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Precipice spoilers. Apologies if I repeat; I haven’t read anyone else’s reactions yet.
Sigh. I’m afraid the bloom’s off the bald rose. Some haphazard observations:
“Flying boys”? Livia, where’d you get your cheese helmet? Because I really need one right now. Also, that was the most deliberately grating Southern accent I’ve heard in a long time. Though I did like the “good ol’ boys” stab at Bo Kent. Still, I would have preferred Poor Man’s Frances McDormand – my name for Maggie/whoever that was in “Insurgence.”
Could Bo have possibly said anything less reassuring? Did he really say "We may be flawed, but we flawed humans raised you"? Thanks, Dad. So I'm fully justified in becoming the eeevil ruler, both by my heritage and your fuckups, yes?
I like Lana. That sound you hear is, in fact, the crackling of the Pit of Despair as it ices over. I don’t think Lex is flirting with her any more than usual. That is, Lex seduces almost everyone, but I’m getting his seductiveness with Lana as habitual rather than targeted.
Even though I like Lana, I hate the resolution of her plot. A guy who would sue Clark maliciously wouldn’t drop the suit because she beat him up – he’d add her to the lawsuit and ask for the Talon. If she’d followed up on her much more rational suggestion to Clark that she do the spying and collect the evidence of fakery, that would have been much more plausible.
Hey, comics readers – has there ever been a storyline about Supes being sued? Because you know it would happen. I can imagine the disputes over whether personal jurisdiction may be had over an alien domiciled in the Antarctic. Reminds me of the great case of Mayo ex rel. Satan and his Staff, in which the district court (Mass., I think) determined that it lacked jurisdiction over Satan but suggested, citing The Devil and Daniel Webster, that jurisdiction might be had in New Hampshire.
I also liked Mulder and Scully -- er, Clark and Lex -- in the motel. Good flashlight technique, Lex. I hope you're as handy, so to speak, with all your favorite phallic objects. This, however, is overwhelmed by the Not Gay! Not Gay! Not Gay! superanvils falling like cherry blossoms around Lex. It's fascinating to see that TPTB are having to combat the blatant subtext with equally blatant text. "Clark didn't save me -- you did." Right, Lex, so your CoCK (tm Thamiris) is the healthy, non-gay type of obsession. I really have to look up DA Miller and ensure that he's watching this show. He always said that the accusation of homosexuality overwhelms any attempts to deny it; because homosexuality knows how to live in the closet, any manifestation of heterosexuality can always be read as denial: Lex displacing sexual attraction into scientific curiousity -- I'm going to penetrate you somehow, Clark -- or having it displaced for him.
Dear Dr. Helen: Props for the working gaydar – “Clark?” Heh. (Side note to Lex: um, if you knew and she knew, wouldn’t that be two people who knew? Or are you just anticipating her untimely demise?) And congratulations on making me think that Lex actually liked you this time, even if he broke a lot of dates. On the other hand, when the music playing for your tender engagement scene is “Don’t Fear the Reaper” – or am I wrong about that? – smart money says, “Leave town. No forwarding address needed, really.” You have an evident history of picking obsessive, dangerous types, and this one’s going to get your blood on his hands again.
Overall, the episode structure gave us an interesting deviation from the overall chiastic structure of Lex-and-Clark, the criss-cross of one descending into evil from at least half-hearted desire to do good and the other maturing into nobility. At the beginning, it looks like it might follow the ordinary pattern, with Lex jealous but well within standard behavioral norms and Clark overreacting. (TPTB cut the “jealous rage” bit with Lana that was in the previews, right? So canonically, it’s not clear what Lana saw.)
Yet instead of chiasmus, we get parallelism. The law mistrusts both Clark and Lex – with more justification for Clark, since he did send a police car to the shop – and isn’t listening to their side of the story. More: the sly, smug looks from the two liars as they watch the men they’ve unfairly blamed. The law’s inability, or unwillingness, to assist. The brutality of the stalker/harasser against the objects of the boys’ affections.
