Euphony, I totally agree with your assessment of where AlMiles are going to take Lex's character after this whole Asylum incident i.e. a big, fat nowhere. I honestly think this whole plotline's purpose is to create more sympathy for the Lex character, to make his descent to evil more complex. Maybe, I'm just being naive, but I think AlMiles like Lex just as much as the rest of us and don't want his turning to be cheapened by some sort of Insta-Evil event.

Which makes your question about the best way for Lex to turn evil really interesting. Someone in the Spoilers thread posted this cool webpage that gives a little overview of the various characterizations of Lex Luthor throughout comic book history. At the end, it discusses the "retained essence" of the Lex Luthor character, saying



While arrogance, genius, and intriguing all seem to be definitive SV Lex qualities, vindictiveness and violence, the two qualities that actually indicate evil, have never really shown up in our Lex, unless they've been shoehorned into his character with the same grace and plausibility as Lana-fu. Like many here have said, AlMiles have painted themselves into a corner by making a future, out and out (no pun intended) evil supervillain charismatic, sympathetic, and good hearted. Or have they? Maybe, AlMiles's intention is to redefine the Lex character, making him an abused, misguided anti-hero who maintains a possibility of redemption. (Someone else cleverly brought up the idea that Lex is more of an anti-hero than an antagonist.) I hope this is where they're going with the character because it allows the audience to consider a world post-comic book canon, in which Lex eventually redeems himself and becomes the man the SV verse has suggested he can be.

From a page or so back:


What exaclty are you referring to here?

To the rest of the forum:
Wow, this is quite the conversation. I don't even wanna add anything, I'm having fun just reading it!

Oh, I've always seen a capacity for both vindictiveness and violence in SV Lex, though I may be projecting. Violence? What does he do when he doesn't get his own way? He throws things. When frustrated? He trashes his office or does a few rounds with his punching bag. He yells and throws things and hits things. Yes, usually it's quite controlled but he *does* do it.

Actual examples of vindictiveness are hard to place; the thing with Lex is, he's sneaky, and I often get the feeling that there's more to any action of his than meets the eye. But the thing is, anybody who goes on about betrayal and not giving second chances as much as Lex does is at best pretending he's vindictive.

I think he was vindictive with Victoria; he shafted her. If you want to go all pissy exes on the Jude/Lex relationship, it seems likely that Lex did know Jude would be in the club in Zero when he took Amanda there. But that was all very ambiguous. He was surprisingly unvindictive with Desiree. With Helen, that whole pretending to be cool with her and taking her up on the plane strikes me as a very, very vindictive act. What he had planned for her we'll never know, but you can bet it wasn't pretty. Justified, yes, but vindictive, for sure. And, oh, everything he ever does in relation to his dad is pretty vindictive if you ask me.

BTW, on the Asylum thing, I just had a look regarding ECT. Side effects are sometimes some memory loss and heart problems. This, from a pro-
ECT site:

Remember Lex's speech to Helen in Visage, about how he'd built a wall around his heart? The most awkward and unbelievable bit of writing on the show, and that's saying something. It got known in the forums as the "Wall Around His Pants" speech for some reason. I think it had something to do with his use of the word "impenetrable" and the fact that almost no one bought Lex actually being sincere. At the most, it was driven by a brief lust. A low, almost unnoticeable lust.

And it was indeed evil. I'd forgotten all about it. I think I had blocked it out of my poor mind. Now I'm going to need therapy just thinking of it.


True dat. Lex's vindictiveness has never seemed out of proportion to the originating act to me, though, aside from the meter maid incident in Dichotic. I suppose we may start seeing him having bigger reactions in response to relatively small offenses.

Yes, I vaugly remember the "wall around my heart" speech. It was the pants thing that confused me but apparently:
So yeah, that makes more sense now lol I'v only been posting in here for a few weeks so, thanks!, Cyb Question: about the speech, why is there doubt as to the sincerity? (i only remember it breifly, so someone remind me before I re-watch the episode and scrutinize it lol)

Lex and Helen had had a total of maybe five minutes onscreen together by the time Lex delivered that speech. Plus MR's line reading was so... blank... it made me wonder if Lex was stringing her along in order to find out of she was really working for the MB. Since Lex had only recently vowed to not be a slave to passion, this kind of supposedly "passionate" speech seemed weird.

