Smallville

Season One - Episode One

Pilot

Smallville shows us the teenage years of Clark Kent and his journey to his identity as Superman. Born Kal-El on the distant, now extinct planet of Krypton, Kal-El is found by Jonathan and Martha Kent after his spaceship crash lands on Earth and the Kent’s find Kal-El and raise him as their own son, Clark Kent.

With special abilities such as super speed, super strength, x-ray vision, and many more; Clark has to learn how to keep his identity a secret but still live a “normal” teenage life. Going to High School is tough for anyone, but with the abilities that Clark has and the admonition to keep them a secret make it even harder. These gifts are what most people wish for and would love to have, but Clark can’t openly use them in fear of being discovered as an alien among humans.

Smallville also introduces us to a young Lex Luther who befriends Clark, and for the first couple of seasons they are good friends. The friendship slowly becomes acrimonious and the best friends become best enemies.

These concepts and storylines are the meat of the story of Smallville and what makes the series so great. We start at the beginning, with Kal-El’s ship approaching Earth and the story begins…

The episode starts off in space with meteorites hurtling towards Earth with what appears to be a spaceship mixed in with the meteorites.

On Earth, it is October 1989 and a helicopter is flying towards Smallville, Kansas. We see a shot of the front page of The Daily Planet newspaper with the headline, ‘Queen Industries CEO Missing, Presumed Dead’, which is a subtle nod to the untold (up to this point) Green Arrow storyline. The newspaper is being read by Lionel Luthor, as he and his son, a red haired, nine year old Lex Luthor, are in the helicopter. The helicopter is flying in from Metropolis and Lex is scared of flying. His father tells Lex that he needs to not be afraid and that he won’t get anywhere in life with his eyes closed.

We are introduced to a young Lana Lang in a flower store with Lana dressed as a fairy princess playing while her aunt tends the store. Jonathan and Martha Clark enter the store to buy some tulips and ask about Lana’s parents. They are at the Smallville High School football game, along with everyone else in town as it is the Homecoming game. Martha talks to Lana and with her fairy princess wand, Lana playfully grants Martha a wish.

As Martha and Jonathan get in their truck to drive back home, Martha admits she wishes for a baby as she says she can his little face. Everyone is coming back from the game and it looks like Smallville won the football game as everyone is in a celebratory mood.

We see the meteorites along with the small spaceship getting closer to Earth as they start to enter the atmosphere.

The helicopter has landed and Lionel Luthor is conducting business and signing paperwork, while young Lex wanders off into the nearby cornfield. He hears a voice begging for help and this spooks young Lex and he runs off further into the cornfield. Lex stumbles upon a teenager tied to a cross with a red ’S’ painted on his chest. The teenager begs Lex to help him. Just then the first meteorite hits nearby and incinerates the cornfield. Lex falls down while trying to run and is overcome by the blast.

On Main Street in Smallville, the people coming back from the game see the first meteorite that hit off in the cornfields and stop to see what is going on. Lana and her aunt come outside to see what everyone is looking at. Just then, Lana’s parents pull up in the car across the street and get out and call out and wave to Lana. Just then, as Lana is happy to see her parents, a meteorite hits the Lang’s car and vaporizes them instantly and blows up their car. Meteorites start to rain down on the city of Smallville and the surrounding countryside. Lana is seen crying hysterically as the city is pummeled.

Jonathan and Martha are driving home, when meteorites start to hit a field near the road they are on. As they wonder what is happening, a meteorite hits the road in front of them and damages the road. The Kent’s try to stop the truck in time, but can’t.

Mr. Luthor runs into the nearby cornfield frantically looking for Lex. He finds him buried under some corn stalks with his curly red locks of hair gone from his head. Mr. Luthor looks on in horror at his son’s bald head.

Back with the Kent’s, their truck has overturned and they’re ok but hanging upside down. They look out the window and see a young, naked boy walking towards them. The Kent’s are able to get the boy, who is alone, and wrap him in a blanket. They follow the gouged earth to the spaceship we had seen earlier and the Kent’s realize that the boy must’ve arrived in the spaceship. Martha convinces Jonathan to keep the boy and they take him home.

Flash forward to Today, twelve years later in Smallville. The boy that Jonathan and Martha Kent found in the field and took home is Clark Kent and he’s a Freshman in High School. As he gets ready to go to school, he tries to talk his parents into letting him try out for the football team, but they tell him no. Clark tells them that he will only play at half speed, but his father isn’t convinced as something could still happen and someone could get hurt. Clark is disappointed and laments that he just continue to be a loser for the rest of High School.

Clark heads out the door but misses the bus. On the bus, his best friends Chloe and Pete Ross talk about how Clark is always late. Clark uses his super speed and runs to school beating his friends to school. He meets up with them and they are surprised to see him. They talk about trying out for the football team, and Clark tells Pete that he won’t be able to this year. Pete tells him that they have to so that they won’t be the traditional Smallville Scarecrow. Chloe asks what that means and they tell her that every year the football team chooses a Freshman to tie up to pole, paint an S on his chest, and leave him in the cornfields.

