#5.18 “Fragile” Recap & Review

NOTE: If you haven’t seen this one yet, and don’t want to be spoiled, what are you waiting for? Go warm up the VCR or your TiVO and watch this episode! Don’t say I didn’t warn you….

Recap:

Maddie (guest star Emily Hirst) and her foster mom, Naomi, have a fight. Maddie gets upset and shatters a glass pitcher. That scares Naomi and she tells Maddie to go to her room while she calls Child Services. Everything starts to break after Maddie is in her room and the foster mom gets impaled by flying glass.

Clark and Martha take in the young girl, it seems Clark found her. Martha reveals that Maddie had not spoken a word since her mother was killed in a car wreck but Clark manages to get the sad girl to smile. Lex gives Lana a folder of secret information on the ship and Fine’s conspiracy because he trusts her. They’re close to a clinch when Chloe walks in. Later in the barn, Clark finally gets Maddie to open up a little and talk. Lois interrupts and Maddie gets angry when Lois tries to monopolize her day. She busts some light bulbs, that scares Lois and Maddie runs away. Clark makes her feel better but Lois again rains on the parade before Clark speeds off to try and find out more about Maddie.

Chloe tells Clark that a shattered windshield caused the freak car accident that killed Maddie’s birth mother. Lois tries to spend some quality time with Maddie but it doesn’t go well. A Child Services agent shows up to take Maddie to the shelter. Chloe confronts Lex about getting involved with Lana because she’s worried Lana might get hurt. The Child Services guy puts Maddie in the car despite Lois’ warnings about that getting her near glass. The windows shatter, killing the Child Services guy and injuring Lois.

The man who’s taken Maddie reveals that he’s her father and he can shatter glass like her. Maddie realizes that he killed Naomi, the child services guy and her mother. Her father says that the people he killed were trying to take her away from him. He had to do it since she belongs to him. Chloe tells Clark about Maddie’s father, Tyler. He’d had a stint at Belle Reve after being arrested for diamond theft. Clark goes to see Tyler’s mother. She shows him the stained glass piece that Tyler had done. Clark realizes that it is like one in the Talon. Tyler and Maddie are in the Talon because he’d hidden the diamonds in the stained glass artwork that Clark recognized. Tyler tells Maddie that the diamonds will help them start a new life. She doesn’t like it because he stole them and his anger scares her. Clark finds them and throws Tyler across the room before he can hurt Maddie. She hugs him gratefully. Lana confronts Chloe about her going to Lex. She denies that she’s having a relationship with Lex. Chloe warns Lana about Lex but she tells Chloe that she can take care of herself. Martha tells Lois that she’s her new Chief of Staff. Clark doesn’t seem too happy about that. Tyler escapes after shattering the deputy’s eyes glasses.

Clark talks to Maddie about his own birth father and his “real” dad. It makes Martha proud to see how well Clark has bonded with the girl. Maddie asks to stay with Clark but he says that she can’t. Her grandmother loves her. He makes her feel better, but then later Clark finds some broken glass in the kitchen. He finds Martha being held at glass shard point in the barn. Tyler wants Maddie back. Clark uses some heat vision to save Martha but Tyler turns on Clark. Maddie protects Clark but he doesn’t want her to hurt her dad. She stops before she does hurt Tyler and hugs Clark.

Maddie’s grandmother arrives to pick her up, and Maddie gives Clark a drawing. Maddie gets into the car and drives away with her grandmother. Chloe and Clark talk about Lana. He asks about her love life and Chloe tells him to back off. She doesn’t want to be put into the middle. Clark thinks that there must be something Chloe’s hiding but she denies it. Lana goes to Lex at the mansion to talk about their “relationship” and Lex denies he has anything but friendly feelings for her. She reassures him that she feels the same way, but then Lex kisses her. He apologizes when it seems to make her upset, but she turns around and kisses him back before leaving.

Review:

This episode featured the directorial debut of Smallville lead, Tom Welling.

I’m a big fan of Mr. Welling’s, a fact that regular readers of my reviews here on KryptonSite should be well aware of, so when I first heard about him directing an episode I was excited. Then the thought struck me that I should be worried.

