Smallville 2.01 - Vortex

Click here to view the podcast. It's been a long wait. The podcast of the last episode was broadcast five weeks ago. Tom and Michael must have taken a break over the holidays. The time was filled with two "Best Of" podcasts, which I watched but didn't review. That's because of the style of my reviews. I'm inspired by the podcasts, but my tendency is to write more about the original episodes than the podcasts themselves.

The episode begins immediately after the season finale of the first season. Lana's car has been ripped into the sky by the tornado. We see Clark pulling her out of the car as she looks on incredulously. He says later on that he doesn't know how he reached the car. He doesn't know whether the tornado lifted him up or he was flying. It all happened too fast for him to pay attention.

At the same time, the spaceship flies from the silo across the field and gets caught by the tornado. It's sucked into the air. Then it's struck by lightning. The octagonal key is displaced, and the ship falls down into a cornfield. We'll find out in a future episode whose field it is.

Jonathan Kent is chasing Roger Nixon across the fields. Together they run into the ruins of a buried church, but the exit is blocked by a trailer that falls from the sky. Most of the episode shows the two men in the claustrophobic environment. Roger argues (quite rightly) that Clark would be better serving the world than doing chores on a farm. Then he spoils his good advice by saying that if he had Clark's abilities he'd be incredibly rich.

Clark's first job is to carry Lana to the hospital. She only has minor injuries, but she thinks she might be delusional because she saw Clark high in the air rescuing her.

At the end of the last episode we also saw Lionel Luthor in danger, pinned to the ground by a column in Luthor Mansion. It looked like Lex was going to let his father die, but in this episode he changes his mind and pulls Lionel to safety. In hospital an emergency operation is necessary on Lionel's optical nerves. I don't understand how they were damaged, I would have expected his ribs to be broken, but the operation fails, and Lionel is blind. He tells Lex that he wishes he were dead. I can understand that. People who are born blind or lose their eyesight while young learn to live with their disability, but if I became blind now it would ruin my life and make me want to die as well. No more films. No more blogging. No more looking at beautiful women like Allison Mack.

Chloe and Pete offer to help Clark search for his father. It's more of a hindrance than help. If he were searching alone he'd be able to rush through the fields at super speed, but now he's forced to search at their speed. He's further slowed down by an ill timed heart-to-heart talk from Chloe. In the last episode a romance was developing between her and Clark. Now she asks if they should remain just friends. He says Yes, but minutes later Pete finds her crying. She probably just said it to test Clark, to see if he really wanted her. She didn't like the answer she got.

Eventually Clark finds his father, with help from Lex Luthor and Pete. Lex had rung Roger Nixon's cell phone, but Jonathan smashed the phone when he realised it was was Lex on the phone. He thought (wrongly) that Lex also wanted to exploit Clark's abilities. The tornado had knocked down almost all of the telephone masts, so Lex deduced that the phone was within a kilometer of the one remaining mast. Pete had an old map of the area that showed a church near the mast, no longer used because it had been destroyed by the meteor shower. Clark finds the spot and hears sounds near the trailer. As soon as Chloe and Pete are out of sight he overturns the trailer and enters the buried church.

Clark wants to pull his father out, but the hole is full of meteor rocks, and he collapses. Jonathan explains to Roger Nixon that the rocks make him weak. Roger puts a rock in Clark's jacket pocket and drags him to safety. Jonathan manages to follow them, and he fights with Roger while Clark lies unconscious.

Roger Nixon overpowers Jonathan. He wants to kill him with a jagged metal bar. His newspaper article is worth more than any man's life.

But Lex Luthor arrives and shoots Roger from behind. The one shot kills him immediately.

Lex stands over the dead body. What are his thoughts?

They say that when you kill someone for the first time there are two possible results. Some people are filled with overwhelming guilt that haunts them for years. Others feel a rush, enjoying the power they have over life and death. Lex's facial expressions show no trace of guilt.

In the podcast Michael Rosenbaum says that Lex has killed before, in the episode "Zero". I don't think he's right, or at least it isn't a clear cut case. There are three contradictory flashbacks about the death of the young man called Jude. In the first flashback a security guard shoots him, in the second flashback Lex shoots him, in the third flashback Jude's girlfriend Amanda shoots him. It's deliberately kept vague what really happened, but Lex's cryptic words three years later suggest that Amanda was the killer. Apart from that, when false flashbacks are shown, it's usual that the final flashback is the one that tells the truth. I personally think that today is Lex's first killing, and it has a profound effect on him.

I'm happy to see that Tom Welling has been given a new camera for Christmas. A present from his wife? Maybe. It gives a much clearer picture than his old camera. Judging by the quality, he now has a 4K camera, whereas his old camera barely managed single density. He looks even clearer than Michael Rosenbaum in the studio, who probably uses a high density (1080p) camera.

It's interesting that Tom hardly remembers filming this episode. There were questions from listeners about how the big special effects were filmed, Lana's truck being ripped open and the trailer being overturned, but Tom can't remember either of them. He just has vague memories of special effects in general. Whatever he did was easy, but he had to make it look difficult. He also remembers that his stunt man used to give him advice for scenes where he had to perform his own stunts.

All three of the podcast participants (Michael Rosenbaum, Tom Welling and Ryan Tellez) agreed that this is the best episode since the pilot. I don't like to rate individual episodes, but in this case I agree with them. It's an exciting, action-filled episode from beginning to end. The only fault is that it's too short. The standard 45 minute length required for the network slot wasn't enough.

It's pointed out that the opening credits have been changed in the second season. Eric Johnson is no longer shown, which means that we can't expect to see Whitney Fordham again after he enlisted with the US marines last episode. In his place, John Glover is now shown in the credits. This reflects his promotion from a recurring guest star to a member of the regular cast.

The Talon is being used as the tornado relief centre.

Ryan, the podcast's new viewer, remarked that this episode looks brighter and warmer than the first season. He's right. Michael and Tom explain that the look has been achieved by using bigger lenses on the cameras. That may be true, but what's more important is why the change has been made.

The larger lenses emphasise the foreground while making the background look blurred. In this screenshot Annette O'Toole looks stunning as Martha Kent. I've never seen her look so beautiful. Did the change in lighting and appearance come from the cameraman or the director (Greg Beeman) himself? Maybe next week's episode will give more clues.

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