Spoilerage.
Smallville Official Site
The Time: Thursdays, 8:00 PM, The CW
The Show:
Having
grown up in Smallville under the protective eye of Jonathan and Martha
Kent, Clark Kent, the future Superman, is finally setting out into the
world to pursue his destiny. Ever wary of protecting his
secret, Clark nonetheless secretly uses his Kryptonian superpowers to
help people and save lives. He’s now colleagues with Lois
Lane at the Daily Planet and still friends with Chloe Sullivan, his
childhood pal who knows his secret. Lex Luthor has
mysteriously vanished after destroying the Fortress and learning his
secret. Lex’s hand-picked successor, Tess Mercer, is
nevertheless a dangerous individual who is obsessed with learning Lex’s
fate and the secret he was pursuing. And a dangerous enemy,
in the form of paramedic Davis Bloom is growing ever a bigger threat.
The Stars:
• Tom Welling – Clark Kent
• Allison Mack – Chloe Sullivan
• Erica Durance – Lois Lane
• Aaron Ashmore – Jimmy Olsen
• Justin Hartley – Oliver Queen / Green Arrow
• Cassidy Freeman – Tess Mercer
• Sam Witwer – Davis Bloom
The Episode: “Power”
When Lana disappears, Clark goes into frantic mode searching for her. Along the way however, he discovers the real circumstances for Lana’s departure last season after recovering from the Brainiac-induced coma and her subsequent Dear John video message. What Clark finds out is that Lana took her protection into her own hands and is on a power trip – quite literally. Meanwhile, Tess is on the hunt to destroy some technology called Project Prometheus that she knows Lex is planning to use to not only keep him alive, but give himself superpowers. What’s funny is that Lana has the same idea, only not to destroy it.
The Lowdown:
This episode is a fill-in-the-blanks episode and a throwback episode for Lana. We learned what really happened to Lana after waking up from her catatonic state and why she made the video message. It turns out that Lex had his guys kidnap her right after so that he could “protect” her, and Tess was there the whole time. Lex’s thugs made her make the video message to keep Clark from looking for her. But Lana wasn’t having any of that and managed to escape, by shooting one of the thugs and hijacking the van in which she was being transported. She then does the dramatic hair-cutting-in-a-greasy-bathroom-with-a-razor-thing and sets off to make sure she’s never vulnerable again.
She embarks on a training session with a former military instructor, who teaches her how to take icewater breath-holding baths and lift hot things with her forearms. When she’s done with that, she tracks down one of Lex’s scientists who’s working on Prometheus, a superpower project utilizing nanotech and alien (i.e. Kryptonian) DNA. The result is that Lana takes a flame bath that flays her skin off and rebuilds her with super Krypto-nanotech abilities similar to Clark’s. Tess is also on the hunt for the scientist and shows she’s not playing around when she kills one guy and is prepared to kill Lana and the scientist to keep Lex from getting the technology.
While it’s good to learn the happenings of Lana’s departure from the show, this ultimately is ground that’s been covered with Lana a few times before: her having to become independent and not helpless. What isn’t explained is why Lex really wanted to kidnap her. I know that the lovely Ms. Kreuk’s run on the show is a temporary one, and that her and Clark’s story is yet to be resolved, but after the progress the show has made this year in getting away from Clark/Lana/Lex, we fall right back into it.
The dialogue was also a little heavy-handed and cliche at times (at least, more than usual). One exchange between Lana and Chloe involved the terms “playing with fire” and heading into a “raging inferno”, another involved Lex becoming a “god among men”, humans suffering and “eternity of darkness,” etc. By my count, this is about the fourth time that Lana has been given superpowers (Witch possession, vampire, Kryptonite lightning strike, yadda yadda). If this lasts for an episode or two then fine, but I don’t want the show to lose the momentum it’s built by retreading old storylines, which is what this one does. Doomsday is waiting, and so are we.