Smallville: Quest
Star TrekStargate:AtlantisFireflyBy TrinityVixen
Somewhere during the past two episodes, while the writers fumbled around with Jimmy’s skills-like-a-ninja and Clark’s Wonderful Life, they developed the story of the season a little further. My apologies: whilst I was preoccupied with locating my eyeballs after rolling them so hard they fell out of my head, I forgot to mention that Lex actually found the secret of Veritas.
The two keys that were bought with the blood of Robert Queen and Cygnet Swann opened a safety deposit box in Zurich. Lex found something hidden in a false bottom on the box. A bank guard attacked him, recognizing that he was not a proper member of the cabal, but Lex escaped with the secret.
What is the secret of Veritas? We pick up the story, already in progress, as a grumpy German fellow peers at it. Lex declares him an expert on antiquities, which begs the question of how old, exactly, this steampunk gadget is. It predates Veritas, at least the Veritas of Lionel’s generation, yet it glimmers with nary a trace of rust nor dent from careless handling.
(Somewhere, lost to the abyss of suck that was fourth season, there was information pointing to prophecies about Clark’s arrival some hundreds of years before the meteor shower brought him to Earth. Which is a very cool concession to the fact that, were powerful telescopes that might have caught the explosion of Krypton as viewed through a wormhole.)
The object protected by Veritas is a polished rectangular face with wheels on the front. The wheels have notches in them that, when turned together properly, form small windows, rather like what you’d use to translate a secret message. The back is all wheels and cogs like a clock. Keep that last part in mind. To avoid having to call it “the secret of Veritas” for the rest of this review, I’ll use Lex’s shorthand and call it the “cryptograph.” Or is it “kryptograph?” Must be the latter because last I checked a cryptograph was a puzzle. This is more like a key. Kryptograph it is.
The antiquities expert convinces Lex to let him abscond with the kryptograph, and Lex tells his head lackey to put a security detail on him to be sure nothing goes wrong. I don’t know if he’s using outside contractors for this, but let’s hope so. Given the mansion security’s track record, I’m pretty sure the antiquities dude is better off guarding himself with a wet-noodle whip.
Sure enough, Lex’s security crack security is nowhere to be found when the bank guard from Zurich shows up at the mansion. He stabs Lex in the side before carving some Kryptonian symbols into Lex’s chest. This may not be the right time to mention this, but I’ve always loved the Kryptonian language as represented on this show. It’s completely random, far as I can tell, with no letter-to-letter homologues to English, but it looks credibly alien and that’s good enough. The geometric shapes befit an alien race that must have excelled at physics and math.
Back to Lex’s chest. (Mrrrrr—ow.) Via Jimmy’s ambulance chasing, Chloe passes on pictures of the symbols to Clark. I swear, last year he couldn’t read anything in Kryptonian and now he’s the Krypto-to-English dictionary. The symbols say “traveler” and “savior.” Lex has one sacredly wicked scar then. Clark goes to confront him to find he’s already done a runner from the hospital.
The expert is in his shop, taking the kryptograph apart only to find an etching on one of the pieces. The etching is of four diamonds set at ninety degree angles and all touching in the center, rather like a cross. Just as he discovers this, the bank guard from Zurich busts in and decimates the two-person wuss detail. Lex takes out the guard in turn. Kryptograph: still in Luthor territory.
Over at Isis, Clark stares at blown up versions of Jimmy’s photos. He whines to Chloe that he is afraid that Lex was hurt to protect him and that he doesn’t want anyone killed in his name. (Cue obligatory reference to God.) He recovers well enough to realize that the random strokes of the knife carve out a third, smaller symbol from the two larger. This one says “sanctuary.”
Fun fact: there is no Kryptonian word for “church.” Okay, yeah, it blows up and everybody dies, but suddenly I have this urge to move to this wonderful planet with no religions. Ah, an atheist can dream. Still not sure how they know what “savior” is without religion. Say what you like about Clark’s vocabulary, he deciphers the symbol as “savior” not “hero,” so I’m guessing however he learned Kryptonian that that is the most accurate translation. As the faux-German antiquities guy might say, “Very interestink!”
Chloe solves the riddle: “savior” plus “sanctuary” means “saint.” Patron Saint of Travelers is Christopher. Despite the bank guard being from Zurich, she assumes the order of Saint Christopher, Veritas Chapter is situated in North America. If you thought she got through the mental hoops quickly, watch how little time it takes her to go from “Hey, Montreal is a fan of St. Christopher” to putting the Mapquest data onto Clark’s cell phone. (BROUGHT TO YOU BY SPRINT.)
