» 9-7: "Kandor" 2009.11.06 (recap) Options

[ztastviz]

The sad, disappointing part about tptb excusing Clark's behavior is that it implies someone has to be freaking Superman not to lift a hundred pound woman off the ground by her neck. If young males were actually watching this show I'd be worried about the message it sends them. To be perfectly honest, Clark's disregard for others doesn't surprise me; his morals have been arbitrary for a long time now, IMO.

[ftfrankie]

When subduing villains, I would like to think that Superman understands the distinction between necessary and unnecessary force. If he is being attacked, if he needs to protect others from an attack, or if he needs to prevent a crime from occurring, a certain amount of force may be necessary. The amount of force would depend on the opponent and the situation. However, the point that there is no one Superman's "own size" for him to pick on speaks volumes. I can imagine very, very few situations in which one of the strongest beings in the universe would require a choke-hold on his opponent to subdue them.

We don't, as a society, condone this behavior in any sort of analogous situation: not between caregivers and children or even between police officers and criminal suspects. And in the state of Minnesota at least, domestic assault by strangulation is a separate prosecutable offense from regular ol' domestic assault, and carries extra penalties with it. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could think it's acceptable behavior for a hero.

I've been a comic geek for millenia and for me, Clark's violence towards Tess is part and parcel of superheroics - Superman, Batman, et al would be arrested on sight for countless charges of illegal assault and battery, not to mention breaking and entering and so forth.

Vigilantes, even when we like them are criminals, and if one's going to argue that because of their special powers and abilities superheroes should be scrupulously legalistic and "humane" in their treatment of villains, then I would posit that comic books would be boring and nowhere as popular as they have been for close to a century.

I liked Tess manhandling Tess because it spoke true to the anger/fear/frustration that he would feel towards her. The shove towards the computer - I've seen it countless times in cops/crooks movies and tv as the typical "Move it Along" push.

Tess has been a blatant threat against Clark, and by extension his loved ones and his mission to do as much good on Earth basically from the get-go. How many of us, without superpowers, would've reacted calmly, maturely and legally correct if faced w/ such threats? Clark has the extra burden of knowing that if he flies completely off the handle he could conceivably kill all life on Earth, but I certainly don't hold it against the character that he may want to kill or at least slap around a nuisance.

Again I understand that in the real world such behavior would get Clark and co. arrested and sued in civil court - but I don't care. I like Superman smacking around and/or scaring bad guys. I suppose I'm a pre-adolescent caveman at heart.

I like reading/watching Superman comics. If it were the Adventures of Clark Kent - Specialist in Non-Hostile and Non-Physical Conflict Resolution, I'd pass.

As a mitigating factor to anyone who was terrified by Tess' treatment - Clark can lift a battleship - so if he really wanted her hurt, she'd be hurt.

[Massena1]

We don't, as a society, condone this behavior in any sort of analogous situation: not between caregivers and children or even between police officers and criminal suspects. And in the state of Minnesota at least, domestic assault by strangulation is a separate prosecutable offense from regular ol' domestic assault, and carries extra penalties with it. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could think it's acceptable behavior for a hero.

This. That's exactly what I kept thinking as I read all the "she deserved it" "had it coming" and is playing it up for attention/sympathy comments on twitter about Rihanna and Chris Brown and then saw similar comments about Clark choke-holding Tess.

Someone on ONTD quoted Rihanna's interview and the gist was she said something about how the exterior wounds would heal, but what the violence did to her on the inside (the emotional scars from being treated that way) wouldn't heal as easily.

It's really irresponsible and cruddy for the writers to have Clark lift Tess (someone who the audience saw tell Clark she was physically abused as a child by her father) into the air in a chokehold and then have him menace her physically into bending to his will....what scummy behavior.

This post has been edited by Massena1: Nov 9, 2009 @ 4:18 pm.

[ftfrankie]

We don't, as a society, condone this behavior in any sort of analogous situation: not between caregivers and children or even between police officers and criminal suspects. And in the state of Minnesota at least, domestic assault by strangulation is a separate prosecutable offense from regular ol' domestic assault, and carries extra penalties with it. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could think it's acceptable behavior for a hero.

This. That's exactly what I kept thinking as I read all the "she deserved it" "had it coming" and is playing it up for attention/sympathy comments on twitter about Rihanna and Chris Brown and then saw similar comments about Clark choke-holding Tess.

