Prodigal

DVD, Smallville S2 (Prodigal)

Brother versus brother, and when that comes to the Luthors you know things aren't going to go well. This was quite a confusing episode, not just for the financial goings-on, Lex' riches to rags to riches again (presumably), but also what it meant for the characters. And not just the Luthors, either! In my previous review I was saying how the trouble between Lana and Clark was bound to be resolved in the next few episodes, putting them back to square one again, but I didn't expect it to be at the start of the very next episode! I mean that was bizarre - Clark just turns up at the Talon hoping for a job? I know his pizza and rose gifts of reconciliation at the end of the last episode were an attempt to get back into Lana's good books, but she rejected them straight off, and yet she now gives him a job? It couldn't even have been that long since the rose is still in the metal bin right where she threw it. Maybe she just bounced out the right side of the bed this morning, full of forgiveness and ready for a fresh start. Or maybe she got hit on the head and only half remembers what happened in 'Rush.' It was nice of Chloe to give Clark a helping hand in the reference department, especially as working for the Torch is a kind of job. It's just sad that we never see Chloe, Pete and Clark actually doing work on it any more. Well, Chloe scenes are fairly often at the office in the school (another sad thing - that's about all we get of their school life at the moment), but we don't see them working together and uncovering investigations like we used to.

We're back to the new norm of Season 2 once again, where it's all about Lana and Clark or Lex and Clark, Pete and Chloe getting short shrift after their brief spell in the spotlight last time. At least Lionel makes an impression as there do seem to be a few episodes where he's not involved at all - no surprise that it's hard to integrate a multi-millionaire business mogul into a high school drama! At least his shenanigans were true to his character - not only has he regained his vision out of nowhere (and I was surprised it was Lucas Luthor who threw the pool ball, a scene I'd thought was Lex'), he's also playing his two sons against each other. I wasn't entirely sure where Lucas came from in terms of deciding now was the time to be unearthed. I know it was a power play by Lex to try and get leverage on his Father's company, and then ultimately we find out it was Lionel preempting him for a similar reason, to fight back against Lex' plot. But things like that gambling scene didn't make a lot of sense - did Lucas own the joint? Otherwise how could he have set up a camera in the golden lion bust or have an accomplice sending him intel on his opponent's cards? It didn't seem like he owned the place and it was odd how his assistant was discovered - what, he dropped something on the floor which alerted the bodyguard?

Lucas we'd heard of before just a few episodes prior so I suppose it was good to have him in the story, but why would Lex protect him, and how? In the end he's safely out of his Father's influence, but Lionel was looking after him in his own way, paying off his troubles over the years. He did seem to want some kind of connection to his Father so perhaps his life was becoming too shallow for him to stomach and had reached an age when he realised he needed more, but I just don't buy that he and Lex would end up trusting each other. Unless Lex could read him, seeing himself in the younger son and having empathy for how he feels in regards to their Father. It was complicated and I'm not sure the series could pull off something like that, it didn't come across quite right. I suppose we're supposed to be concerned that Lionel noticed the dripping hole of burnt metal from where Clark heat-visioned Lucas' hand when he thought the guy was going to shoot Lionel. But in later seasons we learn (I think), Lionel knew, or guessed Clark's secret, though that never made much sense to me. It's not relevant here anyway, but it adds further confusion to what we're supposed to be making of these events.

The episode does have some lovely moments - all the stuff with Lex being accepted into the Kent Farm as a houseguest, doing chores (I don't remember ever seeing animals in the barn and yet he's got to muck it out?), being grateful to Jonathan in particular, and the ultimate accolade of Mr. Kent complimenting him by saying he'd have made a great farmer (fascinating to see how different people react to life there - Ryan, for example got up and made everyone pancakes for breakfast). That was all terrific, but I felt they needed to eke this storyline out a bit. He's there in his fancy suit on the doorstep requesting asylum, then it's the next day and he's hard at work and then he's out again. Having Lex on the farm is the kind of great idea that should have been an arc in itself. Imagine him sitting round as they all read of an evening (that's what Mr. and Mrs. Kent were doing when he stopped by), the conversations, the mealtimes… It's too juicy to have let pass in the space of a few scenes, as good as they were. Similarly, the idea of a social experiment where one brother has everything and the other nothing was the kind of thing the episode should have delved deeper into, it had such potential.

That's probably why I wasn't quite as impressed with the episode as I used to be. It's still a good entry in the season and it has that superb sequence where we see Clark actually being faster than speeding bullets as he knocks the motorbike assassin off his bike, then proceeds to swat away each bullet in turn before they can take out Lucas in the alley behind the Talon (always a bad place to go!). If I'd been Lucas I think I'd have run back into the coffee shop, not taken off down a long dark alleyway when the guy chasing him is on a motorbike, but then he was young and you're probably not going to be thinking too clearly when an assassin with an automatic is bearing down on you. It gave new meaning to the phrase don't turn your back on someone, as Clark knows he has the smoking impacts of several bullets on the back of his jacket which he doesn't want Lucas to see - in parallel, Jonathan won't turn his back on Lex while he's staying on the farm, which is exactly what Martha said they couldn't do, but she, too, had a different meaning! The production value came to the screen - even though they only showed a little bit of that asian area of Edge City, it was effective. But could Lex really lose every single thing he owns (other than the little he could pack into his car), that doesn't seem possible? And does he own the Mansion again at the end, or not? There's no explanation of how Lionel can see again - he claims he's had his sight back for a few weeks, but who knows if he's telling the truth.

That was one of the big twists in the series I always found hard to believe and things were starting to unravel for me as this series being realistic enough for me to suspend disbelief for all the other weird things we were used to - it needed the grounding in people that it had to begin with in order to make everything else acceptable and when you have some major change like that it undermined reality (a bit like what happened with Sheriff Ethan - you can believe it's possible, but they needed to do more to sell it). I also don't think it helps that Lucas is as obnoxious and entitled as they come, because we needed to feel at least some kind of sympathy for him. I don't think he ever came back, if he did it didn't make an impact on me, but there was a strong angle of playing that abandoned child side of things, just as it's so sad when Lex looks over and sees the idyllic Kent family and wishes it were so for him in various episodes, but they didn't do enough to make Lucas a victim. What did Lex say to him to make him change his position and trick Lionel into revealing what really happened in his past? It must have been good for them to carry out the enactment of potential murder. I liked Lionel having enough conscience and attachment to Lex that he can't go through with killing him, even when forced to do so at gunpoint, but in the same scene we also see his true ruthlessness as he turns on the fallen Lucas and shoots him twice. It makes sense that Clark couldn't hold down the job at the Talon since he's always got to dash off and save someone, and I liked Lex' reassuring words about his own Father taking over the world, but Clark's will inherit the Earth, a sort of Biblical influence that mirrors Lionel's own reference to the Prodigal Son.

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