Vortex

Damn, y'all. That vacation went by fast. Faster than a speeding bullet. Faster than a Smallville High jockstrap. Faster than a Lexmobile on a bridge. Faster than the increase in subscriptions to The Advocate in Smallville when Lex and his crew came to town.

When last we left our leafy little hamlet, Lex and his dad were about to be impaled by a dangerous object; Lana was about to be taken for a wild ride; and huge currents of ravaging crosswinds were poised to wreak havoc and destruction. And all this was just inside Clark Kent's pants.

We begin Season Two ("Season of The Sexy") with a set of clips from last season. Clark's truck blows up. A sneaky reporter named Nixon found Clark's ship and its octagonal missing piece. Lex got all bloody-eyed. Jocko Whitney left the show to go be one of the few, the proud, the unceremoniously dumped by the WB. Oh, and this big-ass tornado was going to kill everything. Who wants pie?

"Vortex" opens on a cloudy day with Clark's old spaceship hauling ass across green fields, toward a huge tornado. There's no rain right now, which seems to go against the whole dark clouds/big tornado scene. Rain must cost extra to animate. The spaceship -- which, I'm told looks just like a black ravioli -- sails into the funnel cloud and straight up. There's debris and lightning everywhere. The ship gets struck by lightning, loosening that little octagon piece, which flies away in a burst of cheap electrical fire. So, let me get this straight: This ship can survive interstellar travel, survive being co-pilot in a huge meteor attack, and make it through the perilous journey through Earth's atmosphere, but it can't survive a Farmer Ted-grade bolt of lightning? If we're ever attacked by aliens, all we'll have to do is rub our shoes on some deep carpet and touch them. More flying crap. I think I see some rejected second-season script pages in here somewhere. Suddenly, the red truck Lana was driving is sailing toward us. Lana is in the truck. The dumb-ass has her hands locked on the steering wheel. No, Lana! Don't steer away from the funnel! She ducks onto the floorboard, and a door suddenly swings open and flies away. And then, there's Clark! He's somehow gotten a haircut and a tan in the twenty seconds it took to get up to the funnel cloud (he's a super groomer, I suppose), and he's hanging from the truck's driver's-side door area like he's The T-1000 from T2. He climbs into the truck. No big thang. Lana watches him. Clark is making lots of fuck faces as he struggles to hang on. Everything is shaky, and I get flashbacks to "Jitters." Clark climbs on top of Lana, who is lying face down, and it's suddenly oh so very wrong. The car is stripped clean of its doors, hood, and outer body. This would only be impressive to anyone who hasn't lived in a city big enough to support a thriving chop shop industry. Clark hangs on to Lana. He bellows. Lightning strikes. Better watch out, Clark. Maybe you've got the same crappy vulnerability to lightning that your spaceship did.

Crumbling Luthor Manor. We flash on the face of bloody-eyed Lex. We see a craggy wooden piece hanging from the ceiling, then the magnificent yet bastardous Papa Luthor still pinned beneath a column. "Lex!" he shouts. "I'm your father!" he says, and extends his hand. Hey, nice pinky ring. Lex just stands there. He must be thinking about what he's going to say time he's on The Best Damn Sports Show Period. ["Yeah -- why is Michael Rosenbaum friends with Tom Arnold? That's just weird." -- Wing Chun] Lex finally moves forward and lifts the big obstacle. Good, because I was seriously worried that John Glover was going to get axed from the show. Not real worried. Not so worried I was crying or anything. Not like a deep, unhealthy, more-than-just-gay yearning to see John Glover every week and maybe imagine him in a beautiful dolphin tank with pink-tinted water and floating candles. Nothing like that. Um, let's move on. As Lex continues moving pieces of his castle, we hear creaking as the ceiling dips dangerously. Then a bunch of crap falls on Lex. Nothing that looks heavy, mind you. It looks like the prop department lost all their cue cards and plywood. Lex gets up and calls for his dad. We see Papa Luthor's hand lying still to a book with its pages flapping in the wind and lightning.