Also on his way to answers: Lex Luthor. The antiquities dealer tells him that the diamonds etched into the kryptograph are a watchmaker named Brauer’s version of the Swoosh. Brauer fashioned a clock back in the day for a rich client. He went cuckoo, the clock went missing. Because all clockmakers and antiquities guys are totally up on their myths and the locations of missing objects, the antiquities dealer knows where the clock is. He also knows that Virgil Swann sent it to its final destination in—you guessed it—Montreal. Dig that Lex and Clark get to the same place via different clues, but how the heck did this secret society stay so secret with this many threads unraveling it?
Clark arrives in the cathedral of St. Christopher and finds Kryptonian symbols carved into the font of holy water. Everyone in Montreal who attends this church is cool about what look to be pagan symbols being part of the scenery when they get their kids baptized. Maybe St. Christopher was Kryptonian? Jesus was!
A creepy monk arrives to find Clark lifting the heavy stone basin to read more symbols under it and reveals that he is Edward Teague, the last survivor of Veritas. He bows to Clark and says he’s been waiting a lifetime to serve him. I’m guessing the Canadians writing for this show don’t recognize how unfortunate that language sounds when it comes from a man of the cloth speaking to a young man. Yeah, remember when I said that line from “Traveler” was the gayest thing ever? This is getting up there, both in the homo overtones and the uncomfortableness which doesn’t even let up when we get back from a commercial break. Because Eddy Teague has waited his time to serve and, by God, he is going to do it!
(He’s also played by the guy who was the holographic doctor in Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Voyager. He was a total uptight, prissy queen on that show, too.)
Clark says thanks, no; he already has one psychotic, obsessive frenemy boyfriend. Teague doesn’t get the memo and keeps going on about belief. It’s okay that Oliver Queen’s parents DIED, that Dr. and Cygnet Swann are DEAD, that his own wife and son are DEAD—Eddy Teague believes they can all went to Hell happy since they did it to save Clark! He confuses the point by saying that Lionel had some of them murdered. So they did not, in fact, lay down their lives to stand in the way of a threat to Clark’s life. Yay for belief…?
Teague’s hate-on for Lionel is passed on to Lex. Lex is as untrustworthy as Lionel, says Eddy. The fact that Dr. Swann never trusted Teauge far enough to tell him what the secret was doesn’t mean he’s untrustworthy, nooooo sir. It’s Lionel who was the dick, keeping Clark’s secret and not turning him over to the secret society of boy-lovers. Mm-hmm. He’s confused as to why Clark hesitates to fulfill the NAMBLA destiny Veritas set up for him. And why hasn’t he killed Lex if he knows how dangerous Lex is? Clark is not a fan of the killing. Or of Teague for that matter.
Upset at discovering a reluctant savior, Teague doses Clark with kryptonite to subdue him. Teague’s motivations make no sense. “Lex can’t be allowed to control you! No one can!” Says Eddy as he holds Clark hostage with kryptonite. The creep factor of Teague just broke me, so let’s just move on.
On his way to Montreal, Lex downs painkillers for the shaving burn on his chest while he threatens and harasses the antiquities dealer into putting the kryptograph back together. Antiquities dude is all “Why should I? You’re just going to kill me any way.” Good point. Too bad he doesn’t stick to his guns and refuse to work on the piece at all. Geeze, Lex, you tell one sob story about Daddy not loving you, and people are in thrall. Did you mention that you were the one who killed Daddy? No, of course not. And the man with an entire laboratory devoted to recreating the crash where he met his ex-boyfriend has the nerve to call Daddy obsessive?
Chained to a stone table, Clark listens to Eddy rant some more. He’s being punished for letting the kryptograph fall into the wrong hands. Or he’s being protected against what the kryptograph can do to him. No, wait, he’s going to go through an ancient Kryptonian ritual. (Clark’s getting a bris? At this late age? Ouch. Kryptonians are hard core.) Actually, it’s a sign of respect for your enemies to…
Eddy’s all over the map with his excuses to start with the Clark torture. Jor-El is invoked at one point and blamed for the kryptograph’s existence. Swann said Clark was good, fundamentally, yet overlooked his own examples (Teague was more observant) where the Kryptonian tea leaves said Clark could be used for evil. Swann told Teague everything! (But not who Clark was, or what the secret was, or that he trusted Clark more than some prophecies…)
In short, Teague is nutballs. He pours liquid kryptonite into reservoirs cut into the stone table and gets to work carving a chevron shape containing a figure eight into Clark. (Imagine Superman’s logo with an 8 instead of an S and you’re there.) Tom Welling acts as if being engraved is like having a painful, extremely draining blow job. This couldn’t get any more awkward. Teague prays to his knife. I stand corrected.
