One of the nagging questions on Smallville this season was the status of Lionel Luthor. He only appeared briefly in some early episodes, but was given a life sentence in jail, not to mention a little nagging from the previous season, namely a failing liver. But if he was to be written off so early in the season, why in the hell was John Glover still in the opening credits? Clearly the writers had some sort of plan, it was just a matter of how long they wanted to wait to fill the rest of us in on the master plan. It involves a jailbreak, but not in the variety most of us were expecting.
Lionel Luthor is in prison, with only a month to live. After exhausting all of his efforts to find a doctor to save him and his diseased liver, he also managed to get himself arrested for killing his own parents when he was much younger. He set a fire to their apartment building, and then used the insurance money to build Luthorcorp. If you are annoyed with your parents or feel you need space, don't you just go to college and start drinking heavily? Eventually, you will forget what it was about them that bothered you in the first place and everybody can go on with their lives. I guess going a little Menendez brothers on them was more his style. Nevertheless, he wanted to take one last chance to talk to Lex, even though his son was the one that facilitated his conviction and helped protect Chloe Sullivan, the prosecution's star witness.
As Lex was visiting his dad, I wondered a few things. First, Lionel had obviously been off of his workout regimen. He was seemingly doing that whole "Cape Fear" thing in earlier episodes, getting jacked in preparation for his release with all sorts of exercises, not to mention honing his mind with many books. Lionel, perhaps from disease, perhaps from the shiv he took in the shower, was looking quite thin and pale. Second, what kind of maximum security prison has an inmate and his visitor sit at a desk. Never having visited somebody in prison, I thought that they would use the old plexiglass divider connected with two phones type of setup. Doesn't an open room just invite some sort of contraband? Despite my reservations, Lionel seemed to have nothing but the most benign interests, and simply told Lex he was only sorry he never told him that he loved him.
Before you start getting all gushy, please note that Lionel did have an ulterior motive. Clark, who was earlier messing around in his backyard, dreaming of the ways he would lead his football team to victory, and had just found out from Jason that a recruiter from Metropolis University was going to watch him play, started to hear a loud screeching noise. The noise was similar to the one he heard in the season's first episode, which inspired him to fly, break into Lex's plane, and steal an artifact the younger Luthor had just picked up from Egypt. Hearing this same sound again, he abruptly left and ran to the source of the problem, which took him straight to Lionel Luthor. He arrived at the prison in just enough time to warn Lex, and pushed Lex out of the way just as his dad was about to hit him with an object he had concealed in his hand, a strange artifact with the same markings as the one on Lana's back. Instead of using it on Lex, Lionel used it on Clark, touching his hand, and started a process where their souls switched bodies.
A lot of you are thinking "Oh great, another episode where Clark is mean and tells people off and uses his power for evil". After all, they come up with one of these episodes at least once a year. But all of those times that Clark has had a change of heart, it was still Clark in his own body. This time, Lionel had control of Clark, and every single one of Clark's powers. It's sort of like some bastardization of Freaky Friday combined with Face Off. And it worked beautifully. (So you don't get confused, I am going to be talking about Clark and Lionel as their characters, and not the body they inhabit, until further notice)
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Comments (3)
Lana can still be half-Chinese. Although, her mother's sister wasn't and her real father wasn't. So it is hard to reconcile Lana with her gene pool.
But there are certainly Asian French people. Fredric Fekkai, for instance.
I'd really like to know the Swann Institute's angle. What is their interest in a planet that no longer exists? Do they want Clark or something more?
1 of 3 | Posted by Lady J | Posted on October 28, 2004 2:09 PM
> Second, what kind of maximum security prison has an inmate > and his visitor sit at a desk.
That kind of maximum security prison is apparently a part of the same correctional system that has a mental institution for the criminally insane where inmates are allowed full weight sets, big old clangy metal gas cylinders casually sitting around, and easy inmate access to the power generators for the entire facility.
I'm referring, of course, to the episode last season where the three former "Freaks of the Week(s)" teamed up in the institution to take out Clark. Which proved to be my last episode of Smallville, it was so ludicrious.
2 of 3 | Posted by Papercuts! | Posted on October 29, 2004 6:36 AM
A very thorough summary, although Mr. Unit forgot to mention one incredibly important detail - the scene in which Clark/Lionel is checking himself out in the mirror. The show finally got it right with gratuitous Clark naked scenes. Tom Welling is hot. That is all.
3 of 3 | Posted by n-heezy | Posted on November 3, 2004 9:22 AM