC?" he says, assuming (correctly) that all blind people are seers.
"Because she's a meteor freak," says Blind Lemon Toby. "Duh!"
And then we cut to TIAC being who is having her bikini line waxed and DNA extracted while strapped down by modest, breast-covering metal straps.
Back at the mansion, Sinead's lying, crazy-style, to Lana. Nothing new there, of course, but he's really starting to go wild with the embellishments, claiming, for example, that the mansion is made of ostrich feathers and that stockings give you leprosy. In between these more obvious mistruths, he also claims to know nothing about Blind Lemon Toby.
So Lana decides to go badger Blind Lemon Toby herself. "You can't just go around telling people that Superlad is a meteor freak! He spends all his time doing superdeeds and if you tell people, then he'll stop. And then who will save me next... uh, Thursday?" she says, consulting her Stalking Diary.
"Superlad's not a meteor freak," says Blind Lemon Toby. "I think he's some kind of ali--"
"He's not a meteor freak, you say?" interrupts Lana. "Then I must question everything I have assumed about him." And she starts to do so, before being distracted by a mirror.
"Boy, you haven't changed, Lana," says Blind Lemon Toby, referring to their time together in the old school yard. "You're still completely dismissive of everybody outside your immediate sphere of interest."
"You don't know me very well, Bland Melon Timmy."
"Ha ha ha!" says Lana. "You don't know me very well, Bland Melon Timmy."
He doesn't even try to correct her.
By now, TIAC has been released and returned to the panicking Jimmy-James and the reeking-of-tequila Superlad. While this is going on, Dr Sloppy has revealed to Sinead that he 'misplaced' his laptop.
"I don't see why I should care one iota about that revelation," says Sinead. The Luthorcorp Lost and Found Division can look after that without his bald micro-management.
Dr Sloppy goes on to explain that if TIAC hacks into it, she'll find evidence of Sinead placing GPS locators in the collarbones of random kryptovillains.
"Well, that is sloppy," admits Sinead. And he starts sentencing the kryptovillains to death, just as TIAC hacks into the laptop, where the dying meteor freaks are represented by frowny emoticons.
TIAC sees herself, currently represented on the map by a blinking, increasingly annoying icon. Rather than have herself be eliminated, she demands Superlad check her out for a GPS locator in her collarbone.
"Oh, sure," says Superlad, after a drunken, lingering gawk with the x-peepers. "You have one of those all right."
"Can you blast it out with your heat vision?" says TIAC, misunderstanding too many things to enumerate.
"I don't see why I shouldn't," slurs Superlad. And he starts burning her all over the place, eventually frying her collarbone close enough to kill the GPS locator. TIAC screams in agony, while Superlad giggles drunkenly. "Heat vision burn you long time!" he explains.
By now, back at Blind Lemon Toby's place, some kind of electric cattle prod/ gunplay has taken place between Blind Lemon Toby, Lana and Dr Sloppy. Didn't follow much of it, to be frank, but Superlad puts a stumbling end to it by bursting in, falling in front of a bullet and staggering back out again at superspeed to look for a kebab, before anybody can turn the lights back on.
And that's all. Lana confronts Sinead about kidnapping meteor freaks and stealing their DNA and killing them. Sinead denies any knowledge of this, even going so far as to swear on the soul of his unborn son's life. Mmmm, that's nice unborn son soul-swearing.
Lana also confronts Superlad about bullets that are deflected by drunken indestructible boofheads. Superlad denies any knowledge of this. And, he, too, swears on the unborn son of his life's soul, before hurling behind a pot plant.
And TIAC? She's all mopey about being a meteor freak. "They're all so, like, totally gross," she says, sobbing.
"I know what would cheer you up," says Superlad. He clumsily pulls out the empty tequila bottle with the worm at the bottom. "Look at him dance!" And he shakes him over the closing credits.
A stupid episode. Hell, everybody knows TIAC's a meteor freak. How else do you explain her stupid yammering way of talking and her ability to hack into anything (sometimes things that aren't even computer-driven!) while being the most annoying human being on television. So let's not look back. Let's look forward!
Next time: The Triumphant Return of Aunt Nell!!
Discuss this episode at Kryptonsite
Begone,
blog comments powered by Disqus
This here item has so far scored 7.8 / 10 on the patented Astonishing Tales Funny-o-meter.
If it should be higher, click the green arrow:
And if you think it should be lower, try the red one:
To receive this kind of stuff via a convenient regular email, visit the subscription page
Or don't. I'm not the boss of you.
