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: “Stiletto”
After partially foiling a mugging on Chloe, and desperate for a front page story, Lois lets the hero experience go to her head and creates the guise of a new superheroine, Stiletto. Under this alias, she hopes to work her way into the tights and cape community and finally get her long-sought-after interview with the Red-Blue Blur. But she risks not only imminent danger, but also her journalistic integrity. Meanwhile, Chloe’s laptop was stolen in the mugging by a young Bruno Mannheim (Dominic Zamprogna), who is looking to become the new crime boss of Metropolis and who also has a vendetta for Stiletto.
The Lowdown:
Hands down, this is the most retarded episode of the season. Even though Durance looks great in skintight vinyl (no whip), the circumstances under which she becomes Stiletto completely go against her character as it’s been developed on the show, to say nothing of the Lois Lane mythology itself. In the Smallville continuity, Lois first started as a reporter working for a tabloid. And even though she worked for a rag, she was a dogged investigator and pursued a story to the end no matter what, which keeps in tradition with the Lois heritage just fine. Even as her writing skill grew, she’d never have made up a story. In fact, Clark is basing his own journalistic learning curve on Lois’ seven rules of journalism, which we found out a few episodes ago that he keeps framed in his desk. So the notion of Lois, despite her frustration with her career, making up a story just doesn’t jibe.
Then there’s the superhero angle, which also goes against what’s been established in the show as far as Lois is concerned. The writers seem to have forgotten that the main reason that Lois left Oliver a few seasons ago was that she discovered his identity and couldn’t handle the whole superhero / double identity life. She tossed away a relationship with Oliver, whom she loved, because of that reason. So then she simply discards that mindset and creates a superhero identity for herself. The idea of Lois becoming a superhero had possibilities, but this seemed like the worst possible scenario to make it happen. Plus, this idea has already been recycled a couple of times, once or twice with Lana, when she got powers, and once with Pete when he got stretchy powers via the kryptonite gum (episode brought to you by Stride Gum!).
The Chloe / Davis saga is touched upon a little in this episode. Davis isn’t seen, but Doomsday sure makes himself known when Mannheim’s thug threatens Chloe. Said thug exits the Talon is a couple of Hefty bags. Chloe looks at the blood on her hands and wonders what she’s gotten herself into. Meanwhile, Jimmy is working for Mannheim, and it’s via some photos Lois had him take of her in costume that Mannheim gets a bead on Chloe. The climax finds Clark getting wailed on by Mannheim after he runs onto his counterfeiting operation that uses, you guessed it, kryptonite ink. Lois arrives as Stiletto to save the day, only to end up being saved by Clark. Later on, Jimmy is shown buying drugs with some of Mannheim’s counterfeit money.
The epilogue features the only real interesting part of the episode, when Clark decides to contact Lois as the Red-Blue Blur via a scrambled phone call in order to reassure her that she’s a good journalist without any gimmicks. He tells her that when he’s ready to tell the world his secret, she’ll be the first one to know. This episode is probably best left forgotten and does little to advance the season-long arcs of Doomsday, Tess or Lex. Definitely worst episode of the year.