He’s a first time director, after all. What if he really stunk but I shouldn’t have been worried. Tom did a terrific job.

The episode was taut and had great pacing right from the start. There was hardly a misstep the whole episode. Aside from weirdness right at the beginning when Maddie’s foster mom just stood there waiting for the glass to kill her, I didn’t really see any problems at all with Tom’s directorial debut. I guess it makes sense, Tom knows more about Clark than anyone and this was a very Clark-centric episode.

In fact, initially I was surprised Tom was in it as much as he was but in hindsight I think it was probably obvious that he should direct this one. The scenes with Maddie and Clark were very intimate, quiet moments for the most part. Tom having control both in front and behind the camera for those scenes must have been helpful. I think it probably did help since he had a great chemistry with the young actress who played Maddie, Emily Hirst. In fact, he pulled a wonderful performance from the 12 year old actress.

Emily did a terrific job. The scene where she was crying was heart breaking. Maddie was a terrific character. Maddie was conflicted and closed off and yet Clark was able to pull her out of her shell. Episode scribes Darrren Swimmer and Todd Slavkin did a wonderful job writing her. Also, Emily was able to effectively sell the character arc, thanks in large part to Tom’s terrific directing.

Tom did pull some great performances from all the actors in this episode. All the regulars did a terrific job.

What Tom probably didn’t do so well with was acting in this episode. While I had no problems with his performance for the most part, he was a bit uneven. At times his line readings were a bit flat and too “touchy feely,” for lack of a better word. Like he was trying too hard, perhaps…

I don’t know but maybe him turning in a less than stellar performance is understandable. It must have been hard to act effectively and still keep track of all the other things directors have to keep track of. Although, I think that probably the more ham-handed than usual dialogue didn’t help. Hopefully the next time he gets to direct, Tom will have a better script to work with. I hope it works out that he can direct again next year. Mr. Welling did a wonderful job.

Even though I didn’t like some of the hammy dialogue and contrived plot points, I think the writers of this episode did an effective job overall. “Fragile” helped move things toward the huge cliff-hanger at the end of the season. One thing Smallville does well is great end of season cliffies so, unless this season is different, I think a lot of storyline stuff that was advanced in this episode will help build toward that. Lex looking for Fine is an interesting development, especially since they’re apparently working together. It makes sense that Lex is keeping tabs on Fine. He doesn’t trust easily.

Lana kissing Lex was an attention-grabbing moment. Is it a rebound thing or does she have some kind of agenda? I look forward to finding out more about that…

Clark obviously not telling Martha what Jonathan revealed about Lionel was surprising. However, what I found more chilling was that Naomi used to work for Lionel. So, just how involved has Lionel gotten with Martha? His former employee working for her reveals more of his machinations. Although we didn’t see the Magnificent Bastard in this episode, that one line of Martha’s made it clear that Lionel has gotten himself more involved with Martha than we’ve known before.

Director of Photography Glenn Winter produced another awesome looking episode. I’m not exactly sure how much an impact the director has on how an episode is shot, but I think that Tom Welling must have influenced how it was photographed since it did look different… The camera movements and framing seemed more dynamic than usual.

Forgiving the fact that the tail end of the tease probably should have been edited more tightly (Naomi just standing still for as long as she did before she died didn’t seem realistic); I really liked the way the tease was shot. The F/X when combined with the wonderful lighting and all the camera movement helped make the scene’s building tension more effective.

My favorite moment of this episode, however, happened close to the end when Clark and Martha stood in the farm yard as Maddie and her Grandmother drove away into the sunset. It was hopeful and probably one of most beautiful single shots in the entire series. The high angle framing and sun flare were both beautifully done.

Oh, and was Naomi’s house at the beginning a redressed Kent Farmhouse set?

If so, I give two huge thumbs up to production designer David Willson, his carpenters and his set dressers. That was awesome. The only clue I had Naomi’s house might be a redressed Kent Farmhouse set was the ceiling and the location of the windows in the kitchen… Otherwise, it didn’t really look like the farmhouse interior at all.

Not the best episode ever, but overall it was a highly effective one. 4 jagged shards of glass 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.