NOTE: Major spoilers and plot twists are revealed in this review!
Recap:
The race is heating up and the Kent campaign is out of money. Samantha, President of CKU’s Students for Lex Luthor, creeps out Lex at a meet and greet at the mansion with how much she knows about him. Back at the Kent farm, Jonathan fires his campaign manager, hires Lois to replace him, and then gets a threatening phone call. Clark gives Lana the brush off when she comes on to him, afraid of hurting her, and picks a fight with her to deflect the topic. Clark confesses the unhappy truth about his lackluster love life to Chloe, who suggests his powers are not the only reason he’s no longer doing it with Lana. Lionel offers a huge financial contribution to Martha to help out Jonathan’s campaign but she doesn’t take it.
Samantha has two goons from the student campaign beat up Jonathan, then Clark and Martha find him hanging from the rafters. The attack gives Jonathan a bounce in the polls. Samantha kills the two goons when they threaten to expose her to the police. She shaves her head to show her devotion to Lex, which doesn’t have the effect on him she intended.
The doctors tell Jonathan to take it easy but he goes ahead with a scheduled rally anyway. Clark and Chloe discover the threatening phone calls came from the office for student’s campaign office. Samantha kidnaps Lois and threatens her life unless she kills Jonathan during the rally. Lois fights back but only manages to get knocked out instead. Samantha gets the bead on Jonathan, but Clark catches the bullet just in time.
Clark and Lana have a talk about the rising tension in their relationship. He’s shocked when she tells him she’s figured out someone must have arrived in the first meteor shower, just like the second one. Martha, faced with an upcoming media blitz for Lex’s campaign that Jonathan’s campaign can’t afford to counter, decides to accept Lionel’s money.
Review:
Boy, was I looking forward to this episode! It’s been a long time since the last new episode aired and this one was so terrific.
It started out extremely well with Lois taking aim with a scoped rifle on Jonathan at the rally and apparently firing. What a great cliff-hanger!
That said, I don’t usually like flashback episodes. Last year’s Spirit was a particularly bad example of the form, but this one worked very well. The writer, new Smallville scribe Wendy Mericle (late of Jack & Bobby and Everwood), did an excellent job. The show’s pacing and the end of act cliff-hangers were terrific and the dialogue was nicely done. I also loved that she managed to give Lana and Clark a realistic domestic moment that wasn’t over-the-top mushy-romantic right before they have a terrific argument. She also gave all characters fairly sizeable spots in the show, which must be hard with an ensemble of eight regularly appearing characters. She did an excellent job!
The girl’s performance who played Samantha, guest star Annie Burgstede, was not totally successful. However, I have to give her serious kudos for having the guts to take this role. I mean, not only did she completely shave her head; she did it on camera and in character. I’m glad the writer had the guts to write that and the producers followed through and had hired someone willing to not only do it but also manage to sell it. That was an amazing scene.
Tom Welling didn’t have that much screen time, considering, but he did an excellent job with what he did have. It was nice to see Clark so relaxed and just enjoying being with Lana in that first scene of them together. It was also great for them to have an argument that wasn’t all about someone lying. Well, not really anyway. The argument arose from something that happened there instead of them reacting to something someone else had done before, which is what usually seems to happen. Tom played that scene so naturally he was amazing to watch. Tom also portrayed the flustered Clark really well in the scene with Chloe at the Daily Planet. That scene was wonderfully humorous. And when Lana told him about what she had found out about the first meteor shower, Tom completely sold Clark’s confusion and fear about that. He did a beautiful job.
Kristin Kreuk was perfect as Lana. She played the scenes with Tom very well. Her acting has shown marked improvement this year. Maybe her working on that new film, Partition, helped her to hone her craft. I can’t wait to see what she’ll deliver in next week’s more Lana-centric episode, Lockdown.
Allison Mack was terrific in Chloe’s few scenes with Clark. I loved her reactions to Clark’s dilemma about his sex life being on hiatus. She was both weirded-out and curious at the same time. I laughed out loud at her “krypto-hag” line too. Allison was in top form. Her comedic timing has never been better.
John Glover’s Lionel was amazingly manipulative of Martha and Lex. I am not sure what his rationale is for helping Jonathan but there must be some ulterior motive. Lionel doesn’t usually help anyone unless it benefits him, so I guess we’ll see.
John Schneider was gorgeous in this episode. Bo Duke cleans up very nicely. He was also terrific in the episode. I especially liked the way Jonathan took charge of the situation when he found out about the intentional misquote by his first campaign manager.
Annette O’Toole totally nailed Martha’s emotional roller coaster ride in this episode. She was at times jubilant, frantic, warm, angry, resolved and conflicted. What a wonderful performance from her.
This was an exciting episode and it kept me on the edge of my seat, almost literally. The episode really set things up leading into the upcoming pivotal 100th episode, Reckoning. It’s not really a stand alone episode at all either, and that’s unusual for Smallville where most (if not all) episodes are more or less stand alone.
So I’ll grade this high for the excellent performances in it, the great continuity, and for the terrific Smallville debut of new scribe Wendy Mericle.
I’m giving Fanatic four stainless steel electric clippers out of a possible five.
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