This is an interesting and unusual episode. There's very little action, but a
lot of drama. In the podcast Tom Welling says that it's an episode that he'd
recommend to anyone who's never watched "Smallville". I disagree with him.
It's a good episode, but it's untypical, so a first-time viewer would get the
wrong impression of the series.
A woman called Rachel Dunleavy arrives in Smallville. She claims to be Clark's
mother. This is because she gave her son Lucas to the adoption agency
Metropolis United Charities, and records show that only one child was ever
given for adoption by this agency before it closed: Clark Kent. This obviously
can't be, because Clark came to Earth in a spaceship.
Rachel nursed Lionel Luthor's wife while she was ill. During this time she
also had an affair with Lionel. Lucas is Lionel Luthor's illegitimate son. She
tells Lex about this, and Lex tells Clark that they might be brothers. Clark
demands a full explanation from his father.
On the day of the meteor shower Jonathan and Martha Kent found Clark walking
naked in a corn field. Jonathan loaded the spaceship onto his truck and was
driving home, when Lionel Luthor stopped him. He said that his son had been
injured in the meteor shower. Jonathan drove Lionel and Lex to the hospital.
Lionel promised Jonathan that he would do anything for the man who'd saved his
son's life. Jonathan and Martha wanted to adopt Clark, but they couldn't tell
anyone how they'd found him, so they asked for Lionel to somehow arrange it.
Lionel founded the adoption agency, granted Clark to the Kents, then closed
the agency.
This doesn't explain what happened to Lucas. He was also given to the agency,
but there are no records of him being adopted. Lionel claims that he died
before he was one year old, but this is a lie. We see a photo of Lionel and
Lucas together when he was an older child.
The Kents were grateful to Lionel for his help, but then Lionel asked for a
favour in return. He wanted to buy land from the Ross family, presumably to
build a fertiliser plant, but they'd turned him down. Lionel knew that the
Kents and the Rosses were friends, so he asked Jonathan to persuade them to
change their mind. When Jonathan refused, Lionel hinted that he might expose
the irregularities in the adoption. This is the incident that led to
Jonathan's animosity towards the Luthors.
Rachel asks Clark for a DNA test. He's worried that the results might reveal
his alien origins, so he breaks into the lab at night and contaminates the sample.
Rachel suspects that Lionel Luthor is responsible, so she kidnaps Lex and
threatens to kill him if Lionel doesn't publicly announce that Clark is his
son. Only Clark's intervention saves Lex's life. Rachel is declared insane and
put into an institution.
In another story, Lana visits Henry Small, the man who had an affair with her
mother, to tell him she's his daughter. His initial reaction is to deny it,
but later in the day he visits the Talon to tell her he wants to find out if
it's true.
In yet another story, Chloe says that her mother wants nothing to do with her.
This episode is all about broken parent-child relationships: Clark and his
false mother; Lana and her father; Chloe and her mother; Lionel and his son
Lucas.
In the podcast Michael Rosenbaum rang Al Gough to check if it's true that Lex
was about five years older than Clark. I thought it had already been
established early in the series. After this Annette O'Toole appears as a guest
by video. She's a prolific actress, with many roles in film and television
from the 1960's to the present, but I confess that I've hardly seen her. The
first time I saw her was in
the 1990 version of "IT", and I remember thinking to myself,
"Wow! What an actress!" "Smallville" was only the second time I saw
her. If I had to pick the two most outstanding actors in the series, I'd name
Annette O'Toole and John Glover, in that order. I don't say that to put the
other actors down in any way. Tom Welling is the first to admit that he was a
novice, watching and learning from the more experienced actors around him.
Interestingly, Annette says that she watched Tom watching the others. She
could see that he was trying to learn.
Tom also says that he thought Michael Rosenbaum was a great actor. Michael is
amused by this, because he says he was also a beginner at the time. It's all
relative.
Tom spoke about the different way in which John Schneider and Annette O'Toole
worked in the series. John came into the series with his own ideas about what
he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it. Annette looked at how the others
were playing their roles and adapted herself to them. Annette agreed that this was the case.
There's a scene in the episode in which Lex Luthor is tied to a chair which
falls over backwards. Tom wanted to know if this was Michael Rosenbaum himself
or his stuntman. Michael can't remember doing this, but he admitted that it
was something dangerous. After listening to the podcast I watched the scene
frame by frame. Is it Michael or not? It looks like him, but I can't be sure.
His eyebrows look darker than in the previous scenes.
When rating the episode, Michael and Tom both rated it highly, two and two and
a half roses respectively, whereas Ryan Tellez rated it lower. I can see the
reason for the different opinions. Ryan was disappointed that there wasn't
more action.
The Talon is advertising a silent film festival yet again. Greg Beeman is
still cutting costs. Close examination shows that it's the same scene that was
used in
"Stray"
and
"Nocturne".
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