In Contempt of (Prom) Court

Is it bad that I admit that I always love the prom episodes of any television series that was ever created? Maybe I have some freaky fetish for girls wearing taffeta, I am pretty sure it’s not a fetish for carnations. Whatever it is, I was happy to see that we have advanced to the prom episode for Smallville because it traditionally means that the rest of the season is going to have less filler and more substance. The first season ended on prom night, so for fans of the show, it represents the beginning of closure, at least for the high school years. It’s a process that every teenage high school drama goes through, and if the writers can pull it off, the show has a good chance of making it after the kids graduate. Do a poor job, and the plot could be spinning it’ s wheels for seasons on end until even the money from syndication does not justify the repetitive drivel that is being produced.I guess you either love the prom or hate the prom. I personally loved my prom(actually, I loved my senior prom – junior prom wasn’t as great). Had a ton of fun, my date was cool, and the party afterwards was a blast. Some people hate proms, and they include the random girl at beginning of our episode. She’s obviously upset about something, because she breaks the “In Case of Emergency” glass to grab an axe, and we think she is going to go all helter skelter on people. Luckily, when she encounters Jonathan Kent, she only knocks him out cold and doesn’t chop off his head. The girl makes it to the boiler room, uses the axe on the heating oil tank, and is about to light it in flames. The oil tank is below the gymnasium, and if it starts to get hot, stuffs gonna ‘SPLODE. The girl reaches into the boiler with a mop to light it a flame, she turns around and it’s…..Chloe?

I know Chloe has had bad luck on proms, including getting left on the middle of the dance floor during her freshman year by the man of her dreams, Clark Kent, but she wouldn’t resort to such violence, would she? To get the whole back story, we flash back to the previous day. All of Smallville High is getting ready for the prom, or at least the prom committee is getting ready. Chloe and Lana are walking down the hall, taking it all in. Chloe has always been one of those mature high school students who doesn’t necessarily believe every single school tradition is important, especially if it is largely exclusionary. For that purpose, she doesn’t really like the prom, and can’t stand the prom court.

Imagine Chloe’s surprise when she found out that she was nominated.

You sort of had the feeling that either Lana or Chloe would be nominated. For the interest of the show, one of them has to be involved in the prom in some way, just as one of them probably has to be either the valedictorian or salutatorian. For prom, it was Chloe, and she is not very happy because she sees it as nothing more than a popularity contest. What makes it worse is that it looks like Lana is not going with Jason. Something about taking the ex-coach of the football team that was fired for having a relationship with you seems a little strange.

Luckily for Chloe, there are people out there that have more of their life invested in the prom than she does. In particular, there is one person, Dawn Stiles, who is absolutely mortified that Chloe is on the prom court, and can’t stand the fact that Chloe doesn’t think the prom is the culmination of four years of hard work in high school, and would dare to badmouth it. Dawn is a stereotype, the school spirit, ra-ra, popular girl, who has nothing more to do than to date popular boys, wear the best clothes, and walk around with her little posse (which includes Kandyse McClure from the Battlestar Galactica series on SciFi – yes, I love it and am dying for the second season). Although Chloe could care less about who wins, and actually hopes that she isn’t the winner, Dawn says it’s on anyway.

Poor Ms. Sullivan, at least she knows that Clark will be at the prom to keep her company, right? No, she’s wrong. Clark also decides to skip out on the prom, even though he admits that he might have had a small part in getting Chloe nominated for the prom court. He says that many students are looking for an alternative after four years of having the same people rule the school. This was very true at my high school. Neither the girl who was homecoming queen(we’ll call her JM) or the girl who was prom queen(her name was EB) were the most popular girls throughout their four years at HHS, but they were friendly and nice to everybody and so I was very happy to see them win.

