Smallville Season 5, Episode 5

“What about you Mr. Kent? Would you have the courage to try to stop him?” – Brainiac (James Marsters) – Episode 5, Season 5- talking, figuratively, about an Empire run by Lex Luthor.

Running Smallville commentaries? Sounds comic bookish to me! I turn into such a dork when talking about comics, don’t I? Everybody has a little bit of dork in them. Deal with it!

In its fifth season, Smallville has finally taken the route it should have embraced 4 years ago. It is taking on the Superman mythos head on, driving to a conclusion that will, hopefully, see the breathtaking conclusion to a new mythos that has proved to be not only be interesting but full of great writing (most of the time), new characterizations and great new twists on a 70 year old story.

Episode 5 continues that trend, but not to the same degree as episodes 1 – 4. While snippets like the above dialogue demonstrate the more head on references to Clark Kent’s every nearing future (and from Brainiac no less, that’s damn cool), Episode 5 delves into a world that Smallville should never have gone. Vampires.

What are Vampires doing at Metropolis University? Hell if I know, the good writers must have had the week off. So, our lovable Lana Lang finds herself in trouble once more as she pledges to the sorority that is full of the. Never mind the fact that Lana would never pledge to a sorority, but the writers offer a really lame excuse on that one, claiming that she’s in such a desperate need for housing that she has no choice. She could go live with Chloe though and they’ve lived together before, so why not live together again? That’s the Smallville writers mentality for you.

But, before I continue, I must ask a question. If Clark and Lana consummated their relationship back in episode 3, you’d think that they would continue to do it. So how’s that possible. And you can’t argue that they had sex just once and never again, because how is that feasible. Oh Smallville writers, when will you learn?

Back to the episode – Brainiac and Luthor play a little game of cat and mouse, which Brainiac is always going to win and Clark suspects something is wrong with Lana. Wow, this episode is really going nowhere fast. Clark smells amazing? Great, you’re turning into a vampire, you’re a bad ass once again Lana, we get it. What a stupid “freak of the week” storyline for this episode.

Although, on the cool side, Brainiac shows some of his Kryptonian supercomputer powers in this episode, which involve metamorphasizing his body into sharp instruments. Even with the vampires running around, you can tell there’s something special in the cards this season. The villains are exciting and Clark is growing by leaps and bounds.

The other exciting element the writers are playing with is Chloe knowing Clark’s secret. It offers a number of great moments with Chloe giving Clark speeches about being a hero and it lets Clark be his superself around her. It’s always fun to watch people be amazed by Clark. Weird, but true.

Another great line from the episode –

Chloe – “It’s a costume party, a great opportunity for us to pole around.”

Clark – “I hate costumes.”

Oh Clark, you’re going to love the blue and red tights buddy.

This is too good… Lex created vampires with an experiment? Oh man, the writers were really smoking something this week. And I bet there’s a cure, isn’t there? Of course there is, because we can’t have anything have serious repercussions on Smallville. Does any show use more toxins, dream sequences etc. to go back on things? I doubt it. But that’s why this show is so appealing. Just when you think they might have the guts to execute a real storyline, they back off. It’s an interesting mentality that keeps you tuning in. “Maybe this week,” you tell yourself, “they’ll do something that everybody actually remembers and not just Clark.”

And now Lana can actually bite Clark because there’s Kryptonite around as it keeps the “serum” active. This is too much. Way too much. And she’s stolen his powers? I bet she’s going to forget in the next 5 minutes, isn’t she? Yup, there she goes. She forgot. Clark has probably uttered “So how much of it do you actually remember” about 33 times during the course of the 5 seasons.

See but now here’s the conundrum that Smallville always seems to present for me. The last minute of the episode, for a complete fan boy such as myself, was gold. Chloe narrating about getting in on the ground floor of the Daily Planet and referencing that it is the place of future superhero’s (how she knows this, don’t ask me) and then saying she had no place to go but “up, up and away”. You see, I love that crap.

Damn you Smallville. I enjoy you for another week.

So far, definitely the worst episode of Season 5, but damn better than anything Season 4 had to offer.