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Reviews
4:14 Krypto Review
By Zoomway
I'm not sure what to make of this episode. Smallville has never been a show appropriate for younger viewers due to its graphic violence. However, violence and all, I guess Krypto is probably the most "family friendly" episode of the series. It's sort of Timmy and Lassie for the new millennium. Not that anyone really wants one.
Two dogs walked into a convenience store. The clerk said, "Hey, we don't serve dogs in here!" The Retriever ran out, but the Rottweiler said, "Give me a beer." The clerk said, "I told you I don't serve dogs," and then picked up a gun from behind the counter and shot the dog in the foot. The dog went yelping out of the store.
The next day the Retriever came back. He was wearing a black cowboy hat, two cowboy boots and carrying two pistols. "My friend the Rottweiler was in here yesterday. A few years ago somebody shot his Ma. Well, I'm here looking for the man who shot his paw." Baroooom ching! Seriously ...
Two dogs walked into a convenience store. The Rottweiler jumped up and started growling at the clerk and the Retriever went behind the counter and yanked the door off a safe with his teeth. And you thought the joke was farfetched?
It seems the dogs were meteor rock LuthorCorp test animals. There's a surprise. Two enterprising young men decided to use them to commit crimes However, when they blew the dog whistle to retrieve them, the Rottweiler came back with blood dripping from his mouth having attacked the clerk and the Retriever didn't return.
Why did the Retriever cross the road? To get hit by Lois Lane, of course. Lois, who can't seem to set down a cell phone while keeping her eye on the road, smacked the pooch. "Oh, my God, what have I done?"
She exited her car and picked up the dog. "You're gonna be fine. I know you're gonna be fine because everyone I've ever hit is fine."
Lois took the dog to the Kent farm where she chained him to a post in the barn while she got stuff out of her car, but the dog broke the post, entered the house and raided the refrigerator.
Jonathan looked at Lois. "Where did you say you found him?"
"Actually," Lois said after a pause. "I hit him."
"You hit him?" Clark piped up. "With your car?"
Ask a stupid question. "No, with my fist," Lois replied. "I was going to call a vet, but when I got in just now, he seemed fine."
Jonathan suggested printing up fliers. "He's got a collar. Obviously someone is missing him."
Lois sneezed. Apparently she's allergic to dog hair. "Fine with me."
"Actually, it might be fun having a dog," Clark said and smiled at Lois' misery.
The next morning Chloe showed up to deliver Lois' mail. Clark strolled out of the barn. "Hey, Chloe."
The dog came running out and Chloe began to pet him. "Who's the puppy?"
"We don't know his name. Lois found him."
Chloe put on her cheerful threatened expression. "She's bringing home strays now?"
Clark simply smiled. Chloe tried to read his expression. "How is the new tenant?"
"Well, she re-recorded our answering machine, she uses all the hot water and oh, she took over my bedroom. She's doing great."
"Okay, how are you?"
Clark sighed. "It's just kind of hard to be myself with her around."
Chloe scratched the dog's head. "Yeah, but now you've got this guy. You can be yourself around him, right?" Chloe asked. "And I'm always around."
Clark smiled, but said nothing.
"Brrr, it's cold," Chloe said after the awkward silence and said she'd go find Lois.
Clark said he'd be right in and chained the dog to the tractor. However, shortly after he entered the house he heard a crash. The dog had pulled the tractor through the picket fence. He quickly unchained the dog. "Looks like you've got a secret too," Clark said. "Where you from?" He started scratching the dog and found some type of chip embedded under his fur.
Chloe and Lois exited the house and saw the minor disaster. "What did you do?" Lois asked.
"Oh, it must have rolled."
"Through a fence?"
"Yeah," Clark said. "Weird, huh?"
"Yeah, weird," Chloe concurred. "But it happens. The emergency brake must have slipped, or something. It's an old tractor."
Clark nodded. "It is old."