At the end, though, some weird things happen. Instead of Clark solving both problems or Clark succeeding and Lex failing, one of which is usually the case, both Clark and Lex end up together, solving Lex’s problem (more on that in a minute). And Clark’s problem gets solved by Lana, in the absence of the men. Clark jumps off his track – and how suggestive that the final Clark/Lex scene is played out in and around trains, evoking the ultimate in chiastic/homoerotic cinema, Strangers on a Train – and onto Lex’s, leaving the locomotive force of his story to be driven by Lana. It’s this odd jump, along with the stupid way in which Lana “solves” Clark’s problem, that leaves me as narratively unsatisfied as I am.
The other thing is that Lex’s solution, in this episode, is at least as good as Clark’s. I’m almost disappointed that the WB didn’t promote this as “the episode in which Lex Luthor turns away from the dark side.”
True, Lex gets the LoJack information in some shady way, and he obviously premeditated the thing with the empty gun. (I really liked that little bit of misdirection in the motel – I assumed that he was arming himself, not getting another gun.) But I believe that Lex hadn’t decided to shoot StalkerGuy in “self-defense.” I think he was probably planning on scaring him, pistol-whipping him, and then turning him over to the police. Lex is willing to let people twist in the wind before he reprieves them, as we saw in the opening scene of “Insurgence.” The alternative explanation – that Lex did plan to shoot StalkerGuy, but committed the classic Evil Overlord mistake of explaining himself and giving the other guy time to strike back – annoys me because I like my Lex smarter, and is less consistent with his ultimate decision not to shoot. So we end with Lex’s compassion (though a plea of temporary insanity does not in fact require civil commitment, which is what I assume the SV writers were going for) and Clark’s glee in a girl beating up his adversary.
A minor thing I liked was Lex’s delay in putting the gun down at the obviously freaked sheriff’s command. He’s constitutionally incapable of not pushing it. He is also, amazingly, right about the status of citizen's arrest under Kansas law, though it's not clear to me that he's allowed to pummel StalkerGuy in the course of the arrest.
Finally, did anyone else think that Lex was looking up and thinking "Axes. Why is it always axes?" There must be something about axes that makes Clark use his X-ray vision.
Completely beside the point, Evanescence is a lovely goth band. I like the music and the vocals. But, my God, the lyrics. I did better as a mopey, self-important 14-year-old, and believe you me I do not mean to claim that my “poetry” was worthy of lining a birdcage.
Sigh. I’m afraid the bloom’s off the bald rose. Some haphazard observations:
“Flying boys”? Livia, where’d you get your cheese helmet? Because I really need one right now. Also, that was the most deliberately grating Southern accent I’ve heard in a long time. Though I did like the “good ol’ boys” stab at Bo Kent. Still, I would have preferred Poor Man’s Frances McDormand – my name for Maggie/whoever that was in “Insurgence.”
Could Bo have possibly said anything less reassuring? Did he really say "We may be flawed, but we flawed humans raised you"? Thanks, Dad. So I'm fully justified in becoming the eeevil ruler, both by my heritage and your fuckups, yes?
I like Lana. That sound you hear is, in fact, the crackling of the Pit of Despair as it ices over. I don’t think Lex is flirting with her any more than usual. That is, Lex seduces almost everyone, but I’m getting his seductiveness with Lana as habitual rather than targeted.
Even though I like Lana, I hate the resolution of her plot. A guy who would sue Clark maliciously wouldn’t drop the suit because she beat him up – he’d add her to the lawsuit and ask for the Talon. If she’d followed up on her much more rational suggestion to Clark that she do the spying and collect the evidence of fakery, that would have been much more plausible.
Hey, comics readers – has there ever been a storyline about Supes being sued? Because you know it would happen. I can imagine the disputes over whether personal jurisdiction may be had over an alien domiciled in the Antarctic. Reminds me of the great case of Mayo ex rel. Satan and his Staff, in which the district court (Mass., I think) determined that it lacked jurisdiction over Satan but suggested, citing The Devil and Daniel Webster, that jurisdiction might be had in New Hampshire.