Someone on ONTD quoted Rihanna's interview and the gist was she said something about how the exterior wounds would heal, but what the violence did to her on the inside (the emotional scars from being treated that way) wouldn't heal as easily.

It's really irresponsible and cruddy for the writers to have Clark lift Tess (someone who the audience saw tell Clark she was physically abused as a child by her father) into the air in a chokehold and then have him menace her physically into bending to his will....what scummy behavior.

Tess is a villain, she's killed w/ her own hand and has ordered other's killed. She controls a multi-billion dollar multi-national company and has no compunction whatsoever about using her vast resources to menace others into bending to her will.

Clark is not a cop or her caregiver or her father. What he does is wildly illegal and perhaps unethical - but I want my Superheroes smacking bad guys around and dangling them off rooftops and incinerating their lairs with laser-vision, etc. Super-hearing and X-Ray-Vison -gross invasions of privacy, but you go on ahead there Kal-El!

TPTB could've written Smallville as a show where super-powered alien Clark Kent uses his investigative ability to compile an airtight case against Tess and other evildoers and provide such evidence to the appropriate authorities. Most episodes would be of Clark spending countless hours in deposition rooms, reviewing mugshots and testifying in open court.

Instead we usually get - Clark zooms in and smashes somebody/something. Me likey.

Unrelated to the Above - The episode had Clark needing to bum a ride on Ollie's jet to get to the desert - hasn't Clark super-sped run over water before? I know he's been to Mexico and back with Impulse, but I seem to remember him going to China for authentic Chinese food - or did I imagine that?

When Clark starts choke-holding slow coffee-shop baristas and snooty waiters - then I'll worry.

[FuzzyPink]

I seem to remember him going to China for authentic Chinese food - or did I imagine that?

He went to China with Lana in Sacred, but they also took a plane. The only time he's ever been half-indicated to run somewhere over water was a deleted scene from... Reunion, I think, when he mentions to Martha he went to Australia to check out the crater Raya was seen in. But as that never made it to actual canon, I'm not sure if it counts or not.

[screamin]

I've been a comic geek for millenia and for me, Clark's violence towards Tess is part and parcel of superheroics - Superman, Batman, et al would be arrested on sight for countless charges of illegal assault and battery, not to mention breaking and entering and so forth.

Even in Smallville, there has been at least lip service to the idea that Clark had been RAISED to be extremely gentle in handling human beings, considering how easily he could break them. I'm specifically thinking about his desire to play football, which his parents objected to on the grounds that he could easily hurt the other players; they agreed only because he had NEVER in the past tripped up and hurt someone even accidentally, let alone on purpose. Now must we believe that Clark on the football field was a hazard to the other players after all, because an adolescent could easily get pissed off and a super-adolescent could break someone's neck with an angry gesture - and now that he's grown up he's still vulnerable to doing the same thing - apparently even more so - and we're supposed to think this is all right? I can't. I think it's just wrong.

Clark is not a cop or her caregiver or her father. What he does is wildly illegal and perhaps unethical - but I want my Superheroes smacking bad guys around and dangling them off rooftops and incinerating their lairs with laser-vision, etc. Super-hearing and X-Ray-Vison -gross invasions of privacy, but you go on ahead there Kal-El!

Incinerating a lair with laser vision is different from assaulting people who are completely helpless in your hands. It wasn't okay for Clark to smack that hostage around,and I don't think any super hero ought to behave so. I think it was wrong to unnecessarily endanger Tess' life when she posed no direct threat to him and he could have gotten the information out of her without risking breaking her neck. Not all superheroes act the same way - Batman, for example, would probably be okay with most of the behavior you describe (though I think even he would draw the line at smashing a helpless innocent hostage and feeling no qualm of remorse about it). But Batman's always been drawn darker, so he has that excuse - and he also has no superstrength, so he's on more even footing with the people he manhandles; whereas Superman could crush people like nits with the careless application of too much force, as he could easily have done to Tess.

I simply don't think this is Superman-like - not even a beginner's Superman. And if the writers don't intend to show that the way he's behaving is wrong (either because Clark will realize that the way he's acting is wrong, or because something is wrong with Clark) then the writers are too damn careless to be writing a superhero who's supposed to be the king of the good guys.

This post has been edited by screamin: Nov 9, 2009 @ 5:39 pm.

[Flyingwoman]

I've been a comic geek for millenia and for me, Clark's violence towards Tess is part and parcel of superheroics - Superman, Batman, et al would be arrested on sight for countless charges of illegal assault and battery, not to mention breaking and entering and so forth.

