Smallville - Season 1 (2001) - Project Geekology

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to episode 129 of Project Geekology.
My name is Dakota.
I'm one-third of your host.
I'm joined, as always, withAnthony and joining us.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Rich, super excited to talk to you guys about
Smallville.
This week.
I've been.
I mean, I look, I'll just tellyou guys off-air this was said.
I told everybody involved inthis podcast that I would have
been willing if this, if, ifthey were willing to do this, I
was willing to just make this alike 100 something episode run

(00:33):
of just smallville, like aweekly discussion, breaking each
episode down.
And, lucky for you guys, ourother hosts care about you more
than that, so we we will not bedoing that, but I'm super
excited.
I don't know about you, gents.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Our three fans are grateful.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
You know what I would love to do something like that.
I don't know that I have thestamina for it.
I have the love for it.
I do really love this show.
I think, going back to thisshow again, it's easily in my
top five top ten shows ever.
But yeah, I don't know thateach episode deserves a full

(01:11):
hour of my attention, likevocally anyway, but as a whole,
season-wide, I think that we canmake a really nice episode out
of each season, and there's tenseasons.
So instead of breaking it upinto like half seasons or
whatever, I think if we go backto smallville down the line,
we'll just do whole seasons,just because it encompasses an

(01:33):
entire story and a vibe thateach season has, and I think the
first season has a veryspecific vibe that we can talk
about as a whole so right, and I, I feel like, even when the
show starts to dive into lore,you know, like superman lore,
it's not enough to where I feellike I need to break it down

(01:54):
into, like you know, two-parter.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Like rings of power definitely needed to be broken
down into two halves.
I really wish that we did thatwith shogun.
Shogun 100 could have, you know, gone for that treatment, but
you know, this is something thatwe decided after the fact.
But, yeah, no, I, I, I reallydo think that, you know, I guess
, depending on whatever it isthat we're covering, yeah,

(02:19):
smallville, I, I could, I couldsay that like we could do the
full season in a one-episode run, because we don't really have
to do a play-by-play of eachepisode.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
We will be talking about certain moments in each
episode, maybe not each episode,but moments that stuck out to
us individually and we'll touchon that as a group.
But yeah, it's going to beexciting discussing Smallville
and we won't be doing it everysingle week, but we definitely
want to eventually get throughthe 10 seasons of Smallville.

(02:53):
I think that would be a fungoal for us.
But as it stands, we'recovering the first 21 episodes
of Smallville, the first season,starting with the pilot episode
, ending in the.
I forget what the final episodeis called, but it's something
akin to oh, it's Tempest, it'scalled Tempest.
So, yeah, we're going to becovering all of that and more

(03:14):
you know what.
Before we get into any of that,let's jump into what we've been
up to this past week.
Let's start with you, rich.
What have you been up to?

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Hopefully something epic you know I will just recap
it quickly, but you know I didattend a number of Met games.
They were actually back in town.
They were away and had somegroup tickets lined up a long,
long time ago, so these weren'teven spur of the moment tickets.
Pete Alonso is a very prolificplayer on the New York Mets, one
of my favorites.
Despite the fact that Mr Sotogot paid so much money, I

(03:45):
actually woke up in theoffseason every day just looking
at Twitter going please tell methey signed Pete Alonso, like I
didn't care that we got theother guy.
I needed Pete and he's been aMet his entire career, so
nobody's really come close toever being able to do this.
He took over the franchise leadfor home runs at 254 home runs,
so I got to be there inattendance.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
So the record now is 254 home runs for a Mets player.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yes, as like wearing a Mets uniform.
So for example there was aplayer, gary Sheffield, who
played for a lot of teams andwhen he played on the Mets he
did hit his 500th home run as aMet.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
But it doesn't count.
Yeah, because he wasn't a metfor most of that exactly I
understand so these are two petealonso is the top of the top
when it comes to mets, playersand home runs yeah, so it was a
cool it was.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
It was a cool moment, like they and you were there
for that game yeah that'sexciting.
How was the stadium?
It was crazy.
I mean, the only thing that Ithink you know, obviously, being
a person, was, you know I wasso happy.
I remember sitting there and Iwas getting anxious during his
at bats, because now, every timehe comes up, everybody's like
oh, oh, this could be it rightyou know.
So the first time he came up hehit one like, let's say, five

(04:59):
feet short of the left fieldwall, and you're like, oh man,
he's trying to do it.
And the next step bad he cameup and I think that was yeah, he
just hit it out like right awayand they did uh they had like a
graphic.
They call him the polar bear, sothey had like polar bear
animations walking paststrawberries, because daryl
strawberry was the guy who hasthe record, so it's like he's
walking and it's very weird,absolutely ridiculous definitely

(05:23):
ai slop like it's absurd andAbsolutely ridiculous,
definitely AI slop Like it'sabsurd.
And then the play-by-play guyfor the Mets actually said he
says out loud, he said he's likeyou know, pete Alonso has
reached it, he's on an icebergall alone, you know like.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
How sad for him, how sad for Pete Alonso.
Like that, like that's, so,that's.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
you know, poor, get him off of there so that that
was pretty cool yeah, and I justwe got to see a bunch of movies
we went to see.
Now, since we last recorded, Ialso think I added bad guys too
how was that?
really fun.
My, my son, uh, and wife lovedthe books.
They they read them together,like you know, as a as a bedtime
kind of thing routine, so he'sreally been into him.

(06:08):
So they went.
They were very excited about itand I I thought it was.
I just thought it was weirdwhen I realized it was sam
rockwell as the lead voice,because I think of him as like
that twerp in iron man iron mantoo yeah, yeah, you know I
didn't even realize that therewas books for bad guys.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Very interesting, very interesting.
Let's bring it over to anthony.
What the heck have you been upto, my guy?

Speaker 2 (06:32):
man.
I have been living my 2004 lifeman or 2005 yeah, man, I've
been tell me about it.
Tell me about it yeah, dude,like I've been watching
smallville and playing World ofWarcraft.
You know, because I've seenSmallville a few times, it's

(06:52):
definitely one of those thingsthat I know what's going on so I
don't have to fully payattention and so I'll be playing
World of Warcraft and then I'llwatch, like what's going on
screen and then go back to wowand, dude, it's just been a good
time.
Like it really brought me backto, like, you know, my childhood
doing that.
But yeah, I know, I've beenjust, you know, small villain it

(07:14):
up.
I mean, I had already seenseason one, like a couple weeks
ago.
So, like right now I'm onseason three.
I didn't.
I mean, season one is fresh inmy mind and it's the season that
I've seen the most.
So it's, you know and it's not.
It doesn't really start to deep, it doesn't really start to
dive into deeper, you knowkrypton lore, until you get to

(07:38):
season two.
So you know, it's nothing toocrazy in the first season, but
yeah, it's been a good time, man.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Awesome.
That's really cool to hear.
I'm happy to hear.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
What about you, Dakota?
I know you got some stuff goingon.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
Not as much as you might think.
In fact, I pretty much havejust been binging Smallville,
which has been fun.
I think a big portion of doingSmallville seasons as a whole
for a weekly show means thatyou're pretty much going to
spend most of your time, most ofyour free time anyway, watching
Smallville episodes, and it's alovely.
It's a lovely opportunity tojust, you know, revisit stuff

(08:12):
that you haven't visited indecades.
So for me this was a really,really fun experience, because
my wife Jen has never watchedSmallville Like she might.
She might've watched an episodeor two here, two here or there,
just like in passing, like Imight have turned on something,
or my brother might have turnedon something, and she
experienced it that way, but shedidn't really ever get into any

(08:33):
of the character drama oranything like that.
So this has been a really funexperience because I've been
able to experience it for thefirst time through someone
else's eyes, even though I knowexactly what's going to happen
each and every episode.
It's fun, I'm really enjoyingit and, yeah, I don't think I've
been up to anything else.

(08:54):
Crazy.
I will be going to Icelandtomorrow, so I'm going to be out
next week, whether or not therewill be a Project.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Geek ecology show out next week is up to our other
hosts, but I will not be presentyes, I think that uh well, rich
, and I will kind of like planit out to see what we'll be
releasing.
So just keep an ear out.
That episode will be a surpriseand it should be good.
Yeah, I think this will be thefirst time that it's going to be

(09:25):
a rich and anthony episode.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
We haven't had a dakota and rich episode, but
maybe in the future and we'reprobably thinking about, like
what, a deep dive on the marlinsbaseball franchise starting in
1997.
So anthony's?

