Smallville 1.11 - Hug

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The episode's opening credits scene shows Clark, Chloe and Lana riding horses in the woods outside Smallville. We've seen Lana on horseback in past episodes, but it's the first time we've seen the others riding. Clark and Lana are skilled riders, but Chloe has a problem controlling her horse. That's the way the actress plays it. In the podcast Tom Welling tells us that Allison Mack was actually a better rider than he was.

The episode has a dual freak-of-the-week. There are two men who've been affected by the meteor rocks in the same way, but only one of them uses his power for evil. The other prefers not to use his power at all. Bob Rickman and Kyle Tippet used to be salesmen in Smallville, selling farming equipment. They were trapped in a car when the meteors fell. After this they both gained the power to persuade anything to do anything by shaking their hand. Using this power, they became Smallville's salesmen of the year for three consecutive years. Then Kyle became afraid of his power and wanted to withdraw from society. He moved into a cabin in the woods, and Rick agreed to leave Smallville and never come back.

The thing that puzzled me about the episode while I watched it was the title. Why is it called "Hug"? There's no hugging in the episode. Shouldn't it have been called "Handshake"? Maybe that wouldn't be such a sexy title. This very question was the first thing discussed by Tom and Michael at the beginning of the podcast. They also have no idea why the title was picked.

But getting back to the horses: Chloe drops her camera, so Lana rides back to retrieve it. There's a scream. Clark runs and finds Lana on the ground with a man, the aforementioned hermit Kyle Tippet, leaning over her. Lana claims he's assaulting her, but Kyle says she fell off her horse and knocked herself unconscious, so he went to her to wake her. Clark believes Kyle. This leads to arguments between Clark and Lana, something we haven't seen in the series so far.

Despite his promise, Rick wants to return to Smallville to open a pesticide plant. The ideal location is Jonathan Kent's home. Jonathan refuses to sell, but after one handshake he signs a contract, and worst of all, he can't even remember signing it. That's the way the handshake power works. A person is told to do something, anything at all, and this becomes his top priority. After the task is completed, whether it takes minutes or hours, the person goes back to normal, forgetting everything that's happened.

Kyle demonstrates the power by telling Chloe to kiss Clark. She already had a crush on him, so she didn't need much persuading, but immediately afterwards she forgets that she's kissed him. It's something Clark will never forget. Tom Welling also remembers the kiss, 21 years later. It was awkward for him. He and Allison Mack were friends while filming the show, and suddenly they were asked to kiss. He says that kissing on screen was always awkward, but as the years went by he learnt how to deal with it.

Kyle and Rick are in many ways like Clark and Lex will become. They were best friends, but now they've become enemies. Rick sends a policeman to kill Kyle. In the process, we see that Clark has a new power, or at least an existing power that he didn't know about. He dodges bullets when the policeman is shooting, something he did before in the episode "Rogue", but some of the bullets hit him. The impact knocks him over, but the bullets don't pierce his skin. He only has light bruises.

Lex doesn't see this happening. He honestly believes he and Clark will be friends forever.

In the podcast about "Jitters" Al Gough said that all scripts had to be approved by Peter, but I couldn't figure out who Peter was, and my questions on Twitter weren't answered. In this episode's podcast Michael Rosenbaum made it clear. Al was talking about Peter Roth, who was the president of Warner Bros Television at the time.

Each week Michael Rosenbaum updates a death count for the series. That's typical for a fan of horror films! So far 16 people have died. Tom Welling made an amusing comment on this. If 16 people died unrelated deaths in 11 weeks in a small town –  Michael Rosenbaum thinks the time frame is less – the FBI would be sent in to investigate.

The podcasts are becoming more relaxed from week to week. It's obvious that Tom and Michael like one another, and they're enjoying the regular contact with one another years after they stopped working together. Their friendship will be the stuff of legend.

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