#4.20 “Ageless” Recap & Review

Brief Recap:

Clark and Lana happen upon a baby inexplicably unharmed in the middle of a explosion crater. They take him in and grow to love the little baby, whom they named Evan, very quickly. Well, that was a good thing because Evan grew very rapidly: advancing in age from an infant to a 7 year old in a day. And he grew again from a 7 year old to a 15 year old in another day. Clark, in desperation, turns to Lex for help and doesn’t really get much. That Lex, he’s such a naughty boy now…

Lex tries to co-opt poor little Evan for his own nefarious schemes, but being the loving father… err… Superhero… that he is, Clark doesn’t let Lex take control of Evan. Meanwhile, over on the stone storyline side of the stage, there was some major action. Genevieve and Lionel duke it out for the stone they both have supposed the other’s son had taken. Now, them being the Magnificent B*****d and B*tch mom from hell that they are, they don’t ever actually come to blows. However, Lionel quickly gets the upper hand in a brilliant masterstroke that only such a Magnificent B*****d could pull off.

Minor Rant:

I was a person who was bored with regretful longing interspersed with the desperate clutching and conflicted soul-searching that had typified the relationship between Clark and Lana up until this point in the show. So, despite my comments last couple of weeks on the romantic nature of the reboot of the relationship, I have to say that I am worried.

Are the fans right when they say the writers don’t know how to write a romance so that it can work more than one or two desperate, angst-filled episodes?

I feel that producers Miles Millar’s and Al Gough’s previous insistence on keeping the relationship unrequited cheats Clark of what he had in the comics: a high school sweetheart. So, it might be nice to see them have a more adult relationship without all the angst and frustration.

That said, I think they need to tread very lightly.

There is a lot of dramatic power in the sexual tension that existed between Clark and Lana, and TPTB know that. And you probably never want your lead to be completely happy. After all, where’s the drama in that?

In any case, in the canon Clark leaves Lana behind when he leaves Smallville, so there is really no future for them in the end.

If they do break up again, which is likely to happen, it better not be for the same tired reasons they used before to keep the two apart: Lana ranting on about Clark’s lying. Or even worse: Clark’s noble self-sacrifice out of some kind of twisted reasoning that it’s better for Lana if he’s out of her life.

If they pull that crap again, then it may well be the point when this show Jumps the Shark.

I really hope that doesn’t happen.

Review:

You know, I wasn’t sure what to think of this one before I saw it and it took me quite some time and more than one viewing to figure out what I think of it now.

This one is a hard nut to crack. But most have dismissed this as a filler episode, and not a good one at that.

A filler episode (for those not aware of the term) means that the episode is meaningless within the grander scheme of things. Kinda like the Smallville version of a Twinkie. It might taste pretty good going down and may even be fun to eat. But that Twinkie leaves behind a weird after-taste, giving you only empty calories while not satisfying your hunger one little bit.

No, a lot of fanboys want meatier fare in their weekly dose of TV’s only live-action Superhero: action, adventure and Clark doing some terrific displays of super powers and some very heroic saving the day.

Most Fanboys are meat and potatoes kind of guys, I suppose. Not at all into spongy pastries that have a shelf life longer than some Hollywood marriages.

But I don’t think Ageless was just a filler episode, not at all. These weren’t empty calories. Although this wasn’t a perfect episode, far from it.

A great deal happened to Clark and to Lana that does mean something within the grander scheme of things. The long-term relationship issues aside, the emotional impact of the storyline for the two leads was important.

For Clark, it was a chance for him to examine what it means to be a parent and face the fact that maybe he will never be one. It’s been an ongoing theme for Smallville that Clark fears being alone.

Him having a boy to care for and for that boy to love him unconditionally, even if it was only for a space of days, was a terribly important part of his emotional journey. I think that the series long character arc of Clark growing into the man that will someday put on that voluminous red cape has to have an emotional component too. It’s not all about fighting the random freak of the week hell bent on destroying something or someone Clark cares about.

Tom Welling did an admirable job in portraying Clark’s growing love for Evan (guest Colin Ford, as the 15 year old version) and, in the end, the pain of not being able to do anything to help him. This was another well done episode for Welling.

Even Kristin Kreuk did a better than average job in this episode. She’s lately been given little chance to do more than be conflicted or angry at Jason’s growing duplicity, so this episode must have been like a breath of fresh air for her.