Vigilantes, even when we like them are criminals, and if one's going to argue that because of their special powers and abilities superheroes should be scrupulously legalistic and "humane" in their treatment of villains, then I would posit that comic books would be boring and nowhere as popular as they have been for close to a century.

Well, this is an interesting problem that seem to comes up alot in this fandom: do we evaluate people's actions by the standards of real-world ethics, or by comic-book ethics? People do tend to love stories where trickster types like Robin Hood and Hans Solo save the day by breaking the rules, and I think comics could be grouped into those types of stories. Superman, Batman, etc., can save the day and entertain us because they're not tied down by those pesky little issues of due process and suspect's rights. I think this speaks to a lack of trust that the "system" is working for us and protects us -- in stories we want someone to protect us when the system can't or won't, or when the system is actively preying on us.

So I guess the problem for me is that the story stops being entertaining when the trickster/vigilante hero in question is more problematic than the system. And yes, people have criticized Clark's throwing people throughout the run of the series -- that's something I'm willing to see on the level of cartoon violence, because I never saw it as motivated by anger or bloodlust or pleasure in another person's suffering. When the hero is angry or vengeful enough to WANT to cause pain - that's when he stops being heroic to me. He then becomes the thing from which we need protection.

How many of us, without superpowers, would've reacted calmly, maturely and legally correct if faced w/ such threats? Clark has the extra burden of knowing that if he flies completely off the handle he could conceivably kill all life on Earth, but I certainly don't hold it against the character that he may want to kill or at least slap around a nuisance.

Well, and that's kind of the problem. Many, many people do not react calmly and maturely when confronted by "nuisances" like their children or drunk spouses or the guy who tail-gated them. And even people without superpowers can bash skulls and crush windpipes. That's why we have that special category of crime called "manslaughter" for which people are prosecuted for non-premeditated killings. I realize that in telling a good story authors must allow their characters to make mistakes, and not all (or even most) stories should be sanitized Disney-clean. But if your heroic protagonist flies off the handle and endangers a persons' life out of the desire to punish or for revenge, maybe you need to consider what kind of story you're really telling.

[Dread]

