“YES. YES. Say it. He vas my… BOYFRIEND.” - Frau Bl�cher

By TrinityVixen

Once upon a time, there was a man. He didn’t have much of a conscience. (In another life, he was the literal Devil.) What he did have was money and a son. He never showed much love for either, though he kept both close. They were important, but they were still tools. The money didn’t mind. The son…not so much.

The man used the money to protect secrets, to assuage his fear, and to ensure his legacy. His used his son to the same end but with less success. The son grew up, as all sons do. The man discovered, too late, what a lifetime of manipulation, demand, abuse, neglect, dishonesty, and fear had birthed in the boy who was now a man himself.

That legacy killed the man. May whatever deity that has heard your prayers guide and protect what is left of your magnificent soul. Rest in peace, Lionel Luthor.

After seven years, Lex finds himself lethally out of patience with his father. The secret of Veritas, of the Traveler, unlike the secrets of all the seasons prior, is enough to finally propel Lex past his codependency on his abusive father. The key that is in Lionel’s possession is all Lex has ever remembered wanting because he’s completely forgotten how much he used to want his father to love him. Chloe says it, much, much later, but a total absence of love “is the definition of evil.” Whether it’s true that Lex was never loved at all or even if he only imagines that this is the case, there is no love in Lex Luthor’s life. So, now, his path is determined. Nowhere to go but down.

Lionel tries to buy himself some time, while, in truth, he is the best prepared for his own inevitable mortality of any character on the show. He is Lionel Luthor after all; Lionel has always squirmed out of tight corners where he could. He tells Lex that Lex is the Traveler. It fazes his son, who, in his desperation—still—to be loved, wants to believe that the hardness inside him is toughness, is protection granted him from his father.

But he gets past it in a hurry. Lex remembers Lionel dragging him into the danger of the meteor shower. His father’s greatest obsession ruined him, so he will return the favor. Not even two years ago, Lionel recognized the evil in having the power to destroy the Traveler. He learned, with Jor-El’s help, that the Traveler needed to be free to save the world. The Traveler wasn’t the threat; Veritas was. Lex doesn’t know that, and, without giving away the Traveler’s identity—which in itself is key to controlling him—Lionel cannot tell him.

It is the last betrayal Lex could ever countenance. He grabs Lionel by the collar and delivers him from this world to the next with as little affection as he believes he has ever experienced from his father.

“I was raised in your shadow,” says Lex from beyond the pale. “Now you’re going to die in mine. No one will even remember your name.”

(Remember when veiled references to the canonical story of Superman were funny? Yeah, this is not one of those times.)

Lex shoves Lionel out a window. It’s easy to pretend this is no more permanent than a hundred on- or off-screen deaths that have occurred until you really look at Lionel’s expression. He is resigned. He has failed on so many levels. Chagrin and sadness purse his lips, and he watches his son rush away from him unable to say anything. He doesn’t scream. Lionel has his moment to regret and then some stairs go through the back of his head when he hits the ground.

Lex blinks, and the contact is broken but the results are unchanged. Lionel really is dead. Lex really has killed his father. This is Cassandra’s dream—six and a half years old—coming true. This is Lex in a white suit and one black leather glove. This is the Lex Luthor we’ve been waiting for, and isn’t he glorious? Isn’t he what you always wanted? Isn’t this what we were promised? This is Lex Luthor of comics, and you wish he had never existed.

To be fair, so does Lex. He has crossed That Line. And for what? No one is sorry for him. They mouth the words of condolence, but their sympathies are with Lionel. They realize, too late, as Lex does, that Lionel did not deserve this fate. Clark, Chloe, Lois, and even Jimmy regret Lionel’s passing. Lex discovers that the murder did not produce the key to unlocking Veritas’ secret. Lionel did something right; a minor angel hides his key.

So a minor devil leads Lex right back to it. Gina gives Lex a rundown of Lionel’s last movements before his death, letting him know the only places Lionel might have stashed the key. Gina, of course, understands immediately what Lex has done for the sake of finding key, and she is not at all troubled. She loves it. Many of his devotees excuse Lex for anything if it means Lex will like them better, not realizing he might never have sinned if they’d rebuked him. (And he would have loved them if they had. Like he will never love Gina no matter how good at her job, no matter how loyal she is.) It’s okay if it’s Lex, is the thinking.

