This goes beyond season three but it seemed like the best thread for it.

There was speculation in the spoiler thread (no spoilers, don't worry) about what the goal of the series was. Was it getting Clark to become Superman? I said I felt like the goal was to get him to leave Smallville, and not just for three months so he could be a rent boy.

But what about college? Wouldn't he leave for college?

I think since the show is called Smallville, these kids will probably end up going to college in the suddenly-appearing Smallville University or something like that. They're supposedly juniors now, I think, so they'd be going to college in the fifth season, providing the show sticks with a realistic timeline. Weren't those 90210 kids in high school for 8 years or something?

Unless, Cyb, they drag out their senior year to cover two seasons. Personally, I'd like to see that happen. I don't want to see Clark in college. I want the last thing I see of Clark Kent to be him walking down the road out of Smallville and towards Metropolis, carring his suitcase and the weight of the world on his shoulders. No keg parties, no trig classes, and certainly NO LANA. Seriously, this show needs to end with Clark telling her his secret and then LEAVING HER BEHIND. It also needs to show Lex leaving Smallville to Metropolis but, literally, on a different path/course than Clark.

I'll stop being dramatic now.

I don't particularly want to, either, but as long as the show is successful and they can get people to sign contracts, I think they'll probably drag it out. And out and out and out. I'm already having a hard enough time believing Clark is high school age when he looks older than me.

I see no reason why Clark should EVER tell Lana his secret. She isn't mature or stable enough to handle it (particularly since it would mean her realizing that Clark's arrival coincided with, and in a way caused, her parents' deaths.

Rather, I think Clark should realize that Lana isn't someone he can safely confide in and put her behind him. If the writers need ideas, they could take a break from ripping off Buffy and borrow a plot from Charmed. Namely the first season episode where Prue casts a truth/memory spell so she can see what her boyfriend's reaction to her powers is and then have his memory wiped of the knowledge.

So basically we'd have: See Clark tell Lana the Truth. See Lana break down/go nuts. See Lana forget. See Clark brood. See Clark leave Lana PERMANENTLY. They can even tack on one lack frelling barn scene to cover that last part if they really want to.

Really? Shouldn't they be like, seniors by now? and don't quote me on it, but I'm almost sure that I read Al saying that they would most likley send the characters off to collages, some the same and some different, in the future? (i think i may also have heard the show has a planned 7 year run, or that the actors are signed for 7 years or something? if anyone knows for sure, leave me a post, im a little confused.)

Well, Lana should be in about the sixth grade, but as far as I can figure out, they're juniors now. The hazing ritual in the Pilot seemed to be aimed at freshmen.

It's kind of a mess though because I don't think AlMiles really thought through the age/timeline thing. In early season 1, I thought Lana was supposed to be a sophomore and that her bday party in Craving was her Sweet Sixteen. If Lana was a freshman in the first season, and she'd been dating Whitney for a while, that would mean he was in high school while she was in junior high. Gross, gross, gross. Maybe she was a sophomore but then flunked because she spent 19 hours a day at the Talon so now she's just a junior like everyone else.

Next season, I speculate there'll be SATs and college applications. Lana will make sad eyes about how everyone will soon be abandoning her to go to college. The tractor/truck/silo on the Kent farm will explode and drain the Kents' bank account in repairs. Poor Clark can no longer afford to go to Met U and since he only goes to school for 10 minutes every other week, he can't get a scholarship. Lex tries to give him the "Hunky Farmboy Free Ride", I mean, "LexCorp Scholarship", but the Kents refuse. So Clark must attend Smallville Community College. Lana makes sad eyes about how Clark will be abandoning her by commuting 3 miles to school every day.

Hee.

As far as the grade level is concerned I'm pretty sure their juniors. Like Cyb said, in the first episode both Clark and Pete were trying to make sure neither one would be the sacrificial freshman.



I understand this sentiment, especially among many posters on this board, but if the show maintains basic canon with the comics then in actuality it will probably be Lana forcing Clark to leave her "for the greater good" or something. He then moves on to Metropolis and Lois while Lana eventually hooks up with Pete.

