Friday, March 30, 2007

Globes & Green Glowing Rocks


 I love L&C. The more I watch it, the more I love it. It drags me out of bad moods and makes me giggle. It doesn't matter that I've seen these episodes 100 times; sometimes it's like I'm watching them for the first time.

But enough with the cliches.

I haven't blogged about L&C since December, which is sort of sad. I've watched episodes since then, but now I don't remember what I was going to say about them. So I'll talk about "The Founding" instead. I love that episode. It introduced us to Jack, who is adorable. My four-episode boy. If I was going to write a L&C/Quantum Leap crossover fanfic, I'd make it where Sam leaps into one of L&C people circa "House of Luthor" and has to change history by getting Jack to stay in Metropolis and come back for season 2. Yes.

Anyway, the last time I watched "The Foundling," I had a moment of realization. You know how exciting those can be. Before, I could never understand why Clark could see/hear what Lex was seeing/hearing when he (Lex) touched the globe, yet Clark had NOT heard/seen the images when Jack touched it (both in his little shack and in the alleyway.) Inconsistency! But then, suddenly, it all made sense. If the globe was attuned to Clark, and since Clark had never met/made contact with Jack prior to that, there was no connection, so he could not see the images. But Clark had made contact with Lex, several times, so there was a connection and that's why Clark could see it when Lex used the globe.

It's interesting, though, because if Clark had realized this, could he have known/assumed that whoever bought the globe from Jack was an acquaintance? Eh, well... even if he had thought that, it wouldn't have really helped him find out it was Lex, because as Superman, Clark had met thousands of people, and he'd probably met a fair share of them as Clark too. The globe-stealer could have been anyone. But anyone rich enough to have an underground lair of priceless art? Okay, well, no matter. I just love it when things don't make sense forever and then they suddenly do.

Another thing I like about "The Foundling" is the fact that the questions Clark voices to his parents about things he'd like to learn about his heritage/self were later either answered or addressed on the show. (Ex: "Brutally Youth" answered the aging question.)

And then there's Lex's threat at the end, to find Superman's true identity and expose him and hurt everyone close to him. Sinister man that he is. It's one of those things that was never explored too often on the show -- the idea that someone could discover Superman's true identity not through just a simple mistake (of him not being careful -- ie "Smart Kids") or thanks to some all-knowing source ("And The Answer Is") or by outright stalking/tracking him ("Top Copy"), but by looking into the fact that if Superman's an alien, he had a ship... find the ship -- or at least where it landed, get a list of kids who grew up in the area where the ship crashed, and do some reasoning. Oh hey, one of those kids was Clark Kent, who works in Metropolis and is friends with Lois Lane! HMMMM...! Jason Trask came close to figuring it out on his own, but he couldn't make the connection with that last step. He got as far as Smallville, even knew the date of Superman's arrival, yet HE had to be faced with Clark using Superpowers before he was like "Ohhh! I get it!"

But that's why I love this show; everyone was so blissfully clueless.

And considering that at least some people (besides Trask) knew to go to Smallville to hunt for Kryptonite (Bill Church Jr.'s guys in "Individual Responsibilty"), not to mention the fact that the original chunk of Kryptonite that was sent off for testing -- and later used by Lex Luthor, Arianna Carlin, Rollie Vale, Lex Luthor, Nigel, and Jace Mazic -- came from Smallville, AND the fact that in "The Green Green Glow Of Home," in the DP article where Lois names Kryptonite, she talks about what happened IN Smallville, which anyone who gets the DP could have read, you'd have thought someone would put two and two together via that angle.

Okay, I think I need to go watch the show now, this post has put me in the mood.