TDVDL-evision: Ten Thoughts On Smallville Season 4
1) Season 4’s primary theme appears to be duality. There are some heavy handed references. Clark returns to Earth in a blaze of fire as Kal-El, which is the third distinct personality we’ve seen in him: “Clark” is the Kent-raised boy we all know and love, “Kal” is the red kryptonite fueled Superman without morals, and “Kal-El” is the version of Superman that Bruce Wayne would become if suddenly given those powers. In addition to Clark’s dual personality, Lana picks up the spirit of a 400 year old witch, Chloe learns of Clark’s abilities and has to be with Clark while hiding her own secret, new guy Jason turns evil mid-season to work for his mother, Lionel Luthor temporarily steals Clark’s body and this causes him to repress his evilness and turn good, and the incredibly awesome “split Lex” episode where they borrow the Star Trek plot of someone being split in to two people — one with all their goodness and one with all their evil.
2) The secondary theme is finally, in the fourth season, addressing the “destiny” that Jor-El has been hinting at since season one. The destiny is, apparently, to unite three stones of knowledge to do…… something. It’s never really clear what these stones do except they contain “all the knowledge of Krypton.” They give the audience frustratingly little. We discover that Kryptonians hid the stones on Earth over 400 years ago and a witch in ancient France was looking for them. It’s still not particularly clear the number of Kryptonians who know about Earth.
3) As for the new characters, Sam Jones III was replaced with Jensen Ackles. Ackles plays a guy Lana meets during her summer in France. She somewhat creepily starts dating an ex-college quarterback who happens to look almost exactly like her recently dead high school quarterback boyfriend. Later, he turns up in Smallville working as a coach at Smallville High for her senior year. As the season wears on, we discover that their meeting probably was arranged by his mother (played by Jane Seymour) who is obsessed with finding the aforementioned three stones. Glossed over is the weird fact that 17-year-old Lois meets 22-year-old college guy in Paris who then follows her back to Smallville, gets a job as a football coach in her high school, and ostensibly starts secretly banging her. Also introduced this season, Lois Lane, who is supposed to be 19 but looks 37. Erica Durance won’t join the credits until next season but, well, she’s Lois Lane so it bears mentioning. Metropolis University refuses to accept her because she’s missing a few high school credits and, since her father is an army general stationed on a base in Smallville, she has to repeat her senior year at Smallville High.
4) Margot Kidder also briefly joins the cast as Dr Swann’s (played by Christopher Reeve) assistant. I think she really shows up because this year marked Reeve’s passing. They likely needed someone to enlighten Clark to the presence of the stones and give them a hint to what they do which include, but are not limited to, restoring Clark’s powers when they’re lost, hurting high school girls possessed by witches, swapping bodies, and allowing Jor-El to take over Lionel Luthor’s body. Nothing says deus ex machina like random artifacts. Margot Kidder ended up as a body by season’s end to get one of the stones in to Lionel’s hands. It was nice that Dr. Swann’s final message to Clark on his passing was about forging destiny and such. I thought it handled Reeve’s passing nicely.
5) Little thing that I really appreciated from season four: Clark decides he’s going to be a football player and Chloe, seeing that Lana and Clark are finally done, goes to a pep rally to cheer Clark on. At the pep rally, Avril Lavigne’s “So Much For My Happy Ending” is playing in the background. Chloe is smiling and happy, until she notices that Clark seems to be flirty with Lois Lane. Without missing a beat, Chloe goes from smiling to crestfallen as she realize Clark has jumped right from having a thing for Lana to having a thing for Lois and she’s missed her shot again. Her face changes at the exact moment the lyrics say “so much for my happy ending.” Without missing a beat it goes from pep rally song to “you poor thing” song.
6) Season four marks the point at which we start collecting some other DC characters. Flash shows up as a petty thief. Mxlpltk arrives as a Russian bookie who uses his powers to change the outcome of football games to his own benefit. We also get one of the few “rehabilitated” meteor freaks as Fatal Attraction Alicia gets out of Belle Reve after her obsession with Clark is cured. As per usual, though, the Smallville writers waste very little time in killing her off two episodes later. And, as per usual, I didn’t really understand the purpose in killing her off. She made a decent version of Catwoman for this show. She appeared and tried to get Clark to fall back in love with her. When she saw his morals were what was keeping him away, she dosed him with red kryptonite and took him to Vegas. After an attack of conscience, she takes the red kryptonite off, apologizes, and teleports away. Then, to prove to Chloe that not all meteor-freaks are bad people, Alicia kidnaps Chloe and sets up a situation where Chloe has to see Clark use his abilities. Then dies. Of course.
7) Most absurd moment of the season… and possibly the series. Lana is taken over by a 400 year old countess witch during her trip to France (less ridiculous as we discover it was set-up by Genvieve and Jason Teague). The countess is a distant relative of Lana who was able to store her essence in such a way as she’d be able to resurrect inside an ancestor. After Lana suspects what’s going on, she researches the countess and finds that she had a journal/spellbook that survived the years. She finds the countess’s 400-year-old spellbook…. on eBay. Really? Ancient spellbooks on Ebay? Of all the Spellbooks on eBay, none are ancient and most are Magic cards.
8) You know how at a certain point in the 24 universe, it gets really old when certain people don’t listen to Jack Bauer because he’s never, ever wrong? I’m officially there in Smallville. Like, when Clark tells you that something’s up with someone, he’s yet to be wrong. Clark mentions that Jason might not be entirely on the up and up, and Lana freaks out. Someone tattles on Jason at school (that he’s dating a student) and she immediately blames Clark and assume he’s being jealous — even though he’s never shown any jealous tendencies. Superman deserves Jack Bauer status.
9) Probably the best episode of this show I’ve seen to this point in the series borrows from an episode of original Star Trek. Due to an experiment with onyx kryptonite, Lex Luthor gets divided in to two people — one holding all his goodness and one holding all his evil. We finally get just balls-out, evil genius Lex Luthor… and it’s awesome. Just great to see what (I hope) we’re going to get from Michael Rosenbaum by the end of the series. Lex, wearing a kryptonite ring, beats up Clark in his barn. When the Kents arrive to break it up, Lex shoots him in the leg and says “You were right about me all along Mr. Kent. I am the villain of the story.” Later, in a fantastic nod to fanboys — Lex, still wearing the ring, beats the bejesus out of Clark. Toward the end, he delivers this line: “I want you to remember this day, Clark. I want you to remember that despite all your amazing powers, there was one man that beat you.” This is almost exactly the same line Batman delivers in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns — an incredible book released right around the time the Watchman graphic novel in which an older Batman is tapped to defeat a government-controlled Superman. Just before Batman lets Clark go, he says: “I want you to remember, Clark… in all the years to come… in your most private moments… I want you to remember my hand at your throat… I want you to remember the one man who beat you…” Loved it. This is also the second time Lex has learned about Clark’s powers and forgotten about it for one reason or another.
10) The season ends in normal Smallville, cliffhanger fashion. Amidst a second meteor shower, Clark finally assembles the three stones and finds himself teleported to the real Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic. Lana, while attempting to escape the meteor shower is in a helicopter crash and finds a new Kryptonian spaceship. Clark has ostensibly fulfilled part of Kryptonian destiny, Chloe travels to the Arctic with Clark and will soon reveal her secret, Lana has divested herself of her alternate personality, and the Teaghe family is likely dead.
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