• Previously, on Smallville, I used to have a functioning liver and was not an alcoholic. .
• First there was Clark and Lana, then Clark and Chloe, then Clark and Lex, and Clark and Lana again, then Clark and Wolfgirl, and Clark and Lana, then Clark and Alicia, then Lana and Adam, then Lana and Jason, then Lana and Lex, Clark and Lois, then Lois and Oliver, Lois and Grant, Clark and Lana again and finally Clark and Lois kicked off another round of Smallville hell by kissing last week.
• But bonus points go to Clark for finally finding a way to shut her up.
• And there was some stuff about a bunch of Kryptonians coming to Earth in the Orb, but most of us had stopped watching by then.
• Except for me. Because I still hate myself.
• Krypton, outside of Kandor, Zod and the crew are getting their blood drawn for the cloning purposes in the middle of a firefight.
• There’s that Kryptonian intelligence again.
• Seriously, couldn’t you do that before people started shooting at you?
• Jor-El stops them and objects to his work being used in this way, because the military has never ever co-opted technology for its own uses.
• Is it just me, or does anyone else think they should have just had Tom Welling in a dual role as Jor-El?
• Or maybe Peter Gallagher? His eyebrows could have a credit too.
• Major Zod agrees to stop it and supports Jor-El calling him one of the greatest scientific minds on Krypton.
• And it’s pretty clear that teh gay runs in the family, folks, as Jor-El and Zod exchange one of many smoldering unspoken guy love gazes at each other.
• I’m just saying that my Hoyayometer readings were off the scale.
• Someone named Black Zero nukes Kandor and Zod loses his wife and son in the blast.
• We jump to the present day, and Zod rallies his men with talks of regaining their powers and claiming Earth as their new home and getting Jor-El.
• Clark goes to see Chloe and mentions that he kissed Lois and she skipped town.
• Chloe says that’s normal Lois.
• Since when? She didn’t skip town on Oliver or Grant. Another stated attribute, no doubt.
• Really? “Since the 1930’s”?
• Don’t remind me of other Lois Lanes, show, if you want me to still like this one.
• Then again, I suppose we could be treated to Silver Age Lois and her penchant for faking her own death to get Superman to admit that he should have married her.
• See? It could be worse, people.
• Chloe sends Clark and Oliver out to the desert to go find a Kandorian that Tess is looking for.
• Tess, still as badass as ever, agrees to tell Zod when they have Jor-El in custody. Zod offers her ‘respect’, as in he’ll ‘respect’ her all night long and make her breakfast in the morning.
• Clark heads out to the desert and uses his brain to deduce that the heat of landing would have burned the sand into glass.
•Welcome back, special effects department. I missed you.
• They find dogtags for clone Jor-El who shows up in Smallville at the Kent Farm.
• Chloe fills him in on Clark’s existence and the whole home planet sort of not existing anymore.
• Hey, while he’s here, can you ask him why his AI is such a dick?
• He tells her about his bromance, Zod and how Zod saved him from a death sentence from the Kryptonian council with a passionate speech begging for his life.
• I’m guessing the Kryptonian army doesn’t have the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
• Jor-El mentions his meeting Hiram Kent back during his sojourn with his insufferable Lana clone.
• Chloe tells him how amazing Clark is and how it’s thanks to his guidance.
• Would that be the guidance where he called him to rule the world? Or where he tortured him? Or where he brainwashed a girl to seduce Clark and threatened to kill Bo Duke? Or where he kidnapped and brainwashed Clark? Or where he actually did kill Bo Duke? Cause I’m not seeing a lot of that in Clark. The gay maybe, and the stupid, definitely, but not so much the evil old bastard.
• Chloe fills in the rest about how Zod blew up the planet, possessed Lex and tried to take over Earth.
• Jor-El mentions his meeting Hiram Kent back during his sojourn with his insufferable Lana clone.
• Clark is understandably bitter that dead Jor-El is still a tool and thinks live one will probably be the same.
• Clark doesn’t know the half of it. Clone Jor-El was a colossal tool.
• Zod asked him to take some hair from his son and use the DNA to clone the boy so Zod could hold him one more time. Jor-El spouts off his bullshit about not changing destiny. Zod begs him to change his mind and reminds Jor-El of his debt to him. Jor-El apologizes and walks off.
• Dude… what the fuck?
• No, really? What. The. Fuck?
• You dick.
• You are a fucking tool, Jor-El and you deserved to have your ass blown up, reconstituted, beat to a pulp, and fucking shot.
• Got to say, I’m kind of rooting for Zod and Tess to take over the world.
• Tess’ crew kidnaps Jor-El, Chloe gets KO’ed by the old man, and she reveals that she wired the Kent home for A/V and neglected to tell Clark.
• She sells the shower cam feed to one “LexYouUp69” for a monthly fee of $250,000.
• Clark runs off to confront Tess.
• Tess gets Jor-El to agree to sacrifice himself to Zod to protect his son, and the ninny very quickly betrays his son’s existence to Zod.
• Dick.
• Zod lets him go and tracks him back to the Kent farm.
• Clark: “Where are the plans for the battle station? Also, my dad…”
• Clark intimidates her into telling him and she says he’s back at the Kent Farm.
• Jor-El is shot and dies in his son’s arms. Of course he does. Why should I expect anything less than another dead parent in the course of the same episode that introduced them.
• Jor-El: Please, save my tortured, destined for evil, woobie love.
• Clark: Yeah, Dad. Been there, done that, got the radioactive girlfriend already and I don’t need another one. What say I just kill the fucker?
• Dick, Jr.
• Clark swears vengeance against his killer, while Chloe discovers… sigh… another octagon of plot contrivance.
• Next week, the motherfucking Wonder Twins and Gleek.
• Dicks.

[ftfrankie]

Well, and that's kind of the problem. Many, many people do not react calmly and maturely when confronted by "nuisances" like their children or drunk spouses or the guy who tail-gated them. And even people without superpowers can bash skulls and crush windpipes. That's why we have that special category of crime called "manslaughter" for which people are prosecuted for non-premeditated killings. I realize that in telling a good story authors must allow their characters to make mistakes, and not all (or even most) stories should be sanitized Disney-clean. But if your heroic protagonist flies off the handle and endangers a persons' life out of the desire to punish or for revenge, maybe you need to consider what kind of story you're really telling.

Well Tess has been shown to be at least as capable, if not more so, than 99% of every male bad guy during the show's run. Just in the past few weeks she's been shown to (offscreen) kill a larger, trained and depowered Kandorian male, and shot up a Mexican bar. She holds her own against Ollie and other trained combatants. Being shown time and again as an even match for the roughest, toughest males in the Smallville Universe, I have no fear whatsoever for Tess' wellbeing when she's manhandled by Clark.

