SMALLVILLE "Bound" - Episode 4.09

(Original airdate 11.17.2004)

Directed by:

Terrence O’Hara

Written by:

Luke Schelhaas

Cast:

Tom Welling...Clark Kent Michael Rosenbaum...Lex Luthor Kristin Kreuk...Lana Lang Allison Mack...Chloe Sullivan John Glover...Lionel Luthor John Schneider...Jonathan Kent Annette O’Toole...Martha Kent Jensen Ackles...Jason Teague

Guest Stars:

Jane Seymour...Geneviève Teague Claudette Mink...Corrine Harper Cobie Smulders...Shannon Bell

Review:

After looking forward to this season’s first Lex-centered episode, I was disappointed to find a mediocre offering that didn’t do much for anyone overall.

Lex sleeps with a woman he meets at a party, and wakes up with her dead next to him. He’s arrested for her murder and let out on five million dollars bail. Clark agrees to help prove he’s innocent, and goes to Lionel for help. Lionel tells Clark how his terminal liver disease has been miraculously cured (he seemingly remembers nothing about switching bodies with Clark) and how he’s changed and wants to help Lex. With Lionel’s information and Chloe’s help, Clark finds an address for the victim, but when he gets there, Lex is burning the many pictures of himself that are all around the house... apparently she was a stalker. Lex’s lawyer, Corrine Harper, gets into an argument with him because he slept with the victim, Eve Andrews, a year and a half ago and he didn’t remember her. She quits the case because of a conflict of interest, including the fact that she herself had slept with Lex and been dumped.

Meanwhile, Lana has a dream about Isobel being burned at the stake, and sees a woman in the mob with strange eyes. The next day, Jason’s mother shows up at the Talon to meet her, and looks exactly like the woman from the dream. When Lana tells Jason he seems worried about it, and at the end he confronts his mother and asks if his meeting Lana was really an accident.

Chloe notices in a video of the elevator where Lex made out with the woman that she had had lost a diamond earring, but the police say the dead body had two. Clark and Chloe ‘reenact’ the making out scene in the elevator, and Clark finds an earring at the bottom of the shaft with his x-ray vision. Lionel tells Clark that he always gave his ‘conquests’ a pair of diamond earrings instead of calling them, and that Lex does the same thing. Lex goes to Corrine’s office to see her, but she’s been killed also, and the woman he met at the party shows up and knocks him out with a gun. Clark finds a serial number on the earring and tracks it to Shannon Bell, who works at the law firm representing Lex. Shannon has Lex tied to a chair at the mansion and sets a ring of fire around him while she explains how she dumped her fiancé after sleeping with him, then he never took her calls. She proceeds to explain how she lured Eve to the hotel room and killed her after spiking his champagne, then switched Lex’s blood results so it looked like he hadn’t been drugged. Clark comes in at super-speed, knocks her out, and spins his jacket around so fast that it puts out the flames. Afterwards, Clark talks to his parents about how disappointed he is that Lex treats women that way, and about how he thinks Lionel’s really changed. Lex visits Lionel in prison and Lionel tells him he really wants to be his father now, and Lex is understandably hesitant to respond.

It’s no secret that Lex is my favorite character on the show, and I’ve been complaining that he hasn’t been on enough this season. So when I saw that this episode was going to focus on him, I was expecting one of the best shows of the season. So imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be the most boring episode so far (not the worst, mind you, just the most boring). I know this was supposed to be a setup for future conflict between Clark and Lex, but it felt somewhat forced rather than genuine (as it has in the past). Clark’s outrage at Lex for having slept with so many women and then treated them badly afterwards just doesn’t seem like it should be such a major deal compared to the other things that have happened between them, both positive and negative.

The whole murder, switching-of-bodies, red-herring suspects thing just wasn’t done the way I know these writers could have. It was implausible and not very well executed.

In other words, I was expecting a suspense-filled USUAL SUSPECTS-type of show and instead ended up with a bad version of MURDER, SHE WROTE.

Is it just me, or does it look like there’s something more going on between Clark and Chloe lately? Obviously Chloe still has a thing for him, but it seems like recently it’s been more mutual.

The Lana subplot continues to bore me, and so far Jane Seymour has done nothing to change that. She’s a good actress and all, but so far her story just isn’t keeping my interested.

And one last sign of a mediocre episode is this: While I usually have several quotes to choose from and have to narrow it down, this week I had trouble finding a couple worth repeating, and even them I’m not too happy about.

Quotes of the Week:

CORRINE: "I’m not hear to hold your hand, Lex. If you want a hug, call your mother."

LEX: "You can’t straddle the fence on this one, Clark. My father and I are enemies. You’re going to have to decide who you really trust."

Next Week: Everyone has something to fear in "Scare."