NOTE: be aware that major plot spoilers are revealed in this review! If you haven’t seen this episode, and don’t want to spoiled, well…. You’ve been warned.…
Brief Recap:
Chloe gets a call at the Daily Planet from a girl in trouble. Lois is there to hit her up for help moving out of the Kent Farm so they go together to help the girl and witness her murder. An old friend of Jonathan’s, Jack Jennings (Special Guest Tom Wopat) shows up at the farm, needing Pa Kent’s help with his State Senate Campaign. It turns out that Lex is running against him. Detective Maggie Sawyer (guest Jill Teed) from Metropolis shows up at the Farm to confront Jennings since the dead girl turns out to be a “friend” of his. Mean time, Lois goes under cover as a stripper to investigate the murder. Clark confronts Lex about “setting up” Jennings, which he denies of course. Despite the chill in their relationship, he helps Clark with a special pass to get into the private club. Lex reveals to Jonathan that Jennings was the girl’s lover.
Lois does a strip tease and gives Clark a lap dance. Then Clark gets arrested as Lois is taken away by a thug. Clark figures out Jennings is innocent (he’d left the club well before the murdered girl) and is let go thanks to a Lex “get out of jail” free card. Jonathan gives Jennings a lecture about having an affair with a stripper. Chloe figures out where Lois has been taken and Clark goes in for the rescue. Jennings pull out of the race and suggests that Jonathan take his place. Clark helps Lois move into the apartment over the Talon and Chloe gets her first byline at the Planet. Clark and Lois verbally spar but Clark manages to get the last word.
Review
I wasn’t sure what I’d thought about this one and I’m still not sure what I think of it as I begin to write this. I’ve even watched it twice, it might take a third viewing before I figure it out. (NOTE: after a third viewing, I’m still torn…)
While it was great to see Tom Wopat and John Schneider back together, I was a Dukes fan way back when, I’m really sorry it wasn’t for a better story with fewer plot holes. Wopat, unfortunately, wasn’t all that great. It’s probably not his fault either: the character was morally corrupt and probably wasn’t evil enough to be fun to play. Jennings didn’t have a very good character arc and I suspect his only purpose as a character was to plant the seed in Jonathan to run against Lex for state office.
Also, as much as I liked a lot of the Dukes references, I think some were a bit too much. For example, I don’t really see Jonathan going joy riding through chicken coops.
Writers Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson have penned more consistent episodes, to be honest. While I think the original conspiracy theory which Clark had thought Lex was the bad guy, but which turned out to be false, was interesting. However, the story was so filled with odd expediencies that I looked up, utterly shocked, when I had found my suspension of disbelief had left the room.
Story contrivances like why would a girl in trouble spend a quarter to use a pay phone to call a reporter when a 911 call is free? (And would, by the way, make more sense?) And it wasn’t like she had a purse, so did the guy leave loose change in the dress he gave her?
And why were the strippers so averse to discussing the murdered girl? She was run over by a truck, why did that make talking about her such a bad thing?
And since when do printers “remember” their last print jobs? I could explain why a small printer isn’t at all capable of doing that, but I’m not here as a computer geek but a Smallville one… write me if you’re curious.
And since when does diplomatic immunity mean the bad guy can just walk away?
By the way: It never has. (I know ‘cause I looked it up.)
The bad guy still gets taken into custody until he is either deported or the immunity is waived by his home country. If they’d watched a few criminal procedural shows (like Law & Order) Souders and Peterson might have realized that the bad guy shoulda been hauled away in cuffs…
I hate it when things like this are fudged simply to make a plot point work. Hate it.
If they can’t make a semi-realistic show deal with realistic things in a realistic way, they might as well go back to having the extraordinarily bad freak of the week plot lines like they did in the first season.
Tom Welling was handsome, as usual, in this episode and it was good to see him out of plaid and denim for once. However, his hair in the first scene was oddly unattractive and I can’t quite understand what was going on with it there. Whatever it was they did differently there, I hope they never do again.
Tom’s scenes with Erica Durance were great and I loved their interactions in this episode. Clark was so cute in the strip club. And his drink order, “I’ll have a coke… Straight up on the rocks,” while trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about was a riot.
That last scene between Lois and Clark was highly enjoyable and no doubt foreshadows the relationship of a more adult relationship between them later in Clark’s life. It was also great to see Clark finally getting the last word of the show, leaving Lois flummoxed for once.
Erica’s little strip tease as the uncomfortable Lois wasn’t as sexy as I think the ads had teased, but what do I know? She’s not exactly my type. I thought it was in character, anyway.
It was odd that Kristin Kreuk’s Lana and Annette O’Toole’s Martha were so conspicuously absent.
I loved seeing Chloe at the Daily Planet and her interactions with Lois were great. The Scooby gang thing with her and Lois is fun, I hope they do that kind of thing more often more often.
The F/X shot of Melissa getting run over was unnecessarily gruesome. I mean, the girl dies before the teaser is over and has maybe a minute of screen time… why give her such a visceral and grisly death?
Clark’s rescue of Lois from the helicopter was terrific but the “jump” of the Dodge charger could have been more exciting.
Not a great episode, but I’ve seen worse.
I give this 3 star spangled bikini tops out of a possible 5.
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