Episode Title: Thirst
Episode Airdate: October 27th, 2005
Episode Synopsis:
I’ve been running around all over the place all day, in preparations for a Halloween costume party I will be attending on Saturday night. In the interest of posting this review before next week, I decided to forego the usual scene-by-scene, line-by-line recap style and instead give you an overall summary of what happened, followed by my standard in-depth review. I apologize to anybody who was hoping for/expecting the typical recap.
The episode starts off with Lana dropping a big bombshell on Clark: She received late acceptance to Met U, and she’s leaving for Metropolis. Since she’s late acceptance, all the dorms are filled, and she has no place to live. Too bad she’s no longer friends with Lex, or else she could get him to buy her a luxurious house. Anyway, she plans on joining a sorority, so she has someplace to live. The entire episode, by the way, is narrated by Chloe, who is writing a try-out piece for The Daily Planet.
So Lana gets into the sorority she pledged for, and soon discovers that all of the members are vampires. Clark and Chloe storm the party (but not without Chloe making reference to Clark’s cape, and Clark making reference to how much he hates masks), and soon discover this as well. Clark manages to save Chloe as Lana sucks her blood.
Meanwhile, Lex Luthor decides to pay a visit to Professor Fine. The two whip ’em out to see whose is bigger, in what was an incredibly enjoyable scene (I just realized that that didn’t come out right, considering the expression I used). Lex threatens to get Fine fired, but Fine later reveals to Lex that he knows about Lex running unauthorized experiments on some students on campus. Fine also pays a visit to the Kryptonian spaceship, referring to it (to one of Lex’s bodyguards) as “his.”
Clark runs into Professor Fine at the hospital, and tells him about the vampires. In a deliciously ironic line, Professor Fine says “Clark, there’s no such thing as vampires.” I really, REALLY liked that line, but I felt that naming the lead vampire chick “Buffy” was a bit much, even though they did acknowledge that it was not her real name. Professor Fine then tells Clark that he should talk to Lex, and ask him about one of his projects.
Clark goes to Lex, who has a very interesting reaction when Clark tells him that Lana was attacked by one of the vampires. It was subdued, but it’s clear he still has feelings for her. Lex finally tells Clark the truth (after a great deal of prodding): A girl fell into a bat cave that also had meteor rocks inside, and after she was rescued she began displaying vampiric tendencies. However, there is a cure: An injection of meteor rock serum directly into the heart. Clark is, of course, nauseous from the Kryptonite, just as Lana drops into the room from the ceiling. By the way, she looks immensely sexy in that tight leather clad vampire outfit. She knocks out Lex, while Clark is powerless due to the Kryptonite. She starts sucking Clark’s blood, and develops his ability to use heat vision.
When Lana gets back to the sorority house, the sisters are disappointed that she didn’t do Clark in. She says that they can change him, and that he’s something special. She gets into a pissing contest with the leader (Buffy), and ultimately uses her heat vision to destroy her. Moments later, Clark uses the Kryptonite injection to cure Lana. Later, he asks her how much she remembers, and she tells him only bits and pieces (of course). She then tells him that the one thing she does remember is when she bit him, she felt unbelievable warmth and power, and that she felt like she was inside his heart. They actually put a pretty nice spin on what actually happened.
The episode concludes with Clark dropping by Lex’s mansion to thank him for his help. I’m noticing that despite these two supposedly not being friends anymore, they’re spending an awful lot of time together. Lex tells Clark that he should be careful of Professor Fine, and that he might not be the person he thinks he is. An obvious parallel to what everybody constantly said to Clark regarding Lex, and it worked very well.
Finally, Chloe closes up her column by revealing that her roommate (who she hated) dropped out due to the weird occurrences, and now Lana is her roommate (a move eerily similar to what happened with Buffy and Willow when they became college freshman, as well). She hands her column into the editor (played excellently by Carrie Fisher), who initially rejects her. However, after showing some backbone, the editor changes her mind, giving Chloe the internship. Chloe gave a nice little synopsis at the end of the episode, which I quite enjoyed, so here’s what she said:
I got onto the ground floor of my dream. Okay, so it’s actually the basement, but it’s the Daily Planet! The paper of record for Kings, Presidents, and Prime Ministers. Not to mention future Superheroes. The way I look at it, I had no place to go but up, up, and away.
In a very cool effect, we then pan back, out of the basement, out the window, and scale up the building of the Daily Planet, finally zooming in on the majestic gold spinning globe on top.
Episode Review:
Another enjoyable episode, which I believe helped show the growth of the characters between this season and last. Perhaps it was the change in landscape, or perhaps it was the more open relationships, but the characters of Clark, Lana, and Chloe just seemed older and more mature than they did last season. This, in my opinion, is a good thing.
One thing I didn’t mention in my synopsis, but I thought was wonderful, was when Chloe (who was in Metropolis) was on the phone with Clark (who was in Smallville), and she tells him she just found something important, and then suddenly all of the papers on her desk begin blowing away, and seconds later Clark is in the room. I thought it was a creative effect, and they seem to be having some fun with the fact that Clark is now open with Chloe about his secret. More times than not, when they’re having fun writing it, I’m having fun watching it. I’m really hoping Chloe’s not the one who dies, if only because I’ve really, REALLY enjoyed her new relationship with Clark.
Now, a criticism: ENOUGH already with the amnesia thing. How many times are we going to have somebody find out about Clark’s secret, only for them to not remember afterwards? Hell, we’ve already done it with Lionel this season (although I’ll excuse it, since there seems like actual planning went into it). Last season it happened with Lana about 17 times, with Lois about 10, with Chloe maybe five, with Lex and Lionel maybe three each. Enough is enough, lets abandon this tool, it just reeks of laziness. What bothers me even more is that the writers actually did an excellent job of covering up Lana finding out Clark’s secret (by having her remember it as something internally beautiful), so why even walk that amnesia line, considering how often they’ve done it in the past?
The stuff with Lex and Professor Fine was marvelous. It’s rare that Lex loses the battle of one-upmanship, but I think Professor Fine had his number this episode. First Lex argues that what he’s doing is dangerously close to libel. Professor Fine then retorts that it’s only libel if it’s not true. Lex digs up information on Professor Fine, and Professor Fine retaliates with incriminating information about Lex. Lex sends his guard after Professor Fine, and Fine kills him (by the way, you just knew something was going to happen with that guard, because how often is a guard EVER in that office?) It was really fun seeing the two future super villains set their sights against each other, and it made me rather confident that it’s going to be a very enjoyable season, if only to see these two more.
By the way, considering how much fun the Smallville writers had with the Buffy allusions, I was utterly SHOCKED that the words “bat cave” appeared numerous times throughout the episode, and there wasn’t one inside comment about Batman. Oh well, maybe they’re just giving us a break from the Aquaman episode last week.
