#6.15 “Freak” Review

NOTE: This review reveals pivotal plot details. If you don’t like to be spoiled stop reading now and come back after you’ve seen it. This was pretty good…

Scribes Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer wrote a very good episode, but probably the best part of this episode was that Michael Rosenbaum directed it. He did a very good job. Although this outing wasn’t perfect, I hope he decides to give sitting in the director’s chair another go.

The story was an interesting twist on the more standard meteor freak of the week storyline. The only real freaks had less obvious powers and weren’t trying to kill anyone, although they probably should have been trying to kill Lex.

The biggest twist was that Chloe was revealed to be meteor “infected.” The revelation that Chloe is a kryptofreak certainly changes her character arc in an extremely profound way. Her scene with Clark where she told him about her fear that she was a walking time bomb was heart breaking. I’m glad Clark is such a good friend and he openly offered to be her personal “bomb squad.” He knows probably better than anyone how dangerous meteor freaks can become. Her worry isn’t unfounded, especially given her family history of mental illness, but the loving and unconditional support offered by Clark was touching and should reassure her that she won’t go through the ordeal alone.

However, aside from freakishly good super computing skills what is her ability? Hopefully the truth will be revealed later what her power is, or even if she has one… For me, I wouldn’t be surprised if her meteor power is just her being a convenient Deus Ex Machina device for iffy Smallville plot points.

What was probably most interesting about this episode was the fact that Lana found out more clues to the “mystery that is Clark Kent” and how she reacted to it. She now knows that he isn’t a meteor freak and that he is so fast that no one could see him as he performed the miraculous save on Tobias while somehow diverting the bullet she’d shot. The bullet looked like it actually had an impression of one of Clark’s fingers in it, so she probably also now knows that he’s bullet proof, not just steel-hand-tool proof. I really liked her confrontation of him after Tobias had left. She honestly laid her suspicions out to him and Clark obfuscated, without actually lying, but it’s terrific that she’s protecting him when she can despite their differences.

Also, in spite of her seeming endorsement of Lex’s evil machinations earlier in the season, she has definitively shown in this episode that she’s Clark’s friend first and Lex’s fiancé second.

The scene where Clark used his heat vision to cut into Chloe was amazing. They both thought that he had to act immediately or Chloe might die like the others. Even though it turned out that they were wrong, it was so intense. I can’t think of another moment in the series where use of Clark’s powers had such high stakes for a person so close to him. Also, what a terrific application of his abilities!

Another thing that someone else pointed out to me, I’m not smart enough to notice this on my own I suppose, was that Clark used every single of his powers available to him in this episode. He used his super breath, super hearing, x-ray vision, heat vision, invulnerability and speed. Although the use of his powers wasn’t exactly complete, no use of telescopic vision or flight… err… super jumping for example, but it was really nice to see super breath used again. We haven’t seen it since its premiere episode, “Sneeze,” and Clark used it in a very smart way: to distract Dr. Bethany so he could steal his laptop. It was a clever, and a very subtle, use of the power. It’s terrific when Clark can show that he’s not just a Big Dumb Alien.

It’s fantastic that in this episode Lex has done something very evil that he can’t explain away as perhaps a misguided attempt at helping people. Although, the extreme nature of the experiment on Chloe (boy, did that look painful) makes me wonder, just how permanent is that memory loss? What if Chloe remembers later? How will that affect Chloe and Lana’s relationship since she is still seemingly with Chloe’s kidnapper?

Lex’s directly lying about his actions to Lana is something more sinister, as well. He isn’t just covering up some shady secret program. He’s not just sidestepping the truth. He deliberately lied to his fiancé about his involvement in the scheme and swore on the soul of their unborn baby when he did it. That makes me even more suspicious of what it was exactly that he’s done to her for him to swear so cavalierly like that…

The writers produced a surprisingly good bit of TV, which wasn’t what I expected going from the official description or even the trailer and director’s cuts up on cwtv.com. The pacing was good and the story had wonderful twists and turns, always keeping up my interest, and even had Clark show some very intense and creative uses of his powers. It was a very well done story.

The actors again did a totally awesome job, probably no one more so than Allison Mack. Chloe had a horrific episode. She went from happy times with Lana, to being nearly run over, to being kidnapped without realizing it, to being desperate enough to actually ask her best friend to cut her open, then ending up knowing that she might be a meteor freak time bomb waiting to go off.

