Smallville Season 5 thread (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Another story for a later time is all. We aren't going to see the Lois/Clark romance because that's not "Smallville"'s story.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

John you hit on the big point. In most incarnations of Superman, Clark was always very interested in Lois. In this one, he doesn't really like her much, let alone look at her as a love interest. At least with Chloe, he definitely likes her a lot and cares about her. After the kiss, I'd like to see him take more of an interest in her. Also, they are just so much alike, in their inquisitiveness, wanting to dig into things, etc.

 

[JediFonger]

imho, smallville is what they call the masters of "continuity p0rn". as a 'prequel' series, it's all about the foreplay... i mean, foreshadowing. that's why the lois thing, although, i always thought clark met lois @daily planet and not smallville. i think that's a bit hokey. i can buy the lex+smallville+meteor rock connection, but bringing lois in was a bit... meh.

 

[Ric Easton]

"but bringing lois in was a bit... meh."

Yeah, but she sure is purty! Even though they're not crazy about each other, they have tons more chemistry than Clark and Lana. I wouldn't mind seeing Chloe getting together with Clark, though.

BTW, in the comics, Lois actually fell in love with Clark (leaving behind her Supes infatuation) and said yes to his proposal, before she knew he was Superman.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

I like the theory of Chloe becoming Lois and her and Clark ending up together. I think Clark and Lana had tons more chemistry than Lois and Clark but that's just me.

 

[Greg_S_H]

At this point, I'm just hoping Allison gets a starring role on another show when the run ends. She deserves to be more in the spotlight.

 

[Brandon Conway]

A couple thoughts.

People keep saying how much they hate Lana. Well, yeah, I think that's the point right now. She's become an enemy, although unwittingly in many ways, to Clark and the good side of things. There's nothing worse than a once close friend turned against you, and Lana is fitting that role quite well. Sure, so is Lex, but Lex was always one step in that direction to begin with.

People have hated the Lana character for a couple seasons now. Here's your chance to hate her and feel good about it - because she's essentially a villain at this point.

And I agree that other than hints and humor, there won't be a relationship between Clark and Lois in this series. The point to bringing in Lois was to do just that - hint and have some fun with the material.

But also look at it this way - by moving Lana out of the good side into the bad, they've effectively replaced her character with both Chloe (romantically) and Lois (buddy). That works for me.

So, as I said a few posts ago, I really hope they allow Clark and Chloe to develop their romance in this series. They could end the series with them still involved and it wouldn't be a big deal. It's one of those relationships that, even if we know it isn't going to last in the same way, we'll recognize as ending on good terms, unlike the Lana relationship that has essentially caused Clark nothing but grief.

 

[Lauren Dayap]

Amen Greg (on Allison....I started to hate her...from season 2...well Chloe but since she knows Clark' secret....starting to luuv her)

Anyways Thursday nights this fall on The CW=kickass

http://www.cwtv.com/cw-vid-smsn.html

 

[Greg_S_H]

You mean when it looked like she was going to betray Clark and start working for Lionel? I was feeling a little pissed at her, too. I was glad they pretty much dropped that.

 

[JediFonger]

need more fresh bl00d i think. and Clark REALLY needs to fly. you can't just tease us with s5 opening but then not develop that!!! =).

 

[Chris]

Ok, I'm 1/2 way through Season 5 (with the senator dropping out of the race) and I find that I agree with Lex more and more and Clark less and less. I was really torn on the episode involving Aquaman. I say this not as a fight, but as an honest belief. Aquaman was basically an eco-terrorist. Clark acknowledged as much when he was willing to blow up people. Now, while I can villify Lex's tying him up and denying him water, from his viewpoint (and mine) this guy was a crazed terrorist who had no problem hurting anyone. Meanwhile, Clark's whiny attitude about Lex developing a weapon (Leviathon) struck me as beyond laughable. Lex runs a multi-national company with responsibilities.. even as a military contractor. And a defensive weapon that would be used primarily as a deterrent doesn't strike me as evil at all... to be honest, it'd probably go farther to promote peace then anything Clark has done. And Clark completely accepts Aquaman's posit without critically thinking through the situation and goes in and destroys private property. Unless we are to believe that the US Government, Lex's buyer, is some evil force, then this whole thing smacked me as way out of order.

It's just small things like that. If I were in Lex's shoes, I'd be investigating everything about Clark too, and Lex's dishonesty seems to be designed not to hurt people, whereas Clark's dishonesty and foibles seem to get people killed or harmed.