Speaker 1 (09:40):
just shaking his really immediately.
Anthony just started shakinghis head I I love it, I love it
yeah.
I love that.
No, I'm excited to hear whatyou guys come up with for next
episode, but for this episode Ithink we should just dive right
into all of Smallville.
I want to talk about just goingback to this show and what it

(10:01):
means or what it meant back inthe day show and what it means
or what it meant back in the day, because this was before any of
the cw like arrowverse showswere a thing.
This was before flash.
This was before arrow.
This was before legends oftomorrow or anything like that
supergirl.
There was another super manshow.
Actually there was a bunch ofshows that all kind of stemmed

(10:22):
out of what was the space thatSmallville left after it
concluded after 10 seasons,Because after the 10th season of
Smallville that's when theystarted Arrow and all that and
that spawned a whole genre oflike an in-universe series and I
think that's awesome that theywere able to make that a reality

(10:45):
.
But that would never have beenpossible if it weren't for the
10 seasons of Smallvilleiterating the initial run of
Superman before he was Superman,and I think that's a very
special thing.
I think it's very cool that youknow the very first DC comic

(11:08):
superhero is the one that kickedoff, you know, kickstarted a
huge franchise for WarnerBrothers and CW.
Even though it's not like ahuge franchise nowadays, it was
for a good portion of the 2010sportion of the 2010s.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah it, it went on for a while, man.
It spanned pretty much from theearly 2000s all the way to the
early 2010s, and it lastedpretty long.
I mean 10 seasons of this show.
A lot of shows don't last thatlong so smallville.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
Actually, I think for a good portion of time it held
the record for longest runningAmerican sci-fi drama.
Wow, you know, like a liveaction American sci-fi drama.
I think it hit like 210episodes or something like that,
something close to around 200plus episodes that were
consecutively released over a 10year period without any major

(12:02):
breaks, and that is a recordthat I think was only broken by
Supernatural.
I think Supernatural was theone that you know broke that
record, but it's still veryoppressive.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaking of that Supernatural,one of the characters of that
show was on Smallville in alater season.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
This is only season one.
We don't know.
We don't know about thosepeople.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yet the the um I know the reference the uh, what do
you call it?
Um, I guess the rules onspoilers are just that they're
non-existent now, but yeah,whenever, whenever we get to, uh
, I would love it.
Whenever we get to that season,we'll talk about it again.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Honestly, anthony, I want you to say it right and I
want somebody to write into theshow and be like I can't believe
.
I've been waiting to watch theentirety of Smallville and I was
listening to season one to seeif I would dive in, and you've
ruined it for me, anthony.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
That would be wild.
You know that.
That'd be like like really oldhate, like just think about that
.
It's like what rock were youunder?

Speaker 1 (13:14):
so let's talk a little bit about I mean, let's
talk a lot about aboutsmallville, season one.
I think one thing that I reallylike about this first season is
that it's not immediatelygrabbing.
When I think of Smallville, Ithink of the long arcs that the
characters have, drama-wise, inlater seasons.

(13:37):
We start getting multi-episodestory arcs later down the line
and we only really start gettingthose in the end of the first
season when they start threadingin story beats that pay off
later and for a good portion ofseason one it's like them
continuously just dipping theirtoes in the pool and seeing,

(14:02):
does this work, pose in the pooland seeing, does this work,
does this work, does this work?
And some of it does, some of itdoesn't.
So I want to hear your thoughtson, like, what did work this
season.
I know Anthony, you're all theway in season three at this
point and Rich, you're well intoseason two.
I started watching season twoas well, but we're just talking

(14:23):
season one right now.
What really worked for you inthe beginning of smallville?
What didn't work for you in thebeginning of smallville?

Speaker 2 (14:29):
let's start with anthony so kind of like it's
exactly like what you said.
It doesn't grab you right away,I guess, like story-wise, and I
think that that's why we got alot of the freak of the week,
you know, especially in thebeginning of that season, where
it was also a way to kind ofshowcase what Clark can do at

(14:52):
that time, because by the timewe get to Smallville, I mean, it
starts off with the meteorshower that you know.
Krypton explodes, the meteorshower happens, but we don't get
Clark at a very young age.
Shower happens, but we don'tget clark at a very young age.
I mean, you see him, you know,as a kid popping up to jonathan
and martha kent, but you get himat his, you know, at his

(15:13):
freshman year of high school.
And so I think in the beginningit's trying to show you what he
can do, like what he knows, andthere's a lot that he just
doesn't know.
I really like that.
We have this young clark thathe only know.
He knows that he has superstrength, he knows that he has

(15:34):
super speed and and thisinvulnerability until, like you
know, he comes across kryptonite.
But it's, you know, and eventhen in this season they call it
meteor rock.
You know they don't even callit kryptonite.
So I like that.
I like that they build up tothe name of it you know, and

(15:55):
that even the name of it youknow.
I mean, you find it out laterbut it's.
I like that there's a lot thatyou know, even though even if
you're a Superman fan, you knowabout some of these elements.
I like that they build them upand, like you said, they start
to pay off in later seasons andI think that that's what they do

(16:15):
really well, is to really likeset the T up and then for them
to just, you know, whack away at, you know, at some of these,
some of these later story beats.
But yeah, like you said, I thinkthat the fact that it has a
little bit of a slow start Iswhat kind of messes it up a

(16:37):
little bit, but not enough totake you out completely.
And I think that at the timethat you and I watched it, we
were young enough to like reallynot care about some of this
stuff, and so we look back on itfondly, you know.
I know, like you and I, we kindof know our experiences with
smallville.
We watched it back, like youknow, when it premiered.

(16:58):
So you know yours and I likeour experiences are very similar
.
I'm really like interested inlike hearing like what Rich has
to say.
You know, kind of to answeryour question and his
relationship with that.
Like you know, in those earlierdays did you like Rich, did you
watch it when it started comingout or did you watch it down

(17:19):
the line?

Speaker 3 (17:20):
It's hard to pinpoint , so I think that I didn't watch
it at first.
What year did it come out?
This was 2001.
Okay, so I'm 19 at the time andI don't think I had started to
watch it.
I think I ended up moving inwith a roommate who was pretty
into it and he tried to get meto watch a couple.

(17:41):
And then something kind of mywork schedule changed and it was
actually a big deal because Iused to work in a group home.
So you know, I I have to go toappointments and stuff like that
, but a lot of the time wasspent in the house so you'd have
the tv on.
So when I worked the morningshift, I watched all of charmed,
like the woman who was the bossof that shift basically was

(18:01):
like, by the way, we watchedcharmed here, like, so like we.
It was always charmed, we nevermissed an episode of charmed.
And then when I worked thenight shift, the kind of crew,
the shift leader, was a huge fanof smallville, so it was on
like every night on, like abcdisney or abc family, I think at
the time it was called.

(18:22):
So that's how I startedwatching.
It was really like he wasreally into it.
I'd watch some of it with him.
And then they did one of thoserandom resets when they're doing
reruns and he was like, oh,this is the perfect moment for
you.
So then we binged it.
You know as much as you couldbinge in those days, like we
watched it every day, and Idon't think they played them on
saturdays and sundays.

(18:42):
I think they stayed true to thererun model, let's say 6 pm or
5 pm every Monday through Friday.
So you know the Monday showwould be the one from the Friday
show.
So I ended up, I'd say, maybe inthe middle, probably somewhere
in the middle, catching up on it.
And there are things I loveabout it.

