#7.12 “Fracture” Review

WARNING: Okay, you know the drill. If reading spoilers isn’t for you, you should read this after you’ve watched the episode because I will spoil you rotten otherwise!

Wow… What an episode! While not perfect, it was highly enjoyable and stood up to multiple viewings very well.

Al Septien and Turi Meyer came up with the story and Caroline Dries penned the script. She writes some of the best dialogue and that teaser… Wow. That’s quite a way to start an episode. Well, aside from Lex getting shot. Again. (That plot point is getting pretty old…)

The writers got things going full-tilt right out of the gate. The story, mostly told in flashbacks set in the gloomy corridors of Lex’s mind, of course started out in the middle. It started with Lois and Lex in rainy Detroit, apparently looking for Kara guided by a GPS-tracking necklace.

How creepy was it that Lex ‘lo-jacked’ Kara and could track her with his palmtop computer? Yikes… I guess it’s a good thing he did or Kara never would have been found and, de-powered and without her memory she would have been completely at the mercy of Finley, but still… That is creepy.

Back in Smallville, it was clear to Clark and Chloe how high the stakes were. Lex had apparently been with both Kara and Lois before getting shot and left for dead so Clark realized immediately that he needed to find out more. The stakes were enormous and finding out more depended on getting the knowledge of Kara’s and Lois’ whereabouts from a comatose Lex.

However, airlifting Lex to the Smallville Medical Center is beyond ridiculous. I know Smallville has got a med center set up there in Vancouver and it’s probably cheaper to shoot the set as is without redressing it. Also, how else would the events have led to Lex getting a mentally invaded by Clark if they hadn’t, but come on… Is it even close to being believable that sleepy Smallville is huge a center for cutting edge neurosurgery? I don’t think so, but even if it was, would they have transported Lex before surgery with a bullet rattling around inside his head? Again, I don’t think so.

I got to hold up a yellow card on those plot points, but other than those things, I really didn’t have any problems with the story. In fact, I think the story was terrific.

I loved that Chloe was willing to risk her life to save Lex’s but actually didn’t do it, listening to Clark’s voice of reason, until his life was in danger. She didn’t hesitate to act to save Clark’s life. I wonder if that, combined with Clark and Chloe’s conversation later, is foreshadowing of future events. I mean if Chloe is going to give up her life for someone, it would be for Clark. Their relationship may have never worked out, but she’d said before that she’d die for him and he is her dearest friend. I like Chloe so I hope she won’t have to die for Clark.

That the writers made Lex’s mind into a dark series of warped hallways with broken windows says more about the current state of Lex’s mind than almost anything else has recently. It’s brilliant to externalize Lex’s dark, labyrinthine mind into actual rabbit warren of dead ends and locked rooms and to make what little good that is left in him into a small, nearly helpless child.

It might not be surprising that Lex’s sane, good inner-child is tormented by an insanely evil adult. The kid even lives under very real threat of death at almost every turn. It’s a continuation of the line of thinking on Lex’s character started with the stellar season 4 episode, “Onyx,” where Lex’s two halves were split into two different people. In that episode it was revealed that his two halves are in a constant battle for dominion over Lex’s psyche. I said at the time (actually it was my first review for KryptonSite, so I remember it pretty well) that the internal struggle getting externalized so dramatically was brilliant.

As much as I enjoyed that episode, I think that script had some problems and Michael’s acting went a bit over the top at times. Unfortunately, I think the same could probably be said here in both regards.

I didn’t know anything really about this episode before viewing it, but when I saw that Alexander was there I was curious why they’d done it. I mean, at first glance I wasn’t sure that the metaphor worked as well this time as it did in “Onyx.” Upon further thought, I think just the opposite is true.

Lex and uh, well, Lex, were two adults in “Onyx.” He had the two halves of himself made into separate people, two imperfect copies of the original Lex. So, this was different. With this episode they had personified his good side, his weak side, as a child. The good about him became a person whom Clark needed to protect. If they felt it was necessary to have Clark to get back in touch with why he and Lex had been friends to begin with, giving him an innocent to keep safe and nurture, was probably as good as any to get that to happen.

I think it was good for Clark to reconnect with Lex and see how he still does have a good side, despite all the evil he’s done. Now that Clark knows that good still exists within him, that Lex isn’t totally lost and can possibly be reached, maybe Lex can again be Clark’s friend.