Chloe said she had to get going as Lois looked at both of them like they were nuts. Chloe was trying to cover for Clark, but why she thought Clark sent a tractor rolling through a fence, I don't know. However, there's kind of a pathetic tinge to Chloe. By 'pathetic' I mean a pitiable quality, but an unsympathetic one. That she still carries a torch for Clark and feels threatened by her own cousin's proximity to Clark creates a situation that will no doubt end even worse than the situation with Lana.
With Chloe gone, Lois turned her full attention to Clark, who seemed compelled to say something. "Just playing with Skippy, here."
The dog gave a nice reaction shot. Even better than some of the actors.
"We're not going to call him Skippy."
"All right, Lois, what would you like to call him?"
"Okay," Lois considered. "He's annoying. I can't seem to get within ten feet of him without getting sick ... I think we should call him Clarkie."
Clark ignored the comment for the time being and said he'd found an ID chip on the dog that could be scanned at the animal shelter. So, off to the shelter they went. I do admit I laughed when Lois said "sit Clarkie" and the dog sat.
A worker at the shelter walked in to help Clark and Lois, but he was one of the bad guys and the dog started barking at him. Not surprisingly the guy pretended not to recognize the dog. "We call him Clarkie," Lois said.
"We don't call him Clarkie."
"Is it the 'ie' part you don't like?" Lois asked. "Because we oould always just make it Clark, but then it would get really confusing. Hey, maybe you should consider changing your name. You could be Skipper."
Clark pulled himself out of the hypnotic harangue and asked the guy to scan the ID tag, but when he approached the dog, it growled and snapped at him. Clark said he'd do the scan instead and of course LuthorCorp was listed as Clarkie's owner.
"Must be one of those lab dogs," the bad guy said. "I'd be happy to take him off your hands and return him for you."
"Actually, it's okay," Clark said. "We'll take care of it."
I noticed there was a lot of "we" used between Lois and Clark and they seemed to function as a couple. Don't ask 'a couple of what?' though. They seemed to go out and do most things together and without much question. Like it was more or less understood that they were going to be a team.
I'll also point out that even though they are paired together, no attempt at sexual tension is made. They operate on a friendship-in-denial level, but aren't really fooling each other. It's clear they're fond of each other, but for now can only express it through teasing.
Now we hit dismal swamp where the "you're evil" "no, you're evil" conversations just keep on coming. Seriously, that's all the more I get out of these isolated conversations. We get something of a creepy May/December flirtation between Lex and Genevieve. Not a romantic flirtation, just old and new money bruising each other.
Later, we get Genevieve and her son Jason sparring over Lana being a descendant of Isobel Thoreau and that Jason and Genevieve are descendants of Gertrude, a woman Isobel swore vengeance on. However, one glaring dialogue blooper was Genevieve saying that Isobel swore to "wipe out all of Gertrude's heirs. We're Gertrude's ancestors, Jason." She meant descendants and why no one, including the actors and director didn't catch that is beyond me.
Unseen by Genevieve and Jason, Lana lurked and glared down at them like an underaged Mrs. Danvers on the staircase at Manderly. Her expression was a mixture of suspicion and a kind of free-roaming angst that almost entirely defines Lana's character when she's in a relationship.
Martha called Lois down for dinner. Clark had gone to see Lex to ask if LuthorCorp was doing any experiments on dogs. There's not even a faint hint that Lex and Clark are still friends on any level. When Clark asked, Lex replied, "I'm not sure that's any of your business."
After Clark explained about Lois finding the dog with the LuthorCorp tag, Lex said his father had been running experiments with meteor rocks (how rare) and steroids to create super powered dogs. "I suppose it had some type of military application." And he was told the results were inconclusive and the experiments stopped and the dogs destroyed.
Back at Kent farm, the scenes with Lois and the Kents seemed to be used as a soft pedal form of foreshadowing. Just before Lois came down stairs, there was a crash and 'Clarkie' had broken the dining room table and was helping himself to the dinner. Martha joked that Clark had done the same thing when he was three years old. Jonathan said, "that's not funny," and he was right.
