Spoilers.
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: “Infamous”
Linda Lake (Tori Spelling), the villainous former Daily Planet gossip columnist who can transform into water is back and she’s been getting the skinny on all of Clark’s secrets. She threatens to go public with them unless Clark gives her the exclusive on all his planned saves as the Red-Blue Blur. Not willing to submit to blackmail, Clark decides to go public on his own terms and gives the story to Lois to tell. At first Clark’s new notoriety is positive, as Metropolis realizes he’s the hero who’s been saving people all over town. But thanks to Lake’s machinations, public sentiment, and that of the government, quickly turns against Clark, putting everyone he loves in danger.
The Lowdown:
As soon as this episode was revealed to be occurring, I’m sure you knew, as I did, that is was going to be one of those throwaway alternate timeline episodes where things go to crap and Clark is going to have to use some time Mulligan to put things right. It wouldn’t be the first time the show has done it. In fact, by my count, this makes it the third time. The first time it occurred, Clark changed things to where his father died instead of Lana and the second time was an It’s A Wonderful Life-style episode. I believe it also makes the third time that Lois has learned Clark’s secret.
What transpires after Clark goes public is what you might expect. The public, who has known about the Red-Blue Blur, can now put Clark’s face and name to the phenomenon and he becomes an instant celebrity, with women literally throwing themselves at his feet and kids wanting his autograph. But barely before you can blink, Linda Lake is besmirching his name on the news, calling him Lex’s murderer and saying he’s only the first wave of an alien invasion. This of course prompts the government to do the “gonna run some tests on the alien” thing and seeking to apprehend Clark as he becomes Public Enemy #1.
Clark realizes his only recourse is to turn back time, thanks to the Legionnaire’s ring that he got in the episode “Legion.” Of course, Linda is also on top of that plan, however, and substitutes the ring for…can you guess? That’s right, a piece of kryptonite. Thanks to Lois’ help though, Clark gets the ring and goes back in time two days to stop Linda before the whole thing begins and no one is the wiser, except for Clark. The B-story is that Davis is back in town since his skiing trip up at the Fortress and he’s seeking to suppress Doomsday with anti-psychotic medicine. But he eventually tells Chloe who and what he is, and she seeks to warn Clark, but that whole scenario is wiped with the time jump, portending not good things for our hero down the road.
This wasn’t the best episode, not even of the three time jumping episodes of the show that I can recall, and there wasn’t any surprise to it whatsoever, except possibly how Linda Lake ends up (let’s just say she really pissed off the wrong guy). It is good to have Lois back, who’s been gone for the last five or so episodes, and I did like the scenario that she learns about Clark, even though I knew it wouldn’t last (hell, what does on this show?). Of course now that Lana has gone, and there was that almost kiss at Chloe’s wedding between the two, the whole Clark / Lois angst thing can begin in earnest.
Nevertheless, one of the best things the show has going for it now is the blossoming of Lois and Clark’s relationship as co-workers and more and the show is definitely better with Erica Durance in it than without. The revelation of Clark’s secret to the world plays out almost verbatim with how you would expect, but it does lay the groundwork for Clark realizing that he’s probably going to need a secret identity in the future, which plays out better than say the Donner Cut reasoning where Jor-El lays the dual-identity on Kal-El without him figuring it out for himself or it being his choice.
One thing that Smallville has suffered from all too frequently was the Lois and Clark malady of lame villains, which is what Linda Lake was. She’s pretty much running in the same circles as Bronson Pinchot’s Prankster or *shudder* Delta Burke’s Myra Beech, Wedding Destroyer. Gotta love the “Lake” / “water” name cleverness…or lack thereof. I mean, even through the rogue’s gallery of meteor freaks, Smallville is at least not usually so sloppy as to conjure a villain who can turn her clothes into water along with herself…or even an editorial on printed paper that she’s going to run on Clark. All in all, the episode did portray the events out of the world finding out Clark’s secret that we’ve been wondering about since the show began, it just wasn’t that interesting.