THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 7
Score: 7.9 / 10 
3: America's Next Top Kara Zor-El
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.
It's the annual Smallville Offal and Tripe Festival, so, naturally enough, it's time we had a random kryptovillain episode. Super Blonde Hottie has limited interest in kryptovillain episodes.
"Isn't it just an excuse for some half-assed CGI and random fisticuffs to help pad out an episode, while we wait for the overriding season story arc to kick into gear?" she asks.
"No!" hisses Superlad. "Kryptovillain episodes are an important and vital part of the show. You just wait and see."
But SBH won't wait and see. That's not her style. What is her style, some of the more inquisitive viewers might ask? And they'd be stunned to hear that her style is apparently 'finding Jimmy-James Olsen hot'. Oh, Kryptonians - will you ever blend into Earth society?
We don't have time to ponder the madness of SBH's loins any further, however. Because a trio of strutting models have roared into town in a convertible. They strut out of their car and parade down the street to gawps of onlookers everywhere.
"Look out," they say. "The new Miss Sweetbread has arrived." For the three of them are entering the Smallville Miss Sweetbread Beauty Pageant. Jimmy-James photographs them signing in, like the lust-crazed paparazzo he is.
Back at the barn after the credits and Lana's back to endullen our lives. She wanders up behind Superlad, who is trying to repair his holiday tractor, while Krypto barks like a lunatic.
Superlad turns around. "Lana," he says, dropping the wrench on Krypto. "You're not dead," he sighs.
"I'm so sorry," says Lana. "I didn't tell you about my faked death because I know you. You'd have rushed in there and tried to save me even if it meant putting your own life in danger."
Superlad smiles to himself. He is like that. "I guess I'm just not used to being the one who needs to be protected." And he gestures to the pecs.
"Now," says Lana, ignoring him. "I can't return to Smallville until somebody - cough, Senator Boring Old Ma - pardons me for my crimes (destruction of a motor vehicle in a season finale, grand theft clono, overuse of a single facial expression in multiple acting scenarios). Until then, I'll need to hide out."
"... you'll have to share the house with this smoking hot bit of crumpet"
"Then you can hide out at the farm with me." Lana rolls her eyes - that's Superlad's solution to everything. "But if you do stay with me, you'll have to share the house with this smoking hot bit of crumpet."
And he pulls back curtain number one to reveal SBH in a bikini, balancing a book (And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street by Stephen King) on her head. Lana immediately transforms into a jealous sow.
"Who is this bitch?" she says.
"That's my cousin," says Superlad.
Lana softens. "Oh. So it's not some young skank you're secretly lusting after."
"Ha ha ha ha," says Superlad. "She's my cousin." Cleverly avoiding the question.
Does anybody care why SBH is wearing next to nothing? Of course not. But Superlad, toying dangerously with the audience, urges her to dress up. "You can, of course, keep your midriff on display," he says.
"Well, duh," says SBH. "People aren't tuning in for the dialogue, homeboy."
And she gets dressed at superspeed, which Lana finds hysterical. "You Kryptonian freaks!" she laughs. "I love that. It's awesome. Really. Very awesome." And she sprints out of the house, terrified. Or, possibly, melancholy. Always hard to tell with Kreuk.
So now it's time for Superlad to channel the spirit of Bo. He gives SBH Lecture #427, 'Why One Needs To Maintain A Low Profile To Avoid The Risk Of Having Others Discover Your Superpowers'. He knows it pretty much verbatim and doesn't hesitate to give SBH the full brunt of it.
"... and that is why, young man, you can't join the football team," he finally concludes.
"I don't want to join the football team," says SBH. "I want to enter the Miss Sweat Bread pageant."
"... and that is why, young man, you can't enter the Miss Sweetbread Pageant," says Superlad, moving straight onto Lecture #519, without missing a beat. Oh, how he hated hearing that one each Offal Festival.
"It's okay for you," says SBH. "While you were parading around on the show for six seasons, I was locked in a cryogenic coffin, wasting the best years of my life."
"What?" says Superlad. "You didn't age a day! You haven't wasted anything."
But SBH won't listen to reason. Not even when it comes from Superlad, so instead it's time for, um, the pair of them to heat vision watermelons until they explode in the barn. No, I don't know why either. But, boy, was it comical, Smallville-style!
Alas, however, we can't spend the entire episode enjoying watermelon-based humour (or can we!? Come on, writers). So, instead, we're off to the Miss Sweetbread pageant. One of the three strutting models from the opening scene has been frozen to death by one of the other ones, but that's not important right now. After all, we see that on every other episode of Next Top Model. Instead, SBH goes up and asks for advice.
"Can you give me tips on lipstick?" says SBH.
"No," says Strutting Model #1.
"Why don't you go milk some corn," says Strutting Model #2.
And they laugh, which leaves SBH with little choice but to run outside and find the corpse of Strutting Model #3.
Hey, who here is interested in what's happening at Luthorcorp? No? Well, it's a rhetorical question, so I'm going to update you anyway.
