adventures of superboy and kryptonite pilled Smallville citizens
not to mention they'll lose the farm!!
so this classmate of Clark's gets frozen in a kryptonite lake and receives ice powers from it. He's desperate to get warm and the only thing that does it is absorbing heat from other people. It's kind of an allegory for assault but that's a messy interpretation. It's more like,,, Parasite but cold. It's like that iconic Hold Me issue of Hellblazer but not as good of course.
this is among the weaker rogue offerings because this episode is about advancing all other social situations while an unrelated freak is running loose trying to touch people. The rogue feels like an uncreative obligation to the plot of this episode. "It has to be action! So we need someone for Clark to fight!"
Unlike the other rogues, it's hard to argue what theme connects this one to Clark. That's how much he feels out of place. Is Lex supposed to be a "parasite" to the Kent family? That reading doesn't really work so-!
Chloe and Pete are now trailing behind Lana in the "not feeling like characters just yet" department. They still feel strictly utilitarian to the narrative; Clark needs friends who can give him information on what's going on in town. But Pete and Chloe still don't quite have internal lives of their own.
Chloe gets hit on by a guy here, and we're supposed to be shocked to find that she's surprisingly into it despite placing herself as above the social roles of jocks and cheerleaders at school. So it's strange to still come away from this episode feeling like I didn't get that much insight into her character. We're early on, so Pete and Chloe still have time to figure themselves out.
I liked that Clark's showdown with this rogue doesn't have Kryptonite involved! Forcing Kryptonite into the climax fight scenarios to weaken Clark was getting really repetitive.
Unfortunately! I don't think they used this rogue's Parasite adjacent abilities to their fullest. I thought Clark was going to have to wait until the sun came up to give him strength to battle Mr Freeze boy, or that he'd have to rely on his smarts instead of strength. But nah. He just tosses the guy into the lake again lol. We haven't established sun= source of Kryptonian power yet, and this would've been an awesome way to do it.
The show has run into a structural problem that's affecting Clark's heroism. The supernatural things going on in Smallville need plausible deniability, and so the rogues often die or get arrested or lose their memory. We can't have the rogues remembering that Clark has supernatural abilities! So they gotta go bye bye. Clark can never redeem these rogues or care about them BTAS Batman-style. And so his justice is more so punishment rather than transformative.
We can't have a moment where Clark solves freeze boy's physical loneliness by soaking in the sun and then doing this when he's told that his inhuman heat is different from everyone else's:
Which is a shame, because that would've been so so so Superman-core. Anyway-
car crash/demolition count: 5
Clark stares at Lana down the school hallway while a song plays. That's one for the counter, fellas: 4.5
ep 6 That's So Raven meets de-aged serial killer pianist
This one was great! It's nice to meet a meta-human from the Kryptonite-meteor event who isn't evil! I hope we get more of that.
an elderly blind woman has the kryptonite infused ability to see the future and tells Clark that someone close to him will die soon, which causes Clark to lose his shit in paranoia. Meanwhile in the same retirement home, an elderly man falls into a Kryptonite lake that de-ages him. With his new found youth, he continues his unfinished killing spree of people who wronged his pianist career.
Lex and Clark in this episode:
Thematic ties in this episode! Legacy, clinging to the past, and paranoia of the future. Lex once again shows the other side of the coin for these themes. It makes him such a lovely complement as a subplot for this show. There's something so poetic about Lex getting tempted to know his future and never getting the answer.
I was so delighted by the horror tone of this episode. The pianist guy has no super powers, he's just young now and killing people. The plausible deniability here is that folks think this is a copycat killer of elderly pianist man's murder spree. Clark does fight him, but he doesn't actually face him in the climax! Martha Kent does, and it's giving final girl horror stakes. No forced Kryptonite, it's great.
My mom walked in on us watching this episode (and stayed to watch it, she loves horror lol) and to my surprise she said "hey that's Superman!" Like?? It's Tom Welling looking like a normal guy (it wasn't an action sequence) but she knew who he was. I asked if she watched Smallville back in the day and she said "ooh!! Smallville! Yes I watched it!" all this to say eat shit James Gunn if my kampung mom knows who Superman is then maybe we're not the culturally uninformed non americans you think we are lmao
car crash/demolition count: 6. I will be genuinely miserable if there's an episode where a car isn't damaged.
Clark does not stare at Lana while a song plays in this episode! In fact this is a very non-romantic episode, and it makes it all the more refreshing. Clark sadly stares at That's So Raven elderly woman passing away. Counter stays at 4.5
kaledo-art
romaincrisis
vaporwave
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
germansingergirl
