Smallville 4x02 (spoilers)

[rivkat]

How I see Lex these days: really fucking angry. (And by the way, if Ma and Pa Kent are going to switch positions on Lex, as if they're actively trying to emulate the random reward/punishment structure that drives rats nuts and makes fangirls rabid, then isn't the right answer to Clark's "He's lied to me since we first met" possibly, "Pots and kettles, Clark"?)

Anyhow, Lex is definitely a contributing factor in his own isolation and easily-betrayed status, a proximate cause as we lawyers might say, but I understand why he might feel forced into that position. Though it was apparently his screw-up that led Lionel's Kryptonator to Chloe, if I were him I'd have pointed out that three months had gone by with Chloe safe and only when Clark starts poking around does Chloe suddenly get put at risk again.

Side note: Lex's inability to pick reliable minions now reveals itself to be inherited. That, or decreed by the Plot Hole gods. I do hope Lex learns the lesson that if he wants Superman killed, he's going to have to do him himself. Do it, I mean. Whatever.

This may be my own changing perception of the show, but I don't see Lex as even really trying with Clark any more. He didn't think he could prove himself to Clark, so he didn't lose anything by lying. I thought that his father's promise of death lurking in every glass of wine hurt him – still wearing his heart on his sleeve and offering everyone he meets the shirt off his back, is our Lex (I forget who first said this about Lex, but I love it and have adopted it) – but I half expected him to point out that this was not a big change for him. He was hoping against hope that he could find someone trustworthy, through two marriages and one friendship of legend, and now he has accepted what he's always suspected, that trust is not for him, neither to be given nor received. If anything, he's the second worst liar on the show after Clark. He's going to have to be a lot better to convince me that he still has hopes of reconciliation with Clark.

Comments

[luciamad.livejournal.com]

What you say about Lex giving up on trust is interesting. That's always what got to me about him, the way he gave it away to anyone with promise. The idea that he's given up on it hurts a bit, I think I can see it though.

It is interesting then that the disappointments, like with his father, still get to him. On the other hand, now that you mention it, I didn't catch as much of the expected hurt when Clark didn't trust him. That is old hat by now, I guess.

Lex as a liar is a little odd to me though because I attach him so much to truth in an odd way. Maybe it's because he insisted on it so much with Clark, or I just see him leaking his true feelings so often, I don't know. But Lex as liar, I guess that's coming from the giving up you mentioned, the light attempts at convincing Clark that he's still trying. That's so depressing though, and yet an inevitability I guess. Interesting.

[emrinalexander.livejournal.com]

I see Lex the same way and find myself wondering, yet again: Just WHO is supposed to be the hero of SV? Because the man I find myself admiring again and again and again, is Lex.

And the man I hold up as an example of what NOT to be? Is Clark Kent.