REVIEW:

Well, I could start by slamming the freak of the week. It's easy, it's typical, and it's what I'd do in any other given day. And it IS a week with a freak of the week. A normal kid went homicidal. But here's what redeems this episode, at least for me. Garret at very least had a darned good reason to go nuts. His brother was dying. I'd threaten others to save my brother. Would I kill others? No. But at least I can see where Garret is coming from.

Now why the heck he had to go and do what he did with Kryptonite dynamite makes no real sense to me. None at all. Nor why, if his company indeed used dynamite, they would have remote detonators when fuses are rather simple, but hey, that's just me.

And when it comes down to it, I'm almost willing to overlook the crumminess of the plot device in that the bomb destruction scene was so well thought out and cool.

The story, as I saw it:

Call me a little hypocritical, but the ear cam is growing on me. Maybe it's going OUT of the ear instead of in that makes more sense, because that's what he did.

The first thing that occurred to me this episode was a little reminder. Garret reminded me in looks and attitude of Whitney, and it occurred to me. Whitney's dad died of a heart attack less than two years ago. Why has Lana not said anything about it. I mean, she managed to give Clark crap about his sequel the day his dad got out of open heart surgery, why not mention how it felt with Whitney, and how hard she knows it can be?

There was a glaring error in the writing today. Clark says he always used to think of his dad as a Man of Steel. Which is cool once, but Martha used it a few episodes back. Was it the same writer? I don't know. All I know is the same cheese line used once can be cool, twice it gets no gouda. Bad editing.

I was going to rant and rave about how the doctor just gives four or five CPR pumps and then just kind of shrugs, but then, he's in with Lionel, so it makes sense. No paddles? Well, okay. Luthor's paying. Good consistency.

And Mentos again, with the Doo Waahs! What, are they listening to me? There were two commercials this week. Anyone seen that Jedi Mentos video on Theforce.net? Man, it kills me every time. Ever since, Mentos rocks, officially.

The Smallville Medical Center. We see it more than we see Smallville High, now. Clark should have a staff badge.

I like how Pa told Clark about having the conversation about eavesdropping. Now, see, that's good writing. It takes one line and explains away five minutes of a conversation that could have happened but didn't. And it also keeps up on the Kents. The Kents were really well done in this episode, and of late they've been a bit neglected.

Pause for the next note:

God, Annette is so hot.

Well, I says to myself, having written this note, are you nuts? Then I realize it's all a byproduct of a childhood in front of the Superman movies before I really got into reading at about 6. I knew how by early 4, but didn't start the whole ravenous reading until 6ish. Read my first novel at 7. Point being? In between 4 and 7 I watched Star Wars, Superman, and Police Academy about 800,000 times. And boy, did I have the crush of crushes on Lana Lang in Superman III.

And now, even if she is the Mom, well, though it's completely unrelated to this episode, just looking at her in the first scene she had...

You still got it, Annie, and that's hard to do next to Kristen and Allison. You rock.

Now back to your regularly scheduled review.

Look. Garrett. Another normal Smallville kid knows. My next note asks when he will go homicidal, even though I didn't read spoilers in this episode. Can I call them or what?

Hey-o! (Golf swing)

He gets mad at the nurse, puts on the whiney voice, and screams, "You don't know anything!" Now, maybe that's annoying to some people, but I thought it was funny, and cool. He told a nurse off, and nurses are notoriously hard to shut down. I know. My mom was one. Try talking back to her. Go on. I DARE you. Regardless, the scene stuck out.

So Tang is a North Korean crazy. I mean, playing off our current paranoiacs, this is a great turn. Myself, I think North Korea's a nice little breeding ground for maniacs. Of course, that's just because it's the biggest country I know that has concentration camps no one wants to do anything about. That and the whole squelching of freedom of speech. I'm a bit sensitive about that, because I like to say

Poopie!

Sometimes, quite inappropriately.

In North Korea, I'd be saying it in stocks.

