Smallville 2.11 - Visage

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This episode features the return of Whitney Fordham, Lana's ex-boyfriend, who we last saw in the final episode of season one, "Tempest". He left Smallville to join the marines. While they were separated, he remained Lana's boyfriend, but she sent him a videotape message in the episode "Heat" in which she broke up with him. Despite this they remained in regular contact by mail, but in last week's episode we heard that he's missing in action.

This week we see what happened. Whitney and other soldiers in his platoon were in Aceh Province, Indonesia under heavy fire. There was a big explosion in front of him. Was it enough to kill him? It looks fatal, but this episode will give us an answer.

What confuses me about this scene is the location of the conflict. I hoped it would be discussed in the podcast, but it wasn't mentioned. I couldn't remember America being involved in a military conflict in Indonesia in 2002. I looked it up online, and there was an insurgency in Indonesia at the time, but I couldn't find any reports of American involvement. I'm not patient enough to do a deeper research, so I'd be happy if any of my readers can leave comments about American soldiers being killed in Indonesia.

A short time later Whitney walks into Smallville High School. Lana sees him and runs into his arms. Is it the smart military uniform, or just joy that he's not dead after all? Judging by his actions, he doesn't intend to return to the marines. He claims that the explosion has made him forget a lot, including the videotape sent by Lana. He wants to pick up where they left off. He proposes marriage and asks her to move in with him.

But Whitney has changed. He has random outbursts of anger. Lex Luthor suggests that it's post traumatic stress disorder, but that doesn't explain his increased strength. After Clark is tossed through the air by Whitney, he examines him with his x-ray vision, and he sees a green tint in his skeleton. This is something I didn't pick up when watching the episode. It happened so fast, and I didn't notice the pale green tint. That's a good reason to watch television episodes (and films) more than once. Clark sees the green tint and recognises it as Tina Greer, the shape-changer from the episode "X-Ray", early in season one. 

In her previous appearance Tina seemed to be obsessed with Lana as a childhood friend. In this episode it goes a step further. Nothing is expressed explicitly, because it's a family television programme, but there are hints that Tina has lesbian feelings for Lana, both romantic and sexual. While in the form of Chloe, Tina touches Lana's shoulder. As we already know, Lana is 100% heterosexual, so the only way Tina can get close to her is by using Whitney's body. When she finds out that Lana doesn't want to be with Whitney, she uses Clark's body.

That works. Tina-Clark makes aggressive advances to Lana in the Talon, forcing a kiss on her, but Lana doesn't even attempt to resist. It's what she's wanted for years. It might have developed even further if the real Clark hadn't walked in. Lana is knocked out, and the two Clarks go outside to have a fight in the alleyway. It's an exciting fight, but too short. In the podcast it's stated that the fight actually lasted five times as long, but 80% was cut for the television broadcast. That's disgusting.

Tom Welling insists that he doesn't remember kissing Kristin, neither in this episode nor his previous kisses. It doesn't make sense. I wouldn't have forgotten kissing a girl as hot as Kristin Kreuk.

It's often claimed that Lana Lang is the best looking girl in school. I agree, and here's the proof.

If you think any girl in the school is prettier, please send me a large photo so I can decide.

I can already hear the complaints. "Dancer is objectifying women and judging them by their looks". I don't deny it. All I can say in my defence is that it works the other way round. In the episode Clark is doing the plumbing and he's sprayed with water. Lana can't take her eyes off Tom's chest in his wet T-shirt. My only regret is that Lana's shirt remained dry.

There's an open question in the episode that Michael and Tom failed to point out in the podcast. Whitney evidently died in the explosion, but how did Tina know about it? She was impersonating a dead man, but how did she know he was dead?

There's a strange scene in the episode. Clark has been immobilised by Tina putting a meteor rock necklace round his neck and throwing him in the storm cellar. The space ship hums into life and shines a light which changes the rock's colour from green to transparent. It's also shining a light. Clark recovers immediately. This leaves other questions open. Is the ship monitoring Clark to protect him? And how is it possible for the meteor rock's effects to be disabled? I tried to find answers to my questions about last week's episode "Skinwalker", but I couldn't find anyone with knowledge of Superman lore. Now more questions have been thrown up, but this time I'm almost certain that it's a deviation from the comics.

There's a sub-plot in the episode about Helen Bryce, the doctor that we met two weeks ago in the episode "Dichotic". It hasn't been mentioned until now, but she's been dating Lex ever since their first meeting. She told Lex that she doesn't know his father, but a private investigator has taken photos of them together. Further investigations told Lex that Lionel has transferred $100,000 to her bank account. His assumption is that Lionel is paying her to gain influence over his son. Initially there are arguments, and Helen storms out. Later in the episode she tells Lex that Lionel had paid her to leave Lex, but she refused to be bought. I don't understand why Lionel disapproves of their union. Maybe it'll be explained in an upcoming episode.

At the end of the episode Clark is standing alone in the caves, looking at the inscriptions. Lana's formerly green bracelet is shining enough light to see them. He hopes to find clues to his past. Lana arrives, maybe because she was following him. She's sad about Whitney's death, so he comforts her.

In the podcast Tom Welling says that he was surprised at several points when he watched the episode. Once more, I'm surprised at how much he's forgotten. He remembers the Clark vs Clark fight that he had with his stunt double Chris Sayour, but that's about it. I can clearly remember things that I did at work 20 or even 40 years ago, but maybe it's different for him. I did large projects that ran for many months at a time. Tom made more than 200 episodes, which can be considered mini-projects. I can excuse him for forgetting the details, especially if he didn't watch the finished episodes at the time. I just don't understand how he forgot the kisses. 

The podcast's guest star is Eric Johnson, the actor who played Whitney Fordham. He says that before the podcast he watched the episode for the first time since it was aired in January 2003. He seems to have a better memory of the episode than Tom. Mostly Eric speaks about his general experiences on the show. He was fired from the show at short notice. He was always the last to know when there were changes. His information about his character's future always came from reading the scripts. At first he was told that he'd be in six episodes in season two. Then it was reduced to two. It finally turned out that he only appeared in one episode. Television is a tough business. Eric wasn't even given advance notice so that he could find another job.

Smallville's fan Micky sends another question by video message. This is her third appearance, as far as I remember. She has the habit of writing messages that are visible, but unrelated to her question. This time she mysteriously has an incomplete message. She's obviously one of Smallville's biggest fans. It would be good to invite her as a guest on the podcast. She sounds like an interesting person.

 

This episode opens with a panoramic view of the Talon. It's a scene that's been used twice before, in "Tempest" and "Duplicity". Maybe more often, but I'm too lazy to scour through all of my Smallville posts today.

Here's another view of the Talon. I can't remember when or if this scene was used before.

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