SMALLVILLE Minicaps / Season 3, Eps. 17-20

Smallville season three minicaps went through dream therapy too. All it remembered was that creepy killer with the finger blades from Elm Street.

Stewart here, and be warned of spoilers within…

Last time on Smallville: we find out Lionel is a grade-A evil man.  Actually we find this out in every installment of these minicaps, but its hitting a fever pitch this season.  He’s electroshocked Lex, ruined Chloe’s life, and now is sending resurrected people to spy on the Kents.  Sure he’s dying of a terminal illness, but don’t you want to see him swallow a bullet?  Well, he was about to last time we left.  And then…

“Legacy”

A lot of drama comes up this episode, and in the middle of all of this, we get one more appearance from Dr. Virgil Swann.  Besides Swann getting mixed up in Lionel’s plans to reexamine the caves, the Kents been thrown into turmoil by Lionel’s machinations.  And it doesn’t help Jonathan’s been getting some weird messages from that octagonal disc.  Considering one of those messages is “I am waiting”, that just can’t be good news.

 –This was sadly Christopher Reeve’s last appearance as Swann in the show, as he passed away not too long after the season ended.  And that final image of him with the octagonal disc is such a interesting teaser for what could have been.

“I see you found my screensaver, Kal-El.”

 –Watching Lionel get beaten up is generally a highlight in any episode of Smallville, and add Jonathan doing it as a plus.

–Clark finds out about Lex’s deal with the FBI to take down Lionel, which is the closest thing to good news in this episode.

–Lana, by the way, wants to put any relationship with Clark on hold until she sorts out herself.  Okay, sure.  I’m sure that’ll take an episode to piece together.

–Dr. Swann’s advice for losing keys: “Sounds like you need a locksmith.”

“Truth”

Chloe gets accidentally exposed to kryptonite mist while breaking into a LuthorCorp secret facility and now has the ability to make people tell the truth.  Well, good thing none of her friends like Clark or Pete or the Kents have secrets that they want to hide…oh no.  This might be a big plus for Chloe early on, but then she finds there’s a downside to all this, like discovering Pete’s secret crush on her.  Then there’s the threat of death, either by the drug or by people she’s affected with her new skill.

What Clark’s thinking: “Ohhhh-kay…need to leave this elevator now before this gets creepy.”

–I’m going to try to avoid spoilers for this as much as I can, but this episode poses a weird problem that comes up later on in season six when we get a big reveal about Chloe.  How could that kryptonite mist affect her like that if she…um, maybe I’ve said too much.

–Somehow Smallville High’s Teacher of the Year being a former radical from the 70’s wanted for murder who has been in hiding doesn’t seem all that strange in retrospect.

–Leave it to Lionel to turn that truth-telling skill of Chloe’s against her to try to get information from Jonathan and Martha.  He wasn’t that good to not to keep his confession of him hiring Morgan Edge to kill his parents from being taped by Chloe though, even if he got it erased by the end of the episode.

–Lana may get to go to Paris indefinitely.  Big whoop.  I’m sure nothing important will happen there (wink, wink).

–Aww, Lex has “daddy doesn’t love me” issues.

–“Which of your obsessive fixations is the reason behind today’s summons?”

“Memoria”

Lex’s electroshock therapy from earlier this season has had an unexpected side effect in he’s having dangerous lapses regarding his dead brother Julian.  So he goes to Dr. Garner from the Summerholt clinic, who has an experimental dream treatment that may help recover his memories.  Good as that is, it’s a big problem for Clark in several ways, like Lex rediscovering Clark’s secret and then being forcibly put through the same treatment thanks to Lionel’s meddling.  There’s also the big reveal about what really happened to Julian: namely Lex’s mom suffocated Julian to spare him from Lionel’s parenting.  So this is not a light episode of Smallville by any stretch, but its one of the best ones of the series.

The most depressing dinner banquet of all time since the Red Wedding.

–After all this time, people still trust Lionel?  You’d think Clark would know better.

–Its interesting to hear on the commentary about how there was an added subplot regarding Lana and Chloe dealing with the FBI, which was cut pretty easily and wisely.  And plotwise, Jonathan was not involved because John Schneider was preparing to direct the following episode.

–We find out Clark’s real mom is named Lara, and get a nice pastel colored flashback to him being put into the spaceship as a baby.

–Dr. Garner is comatose thanks to that destruction of the lab.  I’m sure series wise, we’ve hit the double digits in comatose villains.

–Can I just say how really good that final scene with Lex and Lionel is?

–“Yeah, then you might actually have loved me.”  Ow, that’s a nice dagger to the heart, Lex.

“Talisman”

An ancient dagger is found in the caves and gives its wielder powers kind of identical to Clark’s.  One of Professor Willowbrook’s protégés, Jeremiah, takes the blade and plans to kill Lionel as part of the blade’s prophecy.  Too bad that blade can also hurt Clark and kryptonite is worthless against Jeremiah.  I’m trying to see the bad side of letting Lionel get stabbed to death here, guys, I really am.

My Lionel death fantasies aren’t as elaborate as this either.  Mostly now it involves gasoline, a match, and some salt for the ground.

–There’s a lot of comatose people who knows Clark’s secret out there, and now we can add Jeremiah to that list.

–Lana’s plan to go to Paris gets a cold bucket of water when she hears Lex plans to sell the Talon so she can get the money for the trip.  Well, duh-doy, Lana.  You’re leaving town, so who do you think is going to run things?  And Lex cares for her enough to keep the place going, despite it barely making money.

–In other plots, Pete’s parents are breaking up, and he’s sleeping in the Torch offices.

–Jonathan somehow healed the wound on Clark, which obviously has to do with Jor-El.

–Whoever grabbed the knife first is going to be Clark’s greatest enemy according to the prophecy.  And we all agree it wasn’t Lionel who grabbed it first, right?

NEXT TIME:  Before we end season three of Smallville minicaps with a review of the season, Clark wants to reveal his secret to Lana in “Forsaken”, and a mysterious stranger wants Clark’s help in rebuilding Krpyton in the twisty season-ender “Covenant”.

Tags: Mini-caps, Reviews, Smallville, Stewart, Television