Smallville 2.20 - Witness

Click here to watch the podcast.

This is the first time I've used a picture of Ryan Tellez for a podcast review. He deserves a little attention, but I admit that my reason is to show that he always sits in front of a Superman poster. My regular readers know that I watched the film in the cinema two days ago.

What I forgot to mention in my review two days ago is that whenever I go to the Delphi cinema I first visit McDonald's for a McRib and a McSundae without sauce. Yes, Germany is a great country! McDonald's sells McRib all year round. Unfortunately, the ice cream is sold with horrible wooden spoons. The plastic spoons that they used until last year were more harmful to the environment, supposedly, but at least they didn't feel horrible on my lip, as if they were about to splinter. I make up for this by taking a stainless steel spoon from home with me. I should have swapped spoons before I took the photo. Maybe next time.

Here's an uncropped screenshot of the whole studio, so you can see the Superman poster and a few other posters. Relax! I wonder who put that word of advice in the studio. Was it Michael Rosenbaum himself? It might have been advice from his therapist. He spends a lot of time in that stuffy little room. "Talkville" isn't his only podcast, he's been making a podcast called "Inside of You" since 2018, in which he interviews people he's worked with over the years. Many of them were connected with "Smallville", so "Talkville" can be considered a spinoff of "Inside of You". So far I've only listened to one episode of "Inside of You", out of curiosity. I might listen to some of the "Smallville" related episodes, when I have time, but I shan't review them. One podcast a week is enough for me.

Now to the episode itself. The freak-of-the-week is Eric Marsh, a star baseball player at Smallville High. We see the reason for the episode's title in the pre-credits scene. Clark is out riding his truck at night when he witnesses a delivery truck being robbed. He attempts to stop the robbery, but one of the robbers hits him so hard that he's sent flying. Clark is too surprised by the man's strength to follow them, but he makes two observations. The man who hit him was wearing a Smallville High ring, one of the rings sold to the students in the episode "Red". Clark's X-Ray vision also shows him that he has a metal plate in his head.

Next day at school Clark examines the other students, and he recognises the plate in Eric's head. Eric is the best baseball player that Smallville High has ever had. He knocks the ball out of the field every time. Clark sees Eric using an asthma inhaler filled with a green substance. Clark follows him to a disused foundry, where he sees Eric and his friends refining kryptonite in a furnace. Eric overpowers Clark and throws him into the furnace, but when the men have gone he breaks out. Fire doesn't hurt him, but his clothes have burnt.

So we see Tom Welling's butt. Or do we? Tom can't remember making the episode at all, but he thinks it's a stunt double. More accurately, he should be called a body double. Maybe Tom's contract specified that he wouldn't do nude scenes. When Clark steps out of the furnace, the Terminator theme is played. I missed this subtlety while watching the episode, but Michael Rosenbaum pointed it out in the podcast.

The next day Clark gives the police an anonymous tip that Eric committed the robbery. Sheriff Nancy finds evidence in his school locker and arrests him. That's where he kept the alien mask that he used to disguise himself in the robbery. It's a silly place to leave it.

I understand why Eric let himself be arrested. He could easily have used his super-strength to knock out the police, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself. But why didn't he break out of the police cell later on by smashing through the wall when nobody was watching? Maybe the Kryptonite inhaler only lasts for a limited amount of time.

The official newspapers didn't discover anything, but Chloe Sullivan finds out that the truck which was robbed belonged to Luthorcorp. She writes about it in the Torch. Lex reads the report and speaks to his father, who accuses Lex of staging the crime. Lionel insists that he was doing nothing illegal, but he refuses to say what was in the truck.

So which way was the truck going? In the episode "Insurgence" we saw that Lionel Luthor is storing Kryptonite bars in his office vault in Metropolis. Logically, he would be gathering meteor rocks in Smallville and taking them to Metropolis to be processed, but these are Kryptonite bars that have already been processed, so he must be taking them back to Smallville. Why? Lionel doesn't have a home or his own factory in Smallville, so where does he want to store them? And even if he does have a small facility somewhere in Smallville, why is he transporting them there? Is it a mystery or a mistake? If there's an explanation, we'll see it in future episodes.