Clark sees Lana Lang nearby and heads over to talk with her. As Chloe and Pete watch they bet on when Clark will fall. Apparently whenever Clark gets within close distance to Lana he turns into a klutz. Clark ends up tripping and falling down in front of Lana dropping his books. As Lana helps him gather his books, we see that Lana is wearing a pendant of a green crystal around her neck, Kryptonite. Clark is visibly unsettled as Lana helps him. She sees his book about Nietzsche and asks him “Which are you Clark, man or superman?”. Clark responds that he is still trying to figure that out. Lana’s boyfriend, Whitney Fordman, comes to Lana and Clark is disappointed that he didn’t get a chance to talk with her as Lana and her boyfriend walk off together.

Inside the school, we see a man punch through a glass trophy case and grab a picture of three football players celebrating a win. The man says “It’s payback time.”

We then see a facility labeled Luthor Corp Fertilizer Plant and a Porsche with Metropolis vanity plates labeled ‘Lex’, driving up to the facility, and we see Lex Luthor get out of the Porsche.

Back at school, Lana’s boyfriend is the quarterback of the football team and they are practicing, while Lana is a cheerleader and the cheerleading squad is practicing on the side of the field, while Clark is in the stands watching Lana and doing homework. Pete shows up in his football gear and talks with Clark for a bit. Clark ends up leaving to walk home since he won’t be trying out for the team.

As Clark stops at a bridge to think about his life, Lex Luthor is driving by in his Porsche and ends up hitting some debris in the road causing him to lose control of his car and hits Clark as he crashes through the guard rails of the bridge and into the river. We see Clark and steel beams go flying and hit the water along with the car. Lex is unconscious in his car at the bottom of the river, when the roof of the car is peeled by Clark and he pulls Lex out and pulls him to the side of the river. Clark gives Lex mouth to mouth and revives Lex. Lex tells him that he swears he hit Clark on his way over the side of the bridge.

Later, as they are pulling the car out of the water and police on scene, Jonathan Kent shows up to gather Clark and asks if he is alright. Lex asks Jonathan if there’s anything he can do to repay them due to Clark saving him. Jonathan rebuffs him and tells him to drive slower next time and the Kent’s leave.

Back at the Kent farm, Clark is in his barn loft looking at the stars through his telescope. He pans over to the Lang home that is nearby and sees Lana come outside and sit on the swing. But Whitney shows up and Clark is jealous that it’s not him there. Whitney and Lana talk about the upcoming game and how there will be college scouts there to watch. Lana gives Whitney her Kryptonite pendant for luck. Lana also tells Whitney how Clark saved Lex Luthor today and she realizes that she is impressed by this.

Elsewhere at Frank’s Garage, a mechanic is working late when a visitor shows up. It is the man that broke the glass trophy case at the school earlier. He confronts the mechanic who recognizes him from high school 12, years ago, and that he was the Smallville Scarecrow. The man then uses some sort of internal electrical current to shock the mechanic and ends up killing him.

The next day, Clark walks out to his driveway and sees a new truck with a card from Lex Luthor. Lex sent the truck as a thank you for saving my life gift. Clark is excited, but his dad is not and tells him to return the truck. They argue and Clark tells Jonathan that the car hit him going 60 miles per hour and that it’s not normal for him to survive that without a scratch. Clark sticks his hand in a wood chipper and the machine breaks but his hand isn’t damaged at all. Clark tells him that he isn’t normal and just wants to be normal for once and have a nice truck. Martha gives Jonathan the look and Jonathan decides to tell Clark about his parentage.

Jonathan shows Clark a metal block with strange writing on it and tells Clark that it’s from another world and that he arrived in a spaceship that’s hidden in the storm cellar. Jonathan shows Clark the ship and Clark is upset and tells him that they should have told him sooner and Clark runs off.

At a graveyard, Lana is visiting her parents graveyard at night. She hears a noise and asks who’s there, and Clark appears. He apologizes for scaring her and they talk. Lana is visiting her parent’s grave, which she does often to talk with them and feel close to them. Clark tells Lana that he’s sorry for their death, to which she replies that it isn’t his fault. Lana takes Clark to their grave and introduces Clark to them. They talk about how Lana misses them and wishes she could still talk to them. Clark walks her home and asks about the Homecoming Dance, but Lana says she’s going with Whitney. Clark says he isn’t going, but Lana tells him that if he decides to go, that she will save him a dance. Lana kisses him on the cheek and goes home, the two don’t see Whitney off to the side watching the interaction and we see that he doesn’t like that Clark is spending time with Lana. Since Lana didn’t have her Kryptonite necklace on, Clark was finally able to have a good conversation with Lana and not be affected by the Kryptonite.