Sorry. That's kind of irrelevant, but it's good towards motivation. I see how an evil doctor who cares about getting results outside of the law can come from such a country.

METRON pharmaceuticals. Wonder if they manufacture Kirby Chairs there. I bet they do!

When you're taking Darkseid from Metron pharmaceuticals, please talk to your doctor. Side effects of the Omega Effect include nausea, vomiting, and death, if you're not Superman. Always consult with Desaad before taking Darkseid, and be sure to tell Granny Goodness about any and all rebellion caused as a side effect of taking Darkseid. Do not taunt Darkseid. Never speak of the Kryptonian when taking Darkseid. Omega Effects lasting longer than four hours can be dangerous. Consult a Lazarus pit.

Chloe and Lex working together. Nice. I like it. At least we see Chloe, and I always like her scenes with the Luthors.

Why do you cry blood after you shoot up with Clark's blood? I mean, it makes sense, but why? Anyone have a theory? I'll let it go, cause it looks cool, but I'm interested.

Clark tags Lana for not telling him about the blood, but he's very understanding, considering people are disappearing from Morgues. I mean, someone doesn't tell me someone nearby is crying blood, I'd be pretty mad. Like, say my friend who's a girl has a friend who hates me who cries blood, I'd be all like, "Heck woman, at least you could have let me go find a bat before this crazy punk comes after me!" And if friends of mine were returning to life, I'd want time to go get stakes. No, wait. That's Buffy.

Anyway, he's so blinded by her he really lets her off easy. Now Clark's being annoying here. And Lana, well, at least she's consistent.

At 8:25, the official touching and cool story ended, and the part where the normal kid went nuts began. "I'll make him live no matter what!" Sounds like Anakin Skywalker, minus the force. So he overcompensates with Krypto dynamite.

You know, on second thought, Krypto dynamite is worse than Krypto cars. But nonetheless, the effect, the effect. I'll get there.

I want to know why the heck the pilot had to take Clark in the chopper. That makes no sense at all. None. Why not just give an address, or drive? I don't know how much, folks, not for sure, but I do know to fuel a helicopter ain't cheap, and little rides from Smallville to Metropolis run LOTS of money, money that would be accounted for. And I'm not sure further, but I would guess that a trip must be logged, and perhaps the guy could get away with the body once, but why twice? And come to think of it, Lionel has a bo-jillion helicopters. Why not use one of his own?

Well, whatever.

The steal was really super cool. I liked it. It's there, it's gone, we don't have Lex continuity issues, but Clark is nonetheless there. Super hearing is growing on me even more.

All right, I was spoiled here. I said sodium chloride (or something that sounds like it) explodes with water put on it. Then I thought, hey, maybe I was thinking potassium chloride. Then the doc, right after I thought it over email with a letter writer, done pumps it into Jonathan's chest. No boom, so I'm guessing I'm wrong again. Drat! Maybe disodium Chloride? I can't remember. Curses! This is why I flunked chemistry. Well, that and because I wrote that buckminsterfullerine buckyballs were used for Hindu Rugby, when I know darn well they're used by Buckminsterfullerines for the propagation of their species. I just didn't want to make a reproduction joke on a test for high school. See, I was principled! See? Yeah.

I still flunked.

2 token Pete scenes. He finally comes to visit, he's taken hostage, and he says three things. MARTHA said more than him.

This is criminal! Pete is closer to Clark than Lana is! He's Clark's best friend. What is WITH this? Why write Pete into such an important spot, then ignore him.

I mean, here I am looking at the vote for the top ten episodes, and Nicodemus is at three. It's a BODY DOUBLE. A BODY DOUBLE, and it's knocking Hourglass out of the top ten. Now I can rant and rave about marginalized men in television, but guys, see through this crap! It's a BODY. I am in no way against liking a girl for what she looks like, but evaluating a show based on when the girl gets the most naked and acts the most sultry?

