Smallville 2.13 - Suspect

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Jonathan Kent is in jail? How did that happen? The episode opens with dramatic events that set it apart from the rest of the series. The cinematography also has a different style to everything that goes before.

Lionel Luthor is sitting in Lex's mansion reading a book in the dark. In previous podcasts doubts have been raised whether he's faking his blindness. This scene proves that he's truly blind. Instead of reading, he's using a text-to-voice machine. He's reading Friedrich Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil". I haven't read the book and don't intend to, so I'll only comment on the one sentence that he hears before ceasing.

"That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil".

Lionel pauses the reading machine (which looks like a television remote control) and seems to be thinking it over. Does he agree with what he's just read? The words seem to make sense. Nietzsche is saying that there's a higher morality than good and evil. Yes, I know that morality is the wrong word, but I can't think of a better word. Morality is a concept based on the idea of good and evil as the absolute forces in the world. Nietzsche is claiming that there's something higher. He's arguing against the morality in Judaism and Christianity.

What conclusion does Lionel Luthor reach? We don't know, because he's shot by an unseen assailant a few seconds later. Sometimes we can best understand philosophy by looking at its results. The most famous follower of Nietzsche's philosophy was Adolf Hitler. Nietzsche's writings were an inspiration for him, even though he nominally believed in Christianity. He applied this quote to himself by saying that he loved Germany, so whatever he did for Germany couldn't be called evil. This is the result of abandoning the morality of the Abrahamic religions. Nietzsche's words sound intuitively correct, but they have to be analysed by those with philosophical training.

I've struggled with the concept of good and evil all my life. I've been unable to find a satisfactory definition. What I do know is that Nietzsche is wrong to abandon the concept of good and evil altogether. That's an atheist's viewpoint. The theistic definition of good and evil is that whatever God wants is good, and whatever he doesn't want is evil. That's a simplistic idea, but even this has counterexamples in the Bible. Moses contradicted God, and God gave way.

My first ideas about good and evil began when I was 14. For me, being good meant doing things for my mother. I made her breakfast, and I did the washing up before she woke up in the morning. (My father got up earlier than her, and he was already out of the house by the time I got up). For me, being good meant doing things to make others happy.

That's a higher morality than the Wiccan concept, "Do what you will, but hurt none". That's a passive morality. A Wiccan could be good by doing what his mother tells him to do. I did more than was expected from me.

One sentence that is sometimes called the ultimate definition of good is the words "Do to others what you would have them do to you" (Matthew 7:12). Jesus goes on to say that this sums up the Law and the Prophets. This is a rule that goes further than the Wiccan rule, because it's active, not passive. Nevertheless, it also has problems. For instance, I might see a beautiful woman and want her to make sexual advances to me, so the words of Jesus would make me touch her first, That's intuitively wrong, but what makes me think it's wrong? Maybe I should paraphrase Jesus' words: "Do to others what you would want done to them if you were in their body". That would prevent the sexual advances, but it still has problems. A person might want me to give him money, especially if I'm a rich person. Most people would want this. This would result in me giving away all my money, even to those who would use the money for evil purposes.

Money is a key factor in considering good and evil. In 1. Timothy 6:10 the Apostle Paul writes "The love of money is the root of all evil". That's actually a mistranslation; it should be "The love of money is a root of all evil", which sounds awkward in English. I'd paraphrase it as, "The love of money is the root of most evils". Last month was my grandson Oliver's birthday. He was given money by some of his relatives. Not me. I don't give money. Today he showed me his wallet. Together with the new money, he has more than 220 Euros. That makes him happy. He boasted about it. It made me sad. Why should a seven-year-old boy be so happy because of money? When my son Norman was his age he was also proud of his money. He kept it a jar in his room. It was a lot less than 220 Euros. I thought it was sweet and laughed about it. That was silly of me. Now that he's an adult (37) he's totally addicted to money. There's no way to talk any sense into him. In 2017 he beat me up, punching me, knocking me on the floor and kicking me. The reason was that he (wrongly) thought I wanted his money. Instead of talking to me and finding out what I really wanted, he started punching. That's how the love of money can corrupt a person.

I don't think I'll ever find a solution to my questions about good and evil. I feel I'm almost there, but the answer is just round the corner. And when I go round the corner there's another corner. I have the intuitive feeling that there's an absolute definition of good and evil, but the closer I get the more I feel that it doesn't exist. It looks more and more like good and evil are relative, not absolute concepts. I'm like a film critic who criticises the films made my others but can't make his own films. It's easy for me to tear down the concepts that others make about good and evil, but I'm incapable of putting an alternative in their place.

