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Smallville
Episode 1.14, "Zero"
Air Date: March 12, 2002
Story by: Alfred Gough & Miles Millar
Teleplay by: Mark Verheiden
Directed by: Michael Katelman
Guest Stars: Corin Nemec (Jude Royce), Cameron Dye (Sam Phelan)
Mark Verheiden managed to wow me with "Rogue" and nearly make me vomit with "X-Ray". Somehow, he's found the middle ground with "Zero". This week's offering has its good points and its laughable bits. In the end, it was fairly satisfying.
For weeks now some viewers, myself included, have been asking the question, "What the hell is Club Zero?" Hints have been dropped in both "Rogue" and "Hug". It was obviously something bloody and violent and secret in Lex's past, but details were sparse at best. Now we get as straight an answer as is possible.
It seems three years ago our man Lex tried to do right by a friend of his named Amanda. He tried to show her how much of a sleaze-bag her fiancé, Jude, really was. To accomplish this he takes her to a little place called Club Zero so she can see her fiancé making time with some rather trashy women. Lex gets stabbed and Jude gets shot, but exactly who shot him is the mystery.
Jude pulls a Lazarus and systematically ruins Lex's life piece by piece. He kills a security guard and leaves his hand at the Talon, creeping Lana out. He poisons the entire Kent cow herd, ruining them financially and destroying any chance of Papa Kent accepting Lex. As far as villains go, he's been the most effective. In the end, we find out Lex is more a hero than we thought. We're led to believe that Amanda shot her fiancé and Lex just stepped in to take the blame to keep her out of trouble. What a guy! Jude turns out not to be Jude at all, but a guy hired by Amanda's brother to rattle Lex. Dum dum dum...
The secondary plot revolves around a class biography project. Chloe gets stuck with Clark and tries her damnedest to make his life interesting. What she finds intrigues her and pisses Clark off. Who'd have thought being a nosy little ragamuffin would piss anyone off? Really. I mean, it's not like Chloe has any other friends besides Clark and Pete. One might consider Chloe's actions to be a tad "unfriendly".
There are some bits of this episode that stretch believability. For one, Chloe just happens to have a close up of Jude for Clark to see? Uh huh. Amanda's brother just happens upon a short order cook that looks exactly like Jude a week after she commits suicide? Come on, guys, you can do better than that.
No Kryptonite and a Lex-centric plot lend mucho points to "Zero". No Freak of the Week is a bonus as well. Minor points that stretch my ability to suspend disbelief, however, are major distractions. At least the ending kicked serious ass. Chloe found something on the Internet about the company that facilitated Clark's adoption and she spends a great deal of time deciding whether or not she should delete it. In the end, we don't actually know how far the Kents went to adopt Clark and keep his origins a secret. All I know is I'm interested in finding out. I give "Zero":
Episode Rating: 8 out of 10
Steven "Drenball" Dougherty thinks Minnesota is a very cold place, but he likes it a lot.
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