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Let me say right out that I enjoyed the episode, I truly did. I saw Lana's role as that of Symbol rather than Lex's true love/motivation for turning evil, and it worked very well for me. There's just a few things that made me pause (actually, since I believe this was all Lex's fantasy rather than a true visitation, they're easily understandable as dream logic, so you can consider this simple commentary):
1. Lionel got control of the company back ... how? Lex walked away without taking his fair share? Good Lex gave up on LuthorCorp as unreformable, thus gutting his ability to engage in Bill Gates-style philanthropy and as a bonus ensuring that a powerful corporation would be a force for evil? Good really is stupid! I mean, I'm willing to try the idea that Lex knew he had to remove himself from the temptations of money and power to stay good, but in this great country of ours surely there is a potential CEO who is not, you know, Satan. I hear there's this guy at CostCo, just for instance. Maybe Good Lex could have gotten the board to install somebody like him before jumping ship.
2. So Smallville has a big homeless problem? Seriously, homelessness as Lex's cause makes sense in the vision, since this Lex is all about sticking close to home, the illusion of security created by a small-scale, familiar world.
3. What's up with Lillian, aka brother-murdering spirit guide, showing Lex a depressing happy future? (And how perfect is it that Oedipal Lex gets Lillian as his Beatrice?) Possibilities: (a) she has such a powerful belief in giving Lex full information that she shows him the downside of choosing well (unlikely, since full information would include showing him the alternative, bombs going off and all); (b) she is seeking revenge on Lionel, trusting Lex to come through for her as he did before by driving him to choose money and power (not enough information about her to evaluate, since we only ever saw her in the depths of postpartum depression and through Lex's treasured anecdotes); or (c) she just has really, really bad judgment. If she's just Lex's fantasy, I guess that makes her something between (b) and (c).
4. I think we were being deliberately teased with Chloe/Clark -- the way it was done made it easy to read them as friends or as lovers, though Clark's still unwilling to commit. Indeed, Clark's dream-life is evidence to me that this is Lex's fantasy, since he's lacking crucial information about the real future (Lois, who should at least be at the party, not to mention Clark-as-hero needing to run off every minute). I don't think Clark would have told good-Lex the truth, since he hasn't bothered to tell Lana, so I can't say that Lex's continued ignorance is the product of his own present state of mind as in The Spike's "The Butterfly Effect," but I did feel that Chloe and Clark were creatures of Lex's mind even more than Lana was.
4. Relatedly, even Good Lex had to know (and suspect) many things about Clark that should have led him to ask Clark for help, but if he had, the dream might not have been able to come to its inevitable conclusion. Lex would rather be the only superhero around, and if he's no longer larger than life, Clark can't be either. And Lex has stopped relying on Clark for help, even when he's willing to go to his father.
5. Pure squee: Lex, even you know your poor little rich boy anecdotes grow old with repetition! Awww! Seriously, Michael Rosenbaum and Kristen Kreuk nailed that scene -- I suspected he told that heartfelt story every year even before she said so, and I found it perfectly plausible that he'd tell it both as magically-transplanted-to-the-future Lex and as Good Lex.
1. Lionel got control of the company back ... how? Lex walked away without taking his fair share? Good Lex gave up on LuthorCorp as unreformable, thus gutting his ability to engage in Bill Gates-style philanthropy and as a bonus ensuring that a powerful corporation would be a force for evil? Good really is stupid! I mean, I'm willing to try the idea that Lex knew he had to remove himself from the temptations of money and power to stay good, but in this great country of ours surely there is a potential CEO who is not, you know, Satan. I hear there's this guy at CostCo, just for instance. Maybe Good Lex could have gotten the board to install somebody like him before jumping ship.
2. So Smallville has a big homeless problem? Seriously, homelessness as Lex's cause makes sense in the vision, since this Lex is all about sticking close to home, the illusion of security created by a small-scale, familiar world.
3. What's up with Lillian, aka brother-murdering spirit guide, showing Lex a depressing happy future? (And how perfect is it that Oedipal Lex gets Lillian as his Beatrice?) Possibilities: (a) she has such a powerful belief in giving Lex full information that she shows him the downside of choosing well (unlikely, since full information would include showing him the alternative, bombs going off and all); (b) she is seeking revenge on Lionel, trusting Lex to come through for her as he did before by driving him to choose money and power (not enough information about her to evaluate, since we only ever saw her in the depths of postpartum depression and through Lex's treasured anecdotes); or (c) she just has really, really bad judgment. If she's just Lex's fantasy, I guess that makes her something between (b) and (c).
4. I think we were being deliberately teased with Chloe/Clark -- the way it was done made it easy to read them as friends or as lovers, though Clark's still unwilling to commit. Indeed, Clark's dream-life is evidence to me that this is Lex's fantasy, since he's lacking crucial information about the real future (Lois, who should at least be at the party, not to mention Clark-as-hero needing to run off every minute). I don't think Clark would have told good-Lex the truth, since he hasn't bothered to tell Lana, so I can't say that Lex's continued ignorance is the product of his own present state of mind as in The Spike's "The Butterfly Effect," but I did feel that Chloe and Clark were creatures of Lex's mind even more than Lana was.