At the Luthor mansion, Lex has been called off to some remote area in the woods, and there is a bunch of security around. Jason, who we haven’t heard from, but are assuming is not that tight with Lex any longer, is at the mansion and goes to see what all the commotion is. Turns out the body of Bridgett Crosby has been found on the property, but nobody knows how she got there. Jason says he wants to help out, but Lex says he is going to handle it. This culminates probably one of the saddest cameos ever for a television series. Margot Kidder was supposed to be in a lot of episodes (we think), complained about her contract, and was written off pretty unceremoniously. They couldn’t even call her back for the death scene, choosing instead to have a leg sticking out of the ground to symbolize her demise. Even Christopher Reeve got more face time when they Dr. Swann passed on, and he was actually dead.

Anyway, Jason knows that Bridgett Crosby was very interested in the Krypton artifacts, and wants to know if Lex is hiding something. He sneaks into the mansion and begins looking over some of the files on Lex’s computer. Lex catches him, of course, and Jason wonders why it seems like nothing is happening. There were no police officers brought in to investigate, it didn’t even seem like they called in the coroner to haul away the body. It’s like they were trying to act like nothing ever happened and Bridgett Crosby didn’t exist.

Dawn has been trying to make sure that the prom goes off without a hitch, but she is forced into some disaster recovery of her own. Her boyfriend broke up with her, with only 27 hours left before the prom starts, and he isn’t going to get back with her, even for one night. Dawn is left to try and find a guy, hopefully popular and athletic, good looking, and hasn’t slept around too much thereby preventing her from looking like a skank. She is busy going through her yearbook pictures when she comes across the photograph of none other than Clark Kent. Dawn is in her car, so she calls her friend to get Clark’s digits. She is just about to write down his number, when she loses control of the car, and goes crashing through some guard rails and into a ravine.

We can’t be sure if she is alive, but we see that she crashed near some meteor rock, so we know that she is not likely dead, although it really depends on how you define “death”. A few seasons ago, there was an episode where football player fell in a lake and froze to death, but the meteor rock somehow saved him. Only problem was, he sucked all the life out of people when he touched them. Dawn appears to be all right a little while later. She is a little woozy, but manages to climb up to the road and attempts to flag somebody down. She sees somebody coming down the road. It’s Martha Kent and she is waving her arms in the middle of the lane. Martha doesn’t see her for some reason, and instead drives right through Dawn.

Martha didn’t see Dawn, because Dawn wasn’t there. Her body was at the bottom of the ravine, but her spirit was allowed to roam, likely aided by Kryptonite. When Martha ran over her, something strange happened. When Dawn came in contact with Martha’s body, she seemed to take it over.

Realizing that you are suddenly invading other people’s body with your spirit has got to be a lot for one person, but if you are trying to find a date for the prom and you are suddenly in the body of a middle-aged woman, you are probably pretty pissed. Dawn did want to take Clark to the prom, and she is now in the body of his mom, so maybe she can figure something out. She drives to the farm, and Clark gets there a little while afterwards to see that his mom is strangely very different. First, she is dancing to something, and it’s not Tom Jones, second, she is eating ice cream out of the container, and third, she seems to be talking very oddly, and has this habit of pulling her hair back over her ear.

Since Dawn has invaded Martha’s body, I will call her MarthaDawn to save any(or at least too much) confusion. MarthaDawn sees Clark, and says that he can’t miss the prom. She suggests that she go with him. Taking your mom to the prom is not unheard of, but MarthaDawn wanted to make out with Clark later that night, so I am wondering how she planned on pulling it off. Strangely enough, it turns out that the Kents are going to be chaperone’s MarthaDawn would therefore be going with Jonathan, not quite what she was looking forward to.

Lois comes down the stairs, and MarthDawn is immediately jealous, she wonders if Lois is the reason Clark didn’t want to go with her, because she obviously doesn’t know that Lois and Clark aren’t exactly into each other. Her questions soon leave both Lois and Clark wondering what the hell is going on. Before they can say anything more, MarthaDawn leaves for the Talon. At the Talon, she runs into Lana. Dawn never like Lana so when MarthaDawn talks to her, she is especially harsh, especially with the parts about Jason and the French art school. Lana finds it strange that Mrs. Kent would talk to her like that, but when she is about to leave, she touches MarthaDawn, and suddenly MarthaDown becomes LanaDawn, and Martha is left without any memory.