And hey, even that's subjective. But why let it knock Pete into such a lame position? And Chloe, too, for that matter. Chloe and Pete NEVER really talk to Clark any more, and Lana does every week at :50 after. Including this week. But I'll get there.

The heart surgery angle with Pa Kent was really cool. I don't know how they did it, but I liked it.

"Take him out." Okay. Make the Jason sound.

Chee chee chee

Poh poh poh

Hah hah hah!

But hey, she's still cool this week. The Sheriff is going up in my book as less annoying and more cool.

Now we know for sure that the stuff is Clark's blood (not that we didn't know before, but now we KNOW KNOW).

Why did the doctor know to pump the stuff directly into the guy's heart? And what stopped its efficacy? The K? The fact that you only live twice? Sorry. Couldn't stop that one. The marrow never dies. Hey, that one had Teri Hatcher in it. ZING! Three degrees of geekdom.

My next three notes are frantic:

Nice cloud!

Nice idea!

Nice explosion.

Which was my short way of saying, WOW, you can still see the Wile E. Coyote frame from where he was just standing. WOW, he came up with the lead lined X-Ray screen. Good idea. Wow, that green cloud from the bomb really rocked.

All of that, so fast, was very overwhelming and cool, and is enough to bring even a bad episode from the brink, much like the cape saved Futureboy episode from obscurity.

That was, without a doubt, one of the best effects yet, that green explosion.

So why don't they notice Clark's gone? Well, that's left off screen, but it bugged me.

It also bugged me that Tang had bars in Adam's prison. Why have bars in a room at a pharmaceutical plant? It doesn't make much sense.

Okay, you'll have to picture my mentality. I'm jazzed about the explosion, the Tang scene, and then we have a great Lana Lex scene. Lana lies like a dog to Lex, but Lex knows and forgives it, and then he touches her chin and wipes off the dirt. It was very nice. A little, "I know you." Moment. Lex realizes she's immature and it's a source of her failing, and I respect the writers putting that in.

Now if only Clark could see that.

And then I'm thinking, what a GREAT scene to end it on.

And then it happened. At 8:53, no less, but it happened.

The Clana.

Featuring, not for the first time, the wimpy, apologetic Clark and the vindictive Lana, not a day after Clark's father has open heart surgery.

Now, I've been flamed for bashing Lana, and I'm not backing down, at least not on the evidence so far, but of late, Clark has also been a dummy, acceding to her wiles and being a wimp and apologetic, making him a fool. I draw an important distinction, however, in this scene. Clark is the protagonist and Lana the antagonist, making her the hinge pin for solution, because Clark's doing what he does out of niceness, Lana's doing what she's doing to get answers, selfishly.

Now Clark lies to her, as he has to, and she sees it, but instead of asking if he's lying, she glares at him. Well, that sure solves things, doesn't it?

And he also has a very good point which she ignores. Lana now knows what it is to have a secret she doesn't want to tell for fear of people getting hurt. And instead of getting it, she again glares at him when he refused to tell her he's really a super man.

Good going, bink. I will not go any father than that. You've heard it before. But the 8:50 is almost borderline a point docking offense now, because it's just done. It's horrible. It's too much, and I've taken it for too long. I think a half point dock may be fair. But I will give it one more chance. Next week, minus a point for a freak that doesn't make sense (this week's did) and minus a half for a horrible, boring, angering 8:50. The gauntlet is down.

This episode, however, was good in most respects. Nice subplot, nice character for the freak with a decent reasoning, great effects, good acting, and hey, the only really bad thing was the 8:50 and the silly bomb.

I'd say an honest 4 of 5.

And hey, welcome to the latest feature of the Smallville review: The review of the episode I haven't even seen. Every week I will rate the next episode before I've even seen it, and see how it stacks up the next week. I thought of this when I figured "Obsession" would be a 2 and it was a 3.5.