Sinead and Agent Gabe Kotter from the Department of Homeland Security and Sweathogs are discussing spaceships and young blonde hotties that come out of them.
"Why would the government be interested in a super blonde hottie?" asks Sinead.
"Did you not see the bikini scene earlier?" says Agent Kotter. "Yowsers!"
Over to the Daily Planet where the new editor is on TIAC's back (not literally) about following up the story of the frozen Smallville model. He is also calling Jimmy-James 'Panda Boy' for reasons that remain unclear.
"TIAC," he says. "This kind of story about ice-encrusted models in small country towns is the essence of quality journalism. Now take Panda Boy here to Smallville and get the story." He climbs down from her back (so maybe it was literally) and heads back to his office.
Once the two of them are in Smallville, however, they revert to their usual roles. Namely, TIAC finds a script and starts prodding Superlad to the desired conclusion of the show. And Jimmy-James, obviously, almost gets frozen to death in his car, until SBH shows up and tears the door off, rescuing him.
Superlad and TIAC meet SBH at the hospital, where Jimmy-James is recovering. "Did anybody see you tear the door off the car?" demands Superlad, still channelling Bo with aplomb.
"Like you can talk! How many people on this show don't know your secret?" shoots back SBH.
And she has a point. She storms off, while TIAC explains to us all how the strutting models were hit by the meteor shower, while strutting around in a weather balloon and now have weather powers and enter various beauty pageants around the country, while secretly robbing, um, time capsules? It didn't make much sense to me, but TIAC claimed it was 'twistedly brilliant', so I'm happy to take her word on that.
Back to the Kent farm, where Sinead has wandered in without knocking. A small payback for the thousands of times the Kryptonian has done the same in the mansion. He talks to Lana. "The DA has agreed to not press charges. The evidence is all destroyed. And the poor bastard who took the rap for me has died in prison," he says. "So all's well that ends well. You're a free woman."
They go on to discuss SBH and the ten million greenbacks Lana stole off Sinead before the faked death (Sinead claims to be 'applauding' Lana's thievery rather than 'admonishing' it, but frankly, I think his attitude is somewhere in the middle - 'alluding to', according to my dictionary). None of this talk is particularly interesting, however, so lets cut straight back to the Strutting Models enlisting SBH to their team of supervillain babes.
"Sorry, we were absolute bitch-sluts to you before," they say. "We could really use your superstrength to help us rob the time capsule."
"'kay," says SBH.
But she's not the team player the others were hoping for and steals the time capsule herself, ostensibly because it contains secret Kryptonian information, but mostly because she's of the misguided opinion it might allow her to travel to the 31st century and join the Legion of Superheroes.
"Following a Supreme Court decision of 5-2, SBH is declared the winner."
But before she can fire up the time capsule, it's time for the Miss Sweetbread Pageant, and the swimsuit-clad contestants pose before the applauding Smallville yokels. Following a Supreme Court decision of 5-2, SBH is declared the winner. And then, as happens every year, is arrested for stealing the town time capsule.
Superlad visits her in prison, where the two of them squabble about the rights and wrongs of stealing Kryptonian artifacts and whether or not she should pull the bars apart and fly away (cf. Season Three of Prison Break).
"I order you to stay in this prison cell while I confront the Strutting Models by myself," says Superlad.
"Fine," sulks SBH. She didn't want to be part of this stupid kryptovillain episode anyway. Stupid filler episodes.
Superlad heads off to fight the Strutting Models, who have found some kind of pentagonal key to a spaceship buried at a secret location they found using a map from the time capsule. They knock Superlad down with a kryptonite tornado. Luckily, SBH couldn't be assed staying in jail and shows up to kick the snot out of the Strutting Models. She also heat visions the kryptonite to death.
And that's that. Superlad and SBH discuss the pentagonal key and decide it belongs to a Kryptonian. Because apparently Earth technology hasn't mastered five-sided polygons yet.
Jimmy-James talks to TIAC. "Boy, I hate kryptovillains," he says. "They all end up snapping and trying to kill people. I vote we kill all of them."
"Ha ha ha ha ha!" says TIAC. "Yeah, those freaks suck all right." And she bites her lip in worry.
But Jimmy-James isn't paying attention to her any more. He's caught a glimpse of SBH's navel and is smitten.
"Oh, you've got to be freaking kidding me," mutters TIAC.
Finally, Sinead confronts SBH. "You saved my life, tearing the roof of my car and saving me from drowning."
"Did I?" says SBH. "I don't think so. You must be thinking of some other smoking-hot young babe."
"Twice I've been pulled back from the brink of death," says Sinead. "Both times it was by a member of the Kent family. I don't believe in coincidences. Sooner or later I'll find out the truth about you people... Or, y'know, leave the show. Whichever comes first."
And he pulls out his black marker and crosses another episode off. Nineteen to go.
Next week: The triumphant return of Dean Cain!
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