However, as sweet and touching as Clark reconnecting with Lex in this episode is, I’m not entirely sure that it’s a good thing. I had thought that Lex had already gone past the point where he was redeemable even before this season had even started. It’s why the whole “Kara being Lex’s guardian angel” thing had frustrated me at the beginning of this season. It’s a major stretch to think that Lex at this point might be redeemable. I mean, the man has locked up people, doing torturous experiments on them (even doing that to Chloe), and also manipulated the love of his live into thinking she’s pregnant so she’d marry him, murdered to cover that up, cloned his dead baby brother, and killed the clones that failed and eventually killed the successful one too. Just in this last episode he tried to manipulate innocent, amnesiac Kara into thinking he only has her best interest at heart when he probably wants to take her to a lab too.

Is saving Lex a task that Clark can really accomplish, much less even should try to attempt? Is there enough good left in this man so he can be saved? Well, we all know the answer to that, but it does indeed seem possible only because of what Clark witnessed inside Lex’s head.

It might seem like maybe they shouldn’t go there, that maybe Lex is already too far gone to be redeemed, but if they’re going to have an eighth season they will be forced to stretch it out for a little while longer, won’t they? They will need to drag it out the same way they’re dragging out Clark’s decision to finally “accept his destiny.”

I suppose the up side is them dragging all this out is that not only will we get another season, we will probably get more scenes of Tom and Michael. I do love Clark and Lex scenes. They’re the core of the show, after all. There is no hero without the villain and the protagonist needs his foil, so I’m all for that and they should have as many scenes together as possible. Hopefully Michael will be around at least some next year so Clark can have his nemesis.

And I loved the continuity. I loved that Lex thought that the pie at the diner was the second best he’d ever had. Although he didn’t say, I’d like to think that Martha Kent’s pie was the best. It would show a hint of the love that Lex still has for Clark and the fondness he still has for his memories of their friendship. Lionel coming up with the serum from last season’s “Rage” as the source of Lex’s miracle cure was also good continuity.

It’s intriguing that Lex thought that “growing up” is what moved him out of his friendship with Clark, like being friends with Clark requires naïveté. It’s especially interesting in light of the fact that what goodness he has left is perceived as a child trapped in the nightmarish dreamscape inside his mind. Also, I thought it was an interesting choice that inside his mind Clark was apparently human and Lex was the one that had superhuman strength. He easily pushed Clark around and lifted him up by the neck like how Clark had done to him in the past.

However, if evil Lex was that powerful, I’m curious at his inability to kill Alexander. I wonder if the reason he didn’t kill him was because Lex really doesn’t want to. Maybe he’s not ready to let that part of himself go yet. Or maybe it’s because he was taunting Clark with the threat, like he did by forcing Clark to watch him and Lana be together.

Or maybe he didn’t kill Alexander because he isn’t able to. Maybe Clark is right and that part of Lex is stronger than he thinks he is. I will be really curious to see what, if any, lasting consequences this episode will have on the relationship between Clark and Lex.

This wasn’t a perfect episode, having Lex again get shot again is a bit trite, but what arose from that event more than made up for that hackneyed plot point. The stakes increased for all the characters, but especially Clark, throughout the episode and the action was well paced and kept my interest the entire time. Caroline, Turi and Al did a wonderful job with this script.

Tom Welling was more than awesome this episode. He spent huge amounts of time in this episode with next to no dialogue and yet I had no problem whatsoever telling what Clark is thinking. Tom has a remarkably expressive face and at times it seemed like Clark had warring emotions going through his head all at once as he watched memories unfold inside Lex’s mind.

As much as I loved all of that, probably my favorite parts of “Fracture” were when Tom had scenes with the little boy who played Alexander, Connor Stanhope. What a cute kid to start off with, but the way that Tom played Clark’s loving, protective side was awesome. Even though it was impossible to go back in time and save Lex from his dysfunctional parents, I could see how torn Clark was. He watched and was disgusted by their behavior, and frustrated that he couldn’t do a thing to save Lex from the horrors of his childhood.

Later, when it came time for Clark to protect Alexander, he didn’t hesitate to do what he could for him. He had to do what he could to give Alexander a chance to live, to give him hope that all is not lost. Maybe it is a vain hope, maybe it’s only a matter of time before the good part of Lex gets killed off by his evil half, but the hope and love that Tom radiated when Clark was talking to that little boy was powerful and touching.

