Charade

DVD, Smallville S9 (Charade)

There's one thing that has made this season stand out from others that have gone before it, and that is the Lois and Clark dynamic. It wasn't the first season they co-starred on the series (and hopefully not the last, either!), but something gelled this time and actually meant something that all those irritating circular arguments and romances with Lana Lang never did. Lois is fundamentally more likeable and less highly strung, and it may be that it's simply having more of those two characters together that worked out. Indeed, often if an episode concentrates on others in the main cast it tends more to averageness, but this episode once again proves that Lois and Clark are what make this series tick. The opening was nothing special, Lois crashing crooked former DA Ray Sacks' party dressed as a bunny, punching Clark, who's also there, and getting them both fired from the Daily Planet by yet another new Editor, Franklin Stern. To top it all, it then becomes a 'how we got to this point' episode, which is a device very much overused, not just in this series, but in films and TV in general. So not the most auspicious beginning, but things soon turn into something much more interesting than speculation on what would cause Lois to belt her boyfriend in that way: the age-old quandary over whether Clark should let her in on his secret or not.

I think she's pretty much the only person that doesn't know, so when she finally does find out (assuming they play that card eventually - I thought for a while they were going to do it here), she's going to have a lot of bones to pick with a variety of people, not just Clark! But she'll bounce back from it because she's not a holder of grudges and is pretty easygoing. A lot of the tension about Clark's secret went out the window long ago, so it's refreshing whenever it comes back in such a meaningful way, and because this is Lois Lane, not any old bod, and Superman's destiny, it does mean something. It helps that Erica Durance has done such a good job in the role as we've seen various, often uninteresting versions played on TV and big screen, so it's not an easy position to fill. But it's her inadequacies or weaknesses, her childlike trust and soldierly determination that make her someone we care about. And it's her selflessness that comes through this time: she knows that The Blur can't show himself to her because if she knew his identity she'd become a liability (although even without full disclosure she becomes a target), and yet she feels a duty and purpose to life operating under The Blur's guidance that in some ways is deeper even than her affection for Clark.

With Zod impersonating The Blur for a bit (though he doesn't appear this time), he's got her in a bit of trouble which Clark has to undo by finally ringing her in character and telling her not to accept any more instructions because he has to break communications for her own good. It's such a difficult situation, mainly for Clark, because he's painted himself into a corner where she trusts The Blur wholeheartedly, but he can't be sure that his identity isn't being misused, as it has been. Yet he can't solve it by telling her the truth because, as she knows, she'd be under threat. I loved the poetic idea that the reason she trusts The Blur is actually because he refuses to reveal himself, showing her that he cares enough about her safety not to jeopardise it at any cost. The tension and the minefield of this is the main thing that raises the episode above some of the others recently. The story stops being about getting to that point in the party again, which gets sorted out about halfway through the episode, and isn't a disappointment, Lois having punched Clark as a distraction to get closer to the guy with the phone who took a snap of The Blur (though you'd think he'd have uploaded it to the cloud, or to his email address, something that meant it wasn't just on a single device!).

Thrown into the mix are some intriguing developments that season the tasty meal: we get several names chucked out there, but rather than distracting they add interest. The whole deal with the revolving editorship of the Planet gets called out as we meet the newest, Franklin Stern, who promptly fires Lois and Clark for their antics. This could have been a silly knockabout comedy with the two reporters trying to outdo each other in their competition for one job, but that was never really an issue and doesn't take away from the emotive content. There's also the return of Sacks, a bitter enemy if ever there was one, and a potential future thorn in the side - his early release from a life sentence raises the question of how, or more specifically, who, got him released. And we meet another member of Checkmate, The Black King, Maxwell Lord who is a mutant of some kind and wants aliens taken out because he knows from firsthand what dangers they pose. He has powers, the ability to suck people's thoughts out, which is what he tries to do with various people who've seen The Blur in part, hoping to add these mental images together to create a positive ID. Spectacularly, Clark smashes through his 3D screen just as his own face appears, in an extravagant set-piece that succeeds due to its ramifications as much as for visual flair. I was wondering why Clark didn't simply zip over to Lord at speed before he had a chance to mess up Lois' mind, but interrupting Lord's probing might cause the consequences he'd threatened. Regardless, Clark does do that in the end and Lois is fine.

There were the occasional nitpicks such as why this top secret agent goes around with a black king on his pocket hankie so everyone can see, or why Clark as The Blur didn't just call Lois and tell her someone had been impersonating him, but everything gets straightened out by the end or is irrelevant, so it was a fully satisfying experience and just makes you wish, as ever when episodes that are good and solid come along, why they can't get it right like this every week. Even at its best, the series isn't incredible, but it could at least be satisfyingly good quality on a regular basis, this episode proving that good themes, character development and visuals can be achieved! We're left with a little more in the question department when Lord is picked up by a mysterious woman he knows as The Red Queen. There's still the question of whether Clark will let Lois in on his secret, but at least he finds, from her experience assisting The Blur that they have exactly the same perspective on ordinary life being selfish when they have greater things to do, like taking something from the world at someone else's expense, the true curse of the superhero (and placing Lois in the mirror of Tess who felt the same, believing Clark's small ambitions had to grow due to his ability and potential). It ends with the question of whether Clark, representing ordinary life to Lois, is enough. So you feel he's going to keep her in the dark for now.

There's a quality and a thoughtfulness to the story that could really do with being seen more often on the series, but I'm not going to bash it after such a good episode. Ironically, it's an episode that has a lot less in the action quotient, but has more depth than fights and saves. But it also features some strong heroic imagery that wouldn't be out of place in the more evocative pages of a graphic novel than can be achieved in a TV show: The Blur looking down, framed by the Moon, or reflected in the flatscreen used to show Lois' thoughts where she refuses to look round and see his face, only the white 'S' there as proof of the man she served, who puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but can't even speak for fear of revealing who he is. Powerful storytelling imagery. There are also small asides that please, such as Clark dressed in his Blur outfit in the Kent farmhouse which I don't think we've seen before, and Chloe wearing a green leather jacket as if to reassert her loyalty to the absent Green Arrow. Even Clark lifting up a tractor and working in the barn was a lovely throwback now that he's become unemployed. But now that the knowledge of Zod's false brotherhood is known to him, not to mention Tess and Zod's alliance, he's probably not going to have time for a nine to fiver any more…

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