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
It's a well-acted scene, and not badly written. It's just sort of weird in context. What if Lois had watched those tapes when she was still little? Relationships and commitment and such would probably not have been at the forefront of a child's priorities.
St. Louise's Orphanarium. Clark and Tess stand in front of the imposing building. Tess holds up a picture of herself with her adoptive parents standing on the steps of the orphanage. She compares the photo with the real thing but doesn't remember ever being there. Clark says someone broke into her house to remind her. With grim looks of determination, they head towards the building Granny greets them on the steps with a big smile. "You must be the reporters who called! Welcome!" She shakes their hands and all but offers them ribbon candy. She gushes about how excited her girls are at the thought of being featured in the Daily Planet. The girls, clad in gray pinafores and starched white shirts, assemble on the steps to serenade the big city reporters with "Amazing Grace." Clark's super-hearing picks up another girl's voice, this one farther away and calling for help. Pretending he's forgotten his notebook, Clark excuses himself and follows the voice to St. Louise's dusty bowels. He finds a girl, different from the one we saw earlier, but bound to the same wheelchair. He starts untying her bonds. "Hurry before Granny comes back," the girl cries. Use your super-speed, man! He continues freeing her at a frustratingly human pace. The girl says that Granny was going to make her forget her recently dead parents. Clark takes her by the hand and starts to lead her out, but they hear the distant clanging of metal against metal. "That's what Granny turns us into," says the girl. Clark stashes the girl in another room and tells her to wait for him.
He follows the clanging and comes upon a group of young women clad in black leather, fighting each other with various metal weapons. As he nears them, he gets that familiar sinking feeling that signifies the presence of green kryptonite. He glances around, wondering how his conveniently inconvenient weakness has manifested itself this time, and sees a woman forging weaponry in green-tinged fire. The women attack him. One of them trips him with her bull whip and he crashes to the floor. "I'm here to help you!" he protests. A woman stands over him, her boot-clad foot on his chest. "No one here needs saving," she says. "Except you." She's wearing a Freddy Kreuger glove on one hand. Clark doesn't argue.