Accelerate (2)

DVD, Smallville S2 (Accelerate) (2)

As well as this was put together it was marred a little by the fact I was waiting for this big action scene that used terrific special effects, and as the episode went along I realised that must be from Season 3. I'd actually thought little Emily Dinsmore was only in that season until I saw the title, so I thought either I'd mixed up the seasons or she was in two, so I was a little disappointed and the story very much went unresolved. I suppose the closest we come to that is Lana showing up to thank Clark - not for saving her life (!), no, that's something he does all the time, but for believing her when she thought she was seeing a ghost. I don't know, maybe that side of things could have been played up, that no one believed her and Clark was the only one… Chloe barely features other than to show a bit more jealousy, though it was nice for her and Clark to have a scene where they were talking civilly to each other, but perhaps Chloe could have been used as a sceptical sounding board, she and Lana do live together, after all (even though she's usually open to the weird). I like that Clark still felt he could use the Torch's computers, though Chloe pulls him up on it (it made me wonder - wouldn't they have a library at school, full of computers?). Instead there isn't really much of the psychological about the episode, despite efforts to go down that route of atmospheric horror.

It seemed incredibly insensitive of Lana to show up at her childhood friend's Father's house and jump straight into explaining she's seen his dead daughter! I know these are supposed to be teenagers so of course they should be a little naive or unaware sometimes of the effect what they're saying or doing could have on others, but Lana's usually so sensitive. Maybe that's what she meant when she was telling Clark one day he might see the reality that she's far from perfect. I always liked the episode, but on this occasion I couldn't help find little flaws here and there. For example, I felt the story would have been a lot more tragic and therefore even more engaging than it already was, if they hadn't played up the idea that Lana is at risk from this little girl. It's difficult to feel sympathetic towards a child that looked like she'd killed her Father with a metal spike not that far into the story! Okay, so he survived and she wasn't actually his real daughter, and all these other mitigating factors, but there was a really fascinating study to be made of this poor little girl that has no idea of the forces surrounding her, what the reality of her situation is and who's pulling the strings.

I do like that it connects back to Season 1's Level 3 experiments with meteor rocks, LuthorCorp's experiments on people (chilling when Lionel tells Mr. Dinsmore his 'daughter' is LuthorCorp property - hard to believe in any goodness within him after that statement), and may even tie into things way down the line when Lex was eventually cloned? Lionel strides in and out of scenes, causing as much trouble as he always used to, there doesn't seem to be any sympathetic side to him any more, as brief as that was explored this season with his blindness. We're also setting up for the beginning of Season 3 with talk of the honeymoon island he's offered Lex to go and stay on. I'm not sure on the point of that, especially as his turnabout on Helen would be most suspicious, but the biggest lie is when he says he only wants Lex to be happy! Really he only wants to toughen him up, at least that's what I think he wants and believes he wants, until that should get in the way of his plans. Of course it's as much about throwing his son off guard as he sneaks jurisdiction over the almost forgotten Kawatche caves that played such a part in Clark's development, which again is the resolution to his part in the episode, though it feels almost an aside, especially as we get a later scene where he takes over the Emily clone to who knows what ominous effect.

Little Emily was well played, though as I said before, I felt she should have been much more sympathetic rather than a threat. Talking down a frightened, bewildered child, especially one that has the ability to run at Clark super-speeds, would have been just as compelling. Indeed, the scenes where she was interacting with Clark and Lex in particular (and Lionel at the end), were very good, it's only Lana's part that treats her as this terrifying figure and in which the episode focuses too much on. But this is 'Smallville,' of course they're going to emphasise the action, horror or violence over deep exploration of what it means to be a clone, or a child caught unawares, so that would be a big part of why I didn't enjoy it quite as much compared to previous viewings. It's still accomplished, the shot of the rain in the graveyard (poor Clark gets totally soaked at least twice: once there, and then diving into the river to save Lana), was terrific as we see it suddenly stop and hover there as Emily runs away and Clark follows. Pausing a scene for Clark to move at normal speed (for him), had been done many times, but never with such a curtain of raindrops to go through, adding an extra layer of quality. I do wonder how Emily knew where Lana was and what she looked like now, that was never explained (and did they use the same little girl they'd previously had for young Lana as they did with young Clark in some episodes?).

I can level the same complaints against this one as at many episodes this season: the lack of Pete and Chloe. To some degree it is an improvement, because there have been some where they didn't even appear, but they really needed to work in the ensemble better than they'd been doing in this back half of Season 2, though sadly the best days were now behind for the series. Lana's guilt and having felt responsible for her childhood best friend dying was strongly evoked by Kristin Kreuk, but at the same time I felt that side of the story never went anywhere. She never gets to speak to Mr. Dinsmore again, the project is once again secret, and so the scene with Clark in the barn appeared to be trying to draw a line under the episode without it really going anywhere. So although it is an episode on its own, it was also something that couldn't be fully enjoyed that way, it leaves a lot hanging as the series moved towards more and more serialisation and lost that early satisfaction of story resolution or exploring or developing recurring characters to a greater degree so as to give the series a feeling of a community. In going bigger the series would only feel smaller in a lot of ways. But still a good watch, not dragged down by petty teen moodiness and fallings-out.

***