We get back to a super-powered toddler and the Kents sending that kid to school with normal defenseless human kids. Don't forget that in one episode it was said that Clark, at age six, pushed an eight year old through a door with such force that it broke the door. Definitely not funny.
On Lois & Clark, Clark's powers came to him very gradually. He was literally a defenseless baby and toddler. By ten he could run "pretty fast" but his abnormal strength didn't begin to manifest itself until he was about 13 years old.
I understand the episode was trying to show that teasing between a husband and wife, or any couple who are in love, is normal and fun, but the truth is they're showing it retroactively. Jonathan and Martha Kent on this series were never what I'd call a 'fun loving' couple. Martha even seemed afraid of Jonathan on a few occasions. He was often hotheaded, judgmental and intolerant in the first couple of seasons and so it's too much of an abrupt change seeing him being a nice guy in control of his temper.
The bonding continued as Lois helped Martha clean up the mess and then Lois ran out with Martha to comfort Jonathan when he was attacked by the other dog. She also waited with Martha at the medical clinic (yes, it had its scene in this episode) while Jonathan got patched up.
While the Kents could be seen as a couple who are kind to most people who need help, what makes these scenes different is that Lois will be Clark's wife in the future and so how they all get along in a family sense is much more important than it is with other characters. It's also important to start noting how Lois is different from Chloe and Lana and why Clark would choose her over the others.
This scene is a case in point. Clark and Lois broke into a lab facility, which isn't unusual on this show. However, it required that they climb over a high chain link fence. Clark climbed over and continued on to the building and then Lois climbed over. Had it been Lana or Chloe, I have a feeling Clark would have offered assistance to them, or at the very least stood by waiting to make sure they got over safely.
Of course it could be that Clark didn't care if Lois got over safely or not, but it came across more like if he'd broken into the facility with Pete. A feeling that no help would have been necessary. He'd know without looking that Pete would get over the fence. This isn't to say that Lana and Chloe couldn't have as well, but just as Lana gives off a very girlie-girl vibe and Chloe gives off a 'I'm not into PE class' vibe, Lois gives off a very tomboyish vibe and Clark seems to react to each accordingly. Not to mention Lois saying "oh, crap" when she stepped in dog poop is something Lana simply wouldn't say. Actually, the writers probably wouldn't permit her to step in dog poop in the first place.
Clark found a book listing the LuthorCorp payroll armored car route. "You call the police, I'll see if I can catch up to them."
"Hold on there, Forrest Gump," Lois said. "What are you going to do, run? We brought my car, remember? We can call the cops on the way. You are so weird sometimes." Not too different from another Lois telling another Clark, "You are so weird. Works for you, though."
They chased the bad guys at a blazing 36 miles per hour (Lois didn't want to hit anything). When they found them, Clark told Lois to see if she could help the unconscious guards and after she left he opened the door to the getaway van. He pressed a button that opened Clarkie's cage, but tubes of liquid kryptonite were on top and hit the floor and broke, so Clark sat there moaning as the van took off. Clarkie followed.
The bad guys put Clark in the vacated cage and doused the van in gasoline. Clarkie caught up and leaped into the van, pressed the release button with his nose and dragged Clark to safety. I'm not making that up. The bad guys, who hadn't seen or heard Clark escape, lit a flare and threw it at the van setting it ablaze. Clark then grabbed the bad guys and tossed them against a brick wall. Then Clarkie leaped back into the van to release the Rottweiler still trapped inside, but as the Rottweiler leaped out, the flames grew higher and Clarkie was afraid to jump out. Sooooo, Clark jumped back in, grabbed Clarkie and jumped out with him and sped away as the van blew up.
The next day the dog was checked out by Dr. Klein. Yes, it's spelled the same as Dr. Klein on Lois & Clark. Klein doesn't come from the comics, he was specifically created for L&C by David Simkins who got a character credit payment each subsequent time Klein was used, but I don't think he'll get a check from Smallville.
"You have a perfectly healthy normal dog," Klein said. "Have you thought of a name?"
"I was thinking about calling him Krypto."
