Fire in the Sky

Quite obviously I am very far behind on my posting this year, and yes, once again Smallville gets the shaft. It’s not that I want it to turn out that way, it’s just that I have to watch it at the same time as everybody else, and by the time I get around to recapping, well, you know the rest. In an ideal world, networks would send us DVDs a week in advance, I’d agree not to write any reviews early, and they would get lots of free puiblicity. I am not really sure if Kristing Kreuk is filming something else at the moment, but iright now she is on the every other episode schedule. Overall, that’s not a bad thing, because after Clark and Lana finally did the nasty, everybody is kind of glad that it happened, and would rather get back to the time when Lana wasn’t infecting too many story lines. I would like to make an exception for when promiscious supernatural forces invade her body; those times are always fun. Anyway, after Clark went crazy and nearly killed Lana last week, it was Martha Kent’s turn to take a turn for the worse. Would she be the dead loved one Jor-El warned Clark about? Something tells me we were going to find out by the end of the episode, let’s see if my hunch was correct.I remember from the previews last week that this week was going to be a heavy product placement episode featuring the Ford Fusion. The product placement was obvious, but the writers had plenty of time to work it in without being overly distracting, although it only took them about 30 seconds to first mention the car. Lois is driving Martha Kent home, and Mrs. Kent takes some time to reflect on how proud she is of Lois. She has her own apartment and has a brand new car in a color I think they call underoo red. Lois says she is proud of her new car as well, but she said part of the reason she bought it was that she might screw up again and end up end up having to live in her car, as if the Kent’s wouldn’t let them back on the farmhouse to terrorize Clark and keep him and Lana from sleeping in their house. It almost makes me wonder why there hasn’t been a scene where Chloe walks in on Clark and Lana in the dorm room. Chloe’s always working at the Daily Planet, so she’s gone, and Lana is always in her room studying. I am not saying I need to see any more of the Lana/Clark non-existent physical chemistry, I’m just amazed it hasn’t happened.

But whatever, as Lois drives away and Martha is taking some groceries back into the house, she sees a some lights in the sky, then an explosion, and she is knocked over by some sort of energy wave. Whatever happened was loud enough that Clark heard it from the barn. He rushed out to find his mom unconscious in the driveway. She attributed it all to having not eaten that day, and when the doctors checked her out the day after, everything seemed to be just fine, or at least her vital signs were normal. Still, Clark knew that Jor-El promised to make somebody close to him pay for giving him back his powers, and he wondered if it was going to be his mom that was picked to go.

To make sure everything was natural and not some sort of phenomenon, Clark saw Chloe at the daily planet to figure out if the weather people noticed any sort of funny events the day before. There was, of course, nothing on the radar to indicate anything that happened, and while that makes Clark feel a little better, he explains why he thinks Jor-El might be behind all of this. He promised that one of Clark’s loved ones would die, and now he has come to collect. There’s only one person on the planet (that we know of), that knows more about Krypton than Clark, and that is Professor Fine. Granted, Clark knows jack about Krypton, so knowing more than Clark isn’t that hard, but Professor Fine helped Clark with the silver Kryptonite (although we are pretty sure he also set about poisoning him), so why not see if he can help him with this latest bit of trouble.

When Clark first goes to talk to Professor Fine saying that he wants to know more about Jor-El, Fine is pleased, but wants to make sure that Clark gets the whole story with the proper context. Remember, it was many weeks ago during Clark’s first class when Professor Fine that he was talking about history and it’s context. History is often defined by the people who survive to write it down and pass it on to the next generation. He wanted to take time with Clark and start at the very beginning, but Clark wasn’t really ready to play games. If his mom’s life was in danger, he wanted to know as soon as possible.

So Professor Fine wanted Clark to wait, but it looks like Clark’s choices were going to be a lot easier in just a little while. Clark never told his parents how he was suddenly cured from his affliction last week, but he wanted to tell them the truth about Professor Fine because he wanted to ask Professor Fine for his help with Martha. Jonathan is very protective of people learning Clark’s secret, and so he is really upset that Clark decided to trust Professor Fine. If everything was true and Professor Fine was from Krypton, it doesn’t mean that Jonathan is going to trust him. There has only been one person from Krypton who isn’t completely obsessed with destroying the human race, and that is Clark. The rest are just a little elitist and take a little too much about their master race to be very comfortable.