Lex on the other hand I think moves on well before the show officially ends. IMO "Shattered" was the true beginning of his descent into megalomania. It's no great mystery that Clark and he become enemies, it's just a question of how and why.

hmmm, I'm a little worried. I wonder if AM's screentime is going to be shaved after the 2nd third of S3.

See, a good chunk of Chloe's screentime is with Lana. Why, I do not know, but yeah, a lot of it is. Once, they have a fight & Lana moves out, there will be a lot fewer textual reasons for them to share the screen. Since M&G refuse to cut Lana's time drastically that means there's a huge chunk of time that will be off-limits for the most part to Chloe. Also, I can't help but wonder how far away is this place Chloe & Gabe are moving to.

Also they promised that Pete would get more screentime. Guess whose share they're going to cut from . . . It's not going to be someone with the initials LL.

And lastly, I'm pretty sure that AM said she was moving back to LA. No, she's not leaving the show or anything but it speaks to me of someone who has enough time to do a couple days of shooting then go home every week. Sounds like someone whose upcoming screentime is = to that of late S2 Pete.

ahaha :)

I agree Cyb, it's all quite confusing :S Also, I'm assuming that they use the American age/system as their basis for the years, and how old they should be when they are in whatever year of school. I'm in Canada, so it's screwing me right the hell up lol What's a junior in the American system? Would that be like grade...10? 11? I have no idea. I also never even thought about Whitney being older than Lana....I guess that makes sense though...Which leads me to wonder why Pete was allowed to play on the same football team as Whitney? Do they usually let them do that? lol I have nooo idea. They're still the oldest highschool students I'v ever seen....

I thought it was pretty well established that Lana, Clark, Chloe, and Pete were freshmen in the first season. The scarecrow thing was a hazing ritual for freshmen. And Whitney was a senior, as evidenced by his discussion of missing graduation and joining the military in "Tempest." So, yeah, Whitney was a senior dating a freshman. It didn't happen really often at my high school, but it did happen. As for the football thing, I assume that freshmen can join the team but that they probably don't play very much, unless they're phenoms. In basketball at my high school, there was junior varsity and varsity, but I don't think football works that way. My teeny little high school didn't have a football team, so I don't know for sure.

And, tropicalgeko, you're right. If the four teens are in fact juniors now, as has been said, then that puts them in the 11th grade in America. Most people here turn 17 sometime during their junior year, although that can vary slightly from state to state.

As for how that relates to spoilers/speculations, I suppose next season will feature the kids as seniors and the next, provided that the show doesn't drag out the senior year or play the summer, will have to take them to college. Who knows?

And, yeah, Tom Welling especially looks way too old to be in high school!

I was a freshman and dated a senior, but I was 15 and he was 16 (he was some kind of genius). But the thought of a junior dating someone in junior high is what's icky, since Whana seemed to be dating for a while by the Pilot. My parents never would have allowed me to go out with a high school kid when I was in Jr high but maybe Nell was just glad to get 13 or 14 year old Lana out of the house now and then.

Could Adam be a clone? Emily was, and she was mentally unstable (although that might have been from having Lana has a best friend), so that might explain Adam's behavior, and his possible connection to the MB.

Edited just in case this was spoilerish.

I have thought the same thing about Adam, TVjunky. It would explain his possible mental instability, the blood platelets (Clark's, presumably), and the connection with the MB and Lex's suspicion of him.

Oops! Forgot I wasn't in the spoiler thread. Sorry!

Ohh ok. Thanks queenbess. I'm still a teeny bit confused, but meh. At this point I'v almost stopped caring lol I live in Vancouver and I actually went to the highscool that they film in now, so when I saw the show, and read on here that they were supposed to be like 15 or something, all I could do was assume that someone had made some sort of mistake, since I don't remember anyone looking quite that...er...old when I went there lol

I think some of this is wandering into spoiler territory, especially about Adam and the blood. Please edit with spoiler tags? Thanks!