(19:04):
I do, finally, recall it being,like you know, one of the first
superhero shows that I got towatch.
So that was really cool.
I forgot how much and I'm notsaying the actors, but I forgot
how many of the characters Iabsolutely despise, like just I,
I can't stand them.
If I was their teacher, I wouldhave a hard time holding my

(19:27):
disdain back from these students.
I, you know, I don't want toname names we'll get.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
We'll get to that.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
We'll get to that for sure are you talking about the,
the fully grown adult highschoolers?
That you know, back then it wasbelievable, like so it was
believable for like dakota and I, because you know we were
younger and everybody was olderthan us.
But then, like you look back atit now and you're like nah,
these are college kids andthey're in high school I could

(19:56):
buy okay.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
So like allison mack I can buy kind of as a high
school kid I don't know if he'sthe oldest- tom wellington, tom
wellington tom welling is likehe.
That man looks like he's insenior year of college yeah, no,
he, he is, and lana can pass, Ithink too.
And, honestly, pete I'm notsure if it's because he's also
smaller and I think that heworks for his, I think he, I can

(20:22):
buy him being in high schoolmore definitely than tom welling
, and then you know.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Then you've got lex, who, uh, I don't know, is
supposed to be like six yearsolder than them and creepily
involved in their entire lives,because it's so funny, like when
clark would walk into themansion and look so much like
like they're so close in age,yeah, and like they're about the
same height and everything too.
Like I think clark was a littlebit taller, actually I think

(20:49):
he's just a bit taller, so it'sjust so funny.
But, like you know, that's justa little bit of the knocks, but
it's not just smallville,that's just what it was.
That was that time you hadpeople that were well into their
20s playing high schoolers anda lot of movies and tv shows
back then so actually, pete wasthe youngest of all of these

(21:11):
guys.
Yes, he was 18 years old in 2001was in, uh, kristin, I think
she was about that age too sheand allison mack were 19 in 2001
so they were roughly around thesame age.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Tom welling was 24.
I think michael rosenbaum was alittle older than the rest of
them dude michael rosenbaum, manlike we'll get to lex oh man
he's he's so good, but we'll getto it.
I want to chime in really quickabout the first couple episodes
or just the first season ingeneral, like as a whole, first

(21:45):
seasons are hard, especially forlong-running shows like this
that are trying to get theirfeet, trying to find their
audience.
I think of some of the biggershows in the science fiction
realm and I think of star trek,the next generation.
Everyone always says that thefirst season is really rough and

(22:07):
it is.
It's the hardest one to reallyget into because it's just
clearly a writer's room ofpeople with ideas like well,
let's do an episode about this,let's do an episode about that,
let's do an episode about this,and they don't really gel
together.
There's no real overarchingstory in season one of the next
generation.

(22:27):
After that point you startgetting character arcs and you
know multi-season dramas withthe cast, and I feel the same
thing is happening in this firstseason of smallville, where it
takes a long time before westart getting multi-episode
stories and multi-episode arcsfor characters.
And that's not a bad thing, butit's.

(22:50):
It definitely hurts it on are-watch, I think, for me, just
because I do miss themulti-series arcs.
So like going back to the firstseason watching 10 episodes,
and it's just 10 episodes offreak of the week and clark is
trying to figure out, like youknow, what whatever's going on
with meteor rocks in thatepisode.

(23:11):
It's fine, it's fine and it'sfun, but it's, it doesn't have
the draw.
That, like the best ofsmallville has, is what I'm
trying to, you know, get at.
I think real Smallville doesn'tstart until the end of season
one and like, really, you know,takes off in the beginning of

(23:31):
season two and I think it takesa little bit of getting into,
just to get into it, if thatmakes sense.
And so if you've never seenSmallville and you start
watching and you're four or fiveepisodes in, you're just like
wow, this is just villain of theweek, a freak of the week,
whatever.
Just take your time, keep going.
It does get better and it'sworth putting the time into it

(23:56):
because the show's genuinelyvery good and when we were
growing up, anthony and I andrich you were you said you were
19 at the time there was nothinglike it.
There was no long-form superherolive-action content None.
You know.
There was a couple live-actionmovies here and there.
You had the Blade movie Justbefore Smallville.

(24:18):
You had X-Men, the first movie.
Just shortly after the firstseason, you had Spider-Man the
first movie.
Just shortly after the firstseason, you had spider-man, the
first movie.
But long-form content did notexist for superhero media.
So this was it, this was thecanon that you had to subscribe
to for, you know, extrasuperhero lore and content and

(24:41):
just diving into a universe, youknow like, besides comic books.
This was it, and I think thatit did a phenomenal job because
it does get into pretty heavylore.
It just takes a while.
Like anthony said, they didn'teven call it kryptonite they.
The word kryptonite does notappear in the first 21 episodes
of the show and even past that,it's just not in the first
season.
It's just meteor rocks up until, you know, clark learns more

(25:05):
about his own personal lore.
We don't learn that yet.
So I think it's.
I think it's a.
Really, you know, subjectivelyI think it's a.
It's a fantastic time capsuleand, to you know, a period where
we weren't bombarded withsuperhero content left and right
, and it's definitely worthpicking up because there was
nothing like it at the time.

(25:25):
But yeah, there is still plentyto enjoy.
Let's finally start talkingabout some of the characters and
some of the inner workings ofeverybody.
I'm going to throw it off toRich because I know he has some
extremely spicy takes for thisextremely benign TV series.
Anthony and I are going to beperhaps agreeing to some extent

(25:50):
and perhaps disagreeing to alarger extent, but we'll start
with rich, let's.
Which characters do you likeand which characters do you not
like?

Speaker 3 (25:59):
all right, so I I like the kents I love the
portrayal.
I think the actors are good.
I love Lionel Luthor, a manfrom Gremlins 2.
I can't remember the actor'sname, but he's from Gremlins 2
also.
I did, by the way, I had tolook it up because I was like
that man is older than me and hehas glorious hair the most

(26:22):
luscious hair it is a wig.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
I looked it up no yeah it's a wig you're lying to
me.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
No, I was I, you know I I had a feeling, but I liked
him a lot.
I, I think michael rosenbaumlikes- is so it's.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
It's john glover.
By the way.
John glover is the actor forlionel luther, the father of lex
luther.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
I think he's in a muppet, christmas carol too, but
I can't remember for sure.
But anyway, impossible I thinkmike rosamund does such a good
job of.
I like I feel like I was fooledin the first, like there, I
remember that he's duplicitousthroughout, whatever you know,
and but it's like you, you startto see.
I think the actor just doessuch a great job.

(27:04):
The portrayal is great becausethe truth is we're Clark's, our
analog right, like he's our insome ways.
You kind of see the showthrough his eyes, right, and
you're meant to kind of take hisside most of the time, right,
sometimes he acts like anannoying teenager with his dad
and stuff like that, like whycan't I play football?

(27:25):
Come on, man.
Like come on, you know, andthat whole episode being about
how, no, it's that you don'ttrust his judgment and that's
why he's upset.
And it's like the boy doesn'tunderstand that he can literally
kill someone.
And in his first practice helike used Superman jumping
abilities, like first practiceon camera.
Like I know it's not tiktok era, but my dude, like your dad,

(27:48):
was like hey, don't do anythingcrazy.
And he's like, by the way,second play of the game or
practice, I'm gonna do somethingcrazy so, but you know he's a
teenager, so, like whatever, youknow he's 14 can't you see that
he's 14?

Speaker 1 (28:02):
I mean, I think that's another problem.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, man, it's that teenage angst man we all wanted
to do our own thing.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
See, that might be another one of the problems also
.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
With him looking older.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
Yeah, because you know.
Okay.
So my main villain, I think thevillain of the story, some of
you might say maybe one day andI'm not trying to do spoilers,
I'm just gonna say the namedoomsday, because it's part of
superman.
I can't remember anything aboutthe show that far.
All right.
So no, the main villain is notdoomsday, it's not bizarro,
ladies and gentlemen.