I don't worry for all the assorted mercenaries and hitmen and bankrobbers that Clark slaps around w/ impunity - I grant Tess the respect of thinking she can handle the same.

[RepairmanBob]

• Chloe tells him how amazing Clark is and how it’s thanks to his guidance.
• Would that be the guidance where he called him to rule the world? Or where he tortured him? Or where he brainwashed a girl to seduce Clark and threatened to kill Bo Duke? Or where he kidnapped and brainwashed Clark? Or where he actually did kill Bo Duke? Cause I’m not seeing a lot of that in Clark. The gay maybe, and the stupid, definitely, but not so much the evil old bastard.

It is sad when Chloe is used to pimp Hal 1.0 and Clois in the same episode.

• Zod asked him to take some hair from his son and use the DNA to clone the boy so Zod could hold him one more time. Jor-El spouts off his bullshit about not changing destiny. Zod begs him to change his mind and reminds Jor-El of his debt to him. Jor-El apologizes and walks off.
• Dude… what the fuck?
• No, really? What. The. Fuck?
• You dick.
• You are a fucking tool, Jor-El and you deserved to have your ass blown up, reconstituted, beat to a pulp, and fucking shot.
• Got to say, I’m kind of rooting for Zod and Tess to take over the world.

When the heroes are Darth Flannel, Tits McGee and the Emerald Sociopath... well, I am definitely getting a Zod / Mercer 2012 bumper sticker.

OTOH, this also shows the men of the El family are just assholes to their boyfriends. Like asshat father, like asshat sun.

• Tess’ crew kidnaps Jor-El, Chloe gets KO’ed by the old man, and she reveals that she wired the Kent home for A/V and neglected to tell Clark.
• She sells the shower cam feed to one “LexYouUp69” for a monthly fee of $250,000.

Best. Line. Ever.

Great stuff as always, Dread.

Well Tess has been shown to be at least as capable, if not more so, than 99% of every male bad guy during the show's run. Just in the past few weeks she's been shown to (offscreen) kill a larger, trained and depowered Kandorian male, and shot up a Mexican bar. She holds her own against Ollie and other trained combatants. Being shown time and again as an even match for the roughest, toughest males in the Smallville Universe, I have no fear whatsoever for Tess' wellbeing when she's manhandled by Clark.

I totally disagree. Tess is a 100 pound woman, with no super abilities. It is OK for Clark to pull a Darth Vader and choke her... because he can? Because he is the hero? For me, not so much.

IMO, this kind of things is pretty OCC for Clark. This was not using for to stop a bad guy from hurting someone, or a drug induced accident. This was Clark Kent, strangling a tiny woman for the purpose of intimidating her into giving him information. It could have been shorthand for the writers to show Clark going dark, or an attempt to show his stress about finding Jor-El, but IMO it was poorly done.

Way to go, hero.

don't worry for all the assorted mercenaries and hitmen and bankrobbers that Clark slaps around w/ impunity - I grant Tess the respect of thinking she can handle the same.

I don't recall Clark using brute force, physical intimidation and fear as standard tactics in early seasons or pulling out the Vader choke on any mercenaries and hitmen and bankrobbers, but YMMV.

ETA - last week, Speedy's pimp also choked her. Vader, Zod, Zor-El, Pimp Guy... and Clark. Great company you are keeping hero. Or, as I choose to view it, go Zod / Mercer 2012!

This post has been edited by RepairmanBob: Nov 9, 2009 @ 11:19 pm.

[ztastviz]

I don't recall Clark using brute force, physical intimidation and fear as standard tactics in early seasons or pulling out the Vader choke on any mercenaries and hitmen and bankrobbers, but YMMV.

This.

And it begs the question why doesn't he?

I think he doesn't openly manhandle people because it would give away his secret. He could do it to Tess because she already knows his secret so it allowed him to baldly threaten her with violence and death. Which, IMO, implies that Clark would apply his superhuman aggression on anybody that got in his way if he could get away with it. That's the epitome of unfortunate implications, not to mention totally fucked up.

[inked]

• She sells the shower cam feed to one “LexYouUp69” for a monthly fee of $250,000.

Dread once again wields Occam's Razor! *fist pump*

• Clark: “Where are the plans for the battle station? Also, my dad…”

Oh god, I shouldn't laugh at this but I am! Clark's man-handling was horrific.

This was the first episode I saw this season and the writing and acting has gone to the dogs. I'm looking at you, Callum Blue and TW.