We transition to the woods. There are branches flying, but they look a little unnatural. I'm thinking they may be CGI. I have a theory I'm gonna test out this season: The quality of an episode is inversely proportionate to the amount of CGI in it. Let's see how long this idea holds. Bo Duke is chasing Nixon through the woods, because that's just the way love is, dammit. Oh, wait. I forgot. Bo's pissed at Nixon for trying to expose his son's secret. (Or at least the secret about the superpowers.) Nixon -- who is carrying his videocamera -- stumbles. As he gets up, he removes a small digital tape from the cam and sticks it in his pocket. Bo continues to pursue. He's thinking, "This shit was so much easier when we had the General Lee." "Nixoooooon!" Bo yells in frustration, which incidentally was what much of America was yelling in the early '70s. Bo tackles Nixon near what appears to be the graveyard where Lana's oft-mentioned flat circular disc-parents are buried. Nixon punches Bo. Bo punches Nixon. Except for the storm, this could be any Dukes of Hazzard episode. Bo yells at Nixon to give him the camera. Nixon tells Bo Duke to get away, then throws his own camera. He couldn't just slide it over, or roll it nicely? Bo stupidly goes after the camera. Nixon makes his sneaky escape. Bo looks up and sees a huge structure coming down. He runs over to Nixon, pushes him down a hole, looks up again, then follows him. Bo narrowly escapes a fate worse than Lana's parents by ducking under a colorful dropped trailer. Ah, Kansas. Then we see Bo falling down some stone steps. Suddenly, we're on a Buffy the Vampire Slayer crypt set. Much rolling down stairs and dust.

We transition stormily (ha!) to Lana's cherubic face. The camera rotates a full circle around her face, because if it were to stay still for even a moment, Lana's unbelievably unnatural beauty would render the idea of captured motion images useless for all other humans. Best to keep it moving. Clark says her name and puts his hand on her head. Because you wouldn't want to catch a fever when you just got thrown around by a twister. Clark, in his torn-up suit, looks around as the camera pulls back. We see the twister off in the distance. We pull back further and hear tinkly music. There's an overturned tractor (of course) and a swath of destruction. Why, God, why? I don't mean the tornado. I mean the show.

New title credits. Everybody looks...shinier somehow. And more orange. Maybe I need to adjust my set's color. Funny things: They added that awful CGI sunset. And Lana jumping in front of a huge fireball. That, my friends, is funnier than anything I can say here. John Glover has been added to the credits, and that is some good juju, right there. MamaKent is doing her signature pucker. And Bo Duke looks like he's breaking especially pleasing wind during his little moment. Watch it again. I'm serious.

So, "Vortex." In high school, my best friends and I had a thing where whenever somebody told a bad joke, the Humor Vortex was there, above us, waiting to suck somebody in. So you'd grab your friend who told the bad joke by the arm, holding him to the table, and say, "I got ya, man." And there was a whole mythology about the man in the Humor Vortex who would call your name and beckon you to the Vortex. "Omaaaaaaar," he'd bellow, "Join meeeeeeee." And if you got sucked up there, you'd have to sit on a throne to him and watch Blazing Saddles with him for all eternity. I'm sure there's a lot more I'm forgetting, but that's what this episode reminds me of. Maybe there should be an Acting Vortex just for Lana.

The strangest PlayStation commercial ever leads us back into the "Vortex." We're in a strangely lit hospital. It's purple and pink, with lots of neon and medical equipment. It's like we're in Courtney Love's bedroom. Hey, it's Jean-Claude Van Damme on a stretcher! Jean's not looking so good these days. We overhead-pull-back from him and circle. I think the cinematographer this week got high and played with his daughter's Spirograph at some point before they shot this episode. It's mass chaos. People are lying in the chessboard-tiled hallway. I think this is what they call a "triage." It's medical slang, like "beeyatch." Some dude hurt his arm, but he's limping off. That sort of thing. Clark busts in calling for help. He calls for a doctor, but nobody listens. You'd think, by now, everybody at the hospital would be on a first-name basis with him. "I need help, now!" Clark says dramatically toward the guy standing to the camera. I paused it, and you can see his purty greenish-blue eyes. Somebody penlights Lana's eye open. Clark, for all his superpowers, looks perplexed by this basic medical function. Lana's waking up. Clark sighs. The diminutive lady doctor asks the patient's name. She turns, and when we hear the "Whoosh!" of supermotion, we know Clark's not around. Lana, meanwhile, is all splayed on the stretcher, as if she got really drunk at a frat party. The camera pulls back down the hall of the Las Vegas-looking hospital corridor.

Clark superspeeds through a field of very carefully placed debris. Then he rushes down the Kent Farm storm-shelter stairs. He calls for his mommy. He sees MamaKent's legs as she's lying on the floor, and for the first time in the show, he calls her "Mama." Twice, even. Mini-shout-out, perhaps? I leave that for you to decide. MamaKent wakes up in a panic. "We have to find your father!" she says. She expositions the stuff about Nixon and how Bo Duke went after that dastardly reporter. Clark goes off to find them. But before he leaves, he turns around. "Mom. Where's the ship?" My guess is that it's on a nice plate of pesto pasta with a side of spinach artichoke dip. To hammer home the point, we get a shot of where the ship used to sit. It's empty there. Yep, empty space. A whole room full of it. Yep. Uh huh. No ship, all right. It certainly is no longer there.

