Hydro

DVD, Smallville S6 (Hydro)

This should have been called 'Secrets' or 'Lies' or something of that nature because it's full of delightful developments in so many ways. First I'll get the bad out of the way: it ends quite limply with Lana agreeing to marry Lex, while admitting her love for Clark. I don't know where that love came from as she practically hated him last season and they've barely spoken civilly since. It was good to see a fairly calm scene in the barn, although it was a step back to the bad old days of Lana fluttering her eyelashes, Clark never vocalising his deep, dark secret and Lana walking off in disgust. It was a gentler version of that, probably because they both knew exactly what was going to happen. Clark had one final chance to take the prize but he was never going to let her in on the secret again, not after it caused her death last season and led to him having to use the last crystal or whatever to restore time, which in turn led to Jonathan's death. So it's been nothing but sorrow for Clark to go down the Lana path, but it's surely behind them now.

On another path Clark gets a taste for Lois for the first time, literally, in a fantastic scene in which he plays the Green Arrow in order to fool her, since she'd recently managed to put two and two together (or more precisely scratch and scratch), and at last, shows some journalistic quality that she could actually suspect Oliver of being the man in green! It's been a long time coming, but her breakthrough is expertly thwarted by one easy operation from Clark and Oliver. The addition of Jimmy made it even better, as he supplies her with Green Arrow photos and helps set up the operation, while Clark's setting up both sides! Absolutely hilarious to have Clark as Green Arrow, but even more is the confusion that Chloe now believes Clark is him for real!

It's actually quite a job to keep track of who knows what, there are so many secrets zipping around. Okay, I think: Chloe knows (thinks she does anyway) that Clark is Green Arrow, because she doesn't know that Oliver is him, but Clark does. Lana now knows Clark has a massive secret that Chloe is also protecting, as if she didn't already guess over the years that Clark was special. Clark now knows Lana has Lex' baby inside (since Lex spitefully threw that info in his face when he went to declare his undying love for her on the spur of the moment), and that she still loves him. Lex knows that Lana loves Clark, but also him and she's going to marry him anyway, Lois 'knows' Oliver isn't Green Arrow, and Jimmy doesn't know anything as per usual. I think that about sums it up.

All these various secrets were probably beginning to clog up the writer's minds so they must have felt it was necessary to pull things back again and sort out all the jumble, and it does make for an enjoyable episode, but it really doesn't have much to do with the 'Hydro' of the title as she (Linda Lake, Daily Planet Reporter) is only there to reveal a few things to a few people. Played by Tori Spelling (whom I thought was a wrestler - maybe that's why they picked her as there's a proper cat fight between her and Chloe at the end), Lake, whose name must be ironic since she developed the ability to turn into water after crashing in good old Crater Lake, is a nasty piece of work and the bane of Chloe's life. She's also responsible for sneaking in another reference to Gotham which she can see from her office, apparently, so I really hope they're not teasing us and that some kind of Gotham crossover happens. The important thing is that she gets sploshed across Lana's windscreen at the end, but dribbles off and into a drain in a way that makes me think she'll be back, and as she knows Clark's secret that could be a problem.

There are a surplus of great scenes in this episode, which doesn't always happen, everything working well and a sense of family between the characters. I say everything, but there was a bit too much soap in places, such as the ending as I mentioned before, making the episode drag a little, but in general it was a good mix of revelation and meteor freak stuff. Even the usual pitfall of one character getting the wrong end of the stick, which seemed certain to happen since Lana's conversation with Chloe made it to the front page of the paper, was quickly and tidily sorted out. Lana was halfheartedly suspicious anyway as it was pretty unlikely Chloe would ever attack her by getting revealing comments about how she loves Clark onto the front page. Chloe's innocent and friendly attitude quickly belayed any hint of backstabbing so that was a nice change. At first I couldn't believe that the paper would care what Lana thinks of Farmboy Clark, but then I realised every aspect of Lex' life is of great interest so of course it would all be published.

Tom Welling was directing again, and after I saw his name in that capacity I didn't think about it again, which is a tribute really as I wasn't taken out of the story. I wouldn't have said it was especially good direction, but it's what happens in the story that matters and sometimes it's better if you're not thinking about how things are shot. They missed a trick by not having some sad song play over Clark and Lana's final meeting, but perhaps that had been overdone. I was expecting this to be about Aquaman until the moment the heavy gets drowned in the pool - clearly Aquaman wouldn't be doing that to rescue someone. But with the next episode entitled 'Justice' surely the formation of the Justice League of America is in the offing. This episode would certainly set up Clark and Queen working together since they've now got to the stage where they help each other out quite happily, and brilliantly.

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