Now this is more like it. Everybody knows that Lana and Clark were an item last year, and had a sort of breakup. Earlier, Clark had mentioned to MarthaDawn that he still wanted to be with Lana, and so when Clark comes in, looking to find his crazy mother, LanaDawn asks him to the prom. He says yes, sort of wonders what Jason might think, but is happy anyway. LanaDawn meanwhile, has some things to do a the school.

Everybody is sort of wondering what happened to Dawn, because she was the one who cared most about the prom, but they don’t really seem to miss her because she kind of sucked. She was bossing people around, had an annoying voice, and had many annoying habits, like the way she would say “Genius!” if she had a good idea or “Laters!” when she was going to leave. LanaDawn comes upon what she thought were her best friends doing the decorating, and saying how happy they were that Dawn wasn’t around. LanaDawn is pissed, but she has better things to do. Since she is not in her own body, she decides it would be a good way to get revenge, starting with her boyfriend.

LanaDawn sees him, and asks if they want to hang out sometime. He is just getting back from working out, so he is about to jump in the shower. Not only does he say sure to going out with LanaDawn, but he takes care to mention how annoying Dawn was and how he was never happy. When he goes into take a shower, LanaDawn follows him. When he gets out, she takes a power cord and touches an exposed end to the metal lockers in the shower. Dawn’s boyfriend is touching the locker, and being wet, he completes the circuit and a whole lot of electricity happens. It looks like he is going to die, but Clark saved him. Clark had started figuring something was wrong when he got to the Talon and his mom didn’t remember how she got there, and followed Lana to the school.

LanaDawn knows that people are onto her, so she begins switching bodies down the hallway finally invading her friend’s (the BSG one) body. Now in her possession of her friend’s body, Dawn still has some work to do. She heard that her real body was found and that it was in a coma. She couldn’t stand to see herself disfigured, so she touches a nurse, who then injects Dawn’s body with a lethal dose of drugs (you would have thought the Smallville Medical Center would have been more diligent after what happened Dr. Sinclair’s timely death not so long ago). But nurseDawn still has a problem, she still needs to find a way to get with the prom, and hopefully with Clark, but time is rapidly running out. She finds her answer when she sees Lois has come to the medical center to get an allergy prescription for the dog. nurseDawn touches her, and she is off to find a dress, and get her man.

Seeing that Lex seemed to be stonewalling him, Jason told the sheriff about what happened. Our sheriff really isn’t that bright, and I am starting to think she was put there by some secret government agency to report back on all the crazy shit that was going on in Smallville. She is just so dumb and thinks it is perfectly normal for all the things to happen around her like they do. So it’s no surprise to us when she gets to the Luthor mansion and finds nothing, but it’s a little strange when she mentions that she looked up information on Bridgett Crosby and couldn’t find a mention of her in any government database in existence. It looks like Lex had decided to clean some things up after all, but we soon find out that he actually didn’t do anything. As soon as the sheriff leaves, Jason calls his mom and says that Lex had taken care of the body, just as they thought he would. Looks like whatever happened since he got back from China really changed Jason. He is clearly not working for Lex, but the bigger question is if he is actually working with his mom, or if he is still loves Lana and is working with his mom because he wants to get to the bottom of whatever it is these artifacts mean.

Clark is seeing his parents off to the prom. Is it sort of strange that his parents are going and he is not? Sure it is, but he can’t bear to go without Lana. He was so excited when she asked him, but when he realized that it wasn’t really her that was interested in going with him, he didn’t tell the real Lana that she had asked. Too bad for Clark, that it is not all up to him if he goes or not. After his parents leave, LoisDawn comes down the stairs. It must have been hard to find a dress, because it looked like LoisDawn stuffed her D-cups into Dawn’s prom dress instead of finding a new one for herself. Clark wonders about the sudden change of heart, but Lois isn’t taking no for an answer. Luckily for her, Martha had rented a tuxedo for Clark, and they were off to the dance.