AAGGH! Papa Luthor! He's lying down, all braced up, with his head bandaged and everything. We pan back from an overhead view and pivot to see a doctor standing to Papa's hospital bed. I'm telling you. The cinematographer is getting his weed on. Doctor rattles off the injuries. Swelling in the vertebrae resulting in partial loss of leg feeling. Ruptured spleen. Severe trauma to the optic nerve. Lex says he wants a med-evac to Metropolis. Lex has a little gauze over the cut above his right eye. The doctor cuts Lex off and tells him that moving the critical condition patient is not an option. They don't have Lionel hooked up to any breathing mechanisms or an IV. How bad off could he be? Lex starts to offer some Lionel clout, but the doctor says he knows who Lionel Luthor is and can't give him special treatment. "That's not what I meant," Lex says. "He's my father." That exchange made no sense whatsoever. The doctor leaves. "Leeex...Leeex," we hear Papa Luthor say, without opening his eyes or moving his lips. I hope there's not a ventriloquist's dummy somewhere in the room. Lex tells his dad not to worry; he's going to fly in a specialist from Metropolis. Creepily, and as Lex looks on, Papa Luthor says he saw in Lex's eyes what he was thinking: that life would be easy if Papa wasn't around. Lex gulps. "Dad. I'm sorry," he says. Papa says nothing. Strings play. See? Isn't that simple sound cue so much better than crappy alt-rock that's going to age so badly by the time this series comes to the U.S. on DVD? If they'd played Nickelback, or some bullshit like it, it would have ruined the scene.

Clark is on the farm, yelling. Man, nice tan, dude. A VW bus is turned over. I don't think there's ever been a VW bus on this show. They must have borrowed it from the set of That '70s Show. MamaKent comes out. They try to reassure each other that Bo is fine. I mean, come on -- he has to know at least a hundred platitudes about tornado safety alone. Looking at a storm-gnarled tree, I'm sure he'd be prone to say, "They don't call it a twister for nothing, son." MamaKent says that Bo might not have been thinking straight (heh heh). She says she's never seen him that angry. Not even the time all the cows tried to stage that coup, along with those very intelligent pigs. Damn, that Napoleon! Damn him straight to Hell! "Do you think he..." Clark begins. What? Settled a bar bet with his penis? "No. He would never," MamaKent says.

The cask of Nixon and Bo. Bo looks around and sees Nixon struggling with some stone structure that's got him pinned down. Bo picks up a conveniently nearby pipe. Nixon starts to yell, "No!" Bo makes a big deal out of pretending to stab Nixon in the head. Instead, he stabs right to his head and uses the pipe to move the very fake-looking decorative column. Nixon says he thought Bo was going to kill him. "You would think that," Bo mutters. Yeah, with the dramatic music and the almost stabbing him in the head and the evil look on your face. What else was he supposed to think? That you were settling a bar bet with your big steel pipe? Bo looks around, assessing the situation. We don't stick around long enough to see what he thinks.

Gratuitous Chloe scene. Chloe is in the hospital looking around. She's supposed to be this big-shot journalism type, and the town just had its biggest disaster since the meteor attack, but she's not snapping pictures or interviewing people. Somebody forgot to write a script where Chloe actually acts like Chloe. Instead, Chloe is just there to give Lana a chance to spout off more exposition. "Hey, Dorothy," Chloe says. Chloe asks why Lana isn't in bed. Mmm hmm. That's good lesbian subtext. They should save it for Birds of Prey, though. Lana says it's just a mild concussion. She's already up and packing her bag. The one that Clark didn't bring with them to the hospital, but which magically appeared, but with no sign of Lana's legal guardian, Aunt Nell. Scatttered episode, much? Lana says that other people need the bed more than she does. Oh, yeah. Virgin. Chloe asks what happened. Lana recounts her adventure. Chloe's got a huge green necklace thing around her neck. It's not very subtle, but yet it's never mentioned in the episode. Lana says that what happened to her was impossible. "What?" Chloe asks, not really listening. Again, so out of character. Lana says it was nothing. She says thing she was lying in the hospital. Chloe makes a second unnecessary Wizard of Oz reference. Lana mentions that Clark brought her in. "Clark?" Chloe asks. She says she spent three hours looking for Clark after the dance. Instead of being her investigative journalist self. Uh huh. Lana says that if it's any consolation, Chloe and Clark looked great together. "It's not. But...thanks," Chloe says, a little snarkily and tiredly. Sad Chloe is not nearly as clever as Angry Chloe or Flirty Chloe.