This episode contains the first meeting between Lionel Luthor and Chloe Sullivan. He knows her, because he's an avid follower of her news reports in the Torch. He's fascinated by her Wall of Weird, especially when he sees a newspaper clipping of Clark Kent. There's a strange occurrence. Her office in the school is trashed, and she assumes it was done by Eric to silence her, but he denies it. Lionel Luthor gives the school a grant, earmarked to repair and upgrade the Torch office. Presumably he was responsible for the damage. It was his way to gain control of her. He also offers to use his influence in Metropolis to get her a regular column in the Daily Planet. That would have been enough to win her over even without smashing her office.

Lex visits Eric in prison to ask him about the contents of the truck that he robbed. He pays Eric's bail of $250,000. Just pocket change for a man as rich as Lex. When Eric gets out, the first thing that he does is threaten Clark's parents to persuade Clark to leave him alone. Martha is sent to a hospital in Metropolis, and Jonathan says he'll stay with Clark's grandfather for a few days. This is a mistake. Jonathan's father is dead, so he must be referring to Martha's father. Martha's father never liked Jonathan, and they parted on bad terms in the episode "Redux". Jonathan would never go to his father-in-law for help, and even if he did it's unlikely that he would receive help.

Clark challenges Eric and his friends. He's no match for their strength, but he uses his other powers, heat vision and strength, to overpower them in a fight.

Clark retrieves the Kryptonite bars, and Pete buries them. It doesn't look very deep, so they should be easy to find. This is another mistake in the episode. Pete can't dig a deep hole, that's obvious. Clark can't handle the Kryptonite. Instead of Pete doing everything, they could have divided the work. Clark could have dug a deep hole in seconds and thrown the earth onto a dump truck. Then Pete could throw the bars into the deep hole. Finally Pete could use the truck to dump the earth back in the hole. Easy.

There are two subplots in the episode. Clark has forgotten to write a story for the Torch because he was busy helping Lana prepare for a horse show. She's angry with him for letting her down, but it's also because she's disappointed that he likes Lana more. They argue, and Clark quits the Torch. Later in the episode he wants to come back, but she refuses. Chloe has Lionel Luthor as a new partner.

The other subplot concerns Lana Lang and her biological father, Henry Small. Lana finds out that Henry's wife wants to divorce him. The reason is that Henry has paid her less attention since finding out that Lana is his daughter. She says that Lana is all he ever talks about. So Lana says that Henry should stop visiting her in the Talon until his marriage problems are sorted out.

This little scene didn't bother me much when I watched it, but in the podcast it was pointed out that we never see Henry Small again in the series. What??? After all the trouble Lana went to to find her real father, she just sends him away? And he lets himself be sent away? He could easily have reduced his visits to the Talon to once a week, or even once a month. That would have kept his wife happy. But never again? This is bad writing.

In the podcast both Tom and Michael say that they remember nothing at all about the episode. Does forgettable mean bad? Unlike Michael, I don't like to rate individual episodes, but I have to admit that this wasn't a good episode. The stories are all over the place. The acting is good, as always, but the story is poorly written, especially the subplots. Michael rang Al Gough to ask him what he thought about the episode, maybe to offer an excuse for the poor storylines, but he's forgotten it as well. That's unusual. Usually Al remembers everything.

There are only three episodes left in the second season. Let's hope they're better.

At least there's one good thing that comes out of the episode. We find out that Lana's horse is called Donatello.

This is the second week that Michael Rosenbaum has sung the names of the top tier patrons to guitar accompaniment. Tom alternates with him, singing only. He must have been caught off guard last week, but now he's had time to practise his singing in the bath. Tom's singing has improved a lot, and it's better than Michael's.

There's an excellent opening scene, showing the Talon's decorations before panning down to Clark and Lana walking in. Tom Welling says that he doesn't like this scene. He says that it's not a good way to start an episode. I disagree.

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de