Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Freaky Friday
By Tippi Blevins | Season 10 | Episode 20 | Aired on 05.06.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.At the cold, dead heart of this episode is a ridiculous plan hatched by Toyman to take over the city's water supply. He does this by buying up several properties along key routes in Metropolis so that he'll own the water rights. (Or something. I watched this episode not forty minutes ago and my brain is already trying to destroy my memory of it, like a body rejecting an incompatible organ.) Lois catches onto this plan when her wedding caterer falls victim to Toyman's machinations. Clark asks her to take a break long enough to visit the Fortress of Solitude to declare their marital intentions to Jor-El. He responds by taking away Clark's powers and giving them to Lois. This is some kind of trial or lesson but the message gets muddled by the end, so it's sort of pointless. Anyway, Lois and Clark get back to investigating the fishy real estate deals and find out Stargirl has been attacking the property owners. Weird, right? Well, it turns out Toyman somehow got a mind-control "diode" on her and made her do his bidding. He's been calling the shots from his jail cell, where Lois goes to confront him. Toyman first invokes the name of Lana Lang, great martyr who sacrificed everything for Clark. Then threatens to kill the Blur unless Lois accepts one of the mind-control diodes. Displaying a level of stupidity that not even Lois Lane should be capable of, she agrees to the deal... and is promptly commanded to kill the Blur. Clark gets his powers back just in time to stop her, but Lois realizes he's her greatest weakness and vice versa, so she calls off the whole wedding.
Meanwhile, Oliver's been spelunking somewhere on the Celtic coast, looking for that Bow of Orion to cure himself of Darkseid's mark. While there, he runs into Kara. She's been trapped down in the caves for weeks, having come looking for the bow to give to Clark. Oliver rescues her and then they solve some Apokoliptian puzzles together and find the bow. Just before they can grab it, Jor-El calls Kara away, saying the bow is for Clark to find. Well, good luck with that, because just as Oliver gets it, Granny Goodness shows up and destroys it. Jor-El also tells Kara she can either stay and help Clark fight the darkness, or go off to meet her own destiny in the future. She chooses the latter for no real reason, without even saying goodbye. In the end, Clark deactivates Jor-El (I think) and Granny tasks Oliver with digging up some gold kryptonite. There are also a lot of cameos from past villains, but we get to that in the full recap. Bring your hip waders.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Smallville: A gaseous Darkseid came to Earth; Jor-El told Kara to go take care of that whole "darkness" mess, because Clark wasn't ready yet; Clark and the gang figured out that people whose skulls were marked with an Omega had been "fully taken over" by the darkness; Carter told Oliver that the forces of goodness always defeated the darkness when it came, so screw suspense; Oliver got himself Omegafied after beating up DeSaad; Oliver "hypothetically" asked what would happen if one of the team were to get marked, and Clark seemed pretty pessimistic; Tess and Oliver pulled some info about the "Bow of Orion" out of their collective asses as a possible way to defeat Darkseid; several characters foreshadowed the appearance of gold kryptonite, which would take away Clark's powers for good; a matronly older lady named Granny Goodness was working for Darkseid and erasing people's memories.
Currently on Smallville: A very old, possibly manual typewriter sits cheerfully in Lois's office, glad that it has neither eyes nor ears with which to witness this episode's awfulness. Clark strides through the office door, wearing his glasses but not looking especially meek. He apologizes to Lois for being late because he was getting an offer on the farm. A cow probably propositioned him. He gets a look at the place for the first time. He takes off his glasses and looks around at the stunning disarray that greets him. Piles of books and papers everywhere. It's like journalistic Hoarders. Lois pops up from under her desk, wearing a dark red jacket and matching skirt. "Look, I know you've overwhelmed lately," he says. "Challenged," she corrects him. He humors her. She's been busy with the wedding planning and the new promotion, but she insists she has everything under control. Except for one thing: Their caterer has suddenly gone out of business, leaving them bereft of crab cakes. Lois smells a conspiracy. With a dab of tartar sauce. When Clark is less than enthusiastic, Lois tells him to "go jump in the river," by which she means the sheets of blue paper she's laid out on the floor to represent said water body. All those stacks of books are part of a larger map she's made, with the books standing in for buildings. It seems like an actual map would be more helpful for whatever the hell she's doing. Maybe the props department didn't have money for a mock Metropolis. Lois goes on to say that their caterer was bought out by a company called Marionette Ventures, along with several other local businesses. Clark blames it on the economy, but Lois thinks it's suspicious that all the former owners have skipped town. She vows to solve the mystery before their wedding. Speaking of which, Clark asks her to help her with some wedding stuff of his own. "What could we possibly have left to do?" she asks. Well, you apparently need a new caterer or at least go pick up a couple of those ten-foot sandwiches. Clark explains: "I told your father about the wedding, but I didn't tell mine." That's because he's dead. All your various fathers are dead!