"Interesting name," Lex said on cue as he entered the barn. "Krypto, what's it mean?"
"It's because his background is so cryptic."
The dog growled at Lex. The dog either sensed evil, or more likely, as with the other bad guy, the dog was familiar with Lex.
"Speaking of his background, I went out to the scene of the robbery and saw my armored truck. From the look of the back doors, I can only assume it was the handiwork of very strong dogs."
"Lex, you said I could keep him back when you thought he was a failed experiment."
"But, Clark, if the experiment didn't fail, this dog could be dangerous."
"He's not dangerous now and he saved my life. I'll take my chances on his loyalty." Ouch, zing. He trusts a dog over you, Lex.
Okay, more of the Lana plot, but Chloe was dragged into it this time. "So do you mind telling me why I was up till two in the morning researching Jason's family tree?"
"I ... uh ... saw him downstairs talking to his mom. It was obviously a heated discussion, but when he came up to the apartment, he didn't even mention it to me." Again, the impression that Jason lives with her.
"Did you hear what they were talking about?'
"No, but it clearly rattled him." Now either Lana is lying, or just amazingly intuitive asking Chloe to look into Jason's family tree. I mean if you saw your boyfriend and his mother arguing, would your first thought be to investigate bloodlines and heritage? "He's keeping something from me."
Oh, for crying out loud, Lana, give it a rest. No man on this, or any other planet, will live up to your ideal of full disclosure. Sometimes there'll be family secrets that aren't any of your business until you're part of that family. Sometimes people are keeping a secret for someone else and it's not their place to tell you. Either learn to accept that, or get used to living alone.
To make a long dull story short and dull, Chloe told Lana that Jason's family came from the same place in France that Lana's family came from and that it was Genevieve's grandmother who had Isobel's tomb moved into the church. Weee, and now part 2 of 'As the Dullness Turns.' Lionel gave Jason a map. The same map that had been hidden in the 14th century manuscript page. A map that apparently leads to one of the stones of power. I'm not explaining those things again.
Lois gave the dog a bath in hopes it would alleviate her allergy, but it didn't. When Clark threw her a towel to dry him off, we got the temporary cape on Krypto. There are more red blankets and towels in Smallville than any other place in the world. "So," Lois said, "what are we going to call him? And don't give me any of that Skipper crap."
"I was thinking we'd call him Krypto."
"Why? Because he's so cryptic like you? I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"Because I think it's dumb. You can call your next dog Krypto."
The Kents entered and Martha mentioned that the dog reminded her of a dog she had as a little girl named Shelby.
"I can live with that," Lois said.
"Well, it beats Clarkie."
Clark then went out and tossed the Frisbee around with Shelby. Speaking of ...
Shelby was the name given to the dog in Loeb's comic A Superman for All Seasons. However the name came from the artist Tim Sale, who drew a fat bloated Clark/Superman. Apparently he had a dog named Shelby as a boy. However ...
The dog in the episode actually looked like Rusty, the dog Clark was playing with when he learned he could fly.
The real Krypto, like Clark, was from Krypton. This was his debut cover in 1955. Notice he's carrying a safe in his mouth and Shelby broke open a safe in the episode. The most often repeated story of how Krypto came to Earth is that Jor-El made a test spaceship in preparation for sending Kal-El to Earth and put Krypto in for the test run.
This was one more episode where nothing really advanced. The Lana/Jason/Lex/Genevive story line just marches in place. Lois is at the Kent farm, but she isn't going to school and currently has no job. Clark has no new powers and nothing new on the quest/mytharc front. As for Krypto, well, the producers seem to grossly overestimate the draw of minor factors in the Superman myth. Comic book fans knew of Krypto as they knew of Mxyzptlk, but that's a tiny tiny percentage of their potential audience.
Next week, Mulana ... Kwai Chang Lang, or Cramping Stomach Hidden Nausea, take your pick as Smallville rips off a few Chinese classics.
Zoom (thanking Georgia for the scans of Rusty and Shelby)
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