Jonathan may be ready to condemn an entire race based on a few bad examples, but Martha is saying that you can’t judge an entire people like that, and reminds him that Clark is Kryptonian. Saying that all Kryptonians are mad killers is just a stereotype. It would be like saying that all bloggers have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than write about television shows nine days old.Thats craaaaazy! Before Martha got a good chance to discuss the holistic approach to understand Kryptonian politics, she suddenly lost all feeling in her hand, dropping a dish. She felt a pain in her shoulder, and when she went to look, we saw that she had some sort of an infection. Once again, Martha was rushed to the hospital, but other than giving her some antibiotics and telling her to rest, there wasn’t much that they could do. Once again, Clark goes to search for Professor Fine.

At the Daily Planet, Chloe is about to go on a little search of her own. Our girls has been doing some good work because she has moved up out of the basement, and although she is doing wedding announcements and obituaries, she is ambitious, and you know she is going to go far. When Lionel comes to visit Chloe and give her some congratulations, you can understand why she is a little wary. As much as we know Chloe hurts from seeing Lana and Clark together, her heartbreak over Clark was once so bad, she accepted an offer from Lionel to investigate Clark. She is loyal, and I don’t believe she would tell anybody about Clark if it meant her life, but you might wonder if some of her ’til the death loyalty stems from a teeny bit of guilt from that original betrayal.

Lionel says that he has a story for Chloe that will get her far. He knows that she has a curiosity and aptitude for strange things, and he has something for her. He knows of a person at Central Kansas that can run at nearly the speed of light, can lift a car with one hand, and can start fire with a stare. Chloe plays dumb and says that would be a good story, but how could Lionel be asking Chloe to investigate Clark once again? And seriously, I know that Lionel is a changed man, but he did once try and kill Chloe by blowing her up when she was in witness protection(actually, he was acquitted of killing his parents, was he ever charged with witness tampering?). I know he was never acquitted, and I don’t know the avoidance etiquette when somebody has attempted to kill you to stop you from testifying in their murder trial, but I have to say Lionel should at least give her a couple of years before acting like nothing happened, right? It looks like Chloe has nothing to worry about, however, because Lionel isn’t describing Clark, he is describing Professor Fine.

We aren’t sure how Lionel knows Professor Fine, but that really doesn’t worry Clark. When he sees Professor Fine a second time, he demands some answers this time. The truth that Clark hears is much worse than he could have expected. Jor-el was an evil dictator who locked up anybody who disagreed with him, including the name of a populist named General Zod. He would torture people who disagreed with him, including infecting people with a disease similar to the one that afflicts Martha Kent. Oh, and he destroyed the planet and let billions of people die so he could send his son to earth and create a new Krypton for everybody to live. With this new information, Clark takes Professor Fine to help his mother. Her condition is so bad that she has seizures. Since it is a krypton disease, one way to treat it is with a meteor rock. Unfortunately, it can only help the symptoms; it is not a cure and Martha has only a few hours to live before the infection spreads and kills her completely.

At this time, Clark tells his father why he thinks this isn’t a normal disease. Although Jonathan is upset that Clark didn’t tell him about the deal Jor-El made with him, there is nothing much that he can do and Clark goes to the fortress of solitude to beg Jor-el to spare his mother. Jor-el insists that he did Martha no harm and there is nothing that Clark can do to change fate, at least until he learns how to fly and rotate the earth in the opposite direction. Instead, Clark goes back to see his mother.The disease has spread, and it looks like it is some necrosis of the flesh. You would have expect her to be an extra on some bad zombie movie. Clark can do nothing but tell her how much he loves her. Martha sees how much the guilt is affecting Clark and tells him that he has given her so much happiness and that he has become a wonderful man, and that was really all that she ever hoped. As an adoptive parent, all Martha Kent wanted to do was for her son to always love her like he was her own, and she knows that is the case, and seems like she is ready to die.

Once again, we cut back to the daily planet. Chloe hasn’t really been able to get much on Professor Fine, even though she followed him and was wearing a trench coat. OK, it was really more of a penchcacket, which is a pea coat/trench coat/jacket hybrid (yeah, I just made it up), but it looked like a Morty Seinfeld original, maybe even more popular than the executive. Lois comes to visit, because she needs Chloe’s help. Lex is running for office, and the thought of Lex getting his hands into government scares her. He had been taking campaign pictures at the Talon, and he doesn’t really like Lois as much as he liked Lana. Lois had tried to warn him that people might dig up information on him, but he told her that he had nothing to hide and that he didn’t appreciate taking advice from a muffin peddling college dropout.

