Film Fan: Smallville 2.06

Friday, 17 February 2023

Smallville 2.06 - Redux

This episode's freak-of-the-week is Chrissy Parker, played by Maggie Lawson, who also appears as a guest star in the podcast. She's untypical for the series, because her special abilities don't come from the meteor rocks. No attempt is made to explain her abilities. She's at least a hundred years old, based on the research Chloe does into old school records. She remains young by kissing three men and sucking the youth out of their pituitary glands. This causes the men to die of old age. Chrissy is refreshed and remains young for another few years. She goes to a new school with a different name, never arousing suspicion.

Not until now, at least. There's a diligent new school principal who notices that Chrissy has no records from her previous school. There's a high turnover at Smallville High. Terrence Reynolds is the third principal in nine episodes. Principal Kwan was killed in "Crush". Martin Gibbons was the principal in "Red", but there's no explanation why he's no longer principal.

Or is Martin Gibbons really no longer principal? There's some confusion with this episode. It was filmed at the end of season one, probably to be shown as the 21st episode before "Tempest", but it wasn't aired due to scheduling conflicts, and it was finally shown as the sixth episode of season two. That means it takes place before "Red", the fourth episode.

There was disagreement in the podcast as to the fate of Principal Reynolds. Maggie Lawson claims he was killed. Michael Rosenbaum denies this and says he was only knocked out. The fact is that we don't see him again after this scene. He hasn't been drained by Chrissy, because we see that she's rapidly ageing. On the other hand, this might also be because he doesn't have enough to sustain her as an old man. He might also have died as a result of being hit with a stage light. His death would explain why he was replaced by Principal Gibbons a few episodes later. We don't see either principal in later episodes, so we can't be sure.

Chrissy's first victim is Troy Turner, Smallville High's swimming champion. It makes front page news in the local newspaper. If you look carefully you can see that the same text is repeated several times. "When Kent pulled him from the water", etc. That's sloppy.

Chrissy's second victim is Troy's best friend, Russell Burton. He can't resist her kiss.

Clark finds Chrissy kneeling over the unconscious principal in the Talon. Unconscious or dead or dying; make your own mind up.

Chrissy ages before Clark's eyes, and her body finally turns to dust.

There's an interesting subplot in the episode. Clark's parents are struggling to pay the bills, as always, but it seems worse than ever. Martha suggests asking her father for money. He's a successful lawyer in Metropolis. Jonathan doesn't want to accept money from him, because he opposed their marriage and insulted him as a primitive farmer. Jonathan even hit him, and they haven't seen each other since.

Martha invites her father to the house, but Jonathan makes it clear that he isn't welcome. Clark is happy to see his grandfather and says he'll stay in touch, but children say a lot of things. We never see him again.

Another subplot is that Lana finds photos of her mother with another man, photos that were taken after she was married. Her Aunt Nell refuses to give any information. Lex Luthor looks into it, and he finds that her parents were separated for a year and intended to divorce, but changed their minds and reunited. Lana was born when her parents got back together, so the other man must be her father.

In the podcast Tom Welling openly criticises the episode. He says that many of the scenes aren't properly ended, that there's no out. I'm not able to judge this, but he says that this is something he learnt when he began to direct his own episodes.

Michael talks enthusiastically about meeting fans at comic and sci-fi conventions. That's something I miss by living in Germany. He arranges a Smallville night for the fans at each convention. I wish I could be there.

As I mentioned above, Maggie Lawson is this week's guest star in the podcast. Unlike Tom and Michael, she remembers the episode vividly. She suffers from claustrophobia, so it was one of her worst experiences as an actress to wear the prosthetic mask for her old self. She had to sit for four hours while the mask was applied to her face.

The Talon supports Smallville High's football team, the Crows.

This is the Talon's interior. Lana hasn't just inherited a coffee shop, she also has a fully operational cinema. That's a good venue for silent films and monster movies.