(28:34):
It's lana lang from episode one.
She is the main antagonist.
You're like wait, but lex hitshim with a car.
It has to be lex, you're wrong.
You're wrong.
She is in a committedrelationship with let's.
You know a bag of trash overhere in whitney, who, as you

(28:58):
guys, can't see this, but behinddakota, in his background, is
tom welling, you know being hungout, uh, you know, crucified by
whitney in a cornfield in acornfield just for existing.
And then he oddly leaves hisgirlfriend's very important,
valuable necklace around theneck of this guy who he's just

(29:20):
bullying to possible death,which is, you know, stand-up guy
, and she keeps seeing him forwho he is and not leaving him,
but then consistently stringingclark along and this guy's like
there's one episode where he'slike you know, I'm just trying
to leave the door open, mom andhis mom's like, clark, the door
is closed.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Right, the door is she actually says those, she
says those those words.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, I mean so and it's just I don't.
And then what she, just kind oflike, drops out of school,
decides to run the, the coffeeshop which you know.
She gets really lucky and lexopens up.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
She's just a I don't think she, I don't think she
ever drops out of school I don'tknow, she stays in school.
Yeah, she definitely doesn'tstay in school.
I don't know how a 14-year-oldruns a coffee shop.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
She's managing the talent, she's managing the
talent, but she is also inschool.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
You just got to roll with it.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, man, suspension of disbelief is needed with
this show.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
What I do like is I love actually the Freak of the
Week stuff is I love actuallythe freak of the week stuff.
I could probably watch like 175episodes of freak of the week
and just see how long they coulddo it without having to like
redo one, you know.
But I mean I love the differentways that.
I mean, man, that first season,like I'm in the bathroom and I

(30:40):
heard like a rumbling because wehave the pipe to the outside
and when you turn it off thehose the air pressure is kind of
built up so there's a slightrumble when it starts and my son
put it on and I thought it wasthe bees.
I thought it was the bees.
I was like, oh man, it's thosedamn meteor queen bee, you know
you know I love it man, I lovethe bugs and they attack him and

(31:05):
the bug kid and then he getsbetter looking as he molts.
I ate all that's like.
I think I almost like thatstuff better, at least in the
first season.
Like I think it is moving alittle too slow with the lore so
I kind of liked that stuff.
I do have a little bit of kindof exhaustion already with him

(31:26):
being possibly found out and Ifeel like already in the first
season and two episodes or threeepisodes of season two I think
they're like getting like theyget entirely too close too many
times to being had, I think forthe first.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
I'm gonna give it over to you for the first season
and a half.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
You know what I mean sure, okay, all right, so a lot
was said.
Sorry, let's, let's, let's keepon with what rich is saying
currently about the fact thatthere is far too many instances
where clark has potentially beenhad or is coming very close to
Lex finding out the truth.

(32:06):
How do you feel about, like,what Lex knows now versus you
know?
What are your, what are yourthoughts?
You know like there's a lotthat goes on in the first season
that could potentially outClark right right now there's
definitely a lot of like closecalls and I guess that could you
know.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
The argument for that would be like, you know, yeah,
he's young, so you know, whilehe's decent at being secretive,
you know there might be someinstances, especially with him
being the the kind, that kind ofperson that's always at like a
crime scene, you know, like howis this guy doing all this stuff
?

Speaker 1 (32:44):
every episode?
I I have to, I have to, like, Ihave to think about this show
like in a bubble, because did hejust start high school and
start, like you know,experiencing all of these weird
things that happen on a weeklybasis?
Or did this happen in middleschool too, like?

Speaker 2 (33:01):
yeah, they don't really explain it.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
They don't explain it .
No, yeah, no, they don't reallyexplain it they don't explain
it.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
No, it's puberty.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
It's puberty based.
We don't get a young, we don'tget a.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
Clark, it's puberty.
It's like, you know, you skipfrom Jesus as being born to the
action times.
You know, like I think we'remade to assume that he wasn't
allowed to participate in sports.
He, he wasn't allowed toparticipate in sports.
He wasn't, you know.
He had to be very limited, andI think also that he would have
been way more obedient of hisparents.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
So but here's the thing like the, the freak of the
week oh, did that what?
Did that just start happeningwhen he's?
When he entered high school?
There was a wall of weird priorto him entering high school,
which makes me wonder is chloe afreshman or is she a sophomore?
I don't really know.
I'm assuming they're the sameyeah, school year, but then

(33:52):
later on she gets an internshipwith the daily planet.
So I'm a little bit confused,because you wouldn't normally
get an internship after yourfreshman year of high school.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
It's wild Actually, you know what, with you being on
on like you know the topic ofChloe, how does she have so much
free reign, like just to gointo that, into the the torch at
any time, like this girl'sthere at like in the middle of
the night working?
What school allows a studentjust to show up at like a
newspaper in the middle?

Speaker 3 (34:22):
of the night rich.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
You work at a school.
Would you have students thatare there in the middle of the
night just doing whatever theywanted?

Speaker 3 (34:28):
I mean, almost every building closes at a certain
point and even like in the daysof lower security, when I first
started teaching, you wouldn'thave anything like that.
I was part of newspaper staffs.
I was the teacher in charge ofnewspapers and there was never a

(34:50):
time where it was dark outsideand we were working on the
newspaper like right, and therewas never a teacher they.
Yeah, that's the other thingthey could have.
I don't know if it would havekilled them that much to have,
because they end up having tohave the principal talk to the
student directly, right,principal quong has to, like,

(35:11):
talk directly to chloe andbasically suspends her for not
confirming her sources.
The principal usually calls theteacher in charge of the
program and and deals with itthat way.
I don't know why there wasn'tthat character.
I and the character could haveeventually, you know, maybe
started picking up on clark, butcould have been another because

(35:32):
it's.
It also is kind of crazy thatnobody at school seems to.
I mean, it's also very easy toget a job there, like desiree
got a job.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
No, oh, that was season two, sorry.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, let's dial it backCome on, let's get on track, all
right.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
So I want to talk a little bit about security.
You mentioned, you know, in thelow security days of high
school.
A majority of this season wasfilmed in a pre 9-11 world.
This season was filmed in apre-911 world and I think that's
important because we do see alittle bit of influence on a
post-911 world by the end ofthis season.

(36:13):
I don't know if you guys arecognizant of it at the time or
if you've researched it afterthe point, but after 9-11
happened, there was a large pushin media for like pro-army,
pro-marine, you know, type stuffhappening, and we actually do
get a little bit of that at theend of this season.

(36:35):
Where whitney is, I think hesigns up to be one of the
marines and I think that that'suh, it's.
It's a very timely thing becausethe that episode occurs in
early 2000 or in the school year.
It would be like just startingsummer 2002.
But it was filmed early 2002,so just months after 9-11

(36:57):
happened, and there was a bigpush both in media and in the
news cycle to just, you know,join your local service of your
choice and so be it.
But I thought it wasinteresting because you don't
see a lot of that happening inTV shows, where just a character
will just join the army andthat's how they leave the show
for a period of time.

(37:17):
I don't remember if Whitneycomes back, I think he does for
a little bit, but at the end ofthe season I was kind of
surprised because that it isvery much a time capsule.
You know, like you mentioned inthe last episode, anthony, this
show is very much a timecapsule of the early 2000s and I
thought that was interesting.
But going back to chloe beingallowed into the building at odd

(37:42):
hours of the day Again, thiswas a pre-9-11 show for much of
the first season.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
I still don't think that would have been something
that would have occurred Perhaps.
Yeah, like a student being, youknow, like even like I don't
know, like I mean, we were inschool in a pre, you know, not
high school, but we still knowwe were in school pre 9-11.
And you know, for the most partI'm pretty sure that, like you
had to be, you had to have somesort of supervision and

(38:17):
something especially, and evenin a lot of the media that
portrays like students in aschool paper environment, there
was always a teacher that wasthe editor and then they would
read over the students' work.
So, whether this being pre orpost 9-11, I still think that
it's still kind of weird.

(38:38):
It's still, you know, like.
I don't want to try to be pokingholes.
I love this show and for me itis what it is.
You know, that's what gives thecharm of the show.
But you know, I was likewatching it over I I was
thinking like, yeah, this iskind of like this.
She just gets to do whateverit's a little bizarre she's a
staff like she's staff at theschool.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
what's even weirder, you know sticking with the chloe
side of things.
Now, how does she get that job?
Because I'm assuming she's afreshman?
Everyone else in this show is afreshman, except for Whitney I
thought about that too.
I think Whitney's the onlysenior.
Everyone else is Pete ClarkLana.
Everyone's a freshman.

(39:19):
How did Chloe become the editorof the school newspaper?
Like usually, that's somethingthat's passed down as you prove
your worth over the course ofyour high school career.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
They gave it to her right away, I imagine she's just
such an intrepid reporter inmiddle school.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
I know she just got so many recommendations.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
It was the accolades.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
It was the accolades that she received.
All right, let's jump forward,let's.
I think we got to address the,the elephant in the room which
is, you know, the villain of thefirst season, the absolute arch
nemesis which is lana lang.
Anthony, do you believe thatlana lang is the nemesis of the
show?

