Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Frankenville
By Tippi Blevins | Season 9 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.26.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.This show is a lot like Frankenstein's monster, cobbled together out of odd pieces and reanimated only to shuffle along like some unholy mishmash of creation. We have the pieces that happen off-screen and the pieces that happen on-screen, which are then stitched together and shot through with bolts of exposition and special effects to try to create something resembling a TV show. This week, we learn of things that have been happening off-screen: Chloe has been embezzling money from one of Oliver's companies in order to stockpile Kryptonite weapons to fight the Kandorians when they inevitably run amok. We also hear of a few Kandorian scientists who have been bringing human corpses back to life in order to find a way to gain their powers. Chloe and Oliver have also been apparently carrying on in some way intimate enough to lead her to believe a visit he pays her is of the sexy kind.
Alas, it's not. He shows up on-screen so we can learn of the embezzling/weapons plot and so he and Chloe can debate whether or not they trust Clark enough to let him in on it. One of those corpses the Kandorians experimented on shows up to tell Lois about how he was experimented on. When she thinks he's a UFO conspiracy weirdo, he kidnaps her and forces her to write an alien exposé. He's also kidnapped several Kandorians, including Faora's heretofore unseen sister Vala. No one besides Zod seems very curious about the terroristic attacks on the towers, which police have apparently explained away as an accident. Clark and Zod both try to rescue Vala, but Zod gets shot in the process and dies. Clark brings him back to life by dripping some of his own blood into Zod's wound. He and Clark make up, or so it seems, because Clark's blood didn't just save Zod, it gave him super powers. Zod leaps from the top of the Daily Planet building and zooms across the sky, having learned how to fly somewhere off-screen.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see what other superbeings have crossed Clark in our guide to the Heroes and Villains of Smallville!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!It's a dark and stormy night in Metropolis when we join Faora at a newsstand. She fingers her Kandorian tag thoughtfully and gazes at a copy of the Daily Planet. There's a picture of the solar towers in mid-inferno and the headline reads, "TOWER OF TOMORROW TERMINATED." None of that emphasis is mine. That angry, trumpet-blowing elephant shows up in the soundtrack again. I feel like that elephant is really starting become a part of the cast. Also? What a horrible, horrible newspaper headline. [Haaaaaave you read the Daily News? - Zach] Clark doop-de-doops up to Faora, all cheerful smiles until he sees her flashing her tag. "It's not a good idea to advertise you're from another planet," he says, loud enough to advertise to any passersby that she's from another planet. She makes no effort to conceal the tag because she's got Kryptonian pride. He tells her it's just while she's in public, to "play it safe." She gets all het up. "How can we play it safe when someone destroyed our tower?" She says it in an angry, accusatory tone that makes it sound like she knows Clark is responsible. But then she goes on to say anyone could have done it. Clark looks a little gassy. She puts her tag away and says she doesn't know who to trust anymore. They walk away from the newsstand. Clark says he knows how much the tower meant to them, but you can't change what's in the past. "Zod said it was our salvation," Faora says. Clark says Zod was wrong. "Trust me, the future will be much brighter without it." Somehow, this doesn't make Faora at all suspicious of Clark's guilt. Instead, she focuses on the one thing that gives her hope: the sister Clark found and brought back to her. They stop outside a bookstore where the sister in question now works. She sees them and runs up to hug Clark, calling him "Kal-El." He reminds her to call him by his human name, Douche-Face. She beams up at him. Clark says he just wanted to make sure they were both adjusting. Faora snits that it would be easier if they had their powers. [Which I don't get, because they didn't have any powers on Krypton, and it seems like super powers make it harder to fit in, not easier. - Zach] The sister, who never stops beaming at Clark, says they have nothing to fear. "He'll protect us." They all hear a police siren and little sister tells Clark to go help. He whooshes away, in front of everyone on the street. The sister is all googly-eyed, but Faora tells her not to get her hopes up. "He's in love with a human." [Filthy mudblood! - Z] She tells sister to close up the store and meet her for coffee.