I did my temper tantrum in my diaryland diary months ago about Clark. Parts of it I looked back on recently and thought, huh, that was a little harsh.
Now? I'm just at the edge of thinking, I'm not nearly harsh *enough*. I'm not there yet. You will notice I'm not at the disembowlment stage or saying that Clark should die. I'm happy with my self-control.
So right. This is Nicodemus Redux. People acting stupid and sexual and bizarre but it's NOT THEIR FAULT.
No, wait.
This is Red Redux. Clark acting stupid and sexual and bizarre but it's NOT HIS FAULT.
Hold on....
This is Heat Redux and Hug Redux and I'm tired of watching this episode, even if, finally, it looks like, yes, Clark DOES have a functional libido and he and Chloe DO get action. Thousands of ChLarkers threw a party. And considering I am so very NOT a Chloe/Clark girl, I still got a massive kick out of how, well, FUN, Clark is under Red Meteorite when he isn't being a sociopath. They were cute! Show me your superpowers! Come back here and see! All we needed were some mentions of etchings as come-on lines and my life would have been complete.
Oh man, that was fun as hell. So. Damn. Cute. No, I shall never carry a banner for this pairing, but it was so much fun to watch them both like that.
But. I would have loved this far, far more if this didn't come RIGHT after Suspect, where really, I SPENT all my excess energy defending Clark.
I suppose, though, my greater wrath isn't even at him at this point--we know he doesn't apologize to Lex. Ever. But I have a theory why, which doesn't show him in a good light but does explain a lot. I think he knows--in fact, at this point, he HAS to know--that he can piss Lex off seriously and NEVER GET CALLED ON IT. Lex has a massive blind spot where Clark's concerned. One he chooses, but it's there. It hurts. Also? It's going to keep them friends for far longer than if he didn't have it, so God, I'm glad he has that blindspot.
What's annoying me at this point is the SV thing about character development. Or the lack thereof. Ideally, episodes such as this show characters in ways that are important to their development but can't be done using their conventional behavior. Which is cool, time-honored, and fun as hell to watch. I'm a massive fan of mind-altering being the way to go to get some seriously interesting revelations. My problem, of course, is that none of these episodes seem to be doing that. Besides hitting the Magical Reset Button Famous in Trekdom, they don't really CONTRIBUTE anything. If I were cynical, and I am when moved to be so, I'd say the entire episode's POINT was to get Clark and Lana almost together, just in time to milk a few more weeks of estrangement out of them, with everything else basically being gravy.
Hug gave us Lex's resentment of the town, his father's name, and Clark's family's behavior toward him, as well as his insecurity regarding Clark.
Nicodemus gave us Pete's crush on Chloe and his jealousy of Clark's relationship with Lex, the resentment over the entire creamed corn thing. It also gave us a Lana that was vaguely disturbing in her self-centeredness, but also free of some of her more annoying characteristics. Jonathan's ability to be nasty was doubled, and we find out that wow, not so different except he likes guns more when he's high. Go figure.
Heat had the entire "No one is gay here! Really! Look! No Gay ANYWHERE!" of gayness going on. Dear God, the gayness. But anyway. Also gave us our first glimpse of how the rift between Clark and Lex will go down. Lex's first genuine fight with Clark, and how utterly merciless he can be when he chooses.
Red gave us out of control Clark the Oh No, He's Not Gay At All, Really, REALLY (CLex redux, wow). In which his simmering resentments of his family's financial situation, his obsessive need to keep secrets, and etc etc you see where this is going. And the fact that he's a bully. A very powerful, very scary bully.
Rush didn't give us anything. There was no new insight into Chloe here--yes, we knew she wanted Clark, was that supposed to be new information? Yes, we knew she resented Clark's feelings for Lana. Pete? Lots of lines. That's it. We know--nothing else here. Nothing about them was revealed that couldn't have been done in non-mind-altering ways. This was, in effect, one hour of breaking Lana and Clark apart again, with fun stuff happening and pretty much nothing else, along with the joys of No Consequences.
I have no idea why this episode exists, actually.
And despite that, I did enjoy it. I'm a whore for these storylines, seriously. It just--doesn't mean anything. We have a possibly alien parasite wandering in Cadmus labs. Like Lex's particle accelerator, we don't know if we'll ever see this again. Let me throw a party now.
*grrr*
Hmm. As said, if this hadn't come right on the heels of Suspect? I'd probably have enjoyed it more. Much more. But the non-apologizing thing is starting to get to me. Luckily, there are people even more reactive than I am writing anti-Clark fic, so I feel absolutely no need to injure him myself. Yet. But it's building.
I remind myself of these things in moments like this.
A.) He's sixteen.
B.) I'm a CLex writer. That is very hard to do without the CL portion. Very, very hard to do.
C.) I LIKE Lex. For some reason, he wants Clark, and I like to give Lex everything he wants. As I do not want to give Lex things that are BAD for him, Clark must be somehow either fixed or explained.
D.) I cannot sexualize Lana, even with Lex, no matter how hard I try. So that method of writing myself into a better mood is NOT going to work. And no more writing depressing Lex het. Just wrong, wrong, wrong. No more.
E.) Damn, Clark's pretty without a shirt.
F.) See C.
In other news....
Um. My personal life took a turn for the bad. Not something I care to discuss, but in any case, I've been slow in answreing comments and email becaue of that. For anyone still waiting for a response, you'll get one. I'm still staring at the story, because wow, so Rush annoyed me, but man, did it fit into the unfocused ideas in my head about A Separate Peace. Disturbingly well. I wish it had Jossed me.
*sighs*
Recs tomorrow when I feel less allergic-Sudafedish. My backlog is at fifteen stories.
