Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT My Super-Boring Ex-Boyfriend
By Tippi Blevins | Season 9 | Episode 19 | Aired on 04.23.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.In lieu of a recaplet, I was going to write a list of things that are more interesting than this episode, but then I realized everything would qualify. The history of the cotton ball, the pattern of hairs in Andy Rooney's eyebrows, a lengthy analysis of different ice cube shapes, and so on to infinity. There's just not enough space on my hard drive for such a list. So here's a quickie view of the episode instead: That slimy Ray Sacks who tried to kill Lois is sprung from a life sentence by someone with major influence. Clark and Lois are assigned to the story by their new editor, but are told that the one who gets the story is the only one who will keep his or her job. Lois calls the Blur for help, but since she's actually dialing Zod's number she gets no response. Clark finds out and realizes someone's been impersonating him for weeks now. Chloe figures out it's Zod. Of course. Clark tries to protect Lois, but she thinks he's competing for the story and out to expose the Blur. Sacks is the one who's really out to expose the Blur, though, offering a reward to anyone who can get a picture of him. Some shlub off the street gets the shot and goes off to meet Sacks at his "free from the pokey" party.
This somehow leads to Lois donning a Playboy bunny-style costume in order to infiltrate the party. Clark has also infiltrated the party, though without a bunny costume. Lois punches him to create a distraction and smashes the shlub's camera phone. Lois and Clark both end up fired over the ordeal. Lois also ends up kidnapped by the man who freed Sacks and threw him the party – one Maxwell Lord, this week's comics guest character. He talks... very... very... slowly... like... this. Or maybe my perception of time was altered by how very boring this episode was. Anyway, he sticks Lois and the shlub and several others into a ridiculous machine to read their minds. All of them have seen bits of the Blur and Lord wants to combine their knowledge into a full image of the Blur. He's also sort of working for Checkmate as the Black King, but he has his own agenda, too. Namely he wants to destroy all the meta-humans, even though he's one of them. Maybe they made fun... of how... slowly... he... talks. Clark rescues Lois, naturally, and Lord is picked up in a limo by a woman in red. We don't see much of her beyond her shapely legs, but Lord calls her the Red Queen.
The "frame" for the episode is that Lois starts off wanting to tell Clark how much she loves him for the first time and wanting to come clean about how she's been working for the Blur. Clark waffles on whether or not he should tell her his own little secret. At the end, he decides that the Blur needs to break up with a devastated Lois so that Zod can't impersonate him anymore... or something. At the end, Clark decides not to tell her he's the Blur and asks her if he, as Clark, can be enough for her. Lois doesn't have an answer. And that's how the episode ends. Go suck down some extra strong espresso and join me for the full recap, where I'll do my best not to fall into a coma.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Smallville: District Attorney Raymond Sacks tried to kill Lois and set up the Blur for it; Lois has been talking to the Blur on the phone; Zod pretended to be the Blur and asked Lois for help; Checkmate agent Amanda Waller was pissed that a mysterious "Red Queen" was entering the game. All in all, it's a very Blurry background.
Currently on Smallville: Lois is crouched in some dark, confined area. She holds up a lighter, checking out her surroundings. Naturally, she's wearing a sexy bunny costume, complete with satin ears and gold lamé bustier. "How do you get yourself into these things, Lane?" she asks. Outside, it's night, and Metropolis's social elite are arriving at a club for a party. The back-alley entrance either means that the party is sort of seedy or the set department didn't have room in the budget for anything fancier. One man in particular is greeted warmly by other party-goers as he arrives. It's Raymond Sacks, the smarmy District Attorney I thought was possibly mauled to death by one of the Wonder Twins. Guess he wasn't. Ray's met by a man who addresses him as "boss" and tells him someone's waiting inside to collect the million-dollar reward. Ray continues on toward the party, schmoozing everyone he passes. He finally makes his way inside, to the strains of a jumpin' jazz tune and the applause and camera flashes of his many admirers. There's a big "Welcome Back Ray" banner in black and gold strung up from the ceiling. Under that, there's... oh God. There's a big, phony cake. We all know what's about to happen, right? The show postpones the obvious, though, by having Ray address the party: "As your ex-District Attorney, I'd like to thank you for joining me in celebrating the national treasure that is our American justice system." He goes on about how he was thrown out of office, charged with attempted murder, and locked away for a life sentence. "And yet, here I am." Everyone applauds and raises their champagne flutes to him. This first couple of minutes of this episode feel like they should be in a show about Gotham, which is just setting us up for disappointment.
Ray slips away from the crowd to go talk to a nerdy sort of guy in a quiet corner of the club. "So, I understand you have something for me." "What about my million dollars?" asks the nerdy guy. Ray smiles at him like he's going to eat him alive, and says quietly, "Don't test me, son." Just then, there's a drum roll and the focus shifts to that big phony cake. Lois pops out of the cake and very nearly out of her bustier. Jazzy trumpets hail her arrival. Everyone claps. As two men help her out of the cake, Lois pauses to toss a sly smile Ray's way. She blows him a kiss. Suddenly, Clark's there in a tuxedo, looking confused and constipated. "Lois!" She glares at him, crosses the room toward him, and punches him across the jaw. Cameras flash and the resultant picture ends up on the cover of the Metropolis Inquisitor, which then ends up on the desk of the new Daily Planet editor. "I told you to find the story, not be the story," the awesome Blu Mankuma says. Clark and Lois sit across from him, still in their party duds, even though some time has apparently passed. The two dumbass reporters have no explanation, so their editor guesses they had a "lover's spat." Clark protests that he and Lois try not to let their personal lives interfere with their jobs. "Well, you don't have to try anymore," Blu says. "Because you're both fired." Lois glares at Clark. Clark looks confused. Somebody save this damn show!