Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Patriot Acting Up
By Tippi Blevins | Season 10 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.05.2010
Clark and Lois, now fully clothed, debate a bit in hushed tones as to why the General has come for a visit. Clark is sure he's there to spend time with his daughter, but Lois thinks he's there to do some "recon on the man dating his daughter." She hopes her father doesn't find Clark's silly leather jacket. (She's nicer about it than that, though.) Clark assures her he's taken care of everything. He remains remarkably calm for someone who nearly got caught mounting a man's daughter like a circus pony. Lois grows more panicked by the moment. "None of my other boyfriends have survived the General's assault," she says. She needs Clark to be perfect. "It is important to me that my dad likes you." Clark sweetly tells her that he just wants her to be happy. She just hopes her father doesn't find out Clark is a superhero. "He hates superheroes," she tells him, then flounces off to find Daddy Dearest, leaving Clark to soak in the stink of that particular dropped bomb.
Lois finds her father in the kitchen, poring over a scrapbook of all Clark's high school heroics. The General, having changed into his civvies, appears no less commanding. Clark joins them. "It's good to see you, sir," he says. The General gives him a brusque nod and takes a look around the kitchen, noting things haven't changed much. There's a gun hanging over the doorway. How... decorative. "Your mother still own the place?" he asks. "It is still in her name," Clark says. He's about to say something like "but I run the place," but the General cuts him off, dressing him down for living in his mother's home and working in a basement. Clark, still friendly, clarifies that the basement is the Daily Planet bullpen. "I work side by side with Lois," he adds, clearly hoping this will earn him some points. Instead, the General points out that Lois writes more articles than Clark does. "What exactly do you do with your time, Clark?" "Well, lately I've been doing your daughter," he doesn't say. Lois, who's been busying herself with kitchen prep up to this point, tells her pa that she and Clark write articles together, but that sometimes Clark lets her have the byline. He's lucky that Tess is his boss, because any other editor would write him off as a slacker. Clark tells the General that he and Lois look after each other. To that end, the General has a list of things around the farm that need to be "brought up to code" if his daughter is going to be staying there. "Like scrubbing the bathroom tile with a toothbrush?" Clark asks. He's joking, but then it turns out that particular chore is on the list, along with many, many others. He's expected to put up storm windows, put a new roof on the chicken coop, clean the stables and capture Cerberus. Clark is agog.