Episode Report Card Omar G: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Zone Diet
By Omar G | Season 6 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.27.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Welcome to Season 6, compadres! Clark finds a missing floorboard in his Bohemian Rhapsody space prison and falls through it, landing in the dreaded Phantom Zone. Surprisingly, there's an actual scary phantom there that attacks him immediately. Clark is saved by a hot young lass named Raya who used to be his dad's "assistant" back on Krypton. Yeah, I've heard that one before. Raya gives Clark a bitchin' Superman medallion that has protected her. She guides Clark to the supe-secret family-only exit of the Phantom Zone and uses the medallion to kill some baddies, but not before getting iced herself. The price of being Clark's friend, lady. Clark lands on Earth and goes out looking for Lex, who is still possessed by Zod. MamaKent and Lois survive the plane crash and find themselves at the Fortress of Solitude. MamaKent has a chat with Jarnelle, who thanks her for being a good mama and suggests that she has to kill Zod to save the world. Then he sends them back to Smallville. Chloe tries to figure out the Kryptonian symbol message or some crap and finds out that the guy who took her virginity, Jimmy Olsen, is now working at The Daily Planet. Lana, meanwhile, quickly discovers that her man is not her man, but some creepy space dude instead. LexZod decides to make Lana his Earth concubine to produce some heirs and stabs her in the hand with a sword to keep her in place. Lana escapes and confabs with MamaKent and Papa Luthor (who, even in the chaos, is putting the major moves on MamaKent). They decide, stupidly, that Lana should use the Funky Plastic Dagger to kill Zod. She makes out with Zod and tries to be slick, but he stops her and tries to choke-a-bitch, Wayne Brady style. Clark enters and starts a mid-air fight with Zod. They struggle and end up in a field where Lex/Zod gets to say, "Kneel before Zod!" Clark, used to doing so for Lex, has no problem with that. But he does bust out his dad's medallion and use it to get Zod out of Lex's body. Lex doesn't remember a thing and feels awful about everything. Clark finds Chloe just in time to feel awkward about her new friend ("Call me James") Jimmy. Clark feels mopey and alone again. Unfortunately for him, he's not too alone: that creepy Phantom from The Zone got loose on Earth. Hey, I thought that exit was family-only! Maybe Clark has a fugly monster cousin. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
MAN, that was a good summer I just had, but it was also life-changing. After that crazy night cruisin' and partyin', the group went its separate ways. One person went off to college. My best friend stayed in town. One of the gang was killed two years later by a drunk driver, and another went missing in Vietnam. As for me, I went to Canada to avoid the draft and became a writer. And now here I am. I don't think I'll ever forget them.
We open on the face of a young Latina sitting in a fancy New York City lobby, looking nervous. She fidgets with her lips, which lie in front of two sets of metal braces on her teeth. A blaring yellow title card reads Ugly Betty. Oh, SNAP! Wrong channel!
Over on The WB, it's...Desire? What the fuck!?
Oh! Right! CW! Uh...channel...what channel is that? Channel 2! Cheesy promos. Pretty young thangs posing for the camera. This must be the place. What's with all the green? Did they sacrifice the blood of Michigan J. Frog to make this network? Apparently, The CW's catchphrase for now is "Everybody wants you." Yeah? Well, then, explain my high-school years. The episode is in HD "where available," which ain't here.
We get right into it, with Clark watching the Earth float away as he mopes from his glass prison in space. You know, even out of the Earth's orbit, that jacket is still unfashionable. Clark looks like he's going to cry. He bangs both fists on the surface of the glass. "Elaine! Elaine!" It's really hard to stop a wedding from way up here. Clark gives up easily. He looks down and sees weird jagged fragments on the floor of his tiny flat prison cell. He presses his foot on an empty space and makes time/space wobble. See, that's what really sucks about using space contractors. They always forget to install a floorboard or put the right kind of "whoosh" noise on the automatic doors of your spaceship. If you wanna do space travel or space prison construction right, you've gotta hire some Mexicans. Seriously. Clark suddenly falls through the apparently ginormous crack, and tunnels down a jagged hole. It's not the first time. It's a lot like Being John Malkovich, but instead of landing next to the New Jersey Turnpike, Clark lands on the washed-out metallic-camera-filter desert set of Pitch Black. He rolls down a sandy hill. Clark's got a bloody lip and a dusty Members Only jacket. He stands up and looks around. This place suuuuucks. Clark squints. He begins climbing a hill. He makes it over that hill. Hey, Clark, I bet some Jawas would give you a good deal on your watch. Maybe you can buy a droid. Clark keeps walking. Something whizzes behind Clark, and close to the camera. Clark stops and turns. "Hello!" he calls. "Dink dink!" the Jawas call back. "Is anyone there?" Clark yells, echoing. He keeps walking. Some Predator-looking thing rushes behind him and knocks Clark down. It keeps flying every which way, attacking him. It's cutting him up, but good. This monster's pretty bad-ass! The thing finally grabs Clark by the head with its gnarly, giant hands, and climbs on his back. It throws him down again and wrestles with Clark on the blasted ground. Another one joins in. It's two desert wraiths in nicely done CGI. Someone standing nearby fires a phaser that shoots blue light at the creatures. They scatter. The phaser -- which is actually a small crest -- keeps firing at Clark, but he's unaffected. The person -- who is wearing desert gear from head to toe -- is a woman. We can tell from her pretty eyebrows. Clark thanks her as he struggles to his knees. The woman rears back and kicks him right in the face. The point after! The woman takes off part of her burka. And she's...hot! Who could have guessed? "Welcome to The Phantom Zone," she says coldly. Yeah, welcome to the PZ, bitch! I'm thirsty, so I'm wishing it was the Fanta Zone.