Speaker 2 (40:00):
nah man dude, I I loved lana like she.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
She was my crush on that show well, yeah, you know,
and that's she, she could, shecould do no wrong, that's okay
why I think, okay, that's what Iwanted.
I just wanted clark to get thegirl man.
I just she made me so angry Ifelt for clark I, I feel for him
.
You know, when he's like I'mleaving the door open, like

(40:25):
while she's in a committedrelationship with somebody else,
like he refuses to date anybody, and then but I think that that
makes clark better.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
I think that the back and forth with lana made clark
a better character, becauseultimately it wasn't a feel-good
story throughout.
He didn't get the girl.
This season we spent a wholeseason of this character pining
for this other character and hedid not get the girl.

(40:56):
And I think that that is partof the charm of the show in the
sense that, like it's realistic,you're experiencing life as a
teenager through the eyes ofthese characters.
You know I I say realistic veryfluidly.
In this instance.
I don't actually mean it's arealistic show, but the, the
feeling that you get, you know,like not being able to achieve

(41:19):
what you want to achieve, orbeing held back by your parents
because of x, y and and Z, ornot being able to accomplish
this because something comes upin your life, is something very,
very teenager, and I think thatthat is what is actually being
showcased.
I think you know, specificallyLana and Clark, the fact that

(41:39):
he's willing to show humility,even though he has every ability
to potentially take the girl ofhis dreams as his own.
He could, you know, stop beingsuperman.
He could stop being the one whosaves everyone.
He could be the one who showsup at every party.
He could be the one who showsup to to every everything that
lana or chloe or pete ever does,but he chooses not to, and I

(42:02):
think that is what is theultimate sacrifice of Superman
is that he cannot be what hewants to be while also being the
person that he needs to be, andI think that is why I don't
think Lana is necessarily thebad person in this show, because
I think Lana wants to believethat Clark can be a successor to

(42:23):
Whitney, but he never provesher right.
Ultimately, personally, that'sthe way I see it.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
Right, right, like she wants to trust him, but he's
shown that there is some stuffthat he's withholding from her
and she's not.
You know, and you know, I thinkthat for a lot of people that
would kind of be that would putyou off of that.
You know, you might still careabout them but you might be like

(42:50):
, you know, I don't know howclose I want to get to this
person if they don't really wantto share.
And you see that like and Iknow this is like you know later
on, but like, the further youget into the show, like, like,
you know, she shows heropen-mindedness to whatever it
is that clark, you know, ishiding and you know it's still

(43:12):
apparent in this first seasontoo.
But you know, yeah, she haswhitney in her life.
So she's kind of torn, I feellike, because you know,
obviously whitney is a senior.
She's probably torn because youknow she has, I guess, these
feelings for Clark that start todevelop.
But then she is in a committedrelationship, which she probably

(43:35):
sees that you know that he'sgoing to go off to, you know, at
one point you know he was goingto go to college to play
football.
Then he decides to become aMarine.
So you know, at some pointWhitney was going to leave to
college to play football.
Then he decides to become aMarine.
So at some point Whitney wasgoing to leave, right?
So that thought process wasprobably going on in the mind of
this character too.
To me I believe so, because ofhow torn she is.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
And even getting into the very first couple episodes
of season two without spoilinganything.
First couple episodes of seasontwo without spoiling anything.
You know, lana does see andmention that clark has way too
many you know secrets that he'swithholding.
You know it's it's very obvioussecrets that he's withholding
from them to make a realisticrelationship work.

(44:22):
And yeah, so I think thatthat's part of why Whitney just
seems to be the better choicefor her, I guess.
But again, even there's anepisode I feel like we could
talk.
Like Rich said, there's so manythings that we could talk about
, episode after episode.
But there's the episodeNicodemus, where Lana becomes

(44:44):
uninhibited by this plant thatwas resurrected after 100 or so
years.
Uh, it's the most ridiculousepisode.
But you know what, let's rollwith it.
She gets uninhibited.
She tells whitney I'm only withyou because I feel guilty that
by leaving you it would do youmore harm than good.

(45:05):
It proves to the audience thatshe's only with Whitney for a
majority of the season becauseshe feels guilty.
And for a good majority of theseason Whitney's father has been
in the hospital on and offbecause of heart problems.
So there's something emotionalholding Lana back from fully
giving in to her feelings forClark or for divorcing her

(45:29):
feelings from Whitney.
So there's a lot going on.
I don't think that Lana is thenemesis of the show.
I don't think she's thearchnemesis and she wasn't
written that way.
Let's be frank.
She was not written to be thearchnemesis of the show.
Frank, she was not written tobe the arch nemesis of the show.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
But I can see and understand rich's reticence to
hate or to to like her based onthe moral quality of her choices
I don't know rich and I went toan old boys school so you know
I didn't have a lot of dramaduring the day, just kind of
went to class, didn't reallyhave cell phones right, so it's
just like you went to school andthere wasn't any relationship
drama during the day.

(46:08):
I don't know that's fair maybethat's, maybe, maybe it's my own
like I'm like what's going onat this school?
Like jeez, just go to class soeventful.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
My days weren't as eventful at an old boys catholic
high school back in the late90s, so you know, one thing,
thing I feel like I should bringup, but maybe shouldn't at the
same time because it doesn'treally pertain to the show
itself.
But you know, going back tothis show, after one of the main
actors was imprisoned for anumber of years, it's a strange

(46:44):
thing because my wife walked-into the room and went hey, look
, it's the sex trafficker.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
Do you think she was sex trafficking back then?

Speaker 1 (46:52):
and that was no, obviously, as a 19 year old, I
don't think she was in thatposition until I think it was
after the the show.
I'm hoping it was after theshow that she got involved with.
I think it was nexium orsomething and x yeah, it was
some sort of cult it was someweird, weird cult and it really

(47:13):
mars the character, even thoughit's a, I think.
I think chloe's a fantasticcharacter.
Chloe sullivan was such a goodcharacter that they started
putting her in dc comics likeshe was a character that they
made up for the show, that theylater putting her in dc comics,
like she was a character thatthey made up for the show, that
they later retroactively addedher to comics.
But I think, since the wholesituation, they've just like
deleted the character.

(47:33):
You know, like it's just, it'sjust not a character anymore and
oh, I hit the mic it's not acharacter anymore in dc comics.
I don't think it's.
It's a real shame becausethere's there's a lot of moments
in this, like where I'm likeman, she's a really good actress
.
You know, like the ability togo from like smiling, faking it
to all of your peers to liketurning around and like just

(47:55):
crying.
That takes a lot of actingchops that I don't think a lot
of these characters, theseactors, have.
Personally, I don't think lanacould I don't at this point, I
don't think had the chops for it.
Yeah, it's, it's really.
I found her performance reallyimpressive and it's sad to see
that.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
You know, it ended the way it ended you know what
character, just like you knowand and rich brought him up, but
you know michael rosen as LexLuthor, something that I really
love that this show broughtabout, because I'm not too sure
if it was prior to the show butlike Clark and Lex having this

(48:38):
friendship that develops and,honestly, to tell you the truth
and I know that this happenslater on but I think one of the
most heartbreaking things tohappen in this show is see the
disintegration of thatfriendship.
It is one of the hardest thingsto watch on screen because,
like you're like, oh man, youguys were such good friends, but
then I but you know where it'sheaded.

(48:59):
Like you know, you know, likethat it cannot be so, but you
want it to be so and it's such agood, like the push and pull
and just like seeing it, likeyou know the birth of it in this
first season.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Yeah, there's something to be said about
friends turned enemies,especially like as as good of
friends as we see Clark and Lexturn out to be in this first
season you mentioned you don'tknow if it started with
Smallville, like if this was thefirst instance of that.
It wasn't.
This is something that's beenhappening for.
I think it was first shown inthe 60s in like a Superboy comic

(49:36):
, their early friendship and howthat weaved into them becoming
arch nemeses.
But I do agree.
I think that it's a very tragic, almost Shakespearean dilemma
that they share.
They're fated to be againsteach other and you could see
even from their first couple ofinteractions and throughout the

(49:58):
whole season there's a barrierbetween the two that they can
never break.
There's a lie that Clark istelling Lex, right yeah there's
a lie that clark is telling lexand there's a lie that lex is
telling clark.
They love each other as closeas two people can be with that
wall intact.
But that wall is intactthroughout the entire, the

(50:18):
entirety of the show, and theyboth realize that they cannot
break that wall.
And for clark it's the I can'ttell you know, this rich guy,
that I have superpowers or thatI'm from another world, because
that will open the door topeople finding out my secret and
potentially ruining my familyand all that blah, blah, blah.
For Lex it's he cannot tellClark that he's been researching