The Barnness of Sexitude. Clark is taking the barn apart, wondering if his dad might have holed up under a haystack or something. He hears something. "Dad?" he calls out. No, it's just Clark's daddy, Lex. Clark says he's checked every acre looking for his dad, and is going to hit the woods. Lex tells Clark that Papa Luthor was injured. Clark turns on a flashlight and shines it toward Lex, as if to say, "Be my thousand points of light, baby." Lex tells the story of his dad being pinned down, and how Lex hesitated. If there was going to be this much backstory in the episode, why even show those last-season clips at the beginning? Lex turns around and keeps talking about why he might have let his dad die. Clark says that saving him was what was important. Lex says that his dad won't see it that way: "Forgiveness is not in his emotional lexicon." Cute how he worked his own name in there. Clark asks what Lex is going to do. "Help my friend find his dad," Lex says. But before he does, he gives Clark's crotch a good once-over. Then another one. "You got another flashlight?" Lex asks. Boy, does he. Clark looks down at his own stuff and gives a little half-smile. It's a twofer. The Gayest Looks of the Episode.

Some undisclosed time later...Lex and Clark are swinging their mighty "flashlights" through a thicket in the woods. Clark calls out, "Dad!" Lex calls out for "Mr. Kent." Luckily, I've got my new Region-Free Gaydar. If any foreign men should pop out of the trees, it should pick them up. Lex looks around with his mouth hanging open a bit. Aw, TMJ is a bitch, huh? Suddenly, a drop of blood falls and spoils the empty expanse of his dome. Lex touches it and looks up. There's a Ford, crashed and suspended, in a tree above. I thought it was blood, but now that I think of it, I suppose it could be motor oil. Blood would have been much cooler, though. Lex and Clark both flash their lights up. Don't cross the streams! Clark asks whether Lex knows who the car belongs to. Lex lies and says he doesn't. He adds that they can cover more ground if they split up. Clark agrees to meet Lex in half an hour. Ooh, nighttime picnic! Lex is doing that open-mouth thing again. He walks off.

Inside the crypt of manly men, Bo is lighting up a bunch of candles on little mini-candelabras. Candles? Silver? Did they stumble into Liberace's tomb or something? Oh, and why do you need to light three candles? Doesn't that just burn off oxygen you might need later? Nixon is digging around looking for something. He says he's seeking his cell phone. "It's our only hope," Nixon says. I can barely get my phone to work to a window in my house. Do you really think your cell phone is going to get a signal underneath a trailer? As Bo lights more oxygen-sapping candles, Nixon bitches that he's not going to get to write the single greatest news story ever. As he lights, Bo says he's not going to let his son be exploited. They're hating, but it's so casual it's like they've having a domestic squabble. Nixon asks what Bo was going to do after he'd chased Nixon down. I push back the dirty thoughts. They start to overlap as Bo yells that Nixon was trespassing on his property. Oh, and making his son blow up. That was bad, too. Nixon calls Clark "the most amazing being on Earth," and says it with lots of emphasis. Hey, Nixon. Have you checked out Lex lately? Nixon makes a fairly good argument for showing Clark off to the world. Bo says that Clark can decide that when he's ready. Nixon starts getting under Bo's skin, talking about reasons they kept Clark. We know, Bo. It was a narrow urethra. Nixon laughs: "He's not your son, you deluded hick! He's not even human!" Bo takes a really long pause, then turns and punches Nixon square in the face. Go Bo Duke! Nixon says tha Bo can kill him if he wants (thank you, he may), but that Nixon's right; Bo's son's destiny is too big for Bo to comprehend. Bo picks Nixon up for another thrashing. Nixon tells Bo that Clark belongs to the world. Like sidewalks, I guess. Nixon's phone suddenly rings. I was hoping the ring tone would be "Peter Gunn." Nixon scrambles away and answers the phone. It's Lex! Nixon calls out the bald one's name. Bo gets mad and grabs the phone, throwing it against the wall. "You stupid son of a bitch!" Nixon yells at Bo. And who among us has not thought the same thing? Bo says he wanted to get out of the crypt until he realized Nixon was "in bed with Lex Luthor." That's a real quote. I choke back my drink. Now Bo says he'd rather die there than let Nixon and Lex destroy Clark's life. But if Bo is dead, can't Lex destroy that life himself above ground? Oh, Bo. The lack of oxygen has already addled your not-great-to-begin-with thinking.