Clark made a demand of Lex that he stop researching meteor rocks. That's ludicris. From the first five seasons, it's pretty obvious that "meteor freaks" are a serious risk of doing immense societal harm. And the only reason they exist is because of the alien invasion that is Clark.

Lex researching how to repell the invasion strikes me as noble.

I love the comic book series and the movies. But I like the prism of this show too. I can see where others can find just as many reasons to villify Lex, whereas I look at them and say "yep". Lex, constantly bailing people out with money and resources. Providing access to cures. When things go wrong, he takes personal responsibility at grave risk (the cloud of gas that poisoned people with their dreams? Lex takes a chance on the cure that may kill when he's not infected as a test subject).

Clark's red kryptonite excuse is one of those things in the show that makes him out where it's hard to see him as not the bad guy (IMHO) because he's always subject to go over the edge and become an incredible danger. And, knowing that, he still did it, and I'm betting it can/will happen again.

I know it won't happen in the show, and Season 6 could change it, but if I -were- Lex, I'd do everything in my power to kill of Clark as fast as possible by whatever means, and pretty much consider myself a hero for doing it.

I'm just saying, looking at it only with the show, forgetting all the rest of the superman mythos.. I can far more understand and relate to the motivations of Lex then I can Clark.
(I did like the Buffy Sanders: Vampire episode.. very cute)

 

[Chris]

I say that and then in the 15th/16th episode, you finally start to build a Lex you can appreciate as legitimately harboring evil

 

[Chris]

Down to two episodes left in Season 5, and hell, I think the Lex/Lana thing is great. Clark all moans and whines about what Lana sees in Lex.. we get the close up of him holding the bullet in the hospital wing having saved Lana..

But here's the thing.. Lex didn't know Clark would be there (or his powers) and he threw himself on Lana to try and shield her and sacrifice himself to save her. That's what Lana sees. It makes the second time he's done that this season, risked his own life to save hers..

Even if she knew about Clark's powers, his effort to "save" him would be minor in comparison because him throwing himself in front of a bullet for her would serve no consequences to him, whereas Lex doing it is him being willing to give his life for her. For all his faults, if I were Lana, even if I knew, I'd dump Clark.

And, besides, as the wife points out, Lex is a way more attractive actor

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Clark goes out of his way over and over again to save her life, even when he knows he won't get any credit. There are plenty of consequences beyond the physical, and Clark has suffered almost them all. He sacrificed his own father for her. Lana, if she knew, should be really fucking grateful in my book.

 

[Chris]

You really think that? That if Clark came out and said to Lana: "That meteor storm when we were a kid, that's how my parents sent me to earth.. and as a result your parents were killed when I came down, your five year old friend became a freak and a stalker who tried to kill you, you're body has been snatched infinite times, you watched a second shuttle come and try to kill me which almost killed you, and when you were told that the meteor rock would destroy evil.. yeah, it gets me too".

How could she see Clark as anything but the greatest plague she's ever known? Forget his good intentions.. Lex doesn't tell her everything, I suppose (dishonesty through the act of not revealing all) but her naive attitude that he should is at times laughable "I can't believe there are cameras in my room".. jeez, hell, I have cameras in every room of my house and I'm not some mega millionaire (then again, I'm watching a potentially self-endangering autistic child).

But Lex has a right to be worried about home invasion.. they've seen that enough.

Ok, we can say I'm terrible and wrong, but so far, if I was Lex, I'm not sure what broad different choices I would make if I were in his shoes with the access as he has. He believes (and the actor plays this incredibly convincingly) that he is the last real hope to stop an alien invasion and he'll do it at whatever cost.

Judging from what I see, I'm not that sure he's wrong. At this point, the only truly redemptive act for Clark is to sacrifice himself, leave earth or whatever. If he knows that at any moment he can be turned to evil by being made sick (Red) or a paranoid evil force (silver kryptonite). Then he knows that at any point he is the gravest danger to earth. And the only solution to that is to find every possible way to destroy all the earth contaminating meteor and leave.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

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Originally Posted by Chris
And Clark's decisions to do the "wrong" thing don't always come out of the desire to do good, they come from the fact he has an innate ability that makes him an alien.




If Lionel Luthor's failings aren't Lex's fault, than certainly Clark's alien heritage can't be his fault.
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More then that, Clark is a much larger global risk then Lex.. we know that when exposed to multiple forms of Kryptonite he's a virtual bomb waiting to go off..




How common is Kryptonite outside of the greater Smallville area though? I think he's learned his lesson regarding red kryptonite (which, if you think about it, is his equivilant of pot, heroin or cocaine) which means in order for it to become an issue, he must be exposed via a human agent.