(50:41):
all of this stuff, he's beenresearching the effects of the
kryptonite and all that, becauseit proves that he's been
researching Clark.
And so it's a back and forthbetween these two characters.
They clearly care for eachother, but there's certain
things that they cannot movepast, and it's a really, really
good dynamic.
I think that they nailed itwith this show.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
I think that they nailed it with this show.
I like that.
You said that it'sShakespearean, because whenever
you get to Lex and Lionel, theirinteractions are so
Shakespearean.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
The way they talk to each other.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
It's like something that you would read from
Shakespeare.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
My goodness, maybe I should pair this with Macbeth
next year.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
Oh boy.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
Forget Revenge of the Sith, I'm going to go full
Small.
Forget start.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Forget revenge of the sith, I'm gonna go full
smallville revenge of the lutherI guess I guess, with you know,
bringing smallville into yourrevenge of the sith mcbeth
parallels, you'd have to find anepisode that really
encapsulates that, because youcan't, really, you can't show
the whole show, you can't youcan't.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
It's a lot, and that's that's the thing with
long-form storytelling like thisit has to be done I'll probably
just show them the euthanasia,episode, because, oh my goodness
, that one got quick I don'tremember which one, that one
that's the one where the mom isfeeling she's, she wants to die
and she asks her son to kill herand and he goes from reaper,

(52:05):
the episode's called mom I don'twant to kill you to like within
the.
You know, because the freak ofthe week especially has like
that first two and a half wherewhat is it?
Minute and a half, usually acouple minutes before the,
before the intro.
You know, intro starts, yeah,and then, and it's like he walks
in and he's like, hi, mom, youknow she's coming a lot of pain,
and he's like kill me.
She's like no.
And then, and it's like hewalks in and he's like, hi, mom,
you know she's coming a lot ofpain, and he's like kill me.

(52:26):
She's like no, and then she'slike kill me.
And he's like fine, like likewithin it's, it's like it just
takes him 25 seconds to decideto kill his mom and then the
best part is that she lives.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Yeah, you know I think that's ultimately like how
that is resolved.
He finds out like oh, she didn'tneed to die anyway, I think
we've come to the point of theyou know the podcast where we
have to discuss the freak of theweek and how it happened,
because I'm racking my brain, asyou know, as someone who
creates YouTube videos and likelore breakdowns and is trying to

(53:01):
like make sense of this andthat and whatever, and lore
breakdowns and is trying to makesense of this and that and
whatever, I have to ask what isit about these stones that are
from another planet, that areconveniently amping up certain
aspects or certain powers orcertain skill sets of
individuals based on their moodand or life experience, because

(53:26):
it's completely reliant on whatis emotionally happening,
happening at the moment, or whatis necessary for them to
survive.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
So it's almost like a spiritual imparting from the
stone to keep these individualsalive a little bit longer, and
it's it's the most bizarre thingever I would say that, like
there's a physical element thatlike for for the most part, I
would say from pretty muchalmost all of them, there's a,

(53:58):
there's a physical element thatmakes sense, like you had the
the bug boy, where he had bugsthat were in you know, terrarium
and soil that had meteor rocksand and obviously meteor rocks
are, they're irradiated.
You know they emit some sort ofradiation that you know causes
something.
It's very much so apparent thatit's it's irradiated, because

(54:21):
when clark gets near like hecould, he can even like touch it
without it, without like yousee his veins just kind of like
this like poison.
It's like radiation poisoning.
That's that's happening.
So there, I think that they'repretty good.
Um, you know the girl thatbecomes like a fat sucking
vampire you know she she.

(54:46):
Um, I'm just so crazy.
She, she, uh, you know she'sdrinking the.
You know the, the healthy foodsthat were grown in meteor, rock
soil, kryptonite soil butthere's a physical act right,
but even even that like requiresa mental desire, and she's

(55:09):
desiring to be thin.
Right right.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
That amplifies thinness, for some reason.
And that's what I'm trying tosay, like there's almost a
consciousness to what it'salmost like a genie granting you
a wish, what it's almost like agenie granting you a wish, but
it's, it's the.
The wish that the genie isgranting you is always like well
, be careful, what you wish for,and that's that's.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
that's what it seems to be for most of the cases of
these people well, I don't know,you have the guy that fell into
the lake that you know hedidn't, you know he didn't have
a desire to be colder.
He came out of the lake.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
He desired to be warmer, and he's now able to
suck Well I mean he was in thecold water, that was radiated by
the meteor rock.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
So obviously that altered his body chemistry.
I mean how he was able to, likeyou know, suck the warmth.
I mean, you know, I I don't, Idon't know how that was, but I
feel like.
I feel like the physicalelement is the primary and any
emotional is like secondary, andit just kind of like I guess
they use the emotional aspect ofit to make sense motive-wise.

(56:27):
You have the coach that I meanhe was a hothead, he was angry,
but then he was also in a saunawith meteor rocks.
That's a hot environment, so Iwould say each environment, I
would say the.
The catalyst was theenvironment that they were in,

(56:48):
but then the emotion just waslike the motive or whatever it
was that allowed them to do whatthey did.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
You know hold on, hold on.
We're breaking ground here.
Actually, anthony, you actuallyhave struck on a chord that I
really like, because I wasstruggling with this mentally
for a long time, determining isthis just the kryptonite keeping
people alive?
Is this just giving thiskryptonite, giving people what
they want?
And I, you, you actually makethe connection that it's a bit

(57:21):
of both, you know it's it's notonly what they want, what they
desire or what they need, butit's where they are physically
in that moment plus the emotionsof what they need, and I think
that that's that's fascinating,because I don't think there's
anything quite like the freak ofthe week transformations and

(57:42):
any other like major sci-fi oranything kryptonite as, as per
smallville standards, is kind oflike the radioactive chemicals
that you would see in like anyother comic book, but they give
them meaning with theseindividuals who experience and
are amplified by them indifferent unique scenarios.

(58:03):
So that's fascinating.
That's a really good catch,anthony, and I was actually
planning on like going in on how.
Like it doesn't make any sensefrom either a physical or a
spiritual or a mental oremotional standpoint, but when
you mix multiple of those thingstogether it actually does form
a more cohesive bond.

(58:24):
But it's also like, how doesthe kryptonite know to amplify
certain things?
You know, like what exact is it?
Is it like a conscious, likealmost nanobyte sort of thing
where, like I want to do whatthis person wants?
Is it, you know, a a more likesoulful thing?

(58:44):
Where, like, it's like aspiritual existence, where the
you know it wants to amplify thesoul of the person?
I don't know, there's so manyquestions with the kryptonite
and I'm I'm definitely lookingand trying to find too much
rationale in this early 2000s tvshow than I can actually
physically find.
But it is fascinating becauseit's the crux of the show for a

(59:06):
good portion of time, and I justhave to mention lex is paying
people to study kryptonite.
He's just like we can't findanything.
But, like you know, we knowthat there's something in this
meteor rock doctor, whateveryour hawthorne or nathaniel,
whatever your name is, you know,study all this in your, your
shack and find me some results,and then you know they come up

(59:27):
with the Nicodemus flower orwhatever.
But, like, all he has to do isgo to Smallville High for a week
and, just you know, see whathappens.
Because there's a crazy eventthat happens every single week
in Smallville High and it alwayshas to do with Meteor Rocks.
Anthonyony, actually, the theposter behind your head right
now, it's the welcome sign tosmallville.
We're in zoom right now and I'mlooking at the the smallville

(59:50):
kansas population of 45,001 andI keep thinking to myself boy,
that number has to be a littlebit lower now, because there's
at least one or two people thatdie in every single episode I
mean it's, there's no way.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
It's like how well then you have people moving in
too.
How?

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
is lex, not seeing it in the papers, right like all
the stuff that's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
He doesn't read the inquisitor.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
He's a daily planet kind of reader let me, uh, let
me ask you guys a question.
So desiree righte, his briefmarriage In season two, were you
thrown off by the fact that herpheromones were pink?
I thought about that.
I don't know why, but I'm justlike okay.

