I haven't looked at anyone else's reviews yet, but I'm sure a prevailing theory, outside the "mom-created marysue" one, is that Lex was inventing this whole thing in his own mind. And if MR thinks that, that leads me to end with his acting choices, as I began. I was interested in the way he seemed to be undercutting the text deliberately in several places--like, he made Lex seem happy to be congratulated by Jonathan, but not too happy--as if, getting the accolades from the Kents he always wanted, they didn't actually satisfy him as much as he wanted. This was all in facial expressions, obviously, but also in the way he kind of underplayed his verbal expressions of joy.
And if I am reading this properly, it makes me love MR all the more, because he's kind of subtly suggesting that it is not actually just the fear of loss (of Lana) driving Lex's new quest for power, but far more the fact that getting what he "always wanted" wasn't really satisfying, in the end.
I read it differently, and I think there were two levels to what MR was doing with Lex in the visions: First, Lex simply is *unused* to open, genuine expressions of love and affection. He's been hugged a total of, I think, four times in canon across four and a half years -- by Clark in Prodigal and again in Asylum and by Lana in Covenant and Gone -- *and* he simply hasn't had people consistently telling him that they like, respect and admire him. Lex is not used to being on the receiving end of open expressions of emotional affection and connection, and he's *really* not used to it from this *particular* group of people -- Clark, the senior Kents, Chloe, Lana -- all of whom have spent the better part of the last year and a half or so enaging in varying degrees of heaping contempt and scorn on him.
So I think that MR, who's always been very attentive to both Lex as a character and how the *other* characters react to and perceive Lex, totally got it that the AU would be a disconcerting experience for Lex from the get-go. Then, there's the fact that the vision is a life regular!Lex would never imagine for himself -- middle-class, on a budget, *not* the world's greatest fill-in-the-blank (since I do think that even if he walked away from Lionel/Luthor Corp, Lex would still push himself to be the best at whatever he ultimately chose to do, and I think what he'd choose to do would be something that also left him financially comfortable), loved and respected by the Kents, etc. So in the early moments of the vision, there's all that bemused (and amusing) confusion from him. I disagree, though, that Lex's acceptance of the happiness of the vision seemed to take place off-screen. On the contrary, what *I* really loved about Rosenbaum's performance was the way the tentativeness of Lex's interactions suggested a *gradual* warming up to, and ultimate acceptance of, the fact that yes, this was his life and yes, he was happy in it. Lex comes to that realization at the Kents' Christmas party -- "This isn't how I ever imagined my life, but I've never felt this happy before" -- but it's been building throughout the episode up until that point. It's very subtle, nuanced acting. It may *seem* like undercutting, but I don't think that's actually what it is. To me, it read, quite appropriately given the nature of the vision, as a man who finds himself thrust into the midst of a life he never imagined for himself, complete with emotional connections he's not used to having, who is at first taken aback but then comes to realize that maybe, just maybe, he really *could* happily live that life despite it not being what he ever envisioned for himself.
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I haven't looked at anyone else's reviews yet, but I'm sure a prevailing theory, outside the "mom-created marysue" one, is that Lex was inventing this whole thing in his own mind. And if MR thinks that, that leads me to end with his acting choices, as I began. I was interested in the way he seemed to be undercutting the text deliberately in several places--like, he made Lex seem happy to be congratulated by Jonathan, but not too happy--as if, getting the accolades from the Kents he always wanted, they didn't actually satisfy him as much as he wanted. This was all in facial expressions, obviously, but also in the way he kind of underplayed his verbal expressions of joy.
And if I am reading this properly, it makes me love MR all the more, because he's kind of subtly suggesting that it is not actually just the fear of loss (of Lana) driving Lex's new quest for power, but far more the fact that getting what he "always wanted" wasn't really satisfying, in the end.
I read it differently, and I think there were two levels to what MR was doing with Lex in the visions: First, Lex simply is *unused* to open, genuine expressions of love and affection. He's been hugged a total of, I think, four times in canon across four and a half years -- by Clark in Prodigal and again in Asylum and by Lana in Covenant and Gone -- *and* he simply hasn't had people consistently telling him that they like, respect and admire him. Lex is not used to being on the receiving end of open expressions of emotional affection and connection, and he's *really* not used to it from this *particular* group of people -- Clark, the senior Kents, Chloe, Lana -- all of whom have spent the better part of the last year and a half or so enaging in varying degrees of heaping contempt and scorn on him.
So I think that MR, who's always been very attentive to both Lex as a character and how the *other* characters react to and perceive Lex, totally got it that the AU would be a disconcerting experience for Lex from the get-go. Then, there's the fact that the vision is a life regular!Lex would never imagine for himself -- middle-class, on a budget, *not* the world's greatest fill-in-the-blank (since I do think that even if he walked away from Lionel/Luthor Corp, Lex would still push himself to be the best at whatever he ultimately chose to do, and I think what he'd choose to do would be something that also left him financially comfortable), loved and respected by the Kents, etc. So in the early moments of the vision, there's all that bemused (and amusing) confusion from him. I disagree, though, that Lex's acceptance of the happiness of the vision seemed to take place off-screen. On the contrary, what *I* really loved about Rosenbaum's performance was the way the tentativeness of Lex's interactions suggested a *gradual* warming up to, and ultimate acceptance of, the fact that yes, this was his life and yes, he was happy in it. Lex comes to that realization at the Kents' Christmas party -- "This isn't how I ever imagined my life, but I've never felt this happy before" -- but it's been building throughout the episode up until that point. It's very subtle, nuanced acting. It may *seem* like undercutting, but I don't think that's actually what it is. To me, it read, quite appropriately given the nature of the vision, as a man who finds himself thrust into the midst of a life he never imagined for himself, complete with emotional connections he's not used to having, who is at first taken aback but then comes to realize that maybe, just maybe, he really *could* happily live that life despite it not being what he ever envisioned for himself.