Next week: With a title like Crisis, and the finale of the Adam saga, it should by all rights be cool. Lionel always has intrigue, but hey, Adam will DEFINITELY be a freak who arbitrarily goes homicidal and Lana will undoubtedly feel some romance towards Clark which she will use against him in the last 8:50, so I'm guessing 2.75. Between 2.5 and 3. Promise that heads downward a little. We'll see. It could be a 6 of 5 if Adam scares the passive aggression out of Lana.

BUSINESS:

Alllllll right.

Well, I got through most of the mail. I believe I am ten emails away from the end of the stack, and most of those are not Smallville related, so if I didn't get to you, I'm sorry. But 50 of 60 is pretty good for three days. :)

By next week I WILL be caught up.

People have asked me about donating to the Leukemia drive despite the fact that they don't have a credit card. Originally, I figured, hey, why not just send checks to me, I could send a receipt to the person involved, and then send them all in one lump as a donation to the society. Apparently, and with good reason, however, one person collecting donations for a cause without being the cause is illegal. I respect that. It requires too much trust, and the possibility for corruption is rampant.

So I came up with another, perfectly legal way to benefit Leukemia without breaking the law. From now until, say, March 12-13, coincidentally when the drive ends, I will be selling a poem online, for a suggested donation of 5 bucks. Isn't that strange? It's just like the Leukemia drive? And hey, guess what. My little poetry sale? All proceeds go to the Superman Homepage Leukemia drive. How does that work out, huh?

So if you send me a check in the mail, or a money order, or etcetera, I will mail you a receipt for that check with the "Superman" Poem as your goods and services for the dollars you send me, and I will take this money I have earned and donate it to a cause I very much support, the Leukemia foundation. Make sense? And so you can be assured of non-corruption (because after all, I wouldn't trust me. I make poopie jokes), all who send in will be compiled and placed at the bottom of the Superman Poem email when I send you your poem, with dollar amounts (unless you request otherwise. Arrangements can be made), and a copy of my bank statement showing the credit donation made to the drive allowing the dollar amount I donate and the dollar amount made in poetry concurrent.

Make sense? If not, email me, we'll talk. But this is a good way to help if you don't have the required credit card for the drive. Because lord knows, being a poet, I've had a credit card for too long. :)

And thank you to all of you who broke my bandwidth this week. Sweet! If you went to check out Superman Unlimited and couldn't get on because it was busted, check again.

Regarding Smallville (yes, that is the point here):

Of what I got through this week...

Kevin Heacock points out that two weeks ago we had a new classification during the ball dropping moment with Pete. The CLETE! Ah, what my teacher used to call blends. I keep trying to think of funny ones. The best I could come up with tonight was Luthor and the Kents. KENTOR! Sounds like a He-Man villain. A bald one.

Eric Sherman, one of my online buds, noted a lot of stuff this week. First, he notices that Jor-El said that the powers he gave Pa, equivalent to Clark's, were powers no human was meant to have. Well what about Eric Summers? Where's his heart problem?

And Alicia presses up against Clark in the lead room, with a purse that has no lead bearing a BIG chunk of K, but Clark doesn't feel it?

And finally, Eric astutely points out that Clark was wearing Red K. If Pa Kent was made Kryptonian somehow, then shouldn't Pa have gone "red" ?

Reader Chris notes that Allison Mack is always made out to be a geek, but in reality, Allison is a complete hottie, geekdom aside. And hot chicks are always popular. No, no, don't write me and say it's not true. This is set in stone, finito. You show me the girl who's super hot and not popular, I'll show you my next girlfriend. By the way, baby, wherever you are, I'll pay the airfare. Don't worry.

Mad chick magnet rage subsiding.returning to review.

Chris also notes that while Lex gets all the credit for rocking the house, old Lionel never really gets the OOOH as much. And he deserves it. Lionel rocks. He's Lex without inhibitions. I will pay more attention to that.

Nicky D, way back before it was obvious, in a letter pointed out that the serum might be Clark's blood. It was revolutionary when he mailed it to me, but my stupid rear didn't get to it fast enough. He still deserves credit.

