Smallville 3.14 - Obsession

This episode was first broadcast on 18th February 2004.

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What a beautiful girl! Michael Rosenbaum says that when Sarah Carter walked onto the set of "Smallville" his jaw dropped. "Who's she?" Tom Welling is more restrained and just says that he got on very well with her. What's noticeable is that both of them have very clear memories of this episode. She had a lasting impression on them.

The episode begins with Lionel Luthor leading a class from Smallville High School through Luthorcorp. Just look at the way their teacher, Mrs. Allen, is looking at him. She idolises him.

Two members of the class are Clark Kent and Chloe Sullivan. They know him personally, so they're not so dazzled by Lionel.

His advice to the class is: "You're all here to learn something about business. The most important element in anything to do with economic theory is the individual. Traditional rules, supply and demand, are secondary. But to rise above those rules, to know when to break them, requires absolute personal commitment. I consider it a prerequisite for success".

I think that's hypocritical. Breaking the rules is a privilege Lionel reserves for himself. If any of his employees break the rules, they're fired. Chloe makes a comment on this, which is overheard by the teacher, so Chloe and Clark are separated. Clark has to take the next elevator.

The only other person in the elevator is Alicia, played by Sarah Carter. Poor Clark is embarrassed by being so close to her and covers his crotch with his hands, trying to think about football.

Clark shuffles awkwardly from leg to leg, which only makes it more obvious.

"Aren't you going to press the button, Clark?"

When the elevator finally starts moving they trade glances. No words are spoken. Clark is embarrassed, but Alicia isn't. She's used to the effect that she has on the boys in school.

The atmosphere changes fast. There's a clunk, and the elevator begins to fall. Clark reacts fast. He uses his heat vision to destroy the security camera, and then he smashes the side of the elevator. He grabs a pole, and the elevator grinds to a halt. Alicia gazes at him in amazement.

Clark tells Alicia, "Please don't tell anyone about this". The Luthorcorp security guards begin to break open the door, but he's still holding the elevator in place at the 19th floor. Alicia puts her hands on his shoulders. and they teleport to the ground floor. The elevator begins to fall again, and it crashes next to them. Alicia says, "Now you know my secret too. You can't tell anybody". They make an excuse about the crash happening after they got out.

The next day Clark meets Alicia while walking to school. Doesn't the school bus take kids all the way to the school grounds? This is the first time we've seen snow on the ground in Smallville. Alicia tells him that her teleportation powers began the day of the meteor shower. When she asks Clark if he was given his powers by the meteor shower, he doesn't want to tell the whole truth, so he just says that everything is connected with the meteor shower.

In school Clark asks Alicia if he can work as her partner on their economics project. She asks if it's a date, which he denies, so she asks if they can go on a date. He accepts.

In the podcast Tom Welling says that he felt like a dork around Sarah Carter, so he was acting naturally in the episode. He might have been 26 at the time, but he felt like a nervous 16-year-old around her.

They go to the cinema. We aren't told what film they saw, but I checked what was in the cinema in February 2004. "Mean Girls"? That would have been a laugh. "The Notebook"? That would be more appropriate for a romantic first date. "The Girl Next Door"? Now that would have been a good film to get Clark's teenage hormones even more worked up. I'm sure that Alicia picked the film, so that must have been her choice.

Clark drives her home. Her family still hasn't taken down the Christmas decorations. I'm not a fan of Christmas, but I love Christmas lights, and I think they should be used all year round. I put Christmas lights in my bedroom window one year, and I liked them so much that I kept them in my room for two years. I turned them on every night when I went to bed.

Alicia wants to give Clark a goodnight kiss, but he's too shy. He goes home alone.

At 4 o'clock Clark wakes up and finds Alicia in his bed.

She's come to collect her goodnight kiss.

Clark doesn't even try to resist.

Not that he has a chance to resist. Alicia is in control.

This must have been a hard scene for Tom Welling as an actor. Very, very hard.

But then the door opens and Clark's father walks in. At 4 am? I know they're farmers, but that's ridiculous!

"No, Dad, this isn't what it looks like".

Jonathan leaves the room. Alicia teleports out. When Clark has finally cooled down he gets dressed and goes downstairs for a family meeting. He tells his parents about Alicia's powers, and that she knows about some of his powers. His father asks if he told her about his susceptibility to meteor rocks, which he denies. But she's still in the house listening to the conversation.

At school everyone knows about Clark's date with Alicia. She's been boasting about it. When Clark opens his locker, he finds it full of photos of Alicia. How did they get in there? Did she pick his lock? Does she also have the power to teleport other objects? Or is it just a blunder by the script writers? Tom and Michael don't rise this question in the podcast. Let's just suspend disbelief for a moment. Clark feels like she's going too far and says they should slow down.

Clark visits Alicia's house to talk to her parents. They say that they used to keep her locked in a lead room to stop her teleporting. They warn Clark away, telling him that Alicia's last boyfriend came to a bad end.

Clark goes back home and finds his loft is filled with photos of Alicia. In his school yearbook Lana's photo has been scratched out. Alicia thinks that Clark still loves Lana, but he says that he can't be with her because she couldn't cope with his secrets. Alicia receives a phone call, telling her that her father is in hospital. He's fallen down the stairs. Clark asks Alicia if she did it, and she just teleports away.

When he returns home, Clark finds Alicia in the house. He tells her to turn herself in to the police, but Alicia makes a veiled threat. She says that as long as they keep each other's secrets both their families will be safe. Then she teleports away again.

Clark asks Chloe for help. She goes to Alicia's house and says that the police suspect Clark for attacking her father, after he tried to break up their relationship. She tells them where Clark is hiding. It's unclear where it is, maybe a room on the farm, but Clark has painted the walls with lead paint. Alicia can't teleport away, but she holds out a meteor rock and Clark collapses. Alicia kisses the helpless Clark and walks away.

Alicia blames Lana for everything. She goes to the Talon and threatens to kill her. In the meantime, Clark kicks over a paint pot, and the meteor rock is covered. He rushes to the Talon and finds Lana unconscious at Alicia's mercy. He throws a paint pot at her. She's covered with lead paint and can't escape.

What happens next? We don't know. Clark can't call the police, because they'll give her a shower, and then she'll be able to escape again. Maybe he took her back to her parents and the lead room. It's a big plot hole that this question isn't dealt with.

The next day Lana visits Clark. She says that Alicia told her that Clark told her the truth about himself. This disappoints her.

The episode has a subplot about Adam Knight. Lana breaks into his room in the Talon and goes through his things. She finds a notebook in which he's been keeping track of Lana and Clark. It's recent. The last few pages were 22nd to 26th January. When he comes in she threatens to evict him, but he tells her that tenants are protected by law.

Lana reads up on it, and she finds that it would take about six months to evict Adam. She asks Lex for help. He says that there are methods which are much faster. We can imagine what he means.

A few days later Adam is gone. Lana wants to thank Lex, but he says that he has nothing to do with it.

In the final scene we see Adam tied to a chair in front of Lionel Luthor. Lionel says that he planted Adam in Smallville to find information about Clark Kent, but he's failed, so now their partnership has ended. Dr. Teng arrives with Adam's medication, but Lionel takes it off her and says he won't be given it any more. They walk out of the room, leaving Adam alone in the dark.

In the podcast Michael and Tom are asked if they've had any psycho ex-girlfriends. They both answer Yes, but they refuse to talk about it. Come on, guys! It would have been interesting to hear about them. You don't need to tell us their names.

I didn't have any psycho ex-girlfriends. If anything, I was the psycho ex-boyfriend. No, I didn't try to kill anyone, but in some cases I stalked my ex-girlfriends. That was in my mid-teens. In retrospect, I wasn't a very pleasant person, but by the time I was 20 I calmed down. I'm ashamed of the way I treated my ex-girlfriends.

Always hold on to Smallville

and...

Bring back the Blu-rays.