The prom was everything that proms are supposed to be, right down to the old chaperones, bad punch, and awkward dancing among the students. By now, we have all figured out that when we saw Chloe at the beginning of the episode, it wasn’t really Chloe. Dawn had invaded her body, but we aren’t sure what got her so upset, and why she would want to kill her classmates. Well, it turns out that Chloe did win prom queen. It broke Dawn’s heart, but she was able to touch Chloe before she went up to give her acceptance speech.

ChloeDawn thanked everybody for voting for her, and everybody cheered, but when she started to praise Dawn for how much she cared, and how much everybody appreciated her and respected her, nobody said anything, and instead started chanting “Chloe! Chloe!” For Dawn, this was the last bit that sent her into her Carrie-like rage. She had spent her entire high school career trying to be the epitome of what people expected from her, and they had always rewarded her with adulation (however fake) and some respect. But now that she was deceased, she realized she had no friends, and everybody hated her. She said she would get revenge and then stormed off into to do her thing.

Now we had earlier seen Jonathan get punched out by Chloe, and we know now that it was really ChloeDawn. What we didn’t see was that after Jonathan had been punched out, Clark had came up to him and told him that he was going after ChloeDawn but needed his dad to get something. Apparently, Clark realized who ChloeDawn was after her speech, and decided to follow her in case she decided to do some damage. So when we finally get back to the moment when ChloeDawn is going to throw the flaming mop into the oil in order to blow up the boiler, Clark is there just in time to stop it. ChloeDawn doesn’t know what is going on, or how Clark could move so fast, but she goes to push him, and then she is in Clark’s body. ClarkDawn then punches Chloe, and is about to get back to work when Jonathan comes down to stop her.

ClarkDawn has Clark’s body, and so has Clark’s weaknesses. Clark had sent his dad to get some Kryptonite, knowing that Dawn would probably inhabit his body, and she would be weak against it. It turned out to be true. ClarkDawn couldn’t move, and it proved to be so painful for Dawn’s spirit, that she left his body, and the kryptonite then disintegrated whatever was left behind. I guess with her real body now dead, her soul can’t live without anything to inhabit.

Everybody makes it back to the dance floor, and the band is playing the final slow song. Clark sees Lois, apologizes for sticking her corsage so close to her boob, and asks her for the last dance. Lois is flattered (kind of upset about the weak punch, but flattered nonetheless), but knows that Clark really wanted to dance with somebody else. Just as the final song was playing, in walks Lana, looking about as bad as I have ever seen her look (that hair, are you kidding me?) and they get their final dance.

While the moment was great for Clark and Lana, it was very difficult for Chloe. During the first season, Clark left her for the final dance to save Lois[check that, it should be Lana]. It effectively negated any chance of them ever having a relationship, and even though she is the prom queen, she is still on the sideline, wishing that Clark loved her instead of Lana, but understanding that it will probably never happen.

If this episode wasn’t a prom episode, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered with a recap. The soul-snatching bodies theme is almost as prevalent as the two separate halves of one person theme they explored last week. So many people get possessed, it’s not funny anymore. It did provide us with a couple of interesting things to think about for the next episode though. First, Chloe learns another one of Clark’s secrets. When Jonathan came to stop ClarkDawn, she woke up after being punched to see that Clark was weakened by Kryptonite (and that Jonathan knew of Clark’s abilities as well).

More importantly, we added some intrigue to the whole artifact business. Just why did Jason and his mother want Bridgett Crosby dead, and who is Jason really working for? At the end of the episode, he showed up at the prom just in time to see Lana looking very happy in Clark’s arms. Is it going to make him work harder to get her back, or make him think she is really the enemy, just like his mom has always said?

We know that Smallville is coming back for a 5th season, but the writers are going to have to work hard, because the repetitiveness is really starting to show in this last season. If a new Superman movie wasn’t coming out next summer, I think they would have ended the show this year.