Exposed

"Somebody gets a 'D' in subtlety." - Chloe Sullivan

Overall

This episode ended having delivered the following information:

  1. Jonathan is considering running for senator (we have nothing solid, just the idea)
  2. Lex is definitely running for senator
  3. Clark has pulled his Superman Movie stunt and captured a helicopter caught on a rope
  4. Lex and Clark are still very cold with each other

When you think about it, it's not that much. Two of those four things were worth making an episode about, and another of them was worth including if we have to put up with Lois Lane, but, as they say, it's not about where we end, but how we get there. And this episode's journey to relaying those pieces of information traveled a rocky and painful road.

I thought we had moved past episodes that resemble patchwork quilts, taking four elements and sewing them awkwardly together instead of weaving them. I also thought that we had moved past the fourth season hangover of half-nakedness every other episode. And I had even begun to hope that we'd moved past using people's names as gimmicks. (i.e., pinning the title of "Lois Lane" on one character and giving that character a role based on her body and having her crack jokes about the future that you'd hate if she wasn't named "Lois Lane". Or, when making an episode about a character who's played by a significant actor, and since it must be so fun for the viewer to watch the actor, neglecting to take the time to give the viewer a thoroughly thought-out script.) Unfortunately, all of my expectations have been proven wrong, and for once, that's unquestionably a bad thing.

Usually on Thursdays my TV reception snows up, and usually because I want to see Smallville that frustrates me. However, a lot of the visual goings-on in this episode were irrelevant and dispensable, and for a while I didn't even bother turning the antenna. For a while I was basically just listening…and I realized that the listening wasn't that enlightening either. This episode was filled with dispensable action and dispensable dialogue. I can think of two good moments. (Actually I can only think of one, but surely there must be more than that, so I'll put "two".)

No Martha, no Lionel, barely any Lex, Chloe bland, Jonathan obnoxious, Clark wooden. Lois was the best out of all of them. That's not good. Jake Jennings failed to engage you, like most good ol' family TV friends you've never seen until now, and his plot plodded to a slow start several minutes too late. That left the burden of the story on the stripper plot, which seemed just as contrived as the "Devoted" solution.

This episode was like something out of last season. 5.5

Clark

Clark was given no venue for interesting emotion – with his parents, with Lana, or with Jake. He had zero interaction with his parents (and in an episode with "his hero" dishonored, there was plenty of reason to have it), nothing to do with Lana (at least he shows emotion with her), his talk with Lex was stiff and angry (totally unfounded, and very unlike the communication they should have had after last episode), his sparse interaction with Jake was cliché, and his interaction with Lois was constrained and awkward (as it usually is with Lois). We never saw him acting like himself, and since this is after all a show about Clark, that majorly contributed to the boredom factor.

The Senator Plot

While it was, on one out of six tries, fun to see Jonathan and Jake together, most of their scenes ended right about where they began and seemed notably out-of-place and irrelevant. Let's face it - the writers were using a name. The "Tom Wopat" tag. The question is...why? When "Perry" guest-starred Annette O' Toole's husband, they didn't have a single scene between Perry and Martha and the episode still glowed. This episode relied heavily on setting Wopat and Schneider in the same camera shot - regardless of the fact that their dialogue was about as mechanically functional as the Dodge's passenger door.

Here's the plot, boiled down to the very basics. "Jonathan's old friend, Senator Jennings, campaigns for re-election, competing with Lex Luthor for the position. When Jennings is accused of murder, Clark follows a trail that eventually leads to the revelation that Jennings was in an illegal relationship with a young girl. In the end, Jennings resigns and suggests to Jonathan that he (Jonathan) is the perfect man for the job."

There are a hundred ways they could have used that plot better. Here's one:

  1. They could have had Jennings come in as an old friend of Jonathan's...but a complete stranger to Clark.
    All "old friends of the family (who are they?)" plots make the viewer recoil a little from the strangeness, and the whole idea of Jennings being Clark's "hero" who just happened to have disappeared for four years was very awkward. Having him come in as an old friend of Jonathan's but a stranger to Clark would a) make a lot more sense, b) help you to see things from Clark's point of view since he's a stranger to you, too, and c) give opportunity for more interesting conflict between Jonathan's picture of Jennings and Clark's.
  2. As Clark watched Jennings and Jonathan together - with Jennings knowing more about Jonathan's life than Clark, and with Jonathan feeling more free to speak to Jennings than he feels with anybody else, the two contrasting views of Jennings could be laid out, if not defined clearly. Clark could feel distant and wary of Jennings, with that completely groundless but always strong Clark-instinct, and Jonathan could recognize that something about Jennings rubs Clark the wrong way (preferably in the fatherly, tell-me-why-you-feel-this-way Jonathan mode, not the defensive, irritable Jonathan mode). They could then have a talk about it. Clark could explain (hopefully not in his incoherent mode but in his long-lost deep, serious mode) a bit of what he was feeling, and Jonathan could fail to understand because he sees Jake through different eyes
    This would give the writers a chance to get back to the first three seasons, when Clark and Jonathan were close and read each other's thoughts (particularly S3), and would enrich the emotional action, as three relationships are expounded on and in a state of change.
  3. Jennings recognizes that something's wrong, perhaps because Jonathan tells him, and tries to win Clark over. However, that leads only to more friction and greater distance.
    It would actually be natural for Jonathan to tell Jennings that he needs to try to bridge the distance between him and Clark, and it would also be natural for Clark to feel even more like the third wheel and to reject Jennings' advances. More friction, less filler, and a lot more relationship.
  4. Clark's fears seem to be proven right as Jennings' relationship is uncovered, leaving Jennings feeling guilty, Jonathan feeling bewildered and betrayed, and Clark confused and not quite sure what to think about it all.
    Almost the exact same climax, only it's been built up higher and supported better.
  5. In the end Jake and Clark have their first real conversation, perhaps with Jake telling Clark something he knew Clark would understand but Jonathan wouldn't. Or confiding something that, unknown to Jennings, hits Clark close to home.

    "You have a friend, you've known him for years. You've been wild teens together. And then you part ways, each one going down a different path…and you always wonder what it would be like if you had joined the other and gone down that road together. (pause) You've got a wonderful family, Clark. I should have gone down that road. (optional:) I like to be here – it shows me where I could have been." Clark: "Are you sure it's too late to start down that road?" Jennings: "It's hard to make U-turns, Clark. Harder than you might think." Pause. (optional:) Clark: "I guess it depends on how badly you want something." Transition to Lex, who is heading down the wrong path but wants something [Lana, Clark's friendship] that he will need to be on the right path to get. Maybe he's opening a folder, dark music playing, and looking at 8x10 pictures of Clark, Clark's parents, the Kents and Lex two or three years ago, Clark and Lana….)

  6. Clark realizes, even if he doesn't say it, that he has disliked Jake because he felt jealous of Jake and Jonathan's relationship – now that Lex is gone, he doesn't really have any male friends to talk to, and he misses and needs that male interaction with Jonathan. Clark's relationships now affect his whole life; severance of one relationship affects the formation of another; his relationship with Jonathan is changing; and Jake is now forever tied to both the Kent men.

Yes, it leans toward the cliche. All old-friend-you've-never-seen-before plots do, whether the friend turns out to be a secret agent or a harmless old man or somewhere in between. But it opens up potential for action (something actually changing over the course of a scene), great dialogue, and the climax they wanted - just a lot stronger. This journey could have been an experience, not a performance.

The Chloe-Lois Plot

Chloe's role in this episode was minimal, and the little of our favorite girl that we saw was uncharacteristically bland. Not only were we deprived of savvy, assertive Chloe moments in a plot with opportunities galore, but we had to watch her go to the front door of the gentleman's club with no plan but a pleading smile, then put her hands on Lois's shoulders and cheerlead her to strip. The only truly Chloe-ish thing she did was meet the girl herself - a plot in itself bursting with potential but handled so ineptly that the role she played was very minor.

See Details (a) for the many reasons why the stripper plot did not work. Once you're convinced, come back here for my alternative:

  1. Chloe receives a phone call from a girl who wants to talk to a reporter, now. Chloe decides to meet the girl herself, etc., etc., but she goes alone.
    Why not? She met Lionel Luthor plenty of times alone. Lois had nothing to do with the story: all the writers really needed her to do was sit in the helicopter for symbolism. There are other ways to get her in that helicopter and still give Chloe her due.
  2. Instead of reaching the girl, feeling her pulse, and saying sadly, "She's dead," Chloe races up in time to see the girl gasping out her last breath – perhaps some cryptic clue, Chloe's specialty.
    Chloe witnesses the death, making it much more compelling.
  3. Now, sole witness of a tragic death, Chloe is on a personal mission to find out who did this – making it much harder for Clark when Jake falls under suspicion and Clark is unsure what side to take.
    This plot is much more personal - now it means something to them, and puts Clark in a situation where his choice is harder to make. Difficult choices for Clark...decisions that end up building his Superman character...it's just what Smallville needs right now.