4. Relatedly, even Good Lex had to know (and suspect) many things about Clark that should have led him to ask Clark for help, but if he had, the dream might not have been able to come to its inevitable conclusion. Lex would rather be the only superhero around, and if he's no longer larger than life, Clark can't be either. And Lex has stopped relying on Clark for help, even when he's willing to go to his father.
5. Pure squee: Lex, even you know your poor little rich boy anecdotes grow old with repetition! Awww! Seriously, Michael Rosenbaum and Kristen Kreuk nailed that scene -- I suspected he told that heartfelt story every year even before she said so, and I found it perfectly plausible that he'd tell it both as magically-transplanted-to-the-future Lex and as Good Lex.
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From:
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But I suspect at this point that I'm simply imposing my worldview on the story. I see Lex as choosing the epic life, happiness or no, rather than contenting himself with what the rest of the world deigns to give him. In my interpretation, he's disagreeing with Lillian that a life of love + pain is valuable for him, even if he'd think that it was all right for Jonathan and Martha Kent.
From:
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Not if happiness requires accepting pain and loss, if love and pain are inextricably intertwined. At the end of the episode, Lex chooses power and money specifically to avoid having to accepting the possibility of future loss, so it's not even as if he thinks he'd still have to accept it, either way.
Set up as "you can be happy for a while, but mediocre, and the happiness will be eclipsed, or be superawesome and be somewhat less happy," I'm really not sure I'd take option A, either (that was my initial reaction last night, actually), but I don't think that's the way the choice is supposed to be framed.
Oh, and I've been thinking about the Joshua option. We don't actually know that Lex is going to end the world; in fact, we don't even have any reliable information indicating that he will. Lex's own vision of apocalypse is a fear, rather than any privileged glimpse into the future, and Cassandra's visions, though as far as we can tell always true, clearly aren't--can't be--all *literally* true (Clark's future's being literally fulfilled strikes me as incredibly improbable), and Lex's future there is clearly presented figuratively--you can't just step out of the White House into a field of sunflowers, nor can is it likely to ever actually rain blood. When I saw "Hourglass," I never thought it meant that Lex was going to destroy the world; I just thought it meant he was going to do horrible and irreversible things to it.
From:
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And can I just apologize for the length of the sentence in the second paragraph? ;)
From:
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You've convinced me that the main problem is Lex's pride and overconfidence in his`ability to control outcomes if he tries (emotional continuity -- who knew SV could do that?). I see Lex as willing to accept the consequences of his willed actions, good or bad, as long as he's making an active attempt to be in control; he believes he can be satisfied with the results, even if he doesn't get the loving wife and kids. He's probably wrong, but I think he's a little bit right. I'd find it perfectly plausible if, at the end of his life, he looked back and honestly thought he made the right choices.
And I agree about the apocalypse. As I said, I just like saying "global thermonuclear war." How about a nice game of chess?
From:
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1) As mentioned, his aversion to loving and then losing the loved one.
2) Plus his aversion to Defeat.
The two most intense moments for me were when Lex really couldn't comprehend what Lionel was doing and said, "You must not understand...this is Lana"
Plus:
When Lex had to go back defeated to be there for Lana's death. I am blown away by how much MR showed in there -- how the inner Lex could love -- it's just too poignant.
But, my point is that Lex has always been about winning and this time he couldn't pull a "have her airlifted to Metropolis to the best doctors"-deus ex machina bit. He "lost" in that sense, too...he lost his wife, but he "lost" the battle to get what he desired.
I saw the numbness in MR's face when he addressed Lana on her deathbed. He had nothing to offer her but his love, which he gave freely and in abundance, but that did not heal the defeat he felt, having failed to get help from the MB, and having no resources on his own anymore.
From:
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That Lex's love alone is not enough to save someone is, I think, Lex's ultimate fear. His love couldn't save Julian, Lillian or his family, and he believes he cannot win love without money or power. Even in his vision, we are told that he can't handle living on a budget and continues to overspend. He is still rewarded for this character trait by Lana, when in fact it shows how limited his projection of himself is: he needs to actually recognise that being himself is enough. Although at first it seems that Lex's vision opens up amazing freedom to him, it is still fenced in by some deep parts of his psyche that he can't relinquish, such as excessive generosity.
I too responded very strongly to the scene of Lex returning to Lana's deathbed, defeated. So strongly, that I couldn't write about it immediately. But thank you for articulating how important that scene was. I think it crystalised the reasons for his choice. Yet these reasons are nothing new: they are just a more developed extrapolation of internal fears that Lex has harboured since childhood. I'm fascinated by the fact that there was both choice and no-choice in this episode for Lex: a perfectly Smallvillean paradox.