I also liked Mulder and Scully -- er, Clark and Lex -- in the motel. Good flashlight technique, Lex. I hope you're as handy, so to speak, with all your favorite phallic objects. This, however, is overwhelmed by the Not Gay! Not Gay! Not Gay! superanvils falling like cherry blossoms around Lex. It's fascinating to see that TPTB are having to combat the blatant subtext with equally blatant text. "Clark didn't save me -- you did." Right, Lex, so your CoCK (tm Thamiris) is the healthy, non-gay type of obsession. I really have to look up DA Miller and ensure that he's watching this show. He always said that the accusation of homosexuality overwhelms any attempts to deny it; because homosexuality knows how to live in the closet, any manifestation of heterosexuality can always be read as denial: Lex displacing sexual attraction into scientific curiousity -- I'm going to penetrate you somehow, Clark -- or having it displaced for him.
Dear Dr. Helen: Props for the working gaydar – “Clark?” Heh. (Side note to Lex: um, if you knew and she knew, wouldn’t that be two people who knew? Or are you just anticipating her untimely demise?) And congratulations on making me think that Lex actually liked you this time, even if he broke a lot of dates. On the other hand, when the music playing for your tender engagement scene is “Don’t Fear the Reaper” – or am I wrong about that? – smart money says, “Leave town. No forwarding address needed, really.” You have an evident history of picking obsessive, dangerous types, and this one’s going to get your blood on his hands again.
Overall, the episode structure gave us an interesting deviation from the overall chiastic structure of Lex-and-Clark, the criss-cross of one descending into evil from at least half-hearted desire to do good and the other maturing into nobility. At the beginning, it looks like it might follow the ordinary pattern, with Lex jealous but well within standard behavioral norms and Clark overreacting. (TPTB cut the “jealous rage” bit with Lana that was in the previews, right? So canonically, it’s not clear what Lana saw.)
Yet instead of chiasmus, we get parallelism. The law mistrusts both Clark and Lex – with more justification for Clark, since he did send a police car to the shop – and isn’t listening to their side of the story. More: the sly, smug looks from the two liars as they watch the men they’ve unfairly blamed. The law’s inability, or unwillingness, to assist. The brutality of the stalker/harasser against the objects of the boys’ affections.
At the end, though, some weird things happen. Instead of Clark solving both problems or Clark succeeding and Lex failing, one of which is usually the case, both Clark and Lex end up together, solving Lex’s problem (more on that in a minute). And Clark’s problem gets solved by Lana, in the absence of the men. Clark jumps off his track – and how suggestive that the final Clark/Lex scene is played out in and around trains, evoking the ultimate in chiastic/homoerotic cinema, Strangers on a Train – and onto Lex’s, leaving the locomotive force of his story to be driven by Lana. It’s this odd jump, along with the stupid way in which Lana “solves” Clark’s problem, that leaves me as narratively unsatisfied as I am.
The other thing is that Lex’s solution, in this episode, is at least as good as Clark’s. I’m almost disappointed that the WB didn’t promote this as “the episode in which Lex Luthor turns away from the dark side.”
True, Lex gets the LoJack information in some shady way, and he obviously premeditated the thing with the empty gun. (I really liked that little bit of misdirection in the motel – I assumed that he was arming himself, not getting another gun.) But I believe that Lex hadn’t decided to shoot StalkerGuy in “self-defense.” I think he was probably planning on scaring him, pistol-whipping him, and then turning him over to the police. Lex is willing to let people twist in the wind before he reprieves them, as we saw in the opening scene of “Insurgence.” The alternative explanation – that Lex did plan to shoot StalkerGuy, but committed the classic Evil Overlord mistake of explaining himself and giving the other guy time to strike back – annoys me because I like my Lex smarter, and is less consistent with his ultimate decision not to shoot. So we end with Lex’s compassion (though a plea of temporary insanity does not in fact require civil commitment, which is what I assume the SV writers were going for) and Clark’s glee in a girl beating up his adversary.
A minor thing I liked was Lex’s delay in putting the gun down at the obviously freaked sheriff’s command. He’s constitutionally incapable of not pushing it. He is also, amazingly, right about the status of citizen's arrest under Kansas law, though it's not clear to me that he's allowed to pummel StalkerGuy in the course of the arrest.
Finally, did anyone else think that Lex was looking up and thinking "Axes. Why is it always axes?" There must be something about axes that makes Clark use his X-ray vision.
Completely beside the point, Evanescence is a lovely goth band. I like the music and the vocals. But, my God, the lyrics. I did better as a mopey, self-important 14-year-old, and believe you me I do not mean to claim that my “poetry” was worthy of lining a birdcage.
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