(01:00:36):
So I normally don't see womenemit any kind of visible
pheromones.
So if it's meteor rock induced,then it would be green.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
It's the I know it's such a small thing, it's such a
unless there are other types ofmeteor rock that she was infused
with.
That we don't see at this pointin the show or at all in
smallville, and we know thatthere is other types of media
Rock.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
But she was originally from Smallville.
We do know that, like we couldfigure, it's probably green.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
But yeah, before we stray too far into.
Season 2, we'll definitely getback to that at some point.
We're visiting Season 2.
We don't want to go to Season 2.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
I'm sorry, guys, Listen when I start binge
watching, you guys know whathappens.
I can't.
No, you're good.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
In Smallville.
We do see other forms of meteorrock, other forms of kryptonite
outside of green and even somethat are outside of red as well.
I think we get into blackkryptonite and stuff like that
later in other seasons.
In the comics there is alsopink Kryptonite, so in my head
that scene is Got you.

(01:01:48):
Love it, okay, thank you.
She found her was trapped insome amorous form of Kryptonite.
I like it.
And that's what happened.
I like it, okay.
I accept it.
Back to season one, sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
No, you're good.
I do want to say something thatI really do, like that this
show does and and you know ithappens in the first season is
that you know clark, he doesn'thave all of his powers.
You know we get a little bit ofa tease with the flight and in
this first season it happensthroughout the series too.

(01:02:23):
But you know we get that.
But in this first season hediscovered or he happens with, I
guess, the growth of his bodyX-ray vision.
You know this is where he getshis X-ray vision and it happens
to.
It coincides with a freak ofthe week, tina Greer, who can,
who can morph into anybody.

(01:02:44):
A freak of the week, tina greer, who can, who can morph into
anybody.
I, I thought that was like.
I liked the introduction of herwhere, like lex just goes into
a bank and robs it, but it'slike, not lex so ridiculous and
like that would be proof thatwould you know, cripple any
politician today.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Like there's no getting around that.
Like there's there's no.
Like what do you mean?
Someone else did that that wasyou, you're on camera, but no,
lex gets away with it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
I like how the bank manager like obviously like knew
that that was Lex, but stilllike wanted his signature.
Like he's like oh, hey, mrLuther, but like wanted his
signature, like physically youcould see that that was Lex
Luthor like physically, youcould see that that was lex

(01:03:29):
luther.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
Yeah, yeah, really the x-ray.
The only part of the x-ray thatbothered me was when he does.
He eventually does a magictrick for lana and he just like
has her pick a card and thendoesn't take any other steps
other than just x-raying.
Right, and I didn't know thatx-rays could work this way.
But he can x-ray through thecard but see what's printed on
the other side.

(01:03:50):
I don't know how.
It's very, it's very specific.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
That's more like an.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
MRI.
I feel like than it is an x-ray, but sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
I like that they show that it's different levels of
like x-ray, where he couldactually like see through, yeah,
solid objects, but then he canactually see as if it's like an
x-ray like through to the bones.
He can like x-ray to like themuscle tissue and stuff.
It's it's so insane, like thenerves.
I.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
I really love that they like kind of explored his
you know his abilities like tolike a smaller, like detail yeah
, there's that scene where helooks at pete and he sees
through him, but he only seeslike the cardiovascular system,
the nerves and like the muscles.
He doesn't see any of the bones, and I think that that's such a

(01:04:37):
fascinating like.
Yeah yeah, I agree level andthere's layers to his x-ray
vision.
It's not strictly, you know,like just an x-ray.
You know they call it x-rayvision.
It's not strictly, you know,like just an X-ray.
You know they call it X-raybecause that's what we have in
our nomenclature.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean essentially that's
what it is Like.
I mean he's able to like seethrough things and I really love
that.
Whenever he comes across a newpower and you see it here, his
parents, jonathan kent, they'relike you know, let's figure this
out.
Like you know, let's work on it, and like he has so much like
support on on, like how tofigure out and use these

(01:05:13):
abilities, he has such a reallygood support system let's talk
about the kents.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
They're the best, it's probably the best depiction
of the kents bar none you know,like if we're, if we're being
honest about like all of thesuperhero media or superman
media that we've ever had, Ithink the kents in this are just
bar none.
Perfect in terms of just likebeing there for clark, being the

(01:05:38):
people that they need to be inthe show, just pleasant to look
at, pleasant seeming people.
And I'm so happy re-watchingthe show, being a little older
too while re-watching it,because I get to appreciate
their performances a little bitmore.
I think, as a kid watching thisshow, you just see them as
older people who want the bestfor the character.

(01:05:59):
But as an adult, looking atthese characters, you see that
they're doing everything intheir power to keep their kids
safe, especially While also.

Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
Yeah, go ahead.
Especially Martha, right, she'strying to help Clark because
she did the same thing to Clarkwhen she was a kid.
Because the actress who playsClark's mom actually played Lana
Lang lang in the uh superman.
I was like, I think, insuperman yeah, she played and
I'm like, just that to me waslike I just love the casting and

(01:06:33):
also I gotta give a shout outto dukes of hazard over there.
Paw kent, he uh, just uh yes,yeah I, I like as an older human
and I do like it's so great tocast somebody who was in the
Superman movie Like what.
I wonder how much money theyhad to be.
Like listen, lady, we reallyneed you to be in this, like

(01:06:54):
maybe a lot, maybe not, maybenot all that much.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
I mean, she wasn't an actress, but was she still
acting at that point?
I don't know Like which?
Was she really busy?
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):
They were great.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
I don't know if her career ever really picked up
after that.
So I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know if theyreally had to pull her leg or
whatever.
Pull her arm, I do.
It's funny, man, like it'sweird seeing jonathan and martha
kent and just appreciating themin new lights.

(01:07:30):
You know, like it's.
It's also weird being an adultand being like wait a minute,
clark's mom is kind of pretty.
You know, like when I was a kidI was just like she's just an
old lady.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
It's funny age is weird, but I thought they were
great.
I mean in and I that you knowthe season ends pretty well.
It's very bingeable also.
Yeah it really I found myself Ithink we talked about taping,
you know watching it last weekand I want to say, like I, we
got off and I started, you know,right away and I think by the

(01:08:05):
end of the next day I had beenthrough like seven or eight
episodes, like it was really nothealthy.
But it's summer and it's great,but it's really bingeable.
It also makes some of thecliffhangers a little bit more
palatable and I do like thatthey stop doing like the Lex
breaking into the bank thing,you know, like there are some
things that happen that you'relike this can't be right.

(01:08:26):
They can't do this everyepisode.
Sometimes they raise the stakeslike so high right, like the
fact that it's 10 seasons, likethat hurricane man did I mean
not hurricane, I'm sorry tornadoright, like that did some crazy
right, like damage.
And it's also a product of thetimes because like everyone's
phone would be beeping right,like I would just have that

(01:08:48):
emergency yeah, we're kind ofgetting towards the end.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
One person that that we we've kind of talked about
but like not talked too muchabout is pete.
You know, like we, we that'sthat's uh clark's like you know,
one of his like closest friends.
That's like's Clark's, like youknow, one of his closest
friends.
That's like his, it's his bestfriend, somebody that he can
really like confide in, who also, like he doesn't tell about his

(01:09:14):
powers until like later on in adifferent season.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
But, yeah, he's also somebody that he's withheld you
know this huge secret from,especially throughout this like
first season I really like petejust as a character and I I do
see why the actor left the showlater on.
I don't think he makes it pastseason two or three or whatever,

(01:09:37):
but I wish he had more to doand I think that they make some
strides at like fixing that inseason two.
But I do appreciate that.
This is a childhood friend ofclark's but there's a weird
thing that happens where hebecomes very, perhaps
unhealthily, close to lex lutherin this first season.

(01:10:00):
As a freshman in high schoolhe's good friends with a
24-year-old adult.
It's kind of weird.
It's not the weirdest thingthat's ever happened, but it's
up there in the weird scale ofSmallville, probably just under
Freak of the Week, weird, butanyway.
There's a point in the seasonwhere Clark actually says that

(01:10:20):
Lex is his best friend andpreviously he always said that
Pete was his best friend and mywife actually was like what
about Pete?
And it's true, pete just getskind of pushed aside for a good
portion of this show and there'sa couple episodes where Pete
gets to shine a little bit, butit's always Pete being the

(01:10:44):
person that really either getshimself into trouble or needs to
be saved.
That's kind of a shame to mebecause I think Lana gets a lot
more character development,chloe gets a lot more character
development, even Whitney gets alot more character development
than Pete does, so I think thatthat's not fair.