However, Gina’s completely around the twist in love with him, so she misses how even Lex blanches when she demonizes Lionel to pardon Lex’s sins. Lex shares the only happy memory he has of his father—going to the Air and Space Museum just for Lex, because Lionel knew Lex loved things that could fly. (Parents, man, they always know.) And Gina responds by calling Lionel “a cruel and sadistic man.” Little devil, you are talking to a man in a complicated sort of grief. The last thing he wants to be told is that he has a free pass out of it when he brought it on himself. No one else will grieve with him because they sense he doesn’t deserve it. Don’t tell him he doesn’t need it.

Because he does. He needs to mourn. A boy with red hair looks at him and tells him confession is good for his soul. “Dad loved us,” young Lex tells himself. And now, no one does. That’s worth a tear or two.

Elsewhere, evidence begins to accrue. On a snooping run through Lex’s office, Jimmy snapped a picture that caught the first few feet of Lionel’s swan dive. (Finally, they acknowledge the uncomfortable proximity of the offices of LuthorCorp and The Daily Planet.) He and Lois know there was someone else in the room, and they send the picture to the Isis Foundation to use the superior hard- and software to clear up the blurred image. Clark finds a message in Kryptonian from Lionel, warning him about the knowledge that Veritas collected and hid away for a very good reason. (It also is a sweet goodbye.) Chloe discovers the key tucked away inside an envelope in her desk. There is more Kryptonian scrawl on the envelope that she cannot read and only barely has time to shred before Lex shows up looking for the key. Lionel’s last act is undone when she can’t hide it well enough. Lex fires her, casually cruel now that his true villainy has succeeded. Gina promises to clean up after him—again, always is the hope in her voice—and discovers Jimmy’s photo. Gina has some more work to do.

The next scene is the parting grace of series creators Gough and Millar, I’m absolutely convinced. This show has always exposited everything. How people feel, what meteor-freak-of-the-week was up to what–everything. It’s as if they assume one half of the people onscreen at any time are Lassie and they have to translate the barking into English. “What’s that girl? Timmy fell down the well?” They don’t not explain when they could write clunky dialogue and ratchet up the melodrama. 

And the next scene does start off that way. Clark is caught snooping for the key in the mansion as Lex walks in, still demanding that someone let him grieve (for his own mistake if not his father). The conversation that follows has no course; it ricochets between improbable, confused accusations. The gist is that Lex attacks Clark for being perfect and manages to blame Clark for the deaths of both Lionel Luthor and Jonathan Kent. They gay-fight over who was whose bad friend first, with Lex projecting all over Clark (not that way) about not being as perfect as he.

The trick is, Lex already knows he’s lost the argument. Somewhere, the anger and the hurt overwhelm the scene. Clark is madder than anything, raw from the inside because Lex’s words are as true as they are inaccurate. Clark’s actions did lead to Jonathan’s death, but it’s not the same as what Lex did to Lionel. (And Lex knows it and bleeds a little for it because at least Jonathan died out of love for his son.) Righteously infuriated, as only those half-guilty of the crime themselves can be, Clark accuses Lex of murdering Lionel. Lex scoffs.

“I have proof!” Clark shouts.

The scene freezes on the silence. Fear grips Lex Luthor, and suddenly Clark knows he was fishing for that proof—he didn’t really have anything except suspicion until Lex was too paralyzed by paranoia to come up with a retort. There are no more words exchanged were none are needed. For once, Smallville has learned to shut up and tell the story with bodies and faces—the source of ninety percent of our emotional communication. God bless Michael Rosenbaum and Tom Welling; they are trusted to convey shame and crushing disappointment, respectively, without the crutch of words, and they do a fabulous job.