I just loved it whenever the two were on the screen together. Tom is so good with kids anyway, but it Connor is such a terrific little actor every moment they were on the screen together was awesome. The way he carried those feelings of love and protectiveness across even in the prickly meeting with Lex later was terrific. I thought this was a fantastic episode for Tom.

Michael Rosenbaum was extremely good. I thought maybe he should have dialed down some of the more over-the-top moments, like when Clark was beating Lex to save Alexander, but despite those I thought the performance was one of his better ones this year. There was a hint of menace in the scenes he had with Kara which I can see made Clark reasonably suspicious of his motives, despite the renewed hope that Lex might still have the ability to be a good person.

Probably my favorite part of Michael’s performance was the way that he played Lex’s reaction to Lionel’s finally admitting he loved Lex. At this point, Lionel should probably give up trying to be the father he never was to Lex, but I liked the way Michael chose to have Lex react. He acted like he was totally over dealing with his father’s fickle emotions and that his latest attempts to reconnect were just too little, too late.

Erica Durance is just wonderful to watch. I loved Lois in this episode. She was feisty and impulsive, which got her into trouble. I loved the way she played the line “Rhetorical question, Lex!” when Finley had a gun to her head. I loved the dual intentions she played with Kara, Lois was caring about Kara but was in a “take charge” mood at the same time. She wasn’t going to let Finley get away with anything if she could help it. I loved how determined she’d played Lois.

Allison Mack was terrific as Chloe. She had some tough decisions to make and you could see how torn she was. She didn’t want to heal Lex because healing Lois nearly killed her and she actually loves Lois. She obviously didn’t want to risk death for Lex, but the fact that she was protecting Clark made it a no-brainer for her. But the little bit of hesitation before she touched Lex was beautiful. She played that moment perfectly. I also really liked her later scene with Clark when they talked about her brush with death and whether she should ever use her abilities again.

Connor Stanhope was completely adorable as Alexander, it was just icing that he could also act. He brought some needed vulnerability to the role. The scenes where Alexander got emotional, like when his parents were being cruel to him (and to each other) and then later when Clark had to leave, were perfectly played. The problem with child actors is that they usually ape the emotional states which are probably demonstrated by adults, the director or whoever. Jodie Foster once talked about how hard it was to be a child actor because of having an adult show you how to display the emotions isn’t the same as knowing how to do it for yourself. Connor clearly wasn’t just copying what other people had shown him. He did an awesome job and was perfect for the part.

The production design was awesome! Lex’s mind was like a German Expressionism movie from the twenties, all dark shapes, tilted doors and skewed viewpoints. I never did like those films much when I was in college, although I guess Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” was pretty good, but boy Glen Winter (and it looked like he had some help from Entity F/X) and James Philpott did that style up right. This was a whole lot more fun than “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” ever was!

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The whole idea of expressionism, for those not familiar with it, was for the production design to reflect the state of the character’s minds. It was a very highly stylized genre, and didn’t last long because of that and that movement did influence Film Noir, but there are more modern takes on the idea. The film based on Frank Miller’s Sin City is an excellent modern example.

However, in a realistic world like Smallville (well, as realistic as a show about an alien with superpowers can be, that is), something that extremely stylized (slanted floors, twisted doors) wouldn’t really work. However, if you go into mind like Lex’s you have the perfect opportunity to explore what he’s really like on a more visual level than would ever have been possible without the device. The designers must have loved this episode.

I only usually have very nice things to say about Costume Designer Caroline Cranstoun’s stuff, but I gotta say that I hated what Lana was wearing in the first act. Yucky. I can kinda see where the matronly look is coming from, getting her out of brighter clothes and jeans and into darker dresses and suits sorta makes sense: she’s growing up and she’s living in a world of grays unlike Clark’s still primary colored world. That said, however, I hope Caroline can avoid putting Lana into any other frumpy suits like the one she wore in the first parts of this episode. She was dressed like she was 40 something woman and not a 20 something girl.

I’ve always wondered just what it is people are always typing when the computers they’re working on have images or video popping up. In the scene with Lana showing Clark and Chloe the images from that project, there was an almost constant typing sound like Lana was writing a novel. Wouldn’t it make sense to have mouse-click noises instead of typing ones? I’m not sure who is responsible for that sort of thing, directors or the F/X people or the sound editors, but maybe they should change that. There were no text boxes on the screen, no open word documents, no databases she was doing searches on… It didn’t make sense.

Again, not perfect, but pretty enjoyable nonetheless: I give his episode 4.5 GPS locator necklaces 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.