Red

DVD, Smallville S2 (Red)

Red for danger. Red for stop. Red for… no, really, please stop, this isn't fun! Clark being a bad guy - you'd think that would be a great concept, but it shows up the flaws in the character: no one can stop him. It takes the combined efforts of his Father acting on information from Lex, and with the assistance of Pete, to save Clark from himself, and that was the best part of the episode, as well as the subsequent scenes. Well, perhaps not the one with Lana where he can't explain he was under the influence and the great stone face tells him where to go after he treated her so shabbily while being affected by red Kryptonite. It's not one of the good episodes, but being Season 2 it still comes out as having some nice moments, even if the majority is painful to watch. It's not just the to-ing and fro-ing around Lana that annoys, it's the discomfort of seeing Clark be a bad boy, and then of course it all gets reset at the end, except Lana thinks Clark was just acting up. The other loose ends are dealt with: the fake FBI man on the hunt for Jessie and her Father, is killed and the latter go back on the run. Pete, fortuitously in on the secret now, is the first to make the connection between Clark's aberrant behaviour and the school ring, although his role would have been played by Martha previously if Jonathan had needed to do something to stop Clark.

At least Clark had good taste when he was being bad: I'm not talking about the posh suits, Ferraris and motorbikes, I'm talking about something much more important - he had both the Apple Display I used to have and, what's even better, was playing on a GameCube! While it is sad to see him be so horrible, I did like the scenes with his parents as they're forced to deal with this new level of problem, Jonathan especially was portrayed very well - he doesn't have it in him to back down, even when he knows what Clark can do, but he also has strong reasoning in his words (which you sometimes think he should use for himself!), and can make a lot of sense on the fly. I think one of the things that doesn't appeal about the episode, however, is that I know it ties into the end of the season and I never liked Clark ditching his clean-cut image, even for an episode. It's like the characters in 'Star Trek' suddenly swearing, drinking and smoking (oh, I forgot, they do now!), it just doesn't feel right, and one of the series' strengths is its strong moral leanings about right and wrong.

One good thing is that Lex has the opportunity to take advantage of Clark's newfound relaxed behaviour and you half believe him when he says he's going to tie up some loose ends at the office and then the pair of them can go off to live it up in Metropolis, probably with nefarious motives. Except you know that, while he'd dearly love to know all Clark's secrets (all everyone's secrets, indeed), he's more responsible than that and is just humouring him so he can inform his parents what's going on. At least he is more responsible at this point in the series and wants to help Clark even when Clark wouldn't see it that way. Maybe he thinks he took drugs or perhaps it's just normal, teenaged angst that he recognises, despite the novelty of someone usually so stable exhibiting such feelings, but either way he does something to help, further putting him in the Kents' good books. It's disappointing that Lana herself didn't spot the signs that something's wrong, but then she seemed to want him to be like that and maybe she felt this act was the only way he was going to be big enough to pluck up the courage to approach her, and then she's disappointed, but it's more distressing that this is one of many times when something happens to one of them or Clark has to do something and can't tell her what was really going on, and she gets all huffy about it, and it's not good.

Almost hidden underneath all the shenanigans is the theme of material goods not bringing permanent happiness, with Lex' upbringing always such a clear contrast to Clark's. Yet Clark still sometimes wishes he had some of the things others had and he doesn't shy away from admitting it at the end, however uncomfortable it was to his parents and himself. From an outsiders perspective their farm looks ideal: vast space, animals, machinery, a barn, so it's not like poor Clark was living in poverty on some hot, cramped flat in the middle of a congested city. At the same time you can imagine that once in a while he might wish he had a big TV (although you never see any of them watching TV, settling down for a film or whatever, but they're probably too tired after the long farm day), or a games console, or a… wait, a jet-ski? What's he going to do, cart it down to Crater Lake? Actually I suppose he could do that, just carry it around like a tennis racket!

There are some good shots in the episode, and not just that lovely helicopter pullback as Lana moodily rides away from Clark at the end, but the moment Clark rides off the farm on his Father's bike and the Director allowed us to see it all in one shot rather so many cuts as you get too often on TV series', or when Jonathan smashes the ring with a sledgehammer, or when Clark pushes Lex' pool table into the FBI guy to trap him against the wall. I'm guessing Lionel didn't have any sight at this point, although we're meant to think he's intrigued by this Clark Kent he's never met before - in reality, in the series' continuity, he was supposed to know all about Clark, at least I think he did, so it wouldn't make that much difference either way if he could see Clark firing bullets into his own hand and lobbing a pool table around, or not. But as for the episode, it's not the best, not the worst, although it is a contender for that spot so far. I'm sure we'll see worse episodes this season. It's strange, usually when you get episodes where someone acts out of character it can be quite entertaining, but not when it's Clark, I suppose.

**