It *is* about the Clex, dammit!
Apr. 8th, 2003 12:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meteordustAfter waiting so long for the new season of Smallville to start, I feel like I should say something about 'Vortex'. But the truth is, it's got to be one of the most thoroughly discussed and analysed episodes of the season, and I'm not sure how much I can add.
After reading through all the recaps, reviews, rants, and resulting fanfic when it first aired, watching the episode itself felt almost anticlimactic. I think it was because I was waiting for the highlights. The scenes with Lex and his father. The fight between Clark and Lex in the woods. Lex shooting Nixon. And then there was the horrible uncertainty about whether what I was seeing on the screen was the whole story, or if Channel Nine had been slicing out key frames here and there to make it acceptable for PG viewing.
What I found interesting were the unexpected parallels between this episode and the pilot. Just think: Lana trapped in the airborne truck. Clark ploughing through the tornado to get to her. Lana looking at the wreckage of the truck and wondering how she survived. And Clark telling her earnestly that she must have only imagined she saw him.
I think it's interesting that this all happened with Clark's supposed nemesis a whole season before it happened with his supposed love interest. I keep thinking about Roswell, and how it used that same kind of mirroring, with Max saving Liz, the girl he loves, in the very first episode, and then, at the end of the season, saving his rival Kyle in almost exactly the same way.
So maybe Smallville's creators have reversed the order of things, or maybe they've got it more right than they know. Because Clark's destiny isn't going to be Lana; it's going to be Lex. It's their story, so it makes perfect sense that everything begins with that fateful encounter on the bridge - just as Roswell began with Max using his alien powers to stop Liz from dying.
And I can't believe I'm comparing Lex Luthor and Liz Parker, but everyone makes the Smallville/Roswell comparison anyway, and now I'm starting to think about how Jonathan Kent and Michael seem to share the same intense paranoia about keeping the alien thing a secret, and I think I'd better stop now because I really don't want to explore the consequences of mapping them onto each other.
After reading through all the recaps, reviews, rants, and resulting fanfic when it first aired, watching the episode itself felt almost anticlimactic. I think it was because I was waiting for the highlights. The scenes with Lex and his father. The fight between Clark and Lex in the woods. Lex shooting Nixon. And then there was the horrible uncertainty about whether what I was seeing on the screen was the whole story, or if Channel Nine had been slicing out key frames here and there to make it acceptable for PG viewing.
What I found interesting were the unexpected parallels between this episode and the pilot. Just think: Lana trapped in the airborne truck. Clark ploughing through the tornado to get to her. Lana looking at the wreckage of the truck and wondering how she survived. And Clark telling her earnestly that she must have only imagined she saw him.
I think it's interesting that this all happened with Clark's supposed nemesis a whole season before it happened with his supposed love interest. I keep thinking about Roswell, and how it used that same kind of mirroring, with Max saving Liz, the girl he loves, in the very first episode, and then, at the end of the season, saving his rival Kyle in almost exactly the same way.
So maybe Smallville's creators have reversed the order of things, or maybe they've got it more right than they know. Because Clark's destiny isn't going to be Lana; it's going to be Lex. It's their story, so it makes perfect sense that everything begins with that fateful encounter on the bridge - just as Roswell began with Max using his alien powers to stop Liz from dying.
And I can't believe I'm comparing Lex Luthor and Liz Parker, but everyone makes the Smallville/Roswell comparison anyway, and now I'm starting to think about how Jonathan Kent and Michael seem to share the same intense paranoia about keeping the alien thing a secret, and I think I'd better stop now because I really don't want to explore the consequences of mapping them onto each other.
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-10 05:35 am (UTC)I thought that there was one fight scene that looked as though it had been cut, but I dunno.
I found that I didn't mind (unlike some other people) the recycling of Lex's suspicions of Clark for the reason you mention - Lex was first, and somehow that makes him seem more important than Lana.
I hadn't noticed the parallel with Kyle, though like you I do try to avoid *too* much Roswell-Smallville comparison.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-18 11:47 pm (UTC)I've been following the Television Without Pity recaps, but I haven't read the most recent ones. It's hard finding a balance between staying unspoiled and hanging around in a fandom that's more than half a season ahead. It's weird, because normally I hate spoilers - I like to get the full impact of a story's twists and turns. But with Smallville, I usually get too impatient to wait for it to air - I want more of Clark and Lex, I want to know what's been happening with them, I want to be able to read the discussions and the fanfic. It'd probably be different if we were just a few weeks behind instead of a few months.