Another take on Smallville Season 5, Episode 9

Damn you Brzovic!
I sort of agree with your review, although not completely. I will say however, you are are spot on by asking why Clark didn't have glasses 7 years in the future. That is an almost unforgivable mistake, isn't it?

Even Lex Luthor’s wildest dreams are like nightmares.

Lana dies in childbirth. And that’s supposed to be the good life Lex is striving for, says the ghost of his long-dead mother. Give up your money and your power to live a pure, happy, middle-class existence full of values and ethics and troublesome car seats that just don’t hook-up quite right to the back of your wood-paneled station wagon. Oh and your wife dies. And I’m the ghost of Christmas future. Err… right.

In what should be a landmark Smallville episode, Lex takes one giant leap towards the dark side. Yet, this episode pretty much sucks. Why? Because Smallville continues to take place in a world where vampires, witches and – at Christmas-time – Santa exist. Some drunk guy on a roof in a Santa costume wants to kill himself because the world has lots the spirit of Christmas. But Clark talks the guy down, and later we learn he’s really Santa Claus. For real. Seriously.

Fuck off, WB. I know “realism” in a show like Smallville is a bit of an oxymoron – after all, the lead character is an alien from another planet with super-human abilities who goes on to be a character created in a comic book… but still. Santa?!?! Are you kidding me? At least throw a kryptonite plot in there, maybe with a new colour of kryptonite, such as fascia, which gives a person the powers of Saint Nicholas. Or something. Anything. Don’t leave the viewer hanging and embarrassed to be watching the show! I lowered my head in shame on that one.

Putting the Santa issue aside (and as you can tell, that takes a great deal of effort) there are a couple of great moments in this episode. The scenes where Clark darts around Metropolis at super-speed delivering presents is a truly inspired idea by the writers.

As well, the final sequence where Lex makes the fateful decision to take out Johnathon Kent was superbly acted and dynamite.

“Do you know what the secret to living happily ever after is? Power. Money and power. See one you have those two things you can secure everything else and keep it that way.”

“Find it, fake it, do whatever it takes to knock Jonathon Kent out of the race. I want to be senator. I want it all.”

Gold. Too bad the rest of the episode wasn’t.