Lex! Thank Jeebus. In no time at all, he’s in the cathedral and has found Brauer’s clock. A panel on the clock fits perfectly to the back of the kryptograph. Lex puts them together and it starts to grind its gears. A charming little melody plays. (Points to me, I recognized it straight away. Comes from being a Celt. More on that later.) Lex is close to tears. He killed his dad for a wind-up piano solo?
The hands on the face of the clock spin, and a secret door revolves around to produce a new key. Smaller than the one Clark uses to get to the Fortress through the caves, it has four white diamonds in a cross-shape set into it. Lex takes it and turns to leave. Edward Teague stands in his way. He’s taken the Traveler out of the equation. With everything connected in the great circle of life, no Traveler means no destroyer. Sorry, Lex, you’re just going to have to be an average patricidal, billionaire megalomaniac. Oh no he didn’t! Sword fight!
Chloe to the rescue! She’s in Montreal courtesy of a Queen Industries private jet (off-screen Oliver with the hook up again!), just in time to seal up the liquid kryptonite and free Clark. She calls herself a “Hero-Hag,” and the subtext once again becomes text. Clark shuts down the fight between Lex and Teague, destroying the clock in the process. Lex and Teague don’t resume the fight after he leaves because their hearts aren’t into it or something. Teague has tried to kill Lex, yet he lets him walk off with the key?
Back on his plane bound for Scotland, Lex has head lackey doing research on the isle of St. Kilda. The song the clock played was “Birks of St. Kilda.” I…don’t think so. The song to that tune I know by the title “Loch Lomond,” a.k.a. the “you take the high road, and I’ll take the low road” song you hear most pseudo-Scotsmen and –women singing when drunk. (“Scotland the Brave” is this Scotswoman’s personal favorite hammered-back-into-her-ancestral-times drinking song.)
Let’s pretend they’re looking for villages around Loch Lomond. And they find one. It has a castle, even. Had. Lex perks up. Castle, you say? Head lackey mentions that it got picked up and moved to Kansas by some crazy rich dude. Can you imagine? What are the odds? I mean, this is an incredible coincidence! Lionel’s castle in Smallville is the one that has the device that can control Clark? Get out of town!
Chloe returns to Smallville to champagne and candlelight. Jimmy’s homework on the symbols from the caves has lead to his first print article. Doing high-school level analysis and consulting an expert on hieroglyphics (who, naturally, specialize in North American cave paintings unrelated to the New, Middle, or Old Kingdoms of Egypt), he has unraveled the mystery of the Native American myth about good versus evil. Only it turns out that sometimes the good and evil are capable of existing in one being! The journey to one side or another is completed when the two sides battle. Chloe sweetly pretends her boyfriend is smart. Jimmy and Chloe have an almost normal relationship with the being happy for each other and supportive (when they’re not lying and avoiding each other).
In case you missed that, though, the show would like to make it abundantly clear that JUST LIKE THE CAVE PAINTINGS, this is all headed towards a showdown between good versus evil. EVERYBODY GET THAT? Clark still needs Chloe to spell it out for him. He’s stuck on the idea that he’s better gone than evil, Jor-El’s Alterna-ville lesson promptly forgotten. But which is worse? Evil done through him or evil done in his absence? Maybe, if you stopped being such a goddamned boy scout, Clark, and started kicking arse as Superman you’d have fewer problems. Not today, folks.
Chloe encourages Clark to bad-assery. He’s on a collision course with Lex, why not just finish it? It’s not like he hasn’t been close to doing it for less important reasons. Last year, he almost killed Lex because he thought Lex had killed Lana. Through him, Lex could kill billions. Orders of magnitudes of difference in levels of relative moral badness, except to Clark for whom Lana trumps all. Clark was going to kill Lex the year before, too, when Zod had possessed him. This isn’t a new concept for you, Clark. Get with the program.
Lex is already on with his side of this epic battle. He has a team taking apart his house looking for the artifact to destroy the Traveler. He starts to sing bogus lyrics from “Loch Lomond” to narrow down the search. (Maybe Lionel taught him the wrong lyrics?) You won’t believe where the device is hiding. Where is the one place where Lex Luthor stands all the time, where he should have the detailing of his house so well memorized that he should have known where the device was the second he saw the diamond shaped etching on the kryptograph?
Where else? It’s in his fireplace.
Lex removes the device, a Kryptonian Eight ball (for real!) and places the key into the slot. It starts to float and spits outs a hologram of the globe, pinpointing a spot in the Arctic Circle north of Greenland. The thing’s broken. Clark is in Kansas, Kryptonian Eight ball!
Oh, but the Fortress is up around there. Uh oh.
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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.
Stumble it!