This episode was written and directed by co-exec producer Steven S. DeKnight, in his Smallville directorial debut. I hope his future work is more successful.

The episode was wildly uneven.

There were some very successful scenes, like the scene between Clark and Evan as he’s about to die near the end of Act Four. Tom and Colin really seemed to connect in that scene. It packed quite an emotional wallop.

Also the scene between the Kents and Clark was also emotionally powerful, as Clark tried to handle probably never being able to be a father himself.

On the other hand, the scene in the barn with Jonathan, Clark, Evan and Lana seemed oddly stiff and forced when it should have had some emotional weight to it. The blocking was awkward and I’m not sure what Jonathan’s motivations were in that scene. Why didn’t he let Clark handle telling Evan his dad was a heel? I think that scene failed mostly due to poor direction.

And killing Evan’s father was the worst kind of contrivance. They supposedly needed a living blood marrow donor to have any hope of saving Evan, never mind that they didn’t have time to do a blood marrow transplant anyway. So, killing Tanner (guest Matt Ellis) was beyond silly. And to have Evan, even accidentally, kill him? Yikes. Awful.

I did like that The Velveteen Rabbit was used as thematic element but I’m curious as to why. It didn’t exactly fit.

For those not familiar with the story, The Velveteen Rabbit is about a toy bunny that is so loved by his boy that he becomes a wreck of a toy, actually. He’s dirty and tattered, but the love the boy has for the rabbit is so deep and so profound that the toy is magically transformed into a real rabbit. He is made real through the purity and depth of the boy’s love for him.

It’s a sweet story, in fact it’s one of my favorites, but how does it fit in with Evan’s? If Evan is the rabbit, how did Clark and Lana’s love for him make him real? I think DeKnight missed connecting some dots there…

The stones storyline is definitely picking up some speed, and in this episode a lot happened in that front.

John Glover was pitch perfect as the still protective father of Lex. His verbal sparring with Genevieve Teague (guest Jane Seymour) was a delight to see. Very few people can hold their own in a scene with him, and Jane did so brilliantly and Genevieve was satisfyingly sinister.

Michael Rosenbuam’s Lex didn’t really have much screen time, but what time he did have he showed off more of his growing evil nature. It seemed that the only reasons he was trying to help Clark help Evan was because he wanted to exploit Evan and maybe was even trying to slowly win back Clark’s trust. How very Evil Genius of him.

All in all, this episode was okay. Just.

2 stars out of 5.

Weird Episode Faux Pas:

You know, it took three viewings for me to catch this (and don’t think I will go out of my way to view this one again anytime soon, three times is plenty) so I don’t know if anyone else would have noticed this… This will be kinda long, but hang on…

About halfway through the fourth act, Clark and Lex show up at the garage where Evan’s father, Tanner, works. It’s night. Clark wears one of his staples, a blue plaid flannel shirt with a dark blue jacket on top.

Then there’s this establishing shot of what I thought was the Kent Farm in the predawn light… Lana is alone in the Kent kitchen wearing a very fetching dark outfit, with a black tank, black waist length jacket and dark gray pants. Her hair is very attractively held back by a head band.

When Evan shows, she tells him that everyone has been looking for him “all night.” (Again cementing the idea that this is dawn of the next day…)

Evan is clearly on his last legs… He asks to be taken to the windmill that Lana had talked about earlier. He realizes the end is near and wants to see it before he dies… How sad and tragic.

Then there’s this scene with Clark and Chloe in the Torch office. A scene I thought would have been more or less continuous from the scenes before, even though it is now daylight. Yet, Clark has inexplicably changed clothes. He now wears his standard ersatz Superman outfit of a blue t-shirt, jeans and a red jacket.

So, when did he change clothes? If he so worried about Evan that he’d been searching all night, why did he go home and change?

The next scene is with Lana and Evan at the top of the Windmill and she had also taken time to change her clothes. Now her hair is pulled back and she wears blue jeans and a leather jacket… So, at what point in her journey to the windmill in Chandler’s Field did she decide that Evan’s death scene could wait for her to change clothes?

Maybe something could explain it, some intervening scenes that were deleted, but going from where they were in the story I can’t imagine anything that could explain why Clark and Lana both had a change in wardrobe.

It’s a very strange mistake and probably typical of this episode where effective communication wasn’t exactly a hallmark of the production…

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