The range of emotions that she expertly, and heartbreakingly, displayed was amazing. The scene between Chloe and Clark as she tried to deal with the aftermath was probably some of her best work. Chloe was at a total loss of what to do next. That is completely unlike the usually decisive Chloe, she was devastated that something about her might really go wrong and she could do nothing to stop it. Allison played that moment of desperation perfectly.

Tom Welling did a wonderful job as Clark. He was the very essence of Superman in this episode. He was strong, yet quiet, while he tried to deal with the problems he had been faced with. The scene with Chloe where Clark had to cut her open was amazing. Clark was scared for her but had to trust his abilities to work in an untested way. He had to be careful or he might have jeopardized Chloe’s life and Tom played the fear and resolved determination flawlessly. Later, when Clark was confronted by Lana he danced around the questions she was asking without doing any outright lying and Tom did a perfect job portraying Clark’s affection for Lana while also not telling her what really happened.

Kristin Kreuk didn’t really have a lot of screen time but she did well with what she had. The scene with Lex where Lana had asked him about Tobias was terrific. She clearly didn’t buy Lex’s lies, even though she smiled lovingly at him after he’d kissed her cheek. The look on her face when Lana was alone and the camera lingered for the reaction shot was amazing. Her face went through several expressions and it was a far more complicated response than I believe Kristin would have delivered before this year. She is starting to really hone her craft and is getting better at delivering more consistently solid performances each episode.

Aaron Ashmore did an amazing job as Jimmy. The moment when he regretted not telling Chloe how important she was to him was terrific. Aaron may not be doing movies like his brother, but he sure can hold his end up in a scene. I really love how much Chloe and Jimmy love and depend on each other. Their relationship has its ebbs and flows, they fight sometimes yet there’s never a doubt how much they mean to each other.

Michael Rosenbaum was a bit uneven acting wise in this episode. He did well in the more overtly evil scenes, like when Lex was threatened Dr. Bethany, but in the bedroom scene where he denied knowing Tobias he came off a bit stiff. Lex is usually a better liar than that so I think he was having problems concentrating on all parts of his job, kind of like Tom did for “Fragile.” Maybe the next time he goes behind the camera, he’ll do a better job at acting in the episode he’s directing.

On the directing side of things I thought Rosenbaum did a pretty good job. The acting was excellent in this episode across the board, so I think Michael has a lot to be proud of there. His casting was awesome too. Adrian Hough, who played Dr. Bethany, was creepy personified. I think lighting and make-up helped him there, but he was very effective in the role on top of that.

As effective as Michael was directing the talent and getting strong performances from them, I’m not sure he has gotten the more visual aspects of helming down just yet. There were some oddities that got me confused and interrupted the flow of the episode.

For example, the tease confused me in relation to the photo that Chloe later showed to Clark. The picture even existing with the background it had didn’t make sense. In the tease the photo was seemingly taken before Tobias had entered the bowling alley, because it was only after Dan “The Man” had left Lana and Chloe that Tobias had pointed him out to Dr. Bethany. Yet Chloe had taken the picture before Tobias showed up… Or seemed to, anyway, given the content and what was happening in the scene at the time she took the photo. The bit with Tobias had to have been inserted later in the scene than where it was originally supposed to be.
The director’s cut that had been shown over on cwtv.com seems to support that assumption because it showed Tobias pointing out Dan when he was on his way over to talk to Lana and Chloe, which is where (logically) that bit with Tobias should have gone. The way it aired made it very confusing. At the end of the scene they looped Lana saying she wanted Chloe to take one more picture but t didn’t sound like part of the scene. The line had been obviously added later and didn’t do near enough to fix the continuity errors introduced when they changed the order of events.

Also, other scenes seemed oddly paced to me editing-wise. Cuts often seemed abrupt and that made some scenes fell choppy. At times it was actually jarring. None of the scenes in the house flowed well. I think poor shot coverage from the director is to blame for the editing problems, instead of the editor suddenly forgetting how to edit. Maybe it wasn’t Michael’s fault, he could have run out of time to do more than he did, but hopefully Michael will learn from that and do better next time.

“Freak” was beautifully shot by Glen Winter. I don’t know how he does it, but somehow he can make Tom look even better than he does because Tom was especially gorgeous in this episode. Also, the scenes in the house were terrific. I loved how the blue light from the electrical charge gun that Dr. Bethany was going to kill Tobias with lit up Lana’s face when Dr. Bethany pointed it at her. I don’t know if that was practical or whether it was a special effect, but it was a very nice, subtle look.

Overall, I really enjoyed the episode despite some oddness with the editing and Michael’s unusually stiff acting in places. I give this episode 4 blue light shock guns thingies 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.