Back to Lex in the woods. "Nixon, are you still there?" Lex says, just as Clark is coming over. Lex lies that he was calling the fire department. Lex is usually so much slicker than this. Clark heard the lie and lays into Lex immediately. Clark grabs the phone and does an "I accuse" on Lex. Lex says he didn't know about Nixon snooping on the farm. Clark asks why he should believe Lex. Lex already lied about it once. Clark shines a light on Lex's face. Clark pours salt on Lex's little head wound. He says it's the second time Lex hesitated that day. Clark seems to be getting some perverse pleasure out of this interrogation. "Clark! You're tired and upset," Lex calls out. Clark growls at Lex not to turn it around on him. This sounds exactly like an argument between a long-term couple. Clark says he doesn't have time for this, and has to go find his dad. Lex looks stricken as Clark runs off, even more hurt than he was over Papa Luthor in the hospital.

A sign at the Talon: "Tornado Relief Center." Isn't there a gym or a warehouse better suited? Inside, MamaKent pins up a picture of Bo on a Missing Persons posterboard. MamaKent tells Clark she's going to go talk to the Red Cross. "Any luck?" Lana asks. Yes, Lana. That's why they just pinned Bo's picture to the Missing Persons posterboard. Clark explains what's going on and sounds like he's about to cry. Lana says they'll find him. Lana takes the opportunity to remind Clark of how nice people were to her after the meteor shower. You know, when her parents got in the way of some space rocks? "I'm just glad you're okay," Clark says, completely forgetting about his missing Bo. Lana asks Clark how he found her. He found her boring, yet annoying. Oh, she means during the tornado. Clark says he was just lucky. He says she was lying by the side of the road. That still doesn't explain why he wasn't at the formal with Chloe. Lana asks whether that's really what happened. Clark lies and says that's what happened, even though Lana says it doesn't make sense. For someone who just bitched out a friend for lying, Clark sure could fail a lie detector test right now. MamaKent interrupts with an urgent news bulletin: "No new word." Lana gets back to work. MamaKent babbles that a couple was found in a garage, so there's still hope. Clark blames himself for "bringing this upon us." MamaKent wastes precious time saying it's not his fault. She says that Clark will be exploited all his life, and his parents won't be there to protect him. God, could Clark's day get any worse? She tells Clark to get back out there.

Back in Cryptonia. Bo randomly says that the foundation of the crypt is lead mixed with concrete for stability. "Clark can't see through lead," Bo offers. I thought you didn't want this guy to know all your son's secrets. Nixon gets visibly erect at the new info. More wrangling between Bo and Nixon. It's getting boring. Nixon makes the freedom-of-speech argument, then the "we need to know about alien life" argument. Bo says he knows a way out of the crypt. Bo offers a deal: He'll trade the information for the tape Nixon is holding. "It's your life or your story," Bo says. How very Faustian. Nixon flinches. He offers the tape. Bo destroys it, pulling the tape out of the cartridge. Nixon asks what the plan is. "Feel that," Bo says. Your bicep? Oh, it's a soft spot in the wall. So Bo just randomly knew where the weak mortar was? Similarly, I'm able find the weak areas of the script. Nixon and Bo start digging.

Clark, for some reason, went home. He's walking at the farm when Lex appears, to his smooth convertible. Wearing purple, of course. "What do you want?" Clark spits. Lex apologizes for not telling Clark the truth earlier. He was trying to protect Clark, you see. For once, Clark is skeptical. "Believe that I'm your friend," Lex says. Lex shows Clark a frequency map, showing where, based on cell phone towers, Nixon might be. Do those maps go underground?

Pete, Clark, and Chloe are using the maps, looking for Bo. First off, wouldn't Clark get this done a lot faster alone? Also, why isn't Chloe covering the tornado's aftermath? Did she quit the paper? And why is Pete wearing a shirt that looks just like the TWoP Las Vegas Summit shirt I got in 2000, only without the logo? "Wait, what's that?" Chloe says. They just happen to be standing to the trailer that fell from the sky. Clark uses his X-Ray Vision to see inside the trailer. Nuthin' there. Clark announces that they're not in there. "What are you, part bloodhound?" Chloe asks. No fair repeating lines verbatim from the first season. Pete calls out for Mr. Kent. Chloe finds Nixon's abandoned camera on the ground. Note: This plot strand will never weave its way back into the fabric of the show.