SMALLVILLE 2:11: "VISAGE" (2002)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*

Though VISAGE is better written than SKINWALKER, it's also fairly dull. It serves to put a finish on Lana's relationship with former boyfriend Whitney, who left Smallville to join the Marines, but who was revealed to be MIA in the previous episode. 

Despite the tragic news, Whitney shows up at Smallville High, apparently hale and hearty. However, he claims that he suffered an injury that deprived him of some of his memories, including the memory that Lana sent him a "Dear John" kissoff video. Lana has fallen out of love with Whitney by this time, but she can't just turn him away, him being a veteran and back from the dead.

But "Whitney," despite causing a lot of heartache for both Lana and Clark, incarnates a more serious menace. "He" is actually the shapechanger Tina Greer from the episode X-RAY, who faked her death and escaped Belle Reve. She's decided in the interim that she doesn't want to become Lana, but to become Lana's new lover, and to that end she masquerades as Lana's former boyfriend. But not only does Tina frequently expose her lack of knowledge about Whitney's past, she also senses that Clark Kent is a major romantic threat. Her erratic behavior causes Clark and Pete to suspect Tina's true identity, and this leads to a super-powered struggle between the real Clark and  Tina in Clark-guise. But this time Tina dies for real and makes no further appearances in the series.

The writer does introduce a new wrinkle to the Kryptonian mythos. Tina, who knows the power of kryptonite, booby traps Clark with Lana's necklace of green rock, leaving the youth to die with the necklace around his throat. However, Tina leaves the helpless Clark in the basement of the Kent cellar, and the long dormant vessel that brought Kal-El to Earth gives off rays that neutralize the kryptonite. This development both ends one of the earliest menaces of the series and creates an intriguing new mystery about the spaceship, right at the same time Clark begins to plumb the secrets of the Kawatche Caves.

Lana's tentative relationship with her suspected father Henry Small is not referenced, but the script does find time for a quick B-plot regarding Lex Luthor and Doctor Helen Bryce. Lex suspects Helen of spying on him for his father Lionel, but she proves herself not guilty-- at least of that particular offense. After learning that Whitney is really truly dead, Lana seeks out Clark to purge her grief in a completely non-romantic way. She claims that she no longer cares that Clark "has secrets," but naturally future scripts will ignore this declaration.