SMALLVILLE Minicaps / Season 1, Eps. 5-8

Smallville minicaps! Really, we can skip past the theme music…

Stewart here, and be warned of spoilers within…

Last time, we got introduced to the world of Smallville, Kansas, where a teenage Clark Kent discovers that his abnormal powers are probably from the fact he’s not from this planet. He also has to contend with other things, like making friends with a slightly older but still bald Lex Luthor, juggling his friends Pete and Chloe, deal with his crush on Lana Lang, and just going through high school. Oh, and occasionally he has to deal with people affected in various ways by the meteor storm that brought him to Earth. Really, that’s all you need to know going in. Anyhoo…

“Cool”

One of the school’s football players gets in touch with his inner Iceman, after getting exposed to kryptonite infested water turns him into someone who needs heat to survive. And like most teenage boys, he’ll get that any way he can, including sucking the life out of the student body. It also proves to be a problem with Clark, who’s going to a concert with Lana when Chloe looks like she’s going to be the next victim of Sean. Its an okay episode, which is a phrase you may want to get used to when I’m covering this season.

–So Sean got left in a frozen over lake, and then what happened to him?

–Probably be a bit easier now to show that poor girl, Jenna, that Sean turned into an iceblock shatter in today’s TV landscape. Although, that ice cracking sound effect is pretty effective enough.

“‘Ice’ day, isn’t it?”, as someone reacts to a bad rejected Mr. Freeze/Batman & Robin pun.

–The other subplot of this episode is Lex’s offer to help Jonathan with keeping the Kent farm afloat. Jonathan goes the bank loan route in the end.

–Gateway laptops? Dial-up modems in the Torch office? Man, I feel old now.

–Good news for Clark: looks like he got enough control of his x-ray powers to read through cards.

–Martha: “I talked, you grunted.” Jonathan: “I thought I was very articulate.”

“Hourglass”

Thanks to another exposure to kryptonite infected water, a retiree becomes young again and takes up his old profession, which is killing people! Clark gets involved in this mess when hearing from an old fortune teller someone he cares about will die at the hands of this guy. Also, Lex gets a hint to his future, and its all bad (like being in the White House and blood raining down on him bad). And in a change of pace, Lana is not in danger!

Yeah, pretty normal dream so far. So what’s bad about it again? OH.

–Looks like The West Wing set got put to good use in Lex’s vision of the future. Too bad for him Cassandra dies before telling him how bad that future is.

–Also, Lex shows Clark the wrecked Porsche, which is probably not the biggest friendship builder to go with.

–In another crack performance by the Smallville PD, they take an old man strapped to a hospital gurney where an young man used to be seriously.

–One of those rare cases early on in the show where Clark’s power doesn’t stop the villain, but Martha does, when she ends up stopping our meteor freak by suffocating him in grain.

–“Do you know anyone who lost an entire old person in a wheelchair?”

–“I don’t want to do good things. I want to do great things.”

“Craving”

Turns out accidentally ingesting kryptonite smoothies can help you lose weight, and also help you eat A LOT more than you should. It might be slightly worse than the South Beach Diet for the girl in Smallville High who has this problem, especially since she wants to be firm and fit for Lana’s birthday party at any cost. And on the Lex front (besides hosting Lana’s party), he enlists a professor to investigate Smallville’s meteor freak problem. Seems like the big connection in this installment of minicaps is kryponite and liquid.

–Yeah, you’re not hallucinating: Jodi is played by now current Lois Lane from Man of Steel and pre-Oscar nominee, Amy Adams.

Oscar nominee Amy Adams is here to visit the Smallville minicaps…AHHHHH! WHAT THE HELL?

–In other guest star news, Joe Morton (Eureka, Terminator 2) appears as Dr. Hamilton.

–Watching Martha’s face while hearing Clark stumble through his offer to escort Lana to her birthday party is priceless.

–Really a bit too on the nose with that Enrique Iglesias song in that closing scene, are we? Also, where did Clark get old Looney Tunes shorts from, anyway?

–Clark’s response to Chloe’s advice about Lana’s birthday gift: “It won’t be a gift card.”

“Jitters”

A high school field trip to one of the LuthorCorp plants takes a bad turn when one of the Kent’s old farm hands, Earl (the Candyman himself, Tony Todd), takes the place hostage. He’s got a problem with uncontrollable tremors that he thinks Lionel has the answer for. Lionel claims ignorance, but Lex puts himself on the line to find out the truth and save Clark’s class. Plus, Clark throws a party at his home while the parents are out for the night in Metropolis, and…well, his super speed doesn’t help much there.

–There’s a nice throwaway line with Clark explaining why he stopped taking Earl’s guitar lessons as a kid: he kept breaking the strings.

–In this installment of police blunders, they leave ONE person to move a man whose tremors sent Clark flying through a hospital window.

–First appearance of Chloe’s dad, who works at the LuthorCorp plant. He also knows a lot of fertilizer humor.

–Um, I know this betrays my knowledge of basic science over the logic of this show, but firing a gun in a methane filling room would end a lot worse than it does here.

–“Among his peers, he’s considered witty.”

–“Here at LuthorCorp, we put family first. Isn’t that right, Dad?”

“Son, I’m only making up for your lack of hair. No need to be jealous of me.”

NEXT TIME: Clark gets blackmailed by a corrupt cop who saw him in action in “Rogue”, someone invisible attacks Lex in “Shimmer”, a businessman has the power to make people do anything in “Hug”, and Clark ends up depowered when dealing with a power parasite in “Leech”.