Hypnotic

DVD, Smallville S5 (Hypnotic)

I wanted to say this was an episode of two halves. The first half is possibly the low point of the season, with Clark 'falling' for Makeup Girl thanks to her powers of hypnosis which come from some gemstone that apparently has nothing to do with Kryptonite or anything like that. There are an abundance of scenes we've seen before time after time - Clark and said girl stripping and then upsetting Lana; the merry-go-round of usual problems, not the least being that once again people are being affected by someone and it takes ages for anyone else to realise it. Clark's completely out of character, Chloe even runs through the possibilities (Red Kryptonite? Silver Kryptonite? This or that?) which shows how many times this old well has been run to. The sorry state of affairs in which Clark can't tell Lana his secret has been milked until the cow ran dry, and so this freak-of-the-week type story is only there to get Clark to a point where he breaks up with Lana for good. Let us just hope that it really is the end of this thing and get on with telling some kind of entertaining story!

The reason I can't call this an episode of two halves is that it returns to the dull, negative, ponderous moaning of old at the end of the episode, with Clark trying to understand his feelings, and Lana trying to understand her feelings, and Lex... just being his slimy self. But it isn't the low point of the season because there are actually some things, mainly the middle part, that hold some degree of interest. Milton Fine is back again after being away for a while, the ship is shown to be in Honduras, and Lex unknowingly saves his own life by assuming Fine works for a government agency (yet isn't suspicious when Fine seems to spill all the beans). There are now multi-Milton's running around, too. The freak-of-the-week storyline takes a more interesting turn when Martha gets hypnotised, but the cartoon violence of Chloe wapping her round the bonce with a rolling pin is bizarre! Especially after we've seen a blood-filled opening scene in the teaser. Either they're trying to make the violence realistic or it's fantasy, but not both in the same 45 minutes, please!

For some reason Simone doesn't give away Clark's secret to Lex, but there's no threat from her anyway as she gets killed, like one-episode wonders generally do. Whether Lana's trust in Lex will lead them to uncover something about Clark is uncertain, but the time when he was ever going to reveal all about himself seems to have passed (no wonder, as it got her killed last time). I have no sympathy for either of them as the storyline was an utter bore, and continually went in cycles that were just annoying and badly written because they couldn't work out anything to do other than make up, break up, say sorry, 'I don't want your apologies', get angry, forget it all and make up, be disappointed, etc... I sensed even Kristin Kreuk was tired of playing the same kind of scenes over and over, from her performance in this episode, as if it was inevitable. The scene at the end where Clark and Martha discuss the event was unnecessary and joining the dots for what they must believe is a stupid audience.

A mention must go to the mention of Aunt Nell, a character written out in Season 2 and, as far as I can remember, never heard of again. Maybe they'll bring her back, although that would just be plain weird after such a long time. The episode is dedicated to Dana Reeve who must have died around the time the episode was made, following her husband, sadly, only a year or two after he had died.

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