Again, it would be easy for them to make this plot stereotypical and trite. But bad writing can make any plot trite. The old plot didn't give solid reasons for emotional action. This plot does. Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson did well with "Hidden" – if they'd used this plot, I think they could have done well with it, too. As it is…there goes another fantastic opportunity down the drain.

Good/Bad Moments

Usually I write down every moment with the least bit of positive or negative charge for me. However, it would be a waste of a good forty minutes to watch this episode again; so I'm just going to work with the moments I remember off the top of my head.

  1. It opens with Chloe working, and Lois Lane playing computer games and yawning. I won't say anything that I'm thinking about Lois Lane's utter ineptitude to be Lois Lane because this moment speaks for itself.
  2. Very anti-climactic death scene - like one of the ten-second death set-ups from "Diagnosis Murder" just before the commercial break. "And now we have our death and can move on with the story."
  3. All the scenes with Chloe and someone else at the police station were very bland. For one thing, there was never a wide camera shot so that the setting was properly established. There was some mild confusion at first, never a proper sense of place. For another, there was never an emotional charge, either positive or negative. Chloe's vehemence showed potential, but a) they didn't make the death troubling enough, b) the policewoman didn't have a very clear stance, so you felt as if Chloe was fighting air, and c) the atmosphere should have had intense music and dark lighting without so much color. As it was, the scenes felt thin. You were waiting for something to happen...and nothing really did.
  4. Many of the Dukes of Hazzard references felt out of place and uncharacteristic - Jonathan speeding, flying over dirt roads, references to their old friendship. Much of it was forced.
  5. The one element I smiled about - the helicopter set-up. But as I said before, there are so many more dramatic ways they could have gotten Lois Lane in that helicopter, without hinging on her demonstrating sheer stupidity.
  6. "Ay-ay, sailor." Maybe it was the delivery. Maybe it was supposed to be a real triumph over Lois and it should have been said slyly, knowing that he was scoring one over her - not with a happy grin and a "ha ha, we're bantering again, viewers" atmosphere. But at this line, everyone in the room groaned.

Details

  1. The stripper plot was a two-legged stool, and here's why.
    1. All Chloe had to do was call Clark's cellphone and tell him that she needed to look at the girl's files, look for clues, get the girls' addresses so she could interview them privately, etc. Within thirty seconds Clark would be standing in front of her with whatever she needed.
    2. Even if Chloe forgot about Clark (mmhmm) and sneaked in with Lois Lane and told the guys that Lois was a stripper - even then, they weren't being watched closely. She had time to have a private talk with those girls with nobody listening in, so she certainly had time to grab Lois and get out. It was their choice for Lois to stay and strip.
    3. Chloe tries to talk to the girls, the girls are wary and won't talk. Next scene she gives them a pleading look and an understanding smile, and they tell her everything. Right.
    4. Clark goes to Lex so that he can sit at a table in a gentleman's club. What was he planning on doing? Any scene where Clark goes "undercover" is unlikely because all he needs to do is zip in and zip out. He's entered buildings through air vents and listened to conversations that way - if he wanted to stay and listen he could have done that. It was unnecessarily intricate for him to sit at a table and do nothing but keep his eyes open.
    5. Lois feels that it's necessary that she strip, and she goes over to Clark and tells him to give her a twenty. He holds it up instead of, ahem, doing it the other way, and when she takes it she rolls her eyes. Any other girl who felt "forced" to strip and had a sense of decency would have been humiliated by this time, and would have been grateful for his distance. Her eye-rolling, "oh brother" stance was really unattractive.
    6. Where both girls stood on the stripping issue was left unclear. Lois seemed awkward and initially slightly horrified at the idea; and in former days I would think Chloe's attitude would be to make snide comments and, probably, estrange everyone in the room within thirty seconds. However, Chloe was pleading-eyed and sympathetic, and any discomfort Lois had at the initial idea had disappeared by Details (A-5). So are they returning the carefree, un-journalistic Chloe of "Facade" - and does Lois Lane have anything going for her other than her ability to take her clothes off and punch people?
  2. The "diplomatic immunity" factor was poorly researched: the guy wouldn't have simply been able to walk away (or limp, in this case).
  3. How would Lex be able to run for high governmental positions when he's had seven weeks of his memory erased? Not to mention the fact that he was held in Belle Reve for some time, insane, subjected himself to experimental medical procedures, and has a less-than-glowing track record with the law.

© Voice of Reason, 2007