Now there is a lot of punishment that Lois takes. She did let her cousin convince her to become a stripper for a night to help another dead stripper, and she knows Lex is her boss, but she can’t let him win. She knows that Lex stayed in a mental institution, and thinks that if they can come up with something, they might be able to derail his campaign. The only problem, of course, is that Lex hides his secrets and has been able to buy off so many people, it’s almost as if he’s living in an alternate reality where the rules don’t apply. Chloe tells this to Lois and although her cousin isn’t happy, Chloe convinces her to become a sidekick and help her get into a Luthorcorp warehouse.

Driving up to the Luthorcorp warehouse, we get out second little Ford Fusion commercial of the night. Lois drives up to the guard tower, pretending to look for directions, and she needs to create a diversion. Normally, this is when Lois would try to seduce her way into a distraction, but with her new Ford Fusion, there is no need to do that. The car is so very sexy that the guard is wowed by it. But why stop at just a look? Why not get in and see how if feels behind the wheel. Listen to the stereo! While I didn’t have an urge to go buy this car, we didn’t have to sit through this very long until Chloe found her way inside.

The warehouse they chose was the same one Chloe saw Professor Fine approach. Once inside, she saw the black spaceship, which was probably strange enough, but then she saw the black ooze that we now know is Professor fine assemble himself. Chloe knows that Professor Fine is interested in Clark, and she knows that she needs to tell him this information, but before any of that can happen, Chloe is caught by a security guard. Everything is about to go to shit, but that could never happen with the Ford Fusion on the scene. Lois knocks out her guard, motors towards the warehouse (breaking through the barrier, proving the quality workmanship of the Ford Fusion) where Chloe is also able to subdue her captor, jump into Lois’ car and drive off. Luckily the Ford Fusion is very powerful so they can make their getaway.

Chloe makes it to the Kent farm, and when she gets there, Jonathan lets him know that he went to see Professor Fine. Not knowing what to do, Chloe goes to the caves and sees that Clark has left the octagonal spaceship piece behind, which means he must be at his fortress of solitude. Chloe uses it herself, which is pretty ballsy because if Clark wasn’t there, she would just freeze to death. Her hunch was correct, however, and she came upon a scene that she wasn’t expecting.

Earlier Clark had said that he would do anything to stop his mother’s death. Professor Fine told him that the way Jor-El is able to work his magic on earth was because the fortress of solitude was acting as a conduit for him into this world. Together they go there, and Professor Fine give him a black crystal which he says will destroy the fortress of solitude and with it Jor-El’s control on him once and for all. Clark is able to place the crystal, and it seems to work, but immediately after, Professor Fine holds up some Kryptonite to stop Clark. Since Fine is holding the meteor rock, it means that he isn’t a living Kryptonian, and we clearly see that he duped Clark into thinking his father was a tyrant so he could convince him that the fortress of solitude needed to be destroyed.

This whole time Fine was lying. General Zod was the tyrant, and Fine was his minion, and he caused Clark’s mom’s disease. His worked finished, Professor fine placed a meteor rock on top of Clark’s chest, watched as a portal opened and anticipated the return of General Zod. Luckily for Clark, Chloe walks in, sees his predicament, and throws the Kryptonite away. Clark is able to take the black crystal out of the little fortress control center, shutting the portal, and giving him a chance to fight Fine. I thought the fight could have been longer, but it was more like Tyson vs. McNeely, or maybe Tyson vs. Bruno. Whatever the case, Clark finished him off by impaling Professor Fine on some crystals in the Fotress. Professor Fine dies, and with him, Martha Kent is cured and the black spaceship disappears.

I thought this was a good episode, although I had hoped that Professor Fine was going to become a much better foe, but in the comics since Professor Fine, or Braniac as his villain is know to superheroes, is sometimes described as just an artificial intelligence, and so it is possible that he could inhabit another body (as if there isn’t enough body snatching in this series already). Clark was furious when the ship disappeared, and immediately blamed his father, who had visited him earlier in the episode to warn him about becoming too obsessive about aliens. It’s just not good for elected officials to be talking crazy alien invasion or whatnot. Lionel does want to keep Lex out of power, or at least keep him from reaching such a pinnacle that Lionel is not able to knock him down again, but he had nothing to do with the spacecraft vanishing.

Clark learned a valuable lesson about who to trust, and with friend like Chloe, you know he is always going to have faith in humans. Although there wasn’t anything that gave us any insight into who was really going to to die, at least there wasn’t any Chloe is going to die foreshadowing quotes this week. Then again, she did spark Lois’ interest in journalism. Lois resisted, but don’t you think that a good way for her to plunge herself into the trade would be trying to find out how her cousin died? That curiosity brought her to Smallville in the first place.

What did you think of the episode? Will they find a way to give us some more James Marsters? Will Jonathan or Lex win the election?