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More thoughts on SV: Hydro
This is my 300th post. I feel like I should say something significant, so here is another stab at a more in-depth analysis of "Hydro," though I don't feel that I have it entirely pinned down yet.
One thing "Hydro" reminded me of is the deep irony at the heart of "Smallville": Clark must conceal the truth about himself to make Superman possible, and yet in his future life as journalist Clark Kent, he will dedicate himself to exposing the truth. Smallville has had a love-hate relationship with journalism and the quest for truth since the very beginning. In season 1, Chloe's journalistic skills are essential to revealing to Clark (and the viewer) the dangerous truths about the effects of the meteors, and uncovering the specific dangers posed every week by different FOTWs, and yet her journalistic skills are dangerous, because her curiousity might lead her to uncover Clark's secret. The threat posed by unscrupulous journalists like Roger Nixon, Carrie Castle, and Perry White all serve to underscore the hazards of this profession for Clark.
So in some ways Linda Lake is just another in a line of unscrupulous journalists on the show. Yet interestingly, she isn't blackmailing her sources or making up stories; she is simply using unorthodox tactics to get the story. (Something Chloe doesn't really have grounds to criticize her on). I wonder if part of this plotline was written to demonstrate that Chloe's concern for keeping Clark's secret is hurting not only her relationships with Lana and Jimmy, but also her professional career? In the initial confrontation between Linda and Chloe, Chloe says she could never destroy a man's career like Linda had. But Lake's revelation turned out to be true--it was simply her methods for discovering the truth that weren't orthodox. And yes, she killed the sports dude, but that was arguably self-defense. I think we're supposed to see Lake kind of as Chloe-before-she-knew-the-secret. She's ambitious, she goes after stories, but she speaks the truth, even if it puts her in danger. Yes, of course there is an element of self-interest in her tactics; she wants to get ahead, and she isn't a paragon of journalistic ethics, and there are those unspecified crimes in her past that make her the bad guy--but I think she is right in her observation that Chloe has prioritized her relationship with Clark over going after stories.
And I don't think we, the audience, are supposed to see this as a bad thing--but it will have consequences. Did anyone else think that Chloe was going to have to somehow delete a clear picture of Clark as Green Arrow, when Jimmy pulled up those files? In fact, I strongly predict that something like that will happen in a future episode. In the division between secret-keepers and truth-tellers, Chloe has entered the ranks of the secret-keepers. And keeping secrets, as Lois points out in this episode, is just a way to get around "thou shalt not lie."
Meanwhile, Lois is mirroring early Chloe (and current Lana) in trying to uncover the secrets about her own man. I think I have pinned down precisely why Clark's deception of Lois bothered me in this episode. She turns to Clark for help investigating--foreshadowing their future role as a team, just like working with Jimmy was also foreshadowing their future--and Clark deliberately deceives her. It's not his betrayal of their friendship that upsets me so much as his betrayal of their investigative partnership, which I think is really the heart of their relationship in Superman canon. I'm glad this isn't their first real investigation together, since that would just be wrong to me--but it is their first investigation together since Lois became serious about journalism. Of course, the choice that Clark makes her is a choice he's going to make canonically for a long time, I assume; who knows when this Lois will discover Superman's real identity?
It is textually acknowledged that Lois is different both from Linda Lake (Clark's comment "bounced off Linda Lake and landed on me") and from Chloe (who has given up certain lines of investigation because of her relationship with Clark). Clark tells her she's like "a pit bull with a pant leg," that she can't let the truth slide simply because she's in love with Oliver, even though emotionally she's wrapped up in him enough that she wouldn't mind if he were an alien from another planet. I'm just not sure if the viewer, here, is supposed to be thinking that Lois is going to be striking some very different kind of balance between truth-seeking and protecting relationships than Chloe, or if Chloe's position is the one she's supposed to end up at? Or perhaps once Clark and Superman's identities are separate, she won't be in exactly the same bind Chloe is in?
*****
I actually wanted to make some more general comments about secret-keeping and truth-telling in this episode, and somehow this has ended up being more about journalism, Chloe and Lois. But I do want to point out how interesting