DTS has posted a link to an early review of this episode.
April 24, 2007
Exclusive Review! Clark and Lex Trapped Together on Smallville
Coming Wednesday: A MediaVillage Exclusive! Smallville Writers Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer Reflect on Season Six
The season five psychodrama on
Smallville kicks up a notch this week in an episode that finds Clark and Lex in a dire situation requiring them to work together -- and a seething Lana contemplating murder.
The struggle by Lex and Clark to escape what seems like certain death is at the center of the show, but it is the actions of the no-longer-so-sweet Lana that will have everyone talking. Before the hour is over she'll hold two lives in her hands and will appear quite comfortable with letting both of them end. She'll also fire a gun with the confidence of someone who thinks nothing of picking up a firearm to get a job done. (The look on Lana's face when she does this is one we haven't seen before. This young woman is pissed off
big time.)
On her best days, Lana tends to polarize
Smallville fans. This week's show will give those who love her and those who hate her new reasons for feeling the way they do.
Lana really isn't handling the events of recent weeks very well … but who can blame her? She learned that Clark, the love of her life, is a super-powered being who has been keeping secrets from her for as long as they have known each other. Lex's father, Lionel, forced her to marry his son, even though he knew that she loved Clark. And, in a shocking turn of events last week, Lana learned that she really wasn't pregnant with Lex's baby. Rather, he had been supplying her with pills that she thought were pre-natal vitamins, but they were actually hormones that simulated pregnancy. Apparently insecure, half-mad Lex thought he had to further motivate Lana to marry him or risk losing her altogether. He even had her ultrasound faked, which is why he got into a violent fight with Lana's doctor (on the day he and Lana were wed). The doctor, who wanted to tell Lana the truth, conveniently died when he fell and hit his head.
Lana knows what Lex did, but Lex doesn't know that Lana knows. She keeps this information to herself, letting the world believe she miscarried. This will likely give the anti-Lana crowd more ammunition. Why doesn't she simply go to Clark, the man she loves, and tell him what Lex did to her? For that matter, why doesn't she tell him that Lionel blackmailed her into marrying Lex? Actually, there is more information about the conflict between Lana and Lionel revealed in this week's show -- it's one of those mystery-layered-upon-a-mystery scenarios that have proven both tantalizing and off-putting over on
Lost. We're just gonna have to continue rolling with this one for a while.
As for Lana's internal response to Lex, she's letting him believe that she believes her pregnancy and miscarriage were real while she contemplates her next move, whatever that is. She knows she is married to a real bastard, but she isn't letting on. She also learns that something else is happening that is bigger than all of them, and she doesn't really know what to do about that. (Again, the anti-Lana crowd might wonder why she doesn't tell Clark, but that may have something to do with Lionel, too.)
There's no turning back: Lana Lang is now more dark and twisty than Meredith Grey has ever been, and she's only going to get worse.
Meanwhile, Lex finds himself trapped in a sprawling network of long-abandoned underground tunnels that he is ostensibly developing into a water purification system -- and the tunnels have been wired with enough explosives to destroy them all. His predicament is the work of an emotionally distraught woman whose husband, a United States Special Forces Weapons Sgt., was reportedly killed in Afghanistan. She sets off one explosive, takes Lex hostage and rejects his claims that her man was killed by gunfire and that LuthorCorp tried to save him with an experimental procedure, which may or may not be true, as is often the case with anything a Luthor has to say. She knows her husband is alive and she'll stop at nothing to hear his voice.
"What's wrong, Mr. Luthor?" she asks Lex, in one of many unrelated moments in the story that force Lex to think about what he has done to Lana. "Haven't you ever done anything crazy for love?"
Lionel, seriously injured during the blast that left Lex trapped in the tunnels with his captor, pleads with Clark to rescue Lex, but not because he's his son. "He's put something terrible into motion down there," Lionel gasps. "Lex is the only one who can stop it." Lionel sounds just like one of the Others in this episode, his every line deepening the mystery at hand and suggesting that nothing is as it seems without explaining anything at all.
Sure enough, Clark locates Lex, but another explosion releases Kryptonite chunks and dust from the crumbling tunnel walls, rendering Clark vulnerable and in need of medical care, which throws off every assumption Lex has about him. As the two struggle to make their way out of the tunnels before the rest of the explosives detonate they rehash some of their complex history together, each of them realizing that he at one time cared about the other as a close friend. Lex goes as far as to admit that Clark is the "only real friend" he has ever had.
Those happier days, if they ever really existed, are long gone. Clark is increasingly challenged by the responsibilities that come with having great power, not to mention the onset of adulthood. Lana has grown cold and detached and seems utterly alone. Lex is a depraved madman. And Chloe is a meteor freak! Seemingly overnight,
Smallville is no longer about the lives and loves of a group of brave and bold teenagers, one of whom happens to be a super-powered alien. It's now about a group of adults damaged by the long-term consequences of secrets and lies. And there are darker days ahead.
http://blogs.mediavillage.com/ed_martin/archives/2007/04/smallville.html#more
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I couldn't be more excited for this one.
