PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*
"Just because something's a myth doesn't make it not true."
"Skinwalker" initiates a new complication in the revised history of Clark Kent's strange advent to Smallville: that of mysterious Indian caves in the vicinity. Over the course of several seasons the caves of the Kawatche Indians will be brought up again and again. My memory is that I don't think this subplot ever delivered a strong finish to any of the questions it raised, but it was at least diverting.
Lionel Luthor, still blind, orders an office building constructed over the former environs of the Kawatches. Clark happens to take a tumble down a hole in the ground and accidentally knocks down a cave-wall. He then meets Kyla Willowbrook, whom he initially mistakes for Lana, though they don't look alike. Was Clark "remembering" the Lana of the comic books, who occasionally helped her archaeologist father unearth ruins? Because that's the only real similarity, given that Kyla's working with her grandfather Joseph, who is both an archaeologist and an activist working to get the building-project cancelled. Kyla's not only intrigued with Clark's hottitude, she points out that the wall he broke down reveals the very cave-paintings Joseph had been seeking; paintings which might help block the building-project. As Kyla relates the mythic story behind the paintings, Clark senses that they may relate to the story of his advent on Earth, even though he still doesn't precisely know that he's an alien.
However, Joseph makes trouble for himself by hassling the workers at the construction site, and one night, a white wolf kills a foreman there. Joseph is set up for the crime, apparently (though not definitely) by someone working for Lionel. The same wolf tries and fails to attack Martha, not long after Joseph expresses hostility to Martha because she's working for Lionel.
The possibility that the creature is a Native American "skinwalker" is raised, and though people transforming into animals seems within the range of kryptonite effects, no one "in the know" raises this possibility. But there's zero possibility that the wolf-killer is Joseph, because that would be too easy. However, the script only has one other culprit who can fill the bill, and the writers weren't able to make the real killer's motives jibe with anything she had said and done in the rest of the story.
If Kyla had been a well-conceived character, I might have rated the mythicity of this episode higher. As it is, the caves' story is the main source of "true myth." That narrative-- that some unknown Kryptonian, dubbed "Naman" by the Kawatches, visited Earth 500 years ago, and then returned to the stars. He's said to have had a brother, "Sageeth," with whom Naman had a falling-out, so that the two of them became the incarnations of good and evil, which is a clear parallel to Clark and Lex. Lex's main role in the story consists of Clark showing him the paintings in order to get his help allaying the project, but of course both Luthors will become drawn into solving the big mystery.
There are also other pleasing touches: Lana trying not to show jealousy when she sees Kyla with Clark, and Lionel telling Martha that she reminds him of his late wife. The subplot regarding Henry Small is advanced slightly, and Lana reveals at the end that her absent boyfriend Whitney has gone MIA. But overall "Skinwalker" feels like a very rushed script, an attempt to set down the enigma of the caves with characters who would have minimal involvement in the main plotlines. Kyla perishes in this episode, while Joseph only appears once more in a Season Three story.
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