Yesterday, I've come across a blog written by Doris Egan and in one of his entries (http://tightropegirl.livejournal.com/7654.html#cutid1), she talks about her assumptions about the future of Smallville, specifically that of Lex and Clark and some about Lana. The more I read, the more I felt like crying or yelling with frustration. Here are parts of that entry that caught my eye the most:
· I assumed Lana was a recurring character; that she was an ideal, like Charlie Brown's Little Red-Haired Girl, who would float about the periphery of Clark's life and influence it simply through his obsession with her as an ideal. Perhaps we'd learn about her as a person over time, and part of Clark's journey to adulthood would be finding out that ideals don't turn out to be what you think they are -- and though the reality is utterly different from what you thought you wanted, it may be even better. Maybe the reality of Lana, should we ever get to really know her, would be one of caustic wit or utter practicality; something you wouldn't expect in a "dream girl."
· My second assumption was that with all the emphasis on Lex's friendship, he'd obviously be involved in most of the main stories. And as time went on, we'd see how his view of reality and Clark's differed sharply in how they saw these main stories. I assumed also that he and Clark would influence each other; that Clark would take his parents aback by coming home repeating some aphorism of Lex's, and that Lex would find what courage he needed to get past his father by his connection with Clark.
· I took for granted that the whole tragedy -- because it was a tragedy, in the best dramatic tradition -- of Lex's friendship with Clark would reach its pinnacle in a fiery autowreck of arc in the final season; an arc that would tear the heart from the chest of the audience and stomp all over it in stiletto boots, in the best and most satisfying way.
· To set up the big narrative arc, I assumed that the friendship between Clark and Lex would get more layered through the seasons -- we didn't have enough time to really address it in season one the way I'd have liked -- and that since this is the story of Clark Kent's youth, Lex's friendship with Clark would be the last thing to die before the end, the final shove over the cliff on his long journey from antihero to villain. The obvious irony was so perfect; Clark's influence was the last thing tethering him to any kind of faith, and at some final dramatic action, some crux of choice and need, he's finally pushed past the point where they can stay on the same road together. The two lines of "dark personal journey" and "heroic friendship" intersect in one traumatic moment -- and it all explodes, and two grown-up selves are created. Chocolate and peanut butter!
· Withdrawal, betrayal, turnaround. All the previous flirting Lex has done with the dark side, all his travels along the gray borderline, finally reach their dramatic zenith in some moment of moral choice -- a choice that the last few years have prepared us to understand. He won't "choose to be evil" -- he'll have a need that can only be answered in one dark way, and he'll finally step so far over the line the border will be out of sight. And Clark won't be able to stop it, I thought.
· Every funny, cool moment in the previous years will dramatically inform their future, layering their enmity with so much narrative punch, you have to think, Now here's a future I really want to see. A future informed by the irony that some of Superman's wisdom comes from time spent with his worst enemy; and on Lex's part, that all that hope and possibility, now utterly crushed, make him more certain than ever that he can only rely on himself. They've each created the other. And that's a responsibility they really don't want to talk about with anyone.
I swear to God that I would give almost anything to have saw any of that happen on the show in the past. What about you?
· I assumed Lana was a recurring character; that she was an ideal, like Charlie Brown's Little Red-Haired Girl, who would float about the periphery of Clark's life and influence it simply through his obsession with her as an ideal. Perhaps we'd learn about her as a person over time, and part of Clark's journey to adulthood would be finding out that ideals don't turn out to be what you think they are -- and though the reality is utterly different from what you thought you wanted, it may be even better. Maybe the reality of Lana, should we ever get to really know her, would be one of caustic wit or utter practicality; something you wouldn't expect in a "dream girl."
· My second assumption was that with all the emphasis on Lex's friendship, he'd obviously be involved in most of the main stories. And as time went on, we'd see how his view of reality and Clark's differed sharply in how they saw these main stories. I assumed also that he and Clark would influence each other; that Clark would take his parents aback by coming home repeating some aphorism of Lex's, and that Lex would find what courage he needed to get past his father by his connection with Clark.
· I took for granted that the whole tragedy -- because it was a tragedy, in the best dramatic tradition -- of Lex's friendship with Clark would reach its pinnacle in a fiery autowreck of arc in the final season; an arc that would tear the heart from the chest of the audience and stomp all over it in stiletto boots, in the best and most satisfying way.
· To set up the big narrative arc, I assumed that the friendship between Clark and Lex would get more layered through the seasons -- we didn't have enough time to really address it in season one the way I'd have liked -- and that since this is the story of Clark Kent's youth, Lex's friendship with Clark would be the last thing to die before the end, the final shove over the cliff on his long journey from antihero to villain. The obvious irony was so perfect; Clark's influence was the last thing tethering him to any kind of faith, and at some final dramatic action, some crux of choice and need, he's finally pushed past the point where they can stay on the same road together. The two lines of "dark personal journey" and "heroic friendship" intersect in one traumatic moment -- and it all explodes, and two grown-up selves are created. Chocolate and peanut butter!
· Withdrawal, betrayal, turnaround. All the previous flirting Lex has done with the dark side, all his travels along the gray borderline, finally reach their dramatic zenith in some moment of moral choice -- a choice that the last few years have prepared us to understand. He won't "choose to be evil" -- he'll have a need that can only be answered in one dark way, and he'll finally step so far over the line the border will be out of sight. And Clark won't be able to stop it, I thought.
· Every funny, cool moment in the previous years will dramatically inform their future, layering their enmity with so much narrative punch, you have to think, Now here's a future I really want to see. A future informed by the irony that some of Superman's wisdom comes from time spent with his worst enemy; and on Lex's part, that all that hope and possibility, now utterly crushed, make him more certain than ever that he can only rely on himself. They've each created the other. And that's a responsibility they really don't want to talk about with anyone.
I swear to God that I would give almost anything to have saw any of that happen on the show in the past. What about you?
Last edited:
