NOTE: Read no further if you don’t want to be spoiled!
Recap:
Chloe apparently tries to commit suicide but she doesn’t remember what happened. Clark visits Chloe in the hospital. He’s concerned about her even though Chloe denies trying to kill herself. She tells Clark that she doesn’t want anyone to know about her mom having mental problems.
Lionel visits Martha who still hasn’t decided whether to take Jonathan’s Senate seat. Chloe has a vision of a girl bleeding from the wrists and no one believes what she claims to have seen. She is sedated to calm her. Disturbed by Chloe’s apparent illness, Lana goes to Lex for help. Clark becomes concerned when Lex tells him he’s having Chloe moved to Belle Reve. Clark takes Chloe out of the hospital before Lex can move her and takes Chloe to Lois’ apartment. Chloe sees the vision of the girl again. Clark at first thinks Chloe’s seeing things again until he looks into the wall where she claims the girl’s body is hidden. He sees her skeleton and busts open the wall.
Chloe touches a kryptonite bracelet on the body’s wrist and becomes possessed by the spirit of the dead girl, Gretchen. Clark takes her back to his house to sleep but she escapes through the window during the night. Gretchen heads off to Metropolis to retrieve Chloe’s stun gun. She runs into Lex in the hallway and stuns him. Lex tells Clark that Chloe not being in the hospital is putting her into danger. He tells Clark, “Good job.” The creepy orderly from the hospital, Michael (guest star, Damon Johnson), kidnaps Lois.
Gretchen/Chloe goes to Michael’s house. She stuns him before beating him up and then finds Lois in the basement. Michael gets Gretchen when she isn’t looking and threatens both women while they are tied up. Clark finds Gretchen’s research on Michael in Chloe’s work computer, including his address, and speeds to the rescue.
Clark uses heat vision to heat up the knife Michael was about to use on Lois but is disabled because of the kryptonite bracelet “Gretchen” is wearing. Somehow, Gretchen comes out of Chloe and goes into Michael when the kryptonite touches him. He dies when he stabs himself. Clark and Lana have a bit of a falling out in the barn. Clark later goes inside the house and convinces his mom to take Jonathan’s Senate seat.
Clark visits Chloe at the Daily Planet and convinces her to visit her mom. She does and there is a very touching moment where Chloe hugs her long-lost mother.
Review:
This one has so many good things about it and yet so many bad things too. It was somewhat derivative, yet another “possessed by a ghost” story like Spirit, but with a much darker tone and better acting. Despite this, I’m not sure overall it’s much better episode than Spirit was.
Allison’s performance inside the scene in the hospital where Chloe freaked out and had to be sedated seemed a bit forced, but aside from that this performance was probably her best of the series. Her best work came once Chloe was possessed by Gretchen. The way she pulled off the change to Gretchen was brilliant… It was a subtle transformation at the beginning. Initially she was biting her nails and her voice had a tremulous and insecure tone, which were nice touches from Allison since it was something Chloe has never really done. However, it was as Gretchen’s emotional state deteriorated and yet was still tried to protect Clark and Lois that Allison really sparkled.
Once he tied her up in the basement, Gretchen acted like a troubled girl who needed Mikey’s help while she also tried to lure him to her so she could “enter” him, or whatever it was she did to get him to stab himself. I thought Allison perfectly played the different parts of Gretchen’s intent in that scene.
Her performance in the final scene with Chloe’s mom was wonderful, and it was helped a lot by the beautiful photography of DP Barry Donleavy and the quiet music from Composer Mark Snow. The bright yet diffused lighting combined with the soft focus photography and mellow music helped set a hopeful mood, finally giving Chloe some closure. Allison played Chloe’s hesitation and the bittersweet reunification with her mom flawlessly. She was absolutely terrific.
Tom wasn’t in this much; he must have needed a break after the previous two episodes so I guess I can’t complain too much, but he was wonderful in the amount of screen time he did have. Tom is playing Clark now as a more resolved and take-charge kind of guy. Following the death of Jonathan, it’s a great direction for this “Superman in training” to take. He seems more confident and sure of himself. Like in last week’s episode when he decided that he had to drop out of school without discussing it with Martha first. It was just something he thought was the right thing to do. He didn’t need to talk to her about it.
This week, he rescues Chloe from an unknown fate at the hands of Lex without discussing it with anyone or overly worrying about the consequences. It’s a very bull-headed thing for him to do and very much like his “adult” self in the comics, where Clark often acts before thinking through things first. This week he’s also the one giving advice, rather than taking it. First he advises his mother on the wisdom of taking Jonathan’s Senate seat and then later gives helpful advice to Chloe about her mother. Tom played Clark as more resolute and secure during those exchanges.
Clark’s series long character arc doesn’t seem to be a very big one to some fans online. So much so that some people don’t think Clark has changed much at all from the first season (which I totally disagree with, he’s changed a lot). Some fans have voiced frustration with the direction the character is going in the show. So I really like that the speed of change for Tom’s Clark seems to be picking up some steam.
How creepy was Lex in this episode? With Lex’s little speech to Clark about Chloe being his best friend and how hard it must be to see her like that, it seems to me that Lex thinks that Chloe knows Clark’s secret. His desire to get Chloe to Belle Reve takes on a whole other meaning when you realize that Lex does indeed have something to gain from helping her.
Lex’s monopolization of Lana during the episode, like for instance searching for Chloe with her throughout the night and further dividing Lana from Clark, is cruel. He’s keeping Lana off-balance and on the defensive when it comes to Clark. Michael is doing a terrific job playing a seemingly sincere yet clearly manipulative Lex. He wants Lana for himself and he has no friendship with Clark left to hold him back from doing whatever it takes. Michael’s made it believable that Lana is taken in by Lex’s lies and yet Clark knows that there is more going on than meets the eye. Michael’s always wonderful.
The guest star, Damon Johnson, was terrific as creepy orderly Michael Westfield. He was intense and made Michael scary and yet sympathetic. It’s refreshing to have such a good actor guest starring.
This was another dark episode and Barry Donleavy did a great job filming it. I loved Production Designer David Willson’s set for Westfield’s basement… It was very reminiscent of Buffalo Bill’s basement in The Silence of the Lambs and Donleavy’s hand-held work and director Whitney Ransick’s blocking reinforced that idea. I really liked the way the camera followed “Gretchen” through the basement as she looked for Lois, revealing the cluttered mess to the viewer. It was a nice touch.
All in all, this was not the best episode ever but there were some things to love about this episode so I give it 3.5 kryptonite studded silver bracelets out of a possible 5.
Note: The views of Triplet don’t necessarily represent the thoughts and feelings of everyone at KryptonSite. Send her feedback.
