Visitor

DVD, Smallville S2 (Visitor)

Not offensive in any way, the central idea is a pretty good one: a boy who may be one of Clark's own kind or not. But while it's not offensive, pretty much nothing exciting happens in the whole episode! No shocks, little emotive highs or lows... Okay, it makes a change for the freak to be a 'goodie' and not know that he's a freak-of-the-week until the end, but it's a kind of slow, quiet, gentle episode which feels strange for this series.

Where Season One would have made it feel-good (maybe taking the element of him 'staying behind' to save his enemy, to a stronger level), and where characters are still not sharing the connectedness of the earlier season. At least Lana and Clark are being comfortable in each other's presence, and there's a hint of the old days when Clark, Pete and Chloe would do stuff together, but in the end it's mostly Clark doing things with Cyrus. Even the music is more relaxed and not kinetic, laid back and mostly calm.

It does feel a little like treading water, as not much really happens, and the show's not called Waterboy. Having said all that, it's a great episode compared to S3!

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