Smallville: Episode Reviews

Season 2 - Episode 9: "Dichotic"

Well, we have a lot of things going on in this episode, some good, some bad.

But first, a piece of business. Starting with this review, I am going to keep a running brain damage tally of the main characters. Every time a main character gets knocked out, I will give them a mark, thusly we will find out who goes insane/gets brain damage first, get it? We'll start with Lex getting knocked out in the Lineage episode, and I was going to put Ryan on the list, but he's going to be knocked out for a really long time now, isn't he? Add on this week with Chloe, and the ongoing score is:

Lex: 1

Chloe: 1

Not much to start with, but we'll see how interesting this gets in the coming weeks.

Point of contention number one: Ryan died last week. I would think, given his relationship and closeness to Clark, that he might at the very least be mentioned or missed in this episode. Whups, just back to wanting Chloe and Lana and not doing anything about it. Cheap.

Also, freak of the week. Very, very cheap. Jonathan Taylor Thomas freak of the week. As if I don't feel like enough of a teeny bopper watching the Buffy demographic type of show, let's rub it in with the teen idol of what, 1997?

And then, Superman of hosts, we have a repetitive "I'm of two minds on this" dialogue theme that went horribly. Man, it just stunk.

There was also that cheesy S on the chest at the beginning of the show. Doing the pun once a show has become a bit of a tradition, but can't it be a different one each show? We already did this one in the first episode, and it wasn't a joke, it was a great homage. This took that homage down a notch.

When they found the body of the shop teacher, why didn't they just take it out and give the letter opener (made by the freak of the week) to the police and have the dumb kid arrested? This makes no sense to me. I know, the episode would have ended 20 minutes early, but why not spend those twenty minutes doing something good, like characterizing well?

Which brings us to what was great about this episode. And I mean howlingly, gut busting, wet my pants great. Lex and his golf club. Oh, who knew that the beginning of the end of the goodness in Lex would start with a parking Nazi and a woman in an anger management class? I tell you, I had a clue... :)

I saw that parking Nazi come over, and I knew it was going to be good. Me and Kev, my buddy who watches the show with me, we just started looking from the parking Nazi to each other, and the first thing we said was "I hope he goes postal on that meter maid." Then we saw golf clubs. "Look Neal." "Yes, yes, Kevin, I see. Golf clubs. This could be good."

Then Lex grabbed the old nine iron, started walking over, and the room exploded.

"YEAH!"

"KILL THE PARKING NAZI!"

"WHAT BETTER REASON TO GO TO THE DARK SIDE? DO IT, LEX! TAKE HIM OUT!"

"NO! NOT THE WINDSHIELD! TAKE THAT PARKING NAZI'S FACE OUT!"

"YEAH, GET HIS FACE!"

Not that we're violently opposed to parking Nazis, living in a college town. Well, maybe a little. I've racked up about fifty in tickets, and this largely because I play the drum in the Pep Band and they ticket me for parking legally and just not having a magical label on my car which identifies me as part of a school functioning group.

Alas, I digress. Seeing Lex Luthor go after a parking Nazi was better for me than seeing him take on Mongul himself.

Oh, Lord! I've seen Jonathan Taylor Thomas' nipples! Someone please shoot me!

The previous phrase of the week was brought to you by the freak of the week.

Okay. Here's my other major point of physics contention for this season. Two weeks ago you saw me use simple physics to point out that no matter how strong Byron (shiver) was, he could not stop a helicopter from lifting off without an extremely dense body or a body of super-high mass, not energy.

Now we have the Gwen Stacy argument against the survival of Chloe.

Sorry, folks, I hate to break it to you, but Chloe is dead. Dead as a doornail. I will henceforth, unless I forget, refer to her as the undead. For you see, when you throw someone off of a dam, and someone jumps off after that someone, even if that someone, Clark, can magically somehow pass that someone, the undead, in mid-flight (say using his unusable flight skills, perhaps), land on the ground before the person, somehow right yourself to catch the undead, and then catch said undead, the force of gravity would break many, many major bones in the body of that person, if not kill them most spectacularly, probably breaking the bones of the catchee as well, assuming that catchee was not Clark. What this extremely long and convoluted sentence implies is that Chloe fell, Clark caught her without slowing her decent at all, and Chloe broke every major bone in her body and died. You saw the fall as well as I did. It was at least a hundred feet. No one can survive even a soft landing at that distance without extreme luck, and certainly not without great personal injury. Add in the fact that she had brain damage from being knocked out, and I wonder just who the heck is editing these scripts. This is how Gwen Stacy died (essentially), and this is how Chloe Sullivan has died.

Woe to us all, for Chloe is dead. May she rest in peace. Now that the actor is freed up from her obligations, perhaps she might please phone me for a date? Or, there, my email is equally accessible, and I respond to it in typical more than that confounded ringing box of telemarketing annoyance.

So we had a really great moment with Lex, and a possible great development (girlfriend?). And we have the nipples of Jonathan Taylor Thomas, a freak of the week, more whining non-development between the love triangle of Chloe, Clark, and Lana, and most importantly, another escapade into inconsistency and impossible physics. For this, I give this episode a 2 of 5, saved from a one only by a nine iron.

"BREAK HIS FACE!"

Ahem. Excuse me. I now assume my stately, composed reviewer face and return to my regular scheduled writing. See you next week.

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