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Reviews
4:03 Facade Review
By Zoomway
Dear Abby ...
This episode opened with a flashback to a first season scene that never happened, but would have been typical. At a pep rally Lana was the volunteer on the dunking booth seat. Whitney (yes, they dragged the poor actor back for this one scene) tossed Clark the football and told him to show some school spirit by "taking a shot at the hottest freshman at Smallville High." Yeah, yeah, always the hottest. We get it.
Of course this was back when Lana wore the kryptonite necklace and so naturally Clark became verklempt. However his near brush with humiliation was avoided when "Scabby Abby" took his place on the wheel of teen torture. The acne-coated girl ran away weeping as her cruel nickname was chanted over and over.
Three years later, Abby's psycho surgeon mother put the girl into a makeover iron maiden. "You'll have a senior year that no one will ever forget."
The exaggerated importance of the senior year of high school was something of a sub-theme in this episode.
After the opening credits, and completely unrelated to the opening scene, Clark played a little football by himself similar to Clark on L&C playing baseball with himself. After he received his own pass, Clark then tossed the football through a tire hanging from a tree. That particular maneuver was seen by Lois. "Nice arm, farm boy. When's the first game?"
Lois called him 'Smallville' last week and now 'farm boy' this week.
Clark explained he wasn't on the team, but Lois could tell he wanted to be ...
"Even if I wanted to play ..."
"And obviously you do," Lois interrupted.
In this scene Clark tells Lois that he sees himself as an outsider. It's made clear how Lois is different from both Lana and Chloe by her reaction to what Clark said.
If he'd said that to Lana, sad music would start playing and they'd stop walking and make meaningful eye contact and she'd say how much she felt like an outsider, too, even though she's the most popular and hottest girl in school. Then there would be a corny bit of foreshadowing like, "Maybe it's the secrets we keep hidden inside that make us outsiders." Then we'd roll our eyes and pray for the mutant to appear.
If Clark told Chloe he felt like an outsider, then Chloe would put some kind of positive spin on it and say, "Do you realize some of the world's greatest leaders and heroes were outsiders?" Then she'd list some and that would serve as foreshadowing, too.
What did Lois say? She laughed and said being an outsider was a good recipe for getting wedgies. Lois is the only girl that Clark has had any significant contact with who doesn't feed into his woe-is-me self image. She doesn't pretend to share it as Lana would and she doesn't pretend that it's a good thing like Chloe would. It's similar to last week's episode when Lois told Clark "get over yourself" because she won't play the pity party game with him.
"Have I told you how much I'm going to miss you?" Clark asked sarcastically, but at that moment Lois' dad drove up.
General Lane told Lois, who had been packing her Camero (what happened to the SUV?), that she needn't bother packing because she flunked the last semester of high school and couldn't go to Met U until she made up that semester.
Clark found this highly amusing and began to laugh. Believe me, nothing is more rare in Smallville than laughter. However, it stopped abruptly when General Lane said Clark could show Lois around. Lois and Clark, in unison said, "Around where?"
Smallville High, of course. Then, from Chloe we return to the sub-theme, "You know how many people would kill to relive their senior year of high school?" No, how many? I can think of a lot of people who would like to be in their 20s again, or even their 30s, but not many would want to be teenagers again.
Then Chloe suggested to Lois that she could make up her credits faster if she took on an extracurricular activity like writing for the Torch. "Unlike you, Cuz, the last thing I want to be is a reporter." One of those ironic foreshadowing lines that are as subtle as an anvil.
Scabby Abby, now Fabby Abby, spoke with Clark at her locker. He asked her, "Why the change?" and she replied, "I guess you can spend one more year being resentful of what everybody else has, or you can do something about it." And added the sub-theme, "It's our senior year, Clark. It's my last chance."
Not having a spectacular senior year is like totally ish! It's uber unthinkable not to go to prom with someone dollsome and get groiny on the dance floor! I so completely heart (<3) senior year!
Now that I've made myself uber nauseous, let's move on to Lois and Chloe's conversation where Lois believes that having plastic surgery done as a teen is like messing with the batter before the cookies are even baked. Since you can't mess with the batter after cookies are baked, I don't quite understand the analogy. At any rate, her rant on the facade of beauty becomes Lois' first Torch subject.
