Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Abandonment Issues
By Tippi Blevins | Season 10 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.12.2010
In the multipurpose dungeon/training room/blacksmith shop, Clark has been stripped of his shirt. Granny's girls chain his wrists and hoist his arms up over his head. Why does every episode of everything I recap have a torture scene in it? Since the green kryptonite fires are still weakening him, Clark tries to talk his way out of the situation. He just wants to help the little girls find good homes. The young woman with the Freddy Kreuger glove and the Teresa Giudice hairline tells him that nobody could love them more than Granny. Clark tries to explain the difference between love and control, but the distinction is lost on them. Freddy rakes her claws over the wall, the metal sparking green. She extols Granny's virtues, like her being "smarter than any human." She runs her claws down Clark's chest, drawing blood. "Just as these green fire rocks temper our weapons, making them stronger, she makes us stronger." Oy, this dialog. "Soon, a great fury will consume this world and no one will be able to stop us." She waves her claws in Clark's face, until Granny's voice scolds her: "Harriet! I told you to look after our lost lamb, not slaughter him." Well, that's what you get when you put insane people in charge of your welcoming committee. Granny sends the Furies to their rooms so she can deal with Clark. She tenderly caresses his face and promises that taking away his memories will make everything better.
In her old room, Tess remembers the makeshift key from her nightmare/memory. It's still waiting for her, stashed away under the floorboards. She unlocks the door but runs into Harriet at the bottom of the stairs. "Move it or lose it, sister," Tess says. Harriet attacks her. Tess throws her through a glass partition, then kicks her in the face for good measure. Just when things are starting to look up for Tess, Lashina snares her throat with the length of her whip. She jerks the whip and Tess crashes to the floor.
We cut away from that exciting fight to join Lois at the Fortress of Solitude. Lois, strangely enough, doesn't introduce herself, but says to the silent Fortress that she's there to talk about Clark. Er... Kal-El. "Look, I know that as a parent you had to make the hardest decision ever to save your son and send him here alone." Actually, it was probably a pretty easy decision. Let baby Kal-El die on Krypton or send him to Earth so that he could survive. Lois doesn't get a response, so she tries to draw a parallel for Jor-El by telling him that her dying mother tried to protect her by keeping her away, but it was the wrong thing to do. Jor-El can still be there for his son, she says. You know, as much as a crazy computer program can be. "Your son needs a father who believes in him," Lois says. "I wish knowing that I loved him was enough, but Clark can't fully hear it with the ghost of your disappointment haunting him." Again, this Jor-El is a computer program, and a pretty inconsistent one at that. Nonetheless, Lois is angry that Jor-El doesn't respond. "He's lucky to be rid of you!" she calls out. The Fortress finally reacts, by immobilizing her in a beam of light. It lifts her off the ground. She hangs in midair, her monologue blessedly silenced.