It's a tradition that teens in teen dramas are played by people ten years too old for the part. Which is a good thing or I'd feel really dirty being a Clexer if Clark had really been played by a 15 year old.

Yeah, they all look too old to be playing 17, except maybe for Kristin Kreuk, but I think that's pretty much par for the television course. It's always people in their 20s playing teenagers and very rarely actual teenagers playing teenagers.

Cyb beat me to it!

Word. But it's still pretty dirty if you think about it in the context of the show, if he is actually supposed to be 15. lol 15, it makes me laugh so hard

My high school had a freshman football team, a junior varsity football team, and the varsity team. Of course during my entire stay there they were all last in the league, and they still are. A school with actual talent on their teams might be different.

Hey, I just thought of something to add to the "how old are these stupid kids??" conversation. Didn't Lext give Clark a truck in the Piolt episode?? Also, I assume Chloe is supposed to be the same age as Clark, but didn't she drive them both to the dance in "Tempest" ? Shoulden't they have been like...14 or something in season 1? Does the state of Kansas let 14 year olds drive?

It's harder to get away with more adult plot lines (sex/drugs/becoming a crack whore) when teens actually look like teens. Of course Smallville is something entirely different...

They were supposedly 15.


I read on some board (maybe it's this board way back when I was a lurker) that it's legal to drive when you are 15 in Kansas. Can't say for sure, though.

You can get a license when you're under 16 if you need it for work or school or something like that. Of course, Lex probably gave the truck to Clark thinking that he was about 24...

More like hoping...

Clark is one tasty piece of jailbait.

bwahahahaha.....



Ok..so they were in like gr.8 (i think thats freshmen?), but they were 15.......about the driving thing though, how stupid am I, I had my license at 14 so I guess I can't really argue that one, I just wasn't sure if Kansas did that as well....man, this timeline really fucks me up

Close, freshmen are grade 9. I was always confused by the driving thing, too.

Ohh ok. That's different than here then, freshmen are usually grade 8.

do you guys have 13 grades?

Nope. I hear that the year/age/grade thing differs from province to province in Canada, but as I said before, I'm from Vancouver, which is in the province of B.C., and here elementry school goes from grade 1 to grade 7. In grade 1 you are 6. By grade 7 you are 12. You go into highschool (which is grades 8-12) and you are in grade 8 and 13 years old (going on 14 I guess) When you graduate you are in grade 12 and are 17 going on 18 years old. (I'll bet thats more than you ever wanted to know about B.C.'s school system eh? lol) That's why I thought that they would have had to be 14 at the very oldest if they were freshmen. How does it go in the States?

High school starts in 9th grade here and you're usually 15 or close to it. They had Clark having a birthday at the end of last season so I guess he's supposed to be 17. I wonder if the kids in his school think he's "special" and got held back a couple of times or something. We don't see him doing much academically.

"You're a very special little boy, Clark. In fact, we think you're so special, we're going to put you in Special Ed."

::cowers sheepishly:: sorry.

If Clark, Chloe, Pete, and Lana were the typical 15 when they started their freshman year (as we know Clark supposedly was), it's entirely possible that Chloe was 16 and had her license by Tempest.


So if they all started their freshman year at 15 and at varying points throughout the school year turned 16; that would make them 17 at the end of their sophomore year and 18 at the end of this year (junior), wouldn't it? I remember being one of only about 5 in my graduating class who weren't 18 for most of the senior year. I remember because the rest of the class voted that November (and got extra credit in Senior Government class for "participating in the process") and I couldn't.

So they'll all be 18 years old and legal (i.e. no longer jail bait) by the end of this season, right?

bwahahahahahahahahaha



So shoulden't they graduate at the end of this season then?? What's a junior? is that between sophmore and senior?

Yes. American high school grades go: Freshman (9th), Sophomore (10th), Junior (11th), Senior (12th).

Many students are 18 during their senior year. It just depends on whether the trend in the area is to have the kids start Kindergarten when they're 5 or 6. Example: I started at 5, most of my class started at 6, so I was a year younger than most when I graduated.