Speaker 3 (01:11:04):
Yeah, I mean I guess we didn't talk about him a lot
because of that right.
Everybody else seems to have alot more to their character, and
then I mean he does.
There is a point where youalmost feel like you know the
reason that they're not hangingout as much, or the reason that
he is calling Lex's best friendis that Pete's a little sick of

(01:11:25):
his garbage.
You know, know, like there islike one scene there I can't.
They're in the hallway orsomething.
He's just like yeah, well, youknow you can't.
That's just clark.
You can't rely on him.
Not those words.
But something.

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
He says something along those lines yeah, and it's
, it's true, because clark,while being a good person, while
being there for his friendswhen they absolutely need him,
he isn't really there when theywant him to be and he's not
there when, when he wants to be,you know.
And so in that respect he's nota good friend visually, like he
from an outsider's point of viewlooking into their friendship

(01:12:01):
this guy's not a good friend.
He's never there for you,except when he actually is there
for you and you just don't seeit, you, you know, it's one of
those weird Clarkisms where Ithink another thing we got to
talk about is the music choice,because so much of the choices
in like songs that they gave theshow helped flesh out the
emotional state of thecharacters or like the

(01:12:22):
loneliness that Clark wasfeeling.
I think the first episodesstarts with a song by Lifehouse
and they reintroduce that songat the end of the season and
it's about basically going thedistance but being alone at the
same time.
And it's a really poignantthing for Clark in this time
period where he can't get whathe wants because he's an awkward

(01:12:44):
teenager and all that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
But yeah, it's interesting yeah, man, and the
music.
Like when you listen to themusic you're like, ah yes, the
2000s yeah, oh man, I love it, Ilove it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
I do.
My dad always called it cwmusic, because it was the music
that you'd only hear on like cwand like.
But anyway, it's, it's, it's.
It works for something likethis what are you talking about,
man?

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
I definitely listened to papa roach outside of
smallville okay, okay, all right, all right, all right it wasn't
my last resort man, all right,I listened to it first look man,
I definitely heard dido a lotat publics okay oh, what else do
they have?
Oh God, sum 41.
I heard on one episode.
I was like yes, they had Sum 41.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
At one point there was All-American Rejects.
They had some solid tunes inthat show Massive attack.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
I heard in the background of a scene yeah, no,
they got some stuff in there,guys.
Final thoughts season one Loveit, hate it.
Let's start with Rich.
I Thoughts season one Love it,hate it, let's start with Rich,
I'm going to watch the entiredamn series.

Speaker 3 (01:13:48):
I tend to dislike characters.
I think this is a good thing,right, like I do the same thing
with Greek Gatsby kind of I'dhave to pretend every year that
I don't hate the characters andthen, once I start analyzing
their motives and stuff, I don'tlike them.
That aside, the villain of LanaLang, aside the Thanos of this
universe, I would heartilyrecommend it.
If you like comic book stuff,this is a great show.

(01:14:11):
If you have a significant otherwho's not really into comic
book stuff because of the kindof teenage angst drama, this
reels in two audiences.
I think this is a perfectcouple show, sure.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
Okay, and I can attest to that because my wife
has, like I mentioned earlier inthe show.
She has not watched the showpreviously, but you know she's
into those early 2000s just teendrama shows gilmore girls, the
oc stuff like that.
So this hits that niche whereyou have the teenage drama, you

(01:14:45):
have the that early 2000swriting style that you don't
really get, plus the episodecount and the expected amount of
episodes per seasons that youwould normally get in early
2000s shows and like cable tvshows that you don't really get
these days, plus the fact thatit's a superhero drama, like you

(01:15:05):
said, rich, it brings in twoworlds and my wife loves it,
dude.
She's like she wants me tofinish this so that I can go
back and watch another episodedownstairs.
She wants me actually to tellyou both that she was debating
coming onto the podcast just tocomplain about one of the freaks

(01:15:26):
of the week.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
Specifically Dude.
We've been waiting, waiting.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
We've asked her a million times.
Look, it's the summertime,where is she?
I, I know, I know, I know.
So she wanted to complain likethe worst villain of all was the
guy who, like, fell into thecold leg, the murderer, and the
murderer who you know per her.
She says that why did he justlike come back to life and

(01:15:55):
started depriving the town ofall its baddies?
I mean, and and she's like allhe did was like go back to
school and start targeting thehottest people and she was
depriving a whole school oftheir ecosystem.
Oh wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 3 (01:16:11):
The frozen guy.
Right, you mean the frozen guy?
Yes, oh yes, sorry, there wastwo people who fell.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
I'm like yes.

Speaker 1 (01:16:17):
No, yeah, no the cold .

Speaker 3 (01:16:20):
It was the episode Cold.
Yes, that was rather ridiculous.
I, I just I do love the ideathat, like if he had been like
somebody who wasn't as cool andit wasn't single, like he
wouldn't have been able to getanybody right, but he had his
little black book of numbers sohe was good, you know.
And I love how he forgot aboutchloe's.
But then looks at his hand anddespite the fact that this man

(01:16:41):
has gone some sort of chemicalchange, like on a genetic, on a
cellular level, right, his bodyabsorbs heat in a completely
different fashion than it everdid before, but the number is
still on his hands.

Speaker 1 (01:16:56):
I was actually like the moment he fell into the lake
after she put the numbers onhis hand, I was like, oh man, he
probably lost those numbersbecause you know water.
But nope, no, he's good.
He's good, anthony, let's,let's bring it over to you.
What are your thoughts on thefirst season?

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
man, you know the first season.
It is a nostalgic, you knowride man, I remember binge
watching that first season withyou at my grandma's house, man,
and remember I had gotten season, my dad had gotten it for me,
the box I actually had I have upto season five, I think, like I

(01:17:32):
own on DVD.
And yeah, man, I dude, Iremember those days and so like
watching that kind of brought meback.
It's really like such anostalgic trip, just watching
that show.
You know the time time, youknow we were kids at the time
and you know it was just likeone of those things that we
could always talk about everyweek whenever a new episode came

(01:17:55):
out yeah, I'm excited to diveeven further into this show.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
Like I said, I'm a couple episodes into season two
at this point and even justthose couple episodes, you can
just tell there's a qualityincrease in the writers room and
there's something about likethey've figured out their
formula and they're just like,okay, this is what we're gonna
do, and I'm excited to get backinto that because this show gets

(01:18:23):
so good.
It really and it already wasgood in the first season it's
just kind of you have to suspenda lot of disbelief because of
the amount of people,specifically teenagers, angsty
teenagers, who are transformedby some media rock hey guys, hey
guys.

Speaker 3 (01:18:38):
So he's an old guy, so he used to kill people when
he was younger, when he was, youknow, it was back in the 50s.
So how does it?
How do people in the 50s killpeople?
It's got to be a garrot, right,it's got to be a garrot like.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
I love that he just carries around a garrot like
like an old-timey mafia villain.
No, no, no, no, those are pianostrings.
Come on now.

Speaker 2 (01:18:59):
I would say actually I think that transformation was
definitely a desire.
That one was one, that was oneof the ones that was a desire.
And then the catalyst I guessthat made it happen was him
being electrocuted in water thathad meteor rocks.
But the physicality of thatdoesn't make sense as far as him

(01:19:21):
getting younger.
The other ones you can explain,because dude fell into a cold
lake, dude was in a hot sauna.
The other one was attacked bybugs that were irradiated by you
know like that stuff made sense, but I don't know.
I guess electricity, water andmeteor rocks equal younger self.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
I one of these days, guys one of these days I am
going to go through this showand I'm going to compile a list
of all of the cases of peoplegetting some sort of kryptonite
poisoning or boons that theyreceive power-wise, and I'm
going to figure out, I'm goingto boil down exactly what it is

(01:20:02):
that's happening to theseindividuals, because there's got
to be something.
It's like some magic systemthat I haven't cracked yet.
Anthony, you came pretty close.
We're going to figure it out.
Guys, thank you so much forlistening to us here for our
129th episode of ProjectGeekology.
129 episodes is a far cry fromthe over 200 episodes of
Smallville, but we were able tocover, at least in a roundabout

(01:20:25):
way, the first 21 of those.
So thank you so much forlistening to us here for our
latest episode.
Please be sure to check backsoon for our next episode.
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Smallville - Season 1 (2001)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Smallville - Season 1 (2001)