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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