A Whole Lotta Nothing Goin' On

Wow, I have left posting this a long time, haven't I? Apologies all, I'll try and get another post out this week to make up for it.


 

And we march on with Smallville, jumping into the third season (and yep, spoilers if you haven't seen this farm into the show).

The events of the second season finale have left Martha and Jonathan worried sick about Clark, since he slipped on a red Kryptonite ring and fled for Metropolis. Three months after his departure, Jonathan is granted temporary superpowers by Jor-El, in exchange for something that's not revealed until the end of the season, to bring Clark back to Smallville. After a great battle (that isn't long enough), Jonathan succeeds and Clark returns to Smallville, trying to pick up where he left off.

And... pick up he does. Seriously. One episode later and it's almost all forgotten about. More on this later.

So, how do our characters progress this season?

• Clark starts off the season feeling guilty of the transgressions he caused at the end of Season 2, not the least of which was hurting his mother and causing her to miscarry (oh yeah, Martha was pregnant towards the end of Season 2, despite being told she would never have children. I didn't bring it up last time because it went nowhere) but things quickly go back to normal.
• And yet again, I find a Buffy parallel. In the episode Becoming, Part 2, the second season finale of Buffy, the titular character leaves Sunnydale after a traumatic event, heading towards L.A, where she used to live. While there, she briefly holds down a waitress job and her friends and family worry about her back home.
  Clark too heads off to a big city (Metropolis, natch), leaving worried friends and family behind, and spending the entire summer there, much like Buffy in L.A, coming back just before school starts.
  Power-wise, he gains super-hearing. Yeah, doesn't sound all that impressive but the episode it happens in, Whisper, is a good one and they managed to work it in convincingly.
  Clark's relationship with Lana... yeah, it's pretty much back to square one. Or, default as I call it, since they very briefly dated (if you can call that brief). Not that it matters, because he gets a love interest in the form of Alicia Baker, in the episode Obsession. Turns out she has the power to teleport and Clark divulges to her that he has powers. However, she turns out to be just a wee bit clingy and borderline insane, as she tries to Lana so that she'll have Clark to herself. Whether or not you're disappointed she didn't succeed I'll leave up to you.
• Pete, despite learning Clark's secret last season, doesn't receive much in the way of character development. In fact, one episode, Velocity, nearly derails the character instead. In that episode, Pete reveals to Clark he's been street racing for a couple of months at that point. And later on, he refuses to take a dive and owes some thug $20,000. And Clark helps him out in very unscrupulous ways and makes Pete aware he's uncomfortable with the deeds he's undertaking.
  Pete... what the Hell do you think you're doing? Do you have meteor rocks in your head or something? Dangerous behaviour, getting Clark to bail you out, what kind of friend are you? I have a feeling the writers knew his character held little to no use anymore and just wanted to do SOMETHING with him. Well, sometimes it's better for a character to do nothing.
  And he leaves at the end of the season as well, so...
• Chloe's inquisitive nature shines through in this season, probably because the writers still wanted to push Lana and Clark together. Chloe ends up doing all sorts of investigations, with conflicting interests due to the fact that some relate to Clark and while she obviously doesn't want to lose his trust, something else important to her is usually in jeopardy if she refuses to play by the rules set out by someone higher-up.
  Like any good snoop, her investigations often bring her into the line of fire. In the episode Delete, an attempt is made on her life and Clark naturally steps in to save her. It is this episode that sees the two reconcile and it's all the better for it.
  She's still my fave character at this point, too.
• And let's see how my least favourite character, Lana, is doing this season.
  Yep, still not improving. The love interest she has this season doesn't help much. His name is Adam Knight, which some took to mean he was actually Bruce Wayne under an assumed name. I'm glad that turned out to be false, I hate the character. Maybe being in a relationship with Lana Lang turns you into this big hole of suck as a person, but I found the character to be arrogant and of little to no use to the main plot. And I found it hard to care when it was revealed he was spying on Clark and Lana for Lionel. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
  So yeah, no development for Lana. That's a big shock for you.
• Speaking of development, let's go to Lex. Who gets treated rather badly this season. The dude gets shoved in an asylum and receives shock therapy just because his father doesn't want him to remember that Lionel himself murdered his own parents. Granted, the events of the episode Asylum are great, but that's because three guys Clark faced off against banded together, almost like a supervillain team-up.
  It's not until near the end of the season that Lex regains some of his coolness and escapes the emotional wringer brought about by his father. Still, I like this interpretation of Lex and I feel things may soon get worse before they get better for the lad.
• The Kents face their own crisis early on, with Clark gallivanting in Metropolis and Jonathan going on his own to bring him back. Jor-El's granting him the powers takes a toll on his health, which reoccurs throughout the season and the debt still lingers. The season finale wraps up the debt subplot, but until then, it's hard not to sympathize with Jonathan, knowing what he does. Not that he wasn't sympathetic before, but this isn't easy for him.
  Or Martha either, caught in the middle between a husband who's keeping secrets and a son... also keeping secrets. But the Kents are strong and that's why they work well as a family unit: they have faith in each other.
• Lionel continues down the path of being a magnificent bastard, what with committing his son to the aforementioned asylum, pinning murders he actually had nothing do to with on his son, demanded information about Clark from Chloe while threatening to ruin her life and tortured Pete. Oh, and he gets liver cancer. Yeah. So, expect that to be a big factor in the next season.

The season ends with the episode Covenant, in which a girl claiming to be Kara from Krypton comes for Kal-El. It is at this point that the deal between Jor-El and Jonathan is revealed: in exchange for the power Jonathan temporarily received, Jonathan was to return Clark to Jor-El, something that angers Martha to no end.

In the subplot, Clark finds out that Lex has been investigating him, even though Lex tries to defend himself by saying he's still thinking about his near-death experience, and Clark reacts badly, telling Lex after his father's trial (Lionel's mistakes finally caught up with him, it seems) that they are no longer friends.

Oh and in the midst of all this, Lana leaves for France. This WOULD be cause for celebration, if it weren't for the fact that she'll be back next season. So, sorry to ruin your mood.

The main plot ends with the revelation that “Kara” is a tool of Jor-El's, a girl who died on the day of the meteor shower who Jor-El remoulded into an instrument to get Clark. Jor-El chokes Jonathan with an energy rope, and tells Clark that if he does not begin his training, he will kill Jonathan. Despite his pleas, Jonathan is unsuccessful in convincing Clark not to go with Jor-El, and Clark disappears in a bright light.

This is so far the weakest season, in my opinion. The biggest problem is the lack of focus on the main story, the one about Jor-El. It's almost like as soon as Clark gets back to Smallville, it goes back to business as usual. Back to “freaks of the week”. And the story doesn't even really pick up again until the final episode of the season! Come on, that's about 20 episodes difference! You taunt us and tease us with actual build-up, only to return to status quo and almost forget you HAVE a story!

Also, as mentioned above, the way Lex is treated this season, the poor guy just goes through so much and some of it just seems ill-fitting to a great character. I mean, making him think he was crazy using the flimsiest of schemes? I would have believed Kryptonite-induced insanity! OK, it would have been stupid, but far less so!

Anyway, that being said, it's still a good season, even with my complaints and all the other out of character moments mentioned (like the stuff with Pete. Ugh).

Next blog post... may actually not be about Season 4, as I have another movie to review. So it could be the movie or the next season. Either way, Season 4's not too far away.

My top episodes: Obsession, Asylum, Perry (oh yeah, Perry White was in an episode this season, played by Michael McKean. Promise me he'll be back, please?), Truth, Covenant.

Least favourite: Velocity, Talisman, Relic, Shattered, Slumber.