Now we get to Lana. I knew you'd be waiting breathlessly. She finds out her boyfriend Jason has taken the assistant coaching job at Smallville High while still taking classes as Met U. Since he's technically on the teaching staff, he and Lana have to keep their relationship secret.
Naturally Clark walked into the office at that moment to ask if he could try out for the football team. He didn't catch them in a clinch, but Jason told Clark that Lana was chosen to show him around the school.
Clark is kind of cast as Chloe in this instance since it was Clark and Lana keeping their relationship a secret from Chloe two years ago. It's also Lana finally keeping a secret from Clark. The girl who used to bug him and whine and pout because he wouldn't open up to her about his secret. I guess we're supposed to see irony dripping from the trophy case about this, but I know how it's going to turn out. Instead of Lana learning what it's like to have the shoe on the other foot, she'll learn how important it is to keep some secrets, especially for someone you love. To quote Randy Good, "I think I'm gonna puke."
We then get a scene that came off rather sexist, but probably wasn't meant to be taken that way. Martha told Jonathan that she would be running the Talon. Yes, that dreadful coffee shop is hanging in there. They must have spent too much on the set to dump it. Anyway, Martha said Jonathan worked too hard on the farm to have it taken away due to financial problems. Jonathan sniped that he worked so hard "So you wouldn't have to." In other words, whatever Martha did on the farm was not 'work' by his definition.
After Jonathan graciously told Martha she could run the Talon, there was a scene where Jason asked Clark for his permission slip. Clark handed one over, but if it had a legitimate signature, it wasn't Jonathan's, because he knew nothing about Clark trying out for the team. Something Jason figured out as soon as Clark admitted his dad was never keen on the idea of him playing football.
Jason continues to be a nice guy and is well played by the actor, but, other than a new arm to squire Lana with, I don't know what his real purpose on the show is. Lana currently has no story line aside from her romance with Jason and her tattoo. So far it's not enough.
This is the type of scene that shows a makeover does nothing for personal pride or self esteem. Brett, the football player who had named Abigail "Scabby Abby" was suddenly all hormones for her once she looked hot. No surprise there, but what was surprising is that Abby seemed perfectly fine with his shift in attitude. So fine, in fact, she went into the boy's locker room with him to have sex. Ah, young love.
However, Abby felt something happen when they kissed and left the shower. Brett followed after her with some nasty comments till he saw his equally nasty reflection in the mirror.
"Great Scott, Krypto! That guy has been attacked by Jelly Sandwich Man! He's in a real jam! I hope he can preserve his sanity!"
"Arf!"
Actually the boy was fine, but saw his reflection as ugly. Not to mention his hysterics were hysterical. Also, Lana passed down the completely empty hallway right after Brett told Abby she was the most beautiful girl at the school. I think it's a union rule.
Brett went nuts and ran into the parking lot and was hit by Lois' car. The EMTs said he'd be fine physically, but mentally he was acting stranger. How can you tell in that town?
Meanwhile, Lana went to Dr. Psycho to see about getting her tattoo removed. After taking a tissue sample, the doctor looked at Lana's face and said, "It must get you anything you want."
Then Abby showed up and Lana asked "How's Brett? I saw you two talking in the hall." This wouldn't mean much on any other show, but on Smallville, it was like a death warrant. Mommy Dearest told Abby to kiss Lana and mess up her mind like she had Brett's. This, of course, was just an excuse for a girl on girl kiss.
The reason Lana was blindfolded is because Jason took her to the drama room and was going to give her a surprise for the birthday that was delayed in France. Here's a tip, don't celebrate Lana's birthday. She'll either get a mysterious tattoo, or turn ugly and have a giant mirror fall on her.
Pa Kent confronted Clark after he found out he'd made the football team and pretty much accused Clark of cheating in advance. Clark basically said he wanted to live his own life, but at least didn't mention how important being a senior was.
Jason, visiting Lana at the overused medical center set, told her, "I don't know if you can even hear me, Lana, but if you only knew how much you meant to me ..."
"I guess the polite thing to do is to cough and let you know I'm standing here," Lex interrupted as he skulked in the background. "But that always seems so forced, doesn't it?"
Then Lex looked down adoringly at Lana. "What's wrong with her?"
