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Smallville
Episode 1.09 "Rogue"
Air Date: January 15, 2002
Written by: Mark Verheiden
Directed by: David Carson
Guest Stars: Kelly Brook (Victoria Hardwick), Cameron Dye (Sam Phelan)
Wow. Gee. Man. Uh. . . .I’m a bit at a loss for words. Whew. First things first though, to my right is a copy of my review for "X-Ray". To my left is a nice helping of crow, topped off with a nice creamy pride sauce followed by a serving of humble pie. In my review for "X-Ray" I said that the producers of Smallville should never let Mark Verheiden write another episode. I was wrong. It happens. Not very often, but still. I’d better get to eating that piece of pie.
This was probably the best episode to date, in my opinion at least. Clark gets himself into some hot water while in Metropolis. After stopping a bus from killing some hobo, Clark has to match wits with a corrupt detective who witnesses the feat of superness. The cop goes all out in his pursuit. He goes right for Clark’s vulnerability, and it’s not Kryptonite my friends. It’s Clark’s family. Jonathan Kent gets arrested for murder, and Clark has no choice but do what the cop wants.
First off, Clark proves he’s smarter than the average male model with this one. He manages to double cross the cop a couple of times. It must be hard juggling all of that hard work. I mean with smiling and being pretty and all, he must not have time to sleep. Honestly though, Tom Welling has proven to be a superb choice to play Clark.
Besides the primary plot with the corrupt cop, we got a secondary story going on with The Torch, Smallville High’s school paper. It seems Chloe’s been running stories about all the weird mutants running around town. Funny, no one else seems to notice. Principal Kwan pops in to spread some holiday cheer by firing Chloe and suspending operations on the paper. I’ll wager Clark was regretting pulling that guy out of the fire way back in "Hothead". Just when you think it can’t get any worse for Chloe, guess who the new editor is. That’s right, Lana Lang. Again, it works out in the end when Lana publishes a not so glowing article about Principal Kwan and free speech. That’s not all folks. When Chloe comes back, she apologizes to Lana and explains that the paper is the only activity she shares with Clark. Lana assures Chloe that she doesn’t want to come between them. This was great. Chloe admitted, indirectly, that she has feelings for Clark, and Lana now has some competition. What a lucky bastard this guy is. Superpowers, good looks, and sweet sweet women chasing after him. I hate my life.
Man, I haven’t even gotten to Lex. That’s a first. He’s usually the saving grace of any given episode. Not tonight. Don’t get me wrong. He’s still tops in my book, it’s just that he didn’t have to carry the show tonight. An old flame of Lex’s shows up and the sparks fly. That old flame’s name is Victoria, and we’ll be seeing a lot more of her in the next few episodes. Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention the ending. Lex gets some grainy video footage of Clark moving at superspeed. It’s really blurry, but you can tell he knows it’s Clark.
I didn’t think it was possible, but we got a great episode without a Freak of the Week. Not even a glimpse of Kryptonite, either. I tell you, I’m on Cloud 9. I give "Rogue":
Episode Rating: 10 out of 10
Steven "Drenball" Dougherty usually doesn’t give perfect scores, but he’s in a good mood today.
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