Julian Sands should have been cast as Ollie's dad, but it was good AM was the only one of the "good guys" who really got to communicate with Jor-El.

This post has been edited by inked: Nov 10, 2009 @ 7:30 am.

[Bkwurm]

Clark is not a cop or her caregiver or her father. What he does is wildly illegal and perhaps unethical - but I want my Superheroes smacking bad guys around and dangling them off rooftops and incinerating their lairs with laser-vision, etc. Super-hearing and X-Ray-Vison -gross invasions of privacy, but you go on ahead there Kal-El!

Superman is the big blue boyscout. Clark Kent even more so. I don't buy into that since he's not wearing the suit he doesn't have to behave the way Supes inherently would behave. Clark is supposed to be better than all the other Superheroes, not only because his momma taught him better, but because letting his anger get the better of him could lead to loss of control and many a bones going snap.

I know he could have done worse than dangle Tess off the ground, so many might say he actually was in control, but to be doing it that deliberately -- that kind of act of violence-- I find an even worse notion.

They say in regards to abuse that if a boyfriend or husband puts you in a choke hold, it could very well be a sign that they would some day kill you. That's what the chokehold says, "I am going to squeeze the life out of you". It is not like tossing someone across the room. The message is far darker IMO and one that Clark should never be ok with.

[ftfrankie]

I don't recall Clark using brute force, physical intimidation and fear as standard tactics in early seasons or pulling out the Vader choke on any mercenaries and hitmen and bankrobbers, but YMMV.

This.

And it begs the question why doesn't he?

I think he doesn't openly manhandle people because it would give away his secret. He could do it to Tess because she already knows his secret so it allowed him to baldly threaten her with violence and death. Which, IMO, implies that Clark would apply his superhuman aggression on anybody that got in his way if he could get away with it. That's the epitome of unfortunate implications, not to mention totally fucked up.

Again, part and parcel of Supeheroics 101 - Clark doesn't usually physically threaten and manhandle people on Smallville because he's incognito. Tess knows his secret so there's no need for subterfuge or superspeed to keep him out of the spotlight - he can just threaten to thrown her through a wall if she doesn't 'fess up - again wildly illegal but this is what superheroes do as a matter of course, even the Big Blue Boy Scout Superman.

How many bad guys has Superman held aloft a 1000ft above Metropolis, with the spoken/unspoken threat that he'll drop them if they don't tell what they know? Or has he threatened to leave on an ice-floe in the Antarctic to be resuced in a few days by a passing ship, or burst into their rooms while they slept and hovered over them w/ creepy red-glowing alien eyes - the list is endless. He does these things later on because in comic canon Superman is not known to be CK so he gets to blatantly threaten when in costume.

As a longtime comic gan, believe me, there are not many issues where Superman spends 15 hours in an interrogation room, pleading and wheedling w/ criminals to offer up where they planted a bomb. Superman is not arranging reduced time plea sentences w/ the criminal's attorneys so that he can gather pertinent information. He is threatening and beating up people. All superheroes do this.

Tess is a criminal - she gets treated like one. Yes she's a woman, but she's been shown time and again to be a match for other large violent men. And since Clark is the one doing the manhandling, and he's the strongest thing on the planet, to him there's absolutely no difference between "100lb" Tess (she's clearly larger and tougher than that) or Arnie Schwarzenegger or a grizzly. They're all pretty much equally fragile to Clark, so its not as if Tess is in extra danger of being killed by Clark - either Clark can control his strength to handle puny Earth objects like eggs and Shelby and his mom or you then believe that Clark at any time can kill someone by the merest brush of his hand if he but forgets himself for an instant.

I don't see any domestic abuse parallels betw. Clark and Tess. Because Tess was abused as a child doesn't mean that anyone who attacks her is an abuser. When she burst into the Mexican cantina w/ the uzis, if a Mexican man had attacked and pummeled this crazy armed lady, would he have been an abuser, just because Tess is a woman and abuse survivor? And finally since Tess and Clark share no relationship, I think it does dis-service to real domestic abuse situations to imply that Clark is a DA.

If Clark chokeholds/frightens Lana/Chloe/Martha/Lois/Pete - then there's domestic abuse parallels.

[pyralis]

Dread thanks for throwing yourself on the grenade, again. You are the true hero.

• She sells the shower cam feed to one “LexYouUp69” for a monthly fee of $250,000.

Well that explains how she's paying for her lair.