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and then, over the course of years, you watch "meteor freaks" as Chloe likes to put it, deal drugs, kill people, become robbers (and all those before this are just the high schoolers!), paid assassins (Chameleon), deranged psychopaths who teleport, terrorists and fanatics. Even Chloe started referring to it as an infection by season 5. So, if this is the most virulent, dangerous plague ever known to the world, wouldn't you try to stop it?




Most virulent, dangerous plague ever known? Are you serious? The bubonic plague killed millions, for one. West Nile Virus in a given year kills more than all the meteor freaks have combined during the length of the series. The meteor freaks aren't evil because they've been infected. They're powerful because they've been infected, and power corrupts. Clark isn't evil because he has largely been able to resist the temptations of power. Most of the meteor freaks weren't raised by Martha and Jonathan Kent. I would argue that, if they had been, they would have been one of the good ones.
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I mean, if I were depressed about maybe giving my dad a stroke and I went out and did tons of heroin and went out on a crime spree, I wouldn't be forgiven nearly as quickly as Clark.




On the contrary, many jurisdictions allow rehab as an alternative to jail time for first time offenders where the substance abuse can be linked to the cause of the other illegality. Clark's crimes were worse because Clark's abilities are greater. The 99% of the time accomplishes a great deal more good than the 1% of the time caused bad.
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And, I'd disagree with Lex making the right decision out of selfishness. When he took the test drug to see about curing those infected with the cloud gas, what was his ulterior motive? He could tested on anyone else, but he chose himself as the guinea pig.




Because he was guilty, not because he was altruistic.
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He takes a bullet for Lana in his house.. he could have just as easily not and let her die, no one would know and he would have not been a bad guy, they were both shot at. When in the hospital he elected to take a bullet for Lana, same thing. Going back in previous seasons, things like funding Lana, finding doctors for people.. I mean, I guess it made him look like a good guy, but it provided no other tangible benefit.




Unless you consider that Lex was at that time convinced of his own invincibility, and apparently had his eyes on Lana from the get go — backing off initially only to help the guy who saved his life.
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See, now you're applying a standard I just can't buy. Lex knows that Aquaman is willing to kill people indiscriminatly for his cause... without debate. He also knows that exposure to water apparently gives him super powers which would help make him unstoppable. He knows that he's bent on destroying Lex's display and potentially people (and let's admit: before Clark showed up, Aquaman was planning on destruction, the life of those attending be damned). If Lex turns him over to the authorities, Lex has to know he'd get access to water along the way.. so, did Lex really torture him in any way OR did Lex basically save the lives of all those intending the display who Aquaman most assuredly attended to kill?




How would Aquaman get access to water along the way? Tie him up tight, throw him in the back of one of his SUVs, bring him to the police station.

The imprisonment of a human being by a private citizen is unforgivable. Period.
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And by helping Aquaman, how did Clark not assist an admitted attempted killer escape, destroy property and commit crimes against the government by destroying property built for the government? Yeah, I don't see that at all making Lex look bad, but it makes Clark look -really- bad.




Look at it from this perspective:

Aquaman was going to destroy the weapon either way. Clark could either help and make sure no one was injured, or he could stand aside and watch as Aquaman destroyed property. You could argue that Clark should have taken him to the authorities, but since Lex wasn't about to either, you can't really hold that against Clark.
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Lex, however, has used 33.1 to study those "infected" and he's also used it to take the infected out of circulation. Lex is coming at this from a different viewpoint: that the infected are a plague, a dangerous, world-ending plague.




Based on what evidence? Their destructive influence has been pretty much entirely contained to a rural Kansas community. On that flimsy standard, he imprisons living, breathing, thinking, feeling human beings for his own ends an whims. This is evil.

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Lex is coming at this from a different perspective.. these are people he believes the government could not contain, or worse, people he thinks the government would try to harness as warriors.. (see later as he dealt with James Marsters as the ship and told Lana he believed the government was using 'special people' to gain control over others).




He can think whatever he wants, that doesn't make him special and above that law so that based on his mistaken assumptions he can do whatever the hell he wants.

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Or that you'd never heard of superman.. an Alien invasion occurs and a group of people try to capture and contain a group in order to figure them out... then Lex seems a lot more like NTAC from 4400 then some evil mastermind.




I would argue that the containment of the 4400 by NTAC didn't work out good for either party in that scenario. Even putting that aside, the key difference is that NTAC is a government agency authorized by elected representatives who derive their power from the citizenry of the United States. Lex Luthor is a private citizen responsible to no one acting on his rogue assumptions and whims.

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But hasn't the show estabished that they aren't people anymore? Look at the number of times Lana, Chloe and others have been "infected" or taken over (even Lex by Zod) they wake up and say "I don't remember anything, I wasn't in control". Chloe referred to several as "body snatchers". And the show has made at least four or five episodes each season regarding people who get infected and are no longer who they were.. "she was a good kid and then...." type episodes. Lex doesn't see these as people anymore.. they are hosts.




The type of infections that Lana, Chloe and the bunch were exposed to are entirely different than the meteor freaks, who still remember who they are and act as themselves. A select few were driven to do terrible things by their ability — the frozen guy in season one and the formerly fat girl with the hypermetabolism, for instance — but the vast majority are at liberty to use their new powers or not. It is the darker sides of their humanity (greed, ego, etc.) that set them down the dark road.
Think back to Ryan in Season 2, and what happened to him. Tell me he wasn't a person.
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And for that matter, while Lex contains them for study, so far all Clark has done is =kill= several of them because he acknowledges they weren't human anymore.. (examples: the kid who made people wax statues so they couldn't graduate and leave high school.. Clark fractured his body and blew him into pieces.. girl attacks Lana in Alley, Clark kills her). So, yes, Lex contains and researches them.. and treats them as non-humans. Clark recognizes them as non-humans and just kills them. Is it really preferable to just kill people?




In the few times that Clark has killed meteor freaks, it's been because those meteor freaks have posed an immediate danger to other people. That is defensible in my book as self defense. There are a few meteor freaks in Lex's prison that posed an immediate threat, but they should be in Belle Reeve, not Lex's secret hiding place. The rest haven't posed a danger to any one, and there is no reason to keep them locked up.
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Clark's mess is monumental. His existance on earth brought the meteor rocks, basically.. look at it as an attack by Krypton on Earth. Everyone on of the meteor freaks is his fathers mess.. so far, the body count is virtually unknowable. And Clark does his best to "clean it up" but it's still repercussions of how he came here.




You're going to blame Clark for that? Really? He was a baby. He certainly didn't choose to come that way, and has even expressed on several occasions that he'd have preferred to die instead. That's Jor-El's cross to bear, and Jor-El's alone.

See, this is another issue.. in the comics and movies, he just "came here" without any real side effect.. in the show, there is a real yin/yang. Clark's existance brought with it incredible, super powered evil into the world. So Clark will spend the rest of his life trying to clean up his mess..

Or, slight spoiler, through most of season six before he's got the bulk of the problem solved.
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You really think that? That if Clark came out and said to Lana: "That meteor storm when we were a kid, that's how my parents sent me to earth.. and as a result your parents were killed when I came down, your five year old friend became a freak and a stalker who tried to kill you, you're body has been snatched infinite times, you watched a second shuttle come and try to kill me which almost killed you, and when you were told that the meteor rock would destroy evil.. yeah, it gets me too".

How could she see Clark as anything but the greatest plague she's ever known?




Umm, maybe because she knows he didn't choose to come that way. More importantly, she's known Clark her whole life too, and already cares about him in spite of blaming him for all the bad things that have happened in recent years without knowing his very good explanation for them. She's known him to be a kind, caring, intelligent, responsible — if guarded — young man. And if she knew his secret, and why he had to keep that secret, I think she'd be able to forgive him for being so guarded.

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Forget his good intentions.. Lex doesn't tell her everything, I suppose (dishonesty through the act of not revealing all) but her naive attitude that he should is at times laughable "I can't believe there are cameras in my room".. jeez, hell, I have cameras in every room of my house and I'm not some mega millionaire (then again, I'm watching a potentially self-endangering autistic child).




But everyone in your household presumably knows about the cameras. That there are cameras in Lana's room isn't that big of a shocker considering that Lex is a powerful man with a lot of enemies. But he should have been open about the survellence and certainly not used it to keep tabs on her when she doesn't have equal ability to keep tabs on him.
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Ok, we can say I'm terrible and wrong, but so far, if I was Lex, I'm not sure what broad different choices I would make if I were in his shoes with the access as he has. He believes (and the actor plays this incredibly convincingly) that he is the last real hope to stop an alien invasion and he'll do it at whatever cost.




I'm not saying that they haven't crafted a plausible perspective for Lex, and I'm certainly not criticized Michael Rosenbaum's standout performance. I'm just saying that Clark is, by this point, supposed to be far more sympathetic given the mainstream values of this country, and considering everything we as an audience have been presented in the context of the show alone. You're approaching the show with different values than I am. My values strongly clash with what Lex has done by this point in the series. As such, I'm trying to present a fair devil's advocate perspective to your arguments. That you view meteor freaks as a virus while I view them as people is a barrier we might not be able to overcome.
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Judging from what I see, I'm not that sure he's wrong. At this point, the only truly redemptive act for Clark is to sacrifice himself, leave earth or whatever. If he knows that at any moment he can be turned to evil by being made sick (Red) or a paranoid evil force (silver kryptonite). Then he knows that at any point he is the gravest danger to earth. And the only solution to that is to find every possible way to destroy all the earth contaminating meteor and leave.




It's a numbers game. The likelihood of a red or silver Kryptonite infection is astronomically low — especially if he leaves Smallville. His ability to do good is much greater than his human contemporaries. If I lived in his world, knowing his personality and burden, I'd feel a lot safer with the roll of the dice that keeps him around.

 

[Chris]

Yeah, I'm just not so sure. Because in the script of the show, we've already setup that the Indian caves existed years and years ago, and were a portal for Krypton to issue these vague threats to Earth, and proclaim Clark's ultimate destiny as a global dictator. When Lex heard that (I'd have to look up the episode) you know he had to wonder, and when he openly said: maybe the one that brings him down is the good guy, you had to wonder about that too.

I'm not saying that meteor freaks are all evil. But I am saying that based on the first five seasons, the show made a very valid case for Lex to believe as he does.

That's where the show doesn't make sense.. those caves are "ancient" and they provide advance notice on Clark and Kal El, etc. and yet..

While his arrival in Smallville, etc. isn't directly his fault, Lex is castigated for years on the show for the faults of the father, and Clark has managed to totally sidestep all of that.

Clark routinely castigates Lex for dishonesty, and yet, when he has information that could change the way Lex looks at the world, he bald face lies. When people break into Lex's house.. oops, Clark's done that repeatedly. Steal a car? Oh yeah, Clark can do that to in order to save a friend (Pete).

Etc.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I'll concede that Clark doesn't have a huge moral high ground over Lex for most of the series. The Clark bursting into Lex's office scenes, even though Clark is almost always on the money and Lex almost always lies straight to his face, reek of hypocrisy. They're not a strong point in the writing of the show, and the situation improved in the later run of the show. Clark became immediately more sympathetic when he made the decision to let Lana be with Lex and just step back.

 

[Chris]

But this is logic that's applicable in our world, not necessarily that of the show. Look, we've seen a statewide race to become -state senator- it turns out (which was a weird twist, I thought Jonathan was running for national senator until it kind of switched there at the end with Martha) and from Season 2 I believe, when Lionel went to prison we discovered that prisons were all privately controlled, basically.. farmed out, so to speak. Besides, any universe wherein you can go from foreclosure on your farm and thinking about bankruptcy over medical debt to running a state (or national?) electorial race is clearly not based on the real world j/k Season 6 makes it even more clear that our rules don't always apply.. here, in the world of Smallville, the feds allow a fight-to-the-death club to be run on a former military base with complete immunity (Combat). Which would obviously be completely illegal in our world.. and somewhat so in Smallville, of course, but the government sure isn't making an effort if it's been there for as long as the show makes out.

Now, I'm just referring to Season 5 and before (NOT SIX), but up to the end of season 5, we didn't see anything that really makes Lex look like a truly evil being.

Now, by the time we get to the middle of season 6, when Lex kills someone at the wedding, etc. you've got a good case about the evil nature of Lex. But at this point, when I was watching last night, and really even to episode 15 of Season 6, there was a clear ambiguity of what the hell was going on.

Which, frankly, I really enjoyed. And, I will say this: it made Lex's turn to truly evil in the middle of Season 6 much more gratifying.

But even as I watch past the wedding, the show has done a beautiful arch of showing all the complexities of Lex, how you can see his viewpoint as a desperate struggle to control the world and prevent harm.. and how it in the end was his undoing in a sad way.

But the show hasn't done much to make Clark very heroic, and as a character, he's been really stagnant. More then that, episodes that are designed to show of his good natured being and his good to the show make him come off even more creepy (IMHO).

So, while Lex's dramatic turn from someone I could look at and see as just the much antagonist to a towering fall as he let his desire for control spin compleetely out of control... Clark's storyline hasn't been nearly as rewarding or as polished. Which is kind of sad.