Clark visits Lex’s manor and finds him fencing with a beautiful woman. Clark is there to return the truck. Lex tells him that it’s the least he could do since Clark saved his life. Lex realizes that his dad is the one making him return the truck and that Jonathan isn’t wanting to get mixed up with the Luthor’s. Lex asks Clark if he believes a man can fly. He tells Clark that after the accident for two minutes before his heart started beating again, he was flying around Smallville and it was the most glorious thing. Lex also tells Clark that they are destined to be friends.

In Smallville, the EMT’s are putting a man in the ambulance and Chloe and Pete are there with a crowd of people. They realize that this is the third person this week and that they are all former football players. They see a man that stands out in the crowd and Chloe takes a picture of him. They go back to the school newspaper room to do research. Later, Clark is there too and they reveal to Clark that the man is Jeremy Creek and that twelve years ago he was the Scarecrow that was put in the cornfield. But this time the meteor shower hit and he was in the field where one of the meteors hit. He was found later in a coma. Jeremy was in a coma for twelve years at a hospital and then just recently disappeared from the hospital when an electrical outage happened a the hospital. Jeremy looks the same as he did twelve years ago due to some sort of electrolyte disorder that kept him looking young.

Pete then convinces Chloe to show Clark the Wall of Weird. The Wall is in a locked room and Chloe has been researching events that can be traced back to the Smallville meteor shower twelve years ago. On the wall are various newspaper stories and magazine articles about the strange things that have happened since the meteor shower. On the wall is a Time magazine cover about that fateful day with a young Lana Lang crying on the cover. Clark realizes that this all happened on the day that he arrived in the meteor shower in his spaceship and he believes that all of this, including the death of Lana’s parents, is all his fault. Clark leaves distraught while Chloe and Pete wonder what is wrong with Clark.

As Clark leaves the school, he is accosted by Whitney and others from the football team. Whitney tells Clark that he is the next Scarecrow, Clark tries to fight back but since Whitney has the necklace Clark is weakened and easily overpowered. Whitney tells Clark that since he likes Lana he can have the necklace as that is the closest he will be getting to Lana, and so he puts it around Clark’s neck. They put him in the back of a truck and take him to a cornfield. During this event, we see that Jeremy Creek is there observing Clark being taken as the Scarecrow.

That night in a cornfield, we see Clark shirtless and in his boxers with a red S painted on his chest and tied to a cross with the Kryptonite necklace on. Jeremy shows up and tells him that things never change and that he is going to the Homecoming dance tonight to make it stop. Clark begs him to take him down, but Jeremy tells him that he’ll be safer where he is at and then leaves Clark there.

As Jeremy is leaving the cornfield, which is located next to Luthor Corp’s facility, Lex is pulling out of the parking lot to go home and sees Jeremy there. Lex recognizes him as the guy who was tied to the cross in the cornfield on the day of the meteor shower. Jeremy leaves and as Lex is wondering what is going on, he hears someone say, “Help me” and he remembers that’s what he heard that day as well. Lex goes to investigate and finds Clark tied up. Lex helps him down and as Clark falls off the cross the Kryptonite necklace falls off and Clark’s strength comes back. Clark realizes what the effects of the necklace are and grabs his clothes and takes off to the dance, leaving Lex to wonder what just happened. Lex sees the necklace on the ground and picks it up.

Outside the Homecoming dance, Jeremy is arriving to sabotage the dance and to hurt those that are there as a way to get back at all of those who have hurt him and the others like him. Clark shows up to intervene and stop him. Jeremy tries to shock Clark but it doesn’t work and Clark throws him on to a nearby truck. Jeremy starts the truck with his electrical power and drives it into Clark to run him over, but Clark hangs on the front trying to stop it. Jeremy crashes the truck into a wall that also has a sprinkler line that was next to it too. The sprinkler line breaks and water starts to flood everywhere including into the truck. Jeremy tries to use his electrical power to start the truck again, but ends up electrocuting himself until he passes out. Clark pulls the truck out of the wall and tears the door off letting all of the water out that was in the truck. Jeremy wakes up and appears to have lost his memory of the past few days, as well as he doesn’t realize that he was in a coma for the last twelve years. He tells Clark that he wants to go home.

At the dance, the kids don’t realize the danger they were in and are dancing and having fun. Of course, Whitney and Lana are Homecoming King and Queen and are dancing together. Clark arrives and from afar sees them dancing and kissing. Clark is sad and leaves the dance to go back home.

Back at the barnyard loft, Clark is listening to music and looking at the stars with his telescope. Lana shows up and tells him that she didn’t see him at the dance. He asks her what she is doing here, and she responds that she saved that dance for him. They dance close for a second, then Lana asks him if everything is ok. Clark tells her that everything is “Perfect.”. Then we hear the honking of car horns and Clark wakes up from his fantasy and we see that in reality, Clark is by himself and is only wishing that Lana was there with him. Clark looks out to see that the car horns are Lana’s friends as they had just dropped her off from the dance and she is waving to them as they drive away. Clark watches as she starts to go inside and he says “Thanks for the dance, Lana.”, to which Lana stops and looks around as if she heard something. She wonders what it was, then smiles and goes inside her home.