Enin also noticed the time Lana didn't use her mad kung fu on Alicia, but I was again late in receiving his words. My apologies.

And God, I feel so horrible about this. Mads Robin Kasmo has pointed out a bunch of cool information over time, but me, in my ignorance, I called him a her last week. Mads is male, and I am a retard. Let us all take a moment of silence to grant Mads his masculinity and lament the fact that I am a cultureless assuming tard. Well, I listened to the Culture Club back in the day, but that don't count.

In amends, for this week I will be a her. Refer to me please in the feminine. No, dude, I will NOT go out with you.

Steve Sanders pointed out first, but Patrick also pointed out that Dr. Tang was in Phoenix, when Lionel tested the blood. NICE continuity, and good eye, folks.

Patrick is the gent who pointed out sodium chloride, and he also had me watch the end of Velocity really slow. Now not only is the episode NOT redeemed, but Clark is a murderer. He DID take care of the bomb. How? He punched it out the side, Dante hit it, and his car exploded, killing him. Way to go, Clarkie. Watch it slow. It's there. It's just badly filmed.

Steve Crow points out that Dante was in a high explosion with Kryptonite involved. Shouldn't he have super powers?

Steve also pointed out that 20 K for bets in a small town is nuts, and assuming the long odds were there (and let's be nice and say that it was 3 to 1) then the bet meant 60,000 to collect from that small crowd. Right. And he also wonders where Pete got a car worth twenty thousand bucks. Me too.

Felix Vasquez of The Balcony notes that teleporters typically must see where they're going to (at least traditionally), and she hadn't seen Clark's room yet. At least, so we're supposed to think.MWU HA HA!

Neal Bailey, freak that he is, came up with an interesting theory looking at the top ten episode list.

How many of them are freak of the week episodes not involving Lana's tush? And further, this maniac ruminates, why do they keep making freaks if that ratio of freak episodes to the BEST ones is so small?

Well, don't listen to him. He's a moron anyway.

Wait a minute. I made a promise. I mean, SHE's a moron.

I have to apologize to Kyle Wilson, who wrote in criticizing that I was dismissive of Oasis. I was. I mean, most people dismissive of bands are uninformed about them, so I will defend myself in that I do know and have listened to many an Oasis tune (thanks to peers) in my day and music remains one of my greatest passion, even above and beyond Superman (I have a 4,500 song play list I write to and I know the words to all the songs. Truly). However, I was pretty dismissive. And usually, when I am dismissive of something, I'll try to explain it away, like when I make a comment about Lana, but hey, when it comes to music, that's like talkin' 'bout yo' mamma to some people, myself included. And being a punk rock poet, if someone told me that Operation Ivy blew the funky chunks, I'd write them a nasty letter, not the civil one Kyle sent me. So I apologize. Not retract, mind you, but offer that I didn't want to talk 'bout no one's momma.

And finally, Heath Donnell notes that it LOOKED like Clark talking to Chloe about his blood, but it really took place in the Kent home this episode. Another time the previews have been royally deceptive. I hate that. "THIS IS THE ONE WHERE LEX GOES BAD!" Whups. We lied.

Well, that's all I got this week, folks, and after Superman/Batman #6, an episode of Smallville, and 60 letters, I'm about to say good night. Sorry about the delay last week, and I won't go into it much further than this, but I am now assured financially, indefinitely, of being allowed to write and not work for an indefinite period of time. Scheming, wiling, working my way through various things, I have now found myself in a very good position. So while last week was another of many times my reviews have been late, it's all over now, folks, and I just wanted to thank you all for supporting me and making me believe in myself. I'm just a schlub who writes reviews and books no one likes to read, but you all gave me a heart, and for that, I thank you, and though I am now debt free in life, I remain in a debt nonetheless. I'll be writing on my novel tonight and thinking of you.

After I go and ready the updated KO Count. :)

PS: Go get your butts over to the voting site for the top ten and go for Hourglass! It should at LEAST make the top five!

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