There's a lot more that I could say about good and evil. If you have any questions or suggestions, my comments box below this post is the place to contact me. But for now, I should get back to the episode.

As I said above, after finishing the book, Lionel is shot. This is a scene we see repeated four times in the episode as flashbacks. In each of the flashbacks we see a different person shooting Lionel. This is similar to the flashbacks in the episode "Zero", in which we see three different people shooting Jude. The difference is that in "Zero" it's left open which flashback tells the true story. "Suspect" is more of a whodunnit, and at the end we find out who the murderer was.

The first suspect is Jonathan Kent. He's arrested by the Smallville police, who find him drunk at the wheel of his car. He claims that he only drank half a beer at the Wild Coyote bar, but the barman says that he drank several beers, followed by a bottle of tequila, while ranting about his hatred of Lionel Luthor.

Jonathan has a motive for killing Lionel. He's found the watch that Lionel gave his wife as a gift in last week's episode. He's also found holding the gun in his hand that shot Lionel. Clark is certain that someone's set him up, so he investigates the case himself.

There are other suspects. Lionel's assistant Dominic is convinced that Lex is the murderer, because Lionel has recently bought a controlling interest in Lex's fledgling company, Lexcorp, forcing Lex to return to Luthorcorp full time. When Clark hears this story, he goes to the Luthor mansion to challenge Lex. There may have been differences of opinion in the past, but this is the first major argument between Lex and Clark. It's the first time that Lex throws Clark out of the mansion. Lex doesn't like being called a murderer. He's of the opinion that Dominic killed Lionel. Except Lionel isn't dead, he's in a coma in the hospital. Everyone hopes that he can name the would-be murderer when he wakes up.

Surprise, surprise! The killer is actually the sheriff, Ethan Miller. As a whodunnit, this is an unsatisfying conclusion to the story. There are no clues in the earlier parts of the episode that he might be the one. There's nothing that could make the viewer say, "Of course! I should have guessed!";Ethan has a motive which we aren't told until after he's discovered trying to kill Lionel in the hospital. In order to buy out Lex's company, he had to persuade the Lexcorp board of directors to sell him their shares. He paid Ethan to give him information on their past offences, so he could blackmail them into selling. Ethan told Lionel it was a one time offer and he'd never work for him again, but Lionel threatened to blackmail Ethan into working for him on a regular basis.

It's not just that there were no clues in this episode; Sheriff Ethan has appeared in many episodes prior to this one – to be precise, 13 episodes – and there were no hints that he might be a dirty cop.

In the podcast, Michael Rosenbaum talks a lot about his disappointment with the way the episode ended. There was a powerful build up throughout the episode, but at the end there was a conclusion that made no sense. I agree. As a way of writing a character out of the series, it sucked. There was no logical reason for the sheriff to be the killer. It should have been Dominic, who also appears in this episode for the last time.

There's one thing I'd like to point out. Michael Rosenbaum was asked whether he used to read the whole script when he appeared in an episode. He said that it depended on his importance in an episode. If his role affected the story, he used to read the whole script. If his role was a B-story with no effect on the episode overall, he didn't read the script. My question is, how would he know about his relevance to an episode if he didn't read the script first?

I'm surprised that the cinematography wasn't mentioned in the podcast. In the flashbacks the picture was dark and gloomy. In the present day scenes the picture is slightly out of focus, giving it a dreamlike quality. I find the cinematography very effective for the story.

As always, I've written more about the episode itself than the podcast. That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy the podcast. I love to hear the banter between Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum. In this podcast especially, it wasn't so much what they said, it was the way they said it. As the podcasts continue, they're getting used to being together, at least by video link, and they're getting more relaxed in their conversations. How much contact did they have in the ten years before the podcast started? I'm sure they met at conventions, but the contact is nowhere near as intense as it is now. They talk to one another on a weekly basis. They're two good friends who drifted apart, but now they're back together and they're having a great time. I love the podcasts, and I can hardly wait a week for the next one to be posted.

When the podcast first started, I wondered if I'd be prompted to ring in with questions. Now I know that it won't happen. Yes, I have questions, but they don't usually come until after watching the weekly podcast. Besides, it wouldn't fit my blogging schedule. I watch the episode and the podcast back to back. There's no way I'd watch an episode weeks in advance in order to ask a question. I love the podcast, and I'll support it in my own way, by writing my reviews each week.

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