Brought this over from the spoiler thread:


Problem with the correlations between the precedents and the incidents of Shattered are the earlier incidents featured a low probability of Clark's secret being leaked. Sure it could have happened but was unlikely.

Meanwhile in Shattered, Lex, who is not in his right mind knows A) Clark's secret B) that Clark knows Edge C) allowed Clark to get his ass kicked five ways to Sunday by Edge and D) that green meteor rocks have some neutralizing effect on Clark. Combine that with the fact that detoxing takes 72 hours and that Lex was angry with Clark at that moment, and the likelihood of Lex ratting out Clark's secret while under the drug's effects becomes highly likely.

Clark will be. I think everyone else is supposed to be a little younger.


I honestly don't think Clark was mulling over these long lists of reasons in that split second. He may think of those reasons in order to explain his reaction later but from the direction of that scene, it looked like he ran on reflex. He just bolted instantly, a total instinctual moment. This is a big change in the character, though, because he usually just barrels on through any rescue situation without regard to who might see him.

If he did think up all these reasons while standing there, then it actually makes less sense to me. As someone else pointed out on the spoiler thread, Clark has rescued people before where he could be discovered. He could have easily gotten caught in the act rescuing Ryan, surrounded by cameras and evil experimenting scientists. Plus, if he actually went through that thought process, it means he chose to leave Lex in the hands of the very people who'd messed him up. No, I think he just bolted on instinct.


I wouldn't have a problem with Clark not rescuing Lex right away if I didn't feel like it was so arbitrary. The writers are working from future knowledge that Lex is the bad guy, therefore bad things must happen to him in order to push him to the Drak Side, therefore Clark must run instead of saving him. It just feels a little forced as it stands now. On its own, I don't have a problem with Clark running instead of superzipping Lex away from Edge's hideout because it was a reflex of self-preservation. But taken in the context of how Clark usually behaves, putting others' concerns over his when it comes to rescues, then it just feels...arbitrary.

Of course, they may go into further explanation in future episodes but that's what I'm feeling about it right now.

And if they were all things that hadn't just happened 20 seconds earlier, recalling and pondering them might seem out of the ordinary, but he'd just gotten his ass kicked and saw Lex watching.

Also, didn't he still, even though Lex had just left him to get pulverized, step in front of Edge's car to protect Lex? I only watched the episode once so I'm a little fuzzy as to why Clark was there, but if so, then his initial instinct was, as normal, to protect someone who was dear to him and risk being found out. (If I'm wrong, ignore this paragraph.)

Once he was put in the second position of saving Lex, and Lex was already bellowing about what Clark did (as an act of self-preservation?), only then did Clark realize that his secret was at risk again and superzipped out.

In this episode Lex demanded Clark's loyalty and received it, but Lex never once made the effort to protect or save Clark, and when put in a position to do so walked away.

Ahh, thanks PhantomChic. I think I finally get it. Also, vallegirl, I completly agree with your post. I do think Clark was justified zipping out of there in the end. You can only expect so much from someone. Think of what he'd already done in an attempt to help Lex. From the beginning of the episode, he hid him in the barn, he went with him to the wearhouse, he researched possible explinations for what could be happening to him, he threatened that guy until he told him where Lex was, he actually went to get Lex back (where then, as it was already stated, Lex watched Clark get the crap beat out of him), and still after that he threw himself in front of the car to stop it before it could hit Lex. That's quite the effort he made there. I don't think we can knock him for running out after that, once he maybe realized that he had put himself in a bad situation, and in that split second there was not much else he could do.

Unless, as I suggested, Clark has Lex secreted away somewhere where neither of them can be found/exposed until Lex is completely detoxed and back in control of himself.


But if he was suddenly struck by fear for himself that overrode his fear for Lex, the best way to shut Lex up and keep him from continuing that rapturous shouting about Clark would have been to get him the hell out of there before those people in the van (who were far enough away that they wouldn't have heard anything yet at that point) could hear Lex.

Actually, Lex shot Morgan while he was standing over Clark with the kryptonite beads, Clark thanked him and Lex then pointed the gun at him. While he was accusing him of betrayal, he heard Morgan's car, went outside, started shooting and then Clark pushed him out of the way.

