Away From Smallville

The first two episodes of Smallville, Third Season, are like a liberation. Lex and Clark seem already to have escaped the restrictions of Smallville. We see Lex surviving half naked on an island and Clark enjoying the greater freedom of Metropolis as against Smallville as well as the unrestricted license of a super-powered villain's role.

Although we had already seen "Kal" robbing ATM's, I did think, when he interrupted a bank robbery, that he had returned to a familiar crime-fighting role but instead he proceeded to rob the bank himself. Of course, it is the Red Kryptonite influence but he knowingly opted to wear the Red Kryptonite ring.

Will it be an anti-climax when, in the third episode, all the action is safely back in Smallville? We have had a preview of what will happen in later seasons when Clark moves permanently to Metropolis and uses his powers covertly. Will Morgan Edge still be a crime boss? Will Edge also control Galaxy Broadcasting? Will Lionel Luthor still be in Metropolis? Will Lex also have moved there? Will Lex build a LexCorp Tower in Metropolis? Will Chloe be working for the Planet?

We know that Clark and Lois Lane, who has not appeared yet, will work for the Planet. Some plot features have to be the same in any version of the story.

Dark Clark

Exile is the first episode of Smallville: Third Season. Clark and Lex are both exiled. Chloe looks better with longer hair.

It is Metropolis but, instead of Clark Kent and Superman, we have Kal and the Masked Man, who smashes open cash machines and interrupts a bank robbery so that he can rob the bank himself! As police bullets bounce off the Masked Man, Jonathan, Martha and Pete realize who he is. I thought that the bank robbing clowns worked for You Know Who from Gotham City but it is too early for that. They work for Morgan Edge, who is big in crime instead of in media - or is he big in both in both versions?

If Clark has had to conquer all this to become Superman, then Superman's heroism is in more than his powers.

What is going on with Lex and that island? - like Oliver Queen, unless this one is a virtual reality? Is Helen complicit? She seems to have told a suspicious story and to be amused rather than grieving. If Lionel is not moved by the belief that his son was murdered, then he is an immovable object.

The last disc of the Second Season ends with:

Christopher Reeve's character saying, "You must make your own destiny, Kal-El";
a discussion of the special effects;
the Chloe Chronicles.

"You must make your own destiny, Kal-El" summarizes a fictional history from 1938 into the twenty first century.