Lex doesn’t know that Gina is all over the proof like white on psychotic rice. Before she even threatens Jimmy and Lois for the picture, she’s deleted it entirely from The Daily Planet’s server. But there was a copy sent elsewhere. She needs to know where, and she’s not hesitant about shooting Lois and leaving her and Jimmy to freeze to death in a walk-in cooler (conveniently located in the alley behind the Planet) once she has the information. It takes her back to the Isis Foundation, to where Chloe is doing some impressive CSI-worthy rendering on a few pixels to make out Lex’s face. It kills me that knowing for certain that Lex is the murderer actually makes her sad. It is possible for her to be more disappointed in Lex Luthor. If Lex knew, he’d cry.

Chloe only has a little time to reflect on the serious and varied problems of the Luthors before Gina cold-cocks her from behind. By the time Clark returns to Isis, the picture, all of Chloe’s work, is gone. But Gina is not. What is the point of super-hearing, which Clark exercises in the very next scene, if he can’t tell that Gina’s still there? He dashes off to save Lois and Jimmy. (USING SUPER HEARING TO FIND THEM WTF? He also displays a remarkable control over his heated eye beams in saving them from hypothermia.)

Before all this, though, Gina overhears Chloe and Clark confirm that he is the Traveler. She could die of joy because now Lex will love her. She has something he needs, something that could make it even easier to put the secret of Veritas to good use. Gina calls Lex to tell him she knows who the Traveler is, and is now a good time to start picking out China patterns and bed linens? Because, baby, Gina is floating.

She is also dead. So, so dead. Even Lex thinks she is monstrous for how she treated Lionel’s memory, and he actually murdered the magnificent bastard. Lex won’t tolerate competition (and can’t contemplate villainy more dread than his own). It costs him the Traveler’s identity, but it puts the fierce and unknown entity of Gina out of his way. Again, there is such elegance and finesse to her exit, you wonder at Lex’s haste that led him to have Cygnet Swann shot in the head and dumped in a lake. Lex’s assassin comes from behind, jerking Gina’s head back. As she gasps in surprise, he shoots something from what looks like an inhaler into her mouth. She keeps gasping and twitching as the man puts her into her car. Gina’s eyes are wide with fright and then she is dead. Absurdly, delicately, the assassin buckles her in and places her fallen glasses back on her nose. Dignity in death, a measure of respect for her understanding, and Lex’s last little goodbye. No guns and blazes of glory for this one. But how will he ever get along without her?

One last time, Gough and Millar put their trust in Rosenbaum and Welling, and the episode ends in brilliance. Lex closes Lionel’s funeral to everyone; Clark shows up anyway. They flirt, tentatively, without saying a word, but ultimately they cannot stay in each other’s company without crying or screwing or hurting, so Lex leaves. They cannot speak because they know everything is pointless now. They are on opposite sides of death—literally positioned across Lionel’s open grave—and they gaze across the gap, each wondering how anyone can live on the other side.

Clark is born of the stars, but his heart is tied to the land. He is a farm boy, even if he is an alien. Farmers know dirt. They know it makes life. Life comes from waste, comes most verdantly from death. Lionel died that he might have a life unencumbered by the weakness of men—fear, avarice, all the seven most deadly ones. In death, there has been goodness in Lionel’s life that is worth grieving for, is worthy of respect. Clark takes a handful of dirt to sprinkle on the casket and gives back a promise of life from death. 

The question is will he grow up now? Now that the soil is ready to support him, now that others have put him up higher by throwing themselves under his feet—is he ready to do what must be done? Not what Jor-El would have of him, not under orders from Veritas, but what he, Clark, the human in the Kryptonian, would have done? Grow, little seed. If Lionel had to die for you, by God, you will become Superman.

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About TrinityVixen: There’s an asterisk on TrinityVixen’scollege transcript that assures anyone who reads it that, though there is no specific major, degree, or certificate for it, she did, in fact, complete some kind of creative writing program as an undergrad. Armed with that symbol of irrelevant experience, she has polluted the internet with her opinions and horrible fanworks ever since (and for quite a long while before). Living poor in New York until she finds a means to become independently wealthy, she must subsist on the juicy meat of fandom. Fandom and noodles. And instant soup.