Hmm, I disagree. I think it was probably best that he left him there. It would have been a hell of a time trying to either explain things to Lex, or convince him that they didn't happen. Leaving him there was sort of the same effect as when Pete went crazy in "Rush" and started screaming to everyone that Clark was an alien. Pete sounded crazy, no one put much stock into what he was saying. The people in the van's had already made up their minds that lex was crazy, why would they beleive anything he said?

The people in the van knew Lex wasn't crazy. Or at least Dr. Foster knew it, since she was in on the plan to drug him and make him paranoid.

This I did not know. Dr. Foster was in on it?

She lied about the source of the glass shard. She said it came from a vase Lex threw through the door, so she knows he's not crazy. I don't know if she directly put the drugs in his liquor or not but she was at the very least in on the cover-up.

Yeah, I've heard a few Supes fans complain about that, because isn't Dr. Claire Foster pretty much beyond reproach in the comics? I think I remember someone saying that she was the one who counseled Superman post-Crisis. Correct me if I'm wrong. I've only read a couple of the comics, and I know Smallville doesn't have to necessarily follow them anyway.

I have also read some speculation that she doesn't know. The drugs that she prescribed for Lex, after all, were actually just sedatives, according to Chloe's source at the pharmacology lab. So, I suppose it's possible that Lionel just has her convinced that Lex really is crazy, and she really believes she's doing this for his own good. But if that's the case, then why the conversation with Lionel at the end of "Shattered?" She seemed to be in on the memory wipe though not necessarily comfortable with the idea. I'm confused. Hopefully more will be revealed on that later.

Ahh you're very right Cyb. I just re-watched that part of the ep. I must have forgotten. As for her being in on the drugging, I do think she was. At the end of the episode, when she's talking to Lionel about being able to control Lex's meds more closley, she then makes that comment about the memory wipe, and asks if that isn't that exactly what he wanted? She dosn't directly say it or anything, but just the tone she uses kind of makes me think that Lionel minipulated her into doing this to Lex. They talk as if they have a fimiliarity. In her defense though, she dosn't look overly pleased about what's happening.

Still though, I think it was ultimetly better for Clark to run away (but less interesting to the story). Even though the doctor knew he wasn't crazy, she did know he was heavily drugged, and I still doubt she would have beleived him while he was carrying on like that.

Why lie about the broken glass, though?


I wonder if Lionel is blackmailing her somehow. What does he have on her? Did she start out with the intention of hurting Lex or did Lionel recruit her after Lex picked her to be his psych?


I don't know. If she knew what drugs he was on, she would know he's not delusional and that everything he's been saying is true. The only thing Lex had delusions about was Julian, which I don't think were related to the drugs but to his stress level, since those hallucinations only appeared whenever Lionel was around.

I think Lionel started blackmailing her after that fact. To me, anyway, her reaction to what was happening to Lex was genuine, and she seemed disgusted with Lionel. I don't think she started out with the intention of hurting Lex, but Lionel has something big on her, so she can't back down.

I had forgotten about that, Cyb. The broken glass, I mean. It definitely seems as though Lionel has something on her, and that's the only reason she's doing his bidding. That's the vibe I got from their last scene, anyway. Like tropicalgeko said, she seemed none too pleased.

ETA that I agree with tropicalgeko. She seemed so genuinely compassionate toward Lex. She's definitely doing this reluctantly. And I do think that Lex is hallucinating Julian because of the stress he's under, but he had the hallucination first in the Kent barn. Was that after Lionel showed up at the Kents', though? It's been awhile since I've watched the episode. The WB should have shown it this week instead of "Extinction." There's a lot to analyze in "Shattered" that is going to be relevant for the remainder of the season, I think.

I wonder if she later helps Lex somehow, and regains the good reputation she has in the comics?

Lol. Ok, ok, you got me Cyb. I guess it wasn't too brainy for Clark to leave Lex there after all. But this is Clark we'r talking about here...




I for one, really hope so.