Episode Report Card Omar G: C+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Bully For Lex!
By Omar G | Season 6 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.25.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Lex attends a ten-year reunion of his Excelsior prep school, with Oliver and other tormenting classmates in attendance. In flashbacks (by the way, Smallville, you could learn a lot from Lost about how to handle flashbacks gracefully), we learn that Lex had one friend in school -- a nerdy kid named Duncan who shared a love of comic books and was poor. Lex and Duncan were bullied by Oliver (in full-on Malfoy mode) and two of his thug buddies. It turns out that when it came time to bust the three for cheating after catching them in the act, Duncan wanted to turn them in, while Lex wanted to use the information to force them into a weird friendship to become popular and accepted. Lex ends up beating the crap out of Duncan in the argument, and when the kid backs away, BOOM! He gets hit by a car. Thus, he's dead and everyone is sad and regretful, even Oliver. At the reunion, one of Oliver's buddies is impaled by a falling statue. Then, later, another buddy is killed by a car explosion. Then Lana, Lex, and Oliver are almost taken out by exploding glass. It turns out Duncan didn't die; he was kept alive by Papa Luthor to be experimented on after falling into a coma. But the latest treatment (Kryptonite, of course) has made the boy capable of astral projection and telekinesis. No joke. Lois, Clark, and Chloe investigate and find the poor kid trying to get his brain revenge on. He dies when one of Oliver's arrows, which shoots an electromagnetic pulse, fries his brain. He dies. In other news, Chloe and Clark try to track down escapees from the Phantom Zone, and Clark discovers that Raya made it out. And in a final note, Lois drops the badly chosen word "retarded" when referring to Clark's theory that there are good secrets, opening up a discussion that I will only refer to as "Retardedgate." Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Yay! Closed Captions are back! You can also stop your letter-bombing campaigns on my behalf to the San Antonio CW station. You did remember to send those angry letters, right? Right?
A title card on black reads "EXCELSIOR ACADEMY, OCTOBER 26, 1999." Ooh, ten years ago today. Ominous. Whenever this show goes into the past or the supposed future, they use the High-Contrast Lens Filter of Psychological Trauma. It is used here to make very bright a normal-looking high-rent boys' school.
The camera glides gracefully across the front of the school as young men in prep school uniforms walk around talking about the pranks they pulled on Dobby the House Elf the night before. Someone asks another kid why Warrior Angel and Black Diamond are fighting since they were once friends. We spot the cover of a Warrior Angel comic book. Black Diamond (who has hair) is punching a dude with wings (Warrior Angel, bald) across the mouth. Two boys are walking. One of them has short dark hair. The other, Young Lex Luthor, is wearing a black cap to cover his shame. "Didn't you read issue #126?" Lex asks the other boy. The boy says that he didn't have money that week. He asks what happened. Lex starts explaining that Black Diamond's father is a supervillain and that in that issue, Warrior Angel has to take the dude down. Apparently, an accident kills the father and -- hey, I was listening to that! A cocky young firebrand with bright blonde hair (young Oliver Queen!) snatches the comic out of Lex's young hand. Other boys nearby chuckle with glee. Young Ollie stares down Young Lex. He calls them, "Weirdo Angel and his trusty sidekick Grease Spot." Ha ha, Grease Spot! Oh, damn! Now I, too, have become a bully. "Give it back, Ollie," Young Lex says. "That's Mr. Queen to you, little man," Ollie says. He's got Young Keifer Sutherland facial expressions and Older Oliver's cleft chin. Lex's friend, whom we learn is named Duncan, tells Young Lex that it's all right; he'll get another comic. One of Ollie's sidekicks mocks Duncan, teasing that he can't get another one. "Oh yeah, that's right," Ollie's second sidekick interjects, "His Mommy doesn't have any money. That's why he's on scholarship." Young Lex tells Young Geoffrey and Young Alden to shut up. He tells "Mr. Queen" to give the comic back. Ollie says sure -- he offers to make it a two-parter. He holds up the comic book and rips it in half. Lex dives for it. He gets pushed down for his troubles. Young Lex's cap falls off. He looks around, embarrassed. "Nice haircut, Cue Ball," one of the boys says. Duncan helps Lex up and hands him his cap. Ollie says "these girls" aren't even worth it. There are even slightly cuter girls at Wellesley! He and his crew walk away. One of them calls Lex a loser as they go. Young Lex is fuming. A school bell rings. "One day, I'm gonna get those guys," Lex says as they walk up some stairs. The camera pans up to a statue sitting atop the main building.