"They don't know, so it's kind of hard to say." (Pssst, a giant mirror fell on her)
Then Lex introduced himself and it was all exposition so we could find out that Jason was from a rich family, but according to him, he's been cut off without a cent. Lex can tell what's going on with Lana and Jason and so said, "Lana deserves the best. I hope you're it."
Yup, Lana deserves the best. We don't know why, but we're always told it's true.
Clark found out that the only thing wrong with Brett and Lana were elevated levels of serotonin. Chloe told Clark that was a word Lois misspelled three times in her "slander piece" against Extreme Makeovers. Well, that makes the third version of Lois Lane who should invest in a spell checker.
Clark and Chloe discover that Lois was researching articles about Dr. Psycho and her instant makeover procedure. They also discovered that Lois made an appointment to see her. Here's where I'll give a nod to the actress playing Lois. Durance used a very youthful sounding voice when talking to Dr. Psycho, then changed it quickly to her regular voice when her cover was blown.
What is it with the martial arts girls of Smallville who forget their skills when someone is about to shove a hypodermic needle into their necks? It happened to Lana last year in the episode Slumber, I believe.
Drugged Lois was put into the sarcophagus of beauty and was informed by Dr. Psycho that she'd be filing her story from the psyche ward. Takes one to know one. Clark burst in and saved Lois, but because the machine was filled with ... you guessed it, kryptonite ... Lois had to rescue Clark. She gave Dr. Psycho a parting kick and "Bitch" as her parting word.
Jason tried to be playful with Lana, but she told him to stop, "I'm being serious." Yes, Jason, that's your dour future, get used to it. "Back in my freshman year, I made the cheerleading squad and that was my whole identity." Gasp. What about equestrian events? Wanting to save the Talon? Tireless and tiresome dedication to charity work? "Putting on the face that I thought everyone wanted to see."
Okay, knock it off. You became a cheerleader because your mother had been one. Then, when you found out she didn't like being a cheerleader, you stopped being one.
"I keep thinking of all those times you told me I'm beautiful and can't help wondering how much of me you really see." Well, you didn't want him being playful, you started sulking and talking about yourself and so I'm guessing he's seen the real you. Sure enough, he said he loved her for who she is and not what she looks like. Riiight.
Then we do get a somewhat sincere scene between Jonathan and Clark about being an adult and then Clark asking Jonathan, "You gonna let some assistant coach from Metropolis teach your boy how to play football?"
Lois got her first byline and pretended it didn't mean anything, but Chloe could tell it did. "Deep down inside it's getting to you. Welcome to the bull pen, Ms. Lane," she said and added, "Now I'm off to see Clark Kent in a wet t-shirt. Care to join me?"
"Like I've never seen that before," Lois replied, but did run after Chloe.
Clark, now occupying the dunking seat, knew how to taunt. "Come on, Lois, didn't those guys on the base teach you anything?"
"Wouldn't you like to know? Doesn't matter, because you are going down."
"That'll be the day." WHAM SPLASH.
Lois ran up and mussed Clark's wet hair. He laughed and splashed water at her. The couple beamed at each other and Chloe, as Lana did last week, noticed a chemistry between Clark and Lois that the couple seemed oblivious to and would no doubt deny if confronted.
It's funny, Lana made out with Jason to the strains of "She will be loved" and we know she deserves the best, because Lex told us, but Chloe, who has no one, was left crestfallen as the lyrics "so much for my happy ending" rubbed it in. What in the world do the writers have against Chloe?
Then again Lana is less realistic than any character on the show and much to the writers' misfortune, they can't see that. Lana took up a lot of screen time in this episode for no particular reason at all. I even left out her scene with Lex where he shows up at the Talon and he sees the books she ordered on ancient writing. I know it has to do with the tattoo, but I've known that since she got the dumb thing. Nothing new was learned about it other than it wasn't made with ink.
As for the episode as a whole, pretty typical of mutant marathon first season except for one thing, Abby actually wasn't vengeful. She didn't know her kiss was mentally lethal until Brett freaked out. She kissed Lana under orders from her mother.
Mainly, though, it wasn't really memorable and it still feels like two separate shows are taking place. The one with Lois and Clark and then the traditional Smallville episode with sulking, pining, Lana being deserving and Chloe being pooped on. I still like Lois, but she had no interaction with Lana. That tends to improve all characters.
Next week, Gator Aid from Hell, or as we like to call it, Smallville.
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