Yeah Cyb, I just re-watched it. I see what you mean. That blank line reading is unusual for MR. (unless he did it on purpose, then of course it rocks, just like he does) As to wheather he was just stringing her along to see if she worked for the MB, hmmm, I'm not so sure. If he was, then yeah, that's really dastardly of him. But personally, I think the writers really wanted us to beleive it was sincere and heartfelt. They do shit like that a lot (see: almost every freaking Clana conversation/whispered speech ever filmed) Why they do this, I have no idea. Lazy writing/plot development?

Hm...yeah, that sounds about right.

No specific catalysts, that'll be too simple. Ryan said there's already darkness in him but Lex is able to control it now. It should be a series of events that would lead him to be non-plussed about using money to get his way. Lex turns meanie because of himself. Turning evil after brainwashing or loved one's death - too easy.

No major rifts between him and Clark. In cannon, Lex and Clark aren't enemies, him and Supes are. They grow apart as Lex started doing things that Clark doesn't approve and Lex doesn't care that Clark doesn't approve.

Then in my ideal TV-world, Lex moves to Metropolis and gets his own spin-off. They pay MR $1 million per episode, so he won't mind getting shaved all the time. And TWoPers are to scrutinise every script before they make it on air, thus making Omar happy every weekend.

Quoting MR in April 2003 when he was at Starfest(Denver):

*sniff* Nooo :( resist Lex, resisttttttttt! Of course, this would have to be the first post I see after reading Jaded482's fanfic (Which everyone on here should read btw)



I luv ya MR, but just, no. You're making me cry.

That would involve selectively wiping out a helluva lotta memory...too much, I'd say. He wouldn't be Lex anymore if he didn't have that hunk of granite on his shoulder. Even with drugs and shock treatments, asking Lex to trust his father strikes me as asking for too much.

I think he just wants Lex to forget about recent events, specifically revelations about the Luthor family's past, so I believe Lex is only going to lose a few weeks of memories at the most. I'm curious to see if it'll be total or selective.

However, I suspect the gap is going to nag at Lex, and I think he'll discover a few leftover clues that lead him into an investigation of his missing time. And you know how Lex can obsess over a mystery. And one can imagine the terrible wrath that will ensue when he finds the truth.

(Excepting the part about Clark, of course...Lex may learn his memory was wiped, but not what all was taken.)

Oh, and he's definitely going to realize he's not been paranoid Enough in dealing with his father and life in general. But of course, the MB only does these things out of Love for his son...

I still wonder how he can expect to get away with this one, though, whatever kind of spin he puts on it. He can't make Clark or the Kents forget what really happened... Will Clark really keep mum about the whole thing? The day Lex came to hide out on the farm? The drugs in his brandy?

If Clark doesn't tell Lex about That stuff at least, and Lex finds out on his own, that's bound to smack of betrayal. And come on, I don't wanna see Darius still working the mansion, being trusted by Lex, when Clark knows Better.

There's also Chloe...Lionel presumably doesn't know about the partnership they've struck up, so Chloe could bring Lex back into the loop and unravel Lionel's plans.

This is what I'm rooting for. I really like the Chloe/Lex interaction. I'd like it if they would spend a little time on a Chloe/Lex/Clark relationship as well (NOT a love triangle though, I don't think I could handle that) I'm very, very, excited about tonights episode. Damn you Smallville, you so better not let me down.

Actually, I thought the reading was perfect. He sounded like someone who wasn't comfortable with the words he was saying, but knew they were the right words to get her back. I think the sentiment of wanting her back was true, but he knew he had to give a schmoopy, un-Lex like speech in order to get her to listen, and thus the delivery was naturally awkward and unconvincing.

I don't know if I'm making sense, but I'm a naturally blunt speaker who feels uncomfortable talking in highly sentimental ways. There are situations in which I am around people who will only understand and believe (i.e. - see the depth of what I'm saying) what I have to say if I phrase it in a suitably empassioned and sentimental fashion. This, however, is extremely unnatural for me and to people who know me well, or are similar to me in this way, I come off as completely insincere. It's because the phrasing is completely insincere, though whatever sentiment lies beneath it is genuine. That's really how I read the scene. I thought if he pour his heart into it, it would have seemed out of character.

yessss. this version of evil!lex keeps bringing to mind my favorite literary stock character: the superfluous man. the superfluous man is rich, educated, good looking, charming, has everything he could possibly want and is bored out of his mind. and, because of this, he ends up slowly but surely destroying everyone around him, everyone he loves, and himself, while he's at it. he never means to, it just happens. this is an interesting kind of evil, and definetly one that i'm down with.

maybe it is more anti-hero than villain, but hey, no villain is a villain in his own eyes, is he? making evil just a matter of perspective. knowing the lex character as well as we do, villainous evil just wouldn't sit well on him. it would always seem contrived. whereas, anti-hero evil (a somewhat more unintentional kind of evil) would seem more natural, considering how much we have already seen through lex's eyes. they've spent so much time making him human, that turning him into a monster wouldn't make much sense.

also, lex is supposed to be the complement to clark on the good/evil spectrum, yes? and they've done rather a lot to make clark human (er...yeah, i'm going to stick with human) too. he's not perfectly good, he's done some questionable things. largely out of naivité and stupidity, but, none the less... and, therefore lex can't be absolute evil, because clark hasn't been shown to be absolute good. superfluous!lex would just offer so many delicious shades of grey!

of course, i'm not accounting at all for lazy script-writing, or this creative team's general lack of knowledge about how to build a coherant and satisfying mythology demonstrating any kind of nuance or intricacy, but whatever.

Euphony


Very early on I wondered how they were going to start unravelling Lex's popularity as the series anti-hero, and start having him do things that fans of the character found painful or unpalatable. Then I read several interviews that hinted that rather than making a "choice" to be evil, Lex would be given no alternative. He'd keep trying to avoid it, but eventually that would be the only path left to him.

I thought this probably sounded like a good way to preserve our sympathy for Lex. If we understood that he tried, and saw the many ways he was betrayed or misunderstood, or the ways in which he dug himself deeper whilst trying to salvage a situation, saw how he couldn't fight it any more, then we would understand how he ended up where he did.

I imagined a tragic series of misunderstandings, people assuming the wrong thing at the right time, with Clark and Lex heavily influenced by the conditioning of their respective fathers (and let's face it, the animosity between Clark and Lex began with the previous generation) helplessly feeding each other's distrust. I assumed that we would watch their relationship unravel, and as viewers we could see the cruel hand of fate at work. A series of "if onlys" would come into play. If only he had told him that. If only this had happened in this way, rather than the way it did, things might have been different. A clever weaving of tragic circumstance.

An alternate idea introduced was contained in Lex's speech to Clark in Kinetic where Lex told Clark that he couldn't save everybody all the time -- all he'd end up with was a messiah complex and a whole lot of enemies. Lex also touched on it in the speech to Clark before he left for Metropolis in Stray, where he gave Clark the sword and said "every hero needs a foil."

Lex has seemed to have looked up to Clark for so long, to have admired his morals and his commitment to things, that I wondered whether Lex might some time in the future become Clark's self-appointed "foil". As long as Metropolis was clearly threatened by a villain then "Superman" would not be a distrusted freak with a Messiah complex but a beloved hero. In this way, Lex could indulge wealth and power but still believe he was making a contribution to the greater good.

Of course, it would still necessitate a Rift between Lex and Clark, but I thought if circumstances caused Lex to consider his own sullied image irretrievable and he eventually gave in to his desire for power, money and control, that he might somewhere in the back of his mind consider himself a balance to Clark's heroism -- his "foil". I think Lex still harbours a desire to "do great things" (to Cassandra in Hourglass) but that eventually he might see that his greatness lay in a different direction than he first thought. That would have left the characters in balance for me and as everyone says, still with a possibility of redemption for Lex at some time in the future. In this way Superman and Luthor, as hero and anti-hero, create the cosmic balance that allows Superman to continue to be a force for good.

I dunno, perhaps that's just WAAAY too romantic a notion.

And lastly, when my utter contempt for Bo Kent reached its nadir, I harboured thoughts that it would be blatantly obvious why Lex had to devote his life to fighting against that kind of holier-than-thou cloying Kent conceit as a kind of self-appointed knight for common sense. Every time the future Superman landed somewhere, placed his hands on his hips and started lecturing the citizens of Metropolis with his best Pa Kent platitudes I thought we might well all be cheering Lex on to civil disobedience.

What I didn't expect was for them to simply carve out the parts of Lex's personality that weren't co-operating and start over. That's just so unfair.

As the horrific event approaches, may I be excused to put my head in a bucket, my fingers in my ears and sing the theme song to Gilligan's Island, very loudly, in Esperanto.

I noticed in "Shattered" that Chloe made a quick denial to Clark that she ever had any theories about Lionel murdering his parents when she gave her file of information to Lex. I always assumed that she was bullshitting, but with the history the writers have of making logical(in my opinion) storyline progressions disappear, now I'm not so sure.
I speculate (with blind hope) that Chloe is going to be the one to bring all this information back for Lex after Lionel has wiped his memory, seeing as she's the only one who also knows what Lex knows (or knew) about Lionels parental homicide.
But I'm suddenly fearing they're going to use Lex's memory wipe as an excuse to drop the whole Lex/Chloe against Lionel storyline. Meaning the "I can protect you, Chloe", was all for nothing.
*sad sobs of 'Say it ain't so'*

I hope this isn't true. I'm enjoying the Chloe/Lex storyline and I really want to see how it will play out. I don't see how they would be able to drop the entire storyline thought...I think that Chloe will fill in the blanks for Lex at some point....I think...I hope.......pleasepleasepleasepleasepleeeease Smallville writers?????

Did anyone else get waves of Superman: The Movie's Jonathan Kent's heart attack when we saw Bo all out of breath? I don't want to lose Bo from the series, but (even though it's been done on That 70's Show) having Clark need to stick around the farm for a while would be a good way to avoid the "Smallville Kids Go To College" scenario for a season or two, allowing TPTB to forgoe the eventual Clark-moves-to-Metropolis event.

Even if the rest of the gang does go to Smallville University (or whatever it may be called), we can still have the Lionel / Lex / Chloe triangle, this gives Lana time to hook up with Pete (a la the comics), and Clark can split his time between the farm and working in the creation of his Fortress of Solitude... where he can learn to fly before heading off to live in Metropolis.

Hmm, I like this idea. The whole University thing is something I'v been wondering about. According to various interviews, the actors are signed to 7 year contracts. So, as long as Smallville continues to be sucessful, won't they have to think of something to fill those additional years? They're all going to be graduating soon, then what?

Last Saturday, when I finally got to see Asylum, I watched Justice League afterwards, and there was a campus protest scene that took place at, yep, Smallville University. There it was.

I suspect it will shimmer into view come season 4 or 5 when the producers of Smallville need it.

Ah good old Smallville University. Harvard may be ivy league, but SU is corn league.

After tonight's episode I have theory about Poor Man's Wes Bentley AKA Adam. In tonights Episode he displayed both (A) Martial arts ability that puts the pink power ranger to shame and (B) impressive researching skills. Couple this with the fact that Ian Somerhadlt was originally an actor that M&G was shopping around to play a certain teenaged Dark Knight. I think its entirely possible that M&G's statement that they went in a different direction for Bruce Wayne was misdirection and PMWB IS Bruce Wayne. After all he would use a psuedonymn during his sojourn he took around the world in the original DC continuity before becoming Batman.

Delurking to rehash what someone already suggested about five pages ago. Could Adam be a clone? For some odd reason, I keep thinking that Adam is an MB clone, enriched with SUPER!blood. Correct me if I'm wrong (I haven't seen any season 3 episodes yet), but didn't MBs parents die in a fire?

Yep, they did. One he planned. What does that have to do with the cloning thing though?

I wonder if Dr Evil is going to brainwash Lex to hate Clark or something. "Yeah Lex, here's your 7 weeks back, oh and you hate Clark and will fly into a rage every time you see flannel from now on." But seriously, I'm kind of thinking that when/if the memories come back, they won't be entirely accurate. Plus, maybe Dr Evil just wants Lex to be behind him for a change.

Dr. Evil is such a slut.



The Fighting Holsteins of old SU. Gotta love that fight song:

Cheer, cheer for old Smallville U!
You take the ball, I've got cud to chew!
Send a heifer out for hay,
Don't let a sheep or she-goat stay.
We never stagger, we never flop,
Unless we're poisoned with Luthor slop!
Once we learn to feed ourselves
We'll transfer to MIT*!

*Metropolis Institute of Technology

I love the fight song. It makes me crave cud.


But who wouldn't be a slut for Lex?

Well, Jonathon, for on--oh. Rhetorical question. I get it.

If I was a speculatin' kind of woman--and I am--I would speculate that Dr. Evil is going to try to use Lex to prove one of his megolamaniacal theories, and that Lex, after taking a couple of blows to the head and being strapped down to a guerney or two, will rise up in a righteous fury and raze the clinic to the ground, before he completely recovers his memories. He'll end up with a vision of Clark stopping the car and come to the less that erroneous conclusion that Clark could have saved him then and didn't. It will all be downhill from there. **sob**

Since the memory-wipe story idea came into play, I've long held the theory that Lex's "memories" would come back wrong -- incomplete or out of context, and that he would be manipulated by Lionel or the doctors or his own (completely justified) paranoia into believing a skewed truth. The appearance of Dr Mengele only cements this theory. And an incomplete picture of Clark's repeated actions over the last three years is quite a damning one. I mean, I've been along for the whole ride, and I think he's an ass half the time.

While it's nice that *our* Lex didn't go bad, because we know *our* Lex could never have achieved comic book badness (being that he was the real hero of this story) I really wish they'd just stop f***ing with his brain already! I just don't wanna watch it any more.

That has always been a problem...the likable, lickable Lex we came to know and lust after seemed a couple of universes away from being the destroyer of worlds that Cassandra saw in her vision. Still, the idea that Lex will be driven into supervillainy by the combined machinations of his amoral father and his own Swiss-cheese brain (TM Quantum Leap) is pretty compelling. It's like something out of a Greek tragedy, which would tie in nicely with all those classical allusions from the first season.

Aww...! True, the shortest of his short-term memories were the best ones, the love-and-faith-affirming ones, and suppose he never regains those? It leaves Clark looking Very bastardly...

Oops sorry, should have made that a tiny bit clearer. There's a similarity between Adam and MB. They both have parents that died in a fire. Yeah I know, I'm reaching :)

I think there's a similarity between them as well. I woulden't be surprised if Adam is hooked in with him one way or another.

Bumping up.

Hmm, looking back at my last post. Yay, I was right! lol

It would be cool if they introduced Lois in S4 so we could finally escape from the Clana, since it appears to be starting up once again after zombieboy's episode arc ends in Crisis. Clark and Chloe could go to that journalism convention that was mentioned in Crush and stay at Lois'. At that point she would have become interested in journalism and would tag along with them. Maybe they could run into Jimmy and Perry at the convention too.

We're speculating on Adam's possible original storylines in his topic if anyone wants to come throw in their two cents.

Whitney abandoned Lana in Tempest.

Clark abandoned Lana in Exodus.

Who's going to abandon Lana in the season 3 finale?

I wish Adam had lived long enough to leave her then. Sadly, I don't think there's enough time to get Lana a new boyfriend and have him abandon her in the next few episodes. I wonder if they'll step up Lana's crush on Lex (completely unrequited, please, merciful God?) and have him ditch her in some way. That might make me laugh.

Although it looks like they're trying to fire up the Clana again (with all the flaming hot passion of a lit match dropped into a snowbank) so maybe Clark will get to leave her a second time. That would really make me laugh.

Hopefully it will be Gabe & Chloe, when they kick her arse out of their house!



Hee! and Word!

Maybe Clark can leave Lana at the spring formal to be with Chloe. And then Chloe can tell Clark to get lost, because that ship has sailed. Now THAT would be comedy gold!

Then Clark could go cry in Lex's arms... That would bring in The Sexy.

I'm hoping M&G. Then we can finally have all mytharc, all the time.

Or maybe the entire town could abandon her. That would be super.


Clark: *sniff* Wait a minute. You smell like Adam. Le-ex, did you bring him back to life again?
Lex: Only in the interest of pure science, and not to shag him senseless on my piano.
Clark: Thank goodness.
Lex: Wait. How do you know what Adam smells like?
Clark: Uh... Junkmail!

Supertacular. Hm, makes me wonder what the Limitations on miracle serum resurrections are? Could you go dig up what's left of Whitney and inject him with Clark's platelets and watch him spring up and dance around mindlessly? If you could find some scrapings from Lana's parents, could They sprout again?

If Lex should kill Lionel someday, couldn't he change his mind right after the fact and pull out the resurrection needle for some more sparring...? And then kill him Again? I guess that's one way to make Sure you get the last word.

Clark's blood reacts to Kryptonite.

Shouldn't the zombies have a) a K-allergy and b) some slight superpowers?

I'd like to see that come up.

I thought it sort of came up when the serum failed to revive bomb-boy's brother. Clark handed him the vial, but the presence of the kryptonite in his bomb killed the Kryptonian elements in the serum, rendering it useless. (Remember when it started boiling and turned red for a moment?)

Based on that, I'd Expect zombies to keel over in the presence of Kryptonite too, though they never set up an opportunity to demonstrate this on the show. (I'd be surprised if it hadn't already come up by Accident in the course of Lionel's research, since he has so much of the stuff around.)

Dunno about the superpowers part... At least, Adam didn't seem to have any, aside from his native pretty-boy attributes. I guess it was Enough of a trick just being Alive, in His case. ;)

Speaking of a resurrected Adam, has anyone checked out the Wraith comic over at Kryptonsite? Not too shabby.

And how pissed off am I that #$%& Nicodemus made the cut on the repeat eps and Hourglass didn't? Pretty damn pissed off. The rest are okay--Pilot, Rosetta, X-Ray, Red--but Hourglass losing out to Nicodemus is a tragedy.

I'm not a big fan of X-ray. Not sure why Insurrection or Tempest weren't on their list.

Okay, I mentioned this over in the new episode thread and I wanted to elaborate:

I think Jor-El is Swan. They seem to be alluding to the idea that maybe Bo is being taken over by Jor-El.

So let's say when Jor-El came for a visit, he was somehow injured and confined to a wheelchair. If he is the arrogant superbeing that the recording makes him out to be, it would be very likely that he would look for a way to reverse that; taking over someone else's body might be ideal. Especially if it is Bo, who is already Clark's father.

Additionally, this would explain why Swan knows so damn much about caves that he probably cannot even visit in his chair (if he had visited, I imagine someone would have noticed).

Young!CR and TW do kinda look alike..

Dr Swann possesses Bo? Good theory.

But see, Dr Swann has a whole history going for him. There are records of him in MIT and having all these achievements in his younger days. He was on Earth before and when the meteor struck. Wouldn't Jor-El be on Krypton sending his son off at that time? But Boswann still can work though. Why? SV tend to forget details they've dispensed the previous season.

As for him finding out about the caves, I fancy his methods to that of Batman's. Unlike some other billionaires, he doesn't need any minions, he just does his investigations by himself. I'd figure if he's smart enough to hack files about Lionel's medical files (when even Chloe didn't know despite her incessant probing into MB's affairs), why not the caves? Heck, he must have figured out about Snideface too - his research and findings are bound to be archived somewhere.

Well, if Swann is really Jor-El, I can believe that he would have the power to travel from Earth to Krypton without people really missing him. I don't know. Just one hole possible hole among many in my theory.

But, if he DID possess the power to travel really fast between the planets, then he could have been on Krypton to send Clark off and raced to Earth to scout it out (as he was probably doing in that awful past episode). The meteors would no doubt have taken many, many, many years to go from where Krypton was to Earth so Jor-El, in a ship or something, could have outrun the rocks.

As for the MIT records and achievements...if Jor-El WAS confined to a wheelchair and had nothing to do, he might just decide to go to college and become a great Earth scientist to figure out how to regain himself or just as something to do while he waited for Clark to become old enough.

If Snideface's stuff is archived somewhere and he knew alot, then I think Papa Luthor would have more intimate knowledge of the cave than he does. Swann still knows way more than anyone else it seems.