Smallville 1.08 - Jitters

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Whatever else might be happening in this episode, one thing stands out. It shows the return of John Glover as Lionel Luthor. He's a powerful actor who impresses me every time I see him. He can express more with his eyes than other actors can say with long speeches.

The freak-of-the-week is Earl Jenkins, a man who used to work on Jonathan Kent's farm. He left to work at the Luthorcorp fertiliser plant because the job paid better. While sweeping the floor in the plant's underground Level Three there was an explosion. In this level plants were sprayed with a green mist that made them grow twice as fast. Earl was covered with the mist, and ever since then he's had sporadic uncontrollable shakes. Jitters. The shaking is so strong that everything around him also shakes.

Earl has seen doctors, but nobody has been able to cure him. He attempts to see Lionel Luthor in Metropolis, because Lionel was the head of the fertiliser plant when the explosion occurred. He accidentally kills a security guard when his jitters return, so he runs to the Kent farm for help. Clark realises he's sick, so he sends Earl to hospital, but now he's wanted for murder. The doctors tell Clark that Earl has minerals inside his skin, and the jitters are his body trying to eject them.

By coincidence, there's a field trip for Clark's school to the fertiliser plant the next day. Clark asks about Level Three, but he's told that there's no Level Three. At the same time Earl escapes from the police guarding him in hospital and walks to the plant. He tries to visit Level Three, but there's a brick wall where the elevator used to be.

In the meantime, Earl takes the school class hostage while he demands to be taken to Level Three. Lex Luthor arrives and insists there's no Level Three. Lionel Luthor also arrives and criticises Lex for not handling the crisis better. He confirms that there's no Level Three. Lex says he'll go to speak to Earl in person. Lionel tells Lex to stay away, but Lex insists on doing things his own way.

In my opinion, this subtle smile is the highlight of the whole episode. Despite their disagreement, Lionel is proud of his son for standing up for himself. Lionel is emotionally distant, so this smile is the closest he can get to showing affection. It's moving. These few seconds give the episode emotional depth.

Lex tries to reason with Earl. He honestly believes that there's no Level Three. There hasn't been a Level Three since he took over the factory in the first episode. While Lex is talking to Earl, Clark finds the brick wall and breaks it down so that he can get to the elevator. Lex persuades Earl to release the children, after which Clark leads Earl and the dumbfounded Lex to Level Three. It's empty now, but the existence of the Level shows that Lionel Luthor was lying; he was trying to cover something up.

There are too many details in this episode to discuss them all, so I'll move on to the podcast. This week the special guests are Al Gough and Miles Millar, the creators of the Smallville series. They have very good memories of this episode, because it was a problem episode. It should have been the third episode of the series, but because of repeated problems it had to be pushed back. The original director (Michael Watkins?) walked out and left the episode unfinished, so other episodes had to be filmed while they were looking for a replacement. Bits and pieces of the episode were filmed over the following weeks until it was finally finished.

Al Gough and Miles Millar were both young men when the series began, 34 and 31 respectively. Hearing this is a shock for Tom Welling, because he always looked up to them as older and wiser. Tom was 24 at the time, so they weren't much older than him.

Al and Miles tell a lot of stories about their time with the series. They were impressed with the quality of the pilot, but they didn't know if they could keep it up. They hoped that "Smallville" would last at least four seasons. In the early days they kept full control of the scripts. They wrote all the scripts themselves for the first two seasons. The scripts had to be approved by someone called Peter. I have no idea who that is. Was he a Warner Bros executive? The buck stopped with Al and Miles. They were the ones who had to make the series work. And they succeeded. They created a masterpiece of television – however modest Michael Rosenbaum may be with his cautious rose'n'bomb ratings – and they laid a solid foundation for the future careers of Tom and Michael.

Al Gough defends the freak-of-the-week format used in the first season. He says this was standard for series at the time, naming "Buffy" and "Supernatural" as examples. Michael Rosenbaum should stop complaining about the freak-of-the-week episodes. They work well.

This was the best Talkville podcast so far. The conversation between Tom, Michael, Al and Miles is entertaining and informative at the same time. After they signed off Ryan Tellez said that they could have carried on talking for two hours. Yes, they could have, and it wouldn't have been boring for a moment.

Here are the two Luthors. It's a dysfunctional family, and finding out that Lionel was lying about the existence of Level Three makes the distrust even stronger. It's a contrast to the happy relationship that Clark has with his parents.

In the final scene we see the two families. Clark is surrounded by loving parents, while Lex receives a cold hug from his father, possibly only for the reporters. Lex watches Clark jealously.

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