Episode Report Card Omar G: B | 2 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Hero to Zero
By Omar G | Season 1 | Episode 14 | Aired on 03.11.2002
The long-awaited Club Zero episode. We're goin' clubbin', folks.
Dark, moody opening. We see a bald, puffy face, and for one moment I think we're seeing the lost footage of what happened to Billy Corgan after Sharon Osbourne kicked his ass. The face is definitely ass-kicked, though. Looks like some bruises, and it takes a moment to realize that underneath all that kicked ass is the beauty that is Lex Luthor. It's like he's whispering to us in that extreme Silence of the Lambs close-up, "Look away. Don't look at me like this! I don't want you to see me this way!" The camera spins around as it pans back. Suddenly, Ass-Kicked Lex is upside down. Everything is dark. Lex is sweaty. Does Clark like it rough, or something? We pull back far enough to reveal that Lex, in a pressed white shirt, is suspended in the air and hanging from the ceiling in what looks like a Nine Inch Nails video. "Let me go," he yells/mumbles. Full-on method acting. Yes. A door behind Lex opens, and somebody walks through it. The guy presses some sort of hand switch, and suddenly a bright light is shining in Lex's face. "What do you want from me?" Lex moans. Oh, dear lord! One of the forum posters has finally found Lex! "The truth," Mystery Man answers...well, mysteriously. As the guy says this, we hear the "karma, karma, karma" strains of Lo Fidelity Allstars doing "Battleflag." It's the same song that was playing when Carter and Lucy got stabbed on ER. That band is totally playing Austin this week at South by Southwest even as I'm writing this. Spooky, y'all.
We are suddenly in the fabled Club Zero, and...you know, it's not exactly the pit of decadence and in-your-face homoeroticism that we'd hoped. In fact, the first thing we see after some green lights is some bimbo in a bikini top dancing on a platform. What is this, The Grind? "Metropolis. Three years ago," a title card reads at the bottom of the screen. We're suddenly in front of the club, where a throng of people is waiting to get inside. Lex, sporting a sharp leather coat, is accompanying a girl who looks a little like Liv Tyler. A big Samoan-lookin' dude asks Lex for some ID. Lex, who doesn't look at all like he's three years younger, tells the guy he must be new. Another guy -- an even taller bouncer man who is strapping and buff -- tells Bouncy Samoan to let them in. They do so, opening up the velvet rope for the velvet man and his date. Lex thanks his buddy, Kasitch, and hands him a little, tiny, wadded-up piece of cash. Kasitch pockets it in his jacket, and when he does, we see that he's packing heat. The kind with bullets. Metal bullets. My goodness, you're all so dirty. As Lex and Kasitch walk, Kasitch comments on how "cute" the girl is. What man calls a girl "cute" in a club? It's either "hot" or "skanky" or a bunch of other words I won't reveal because I'd be violating the Male Code. Lex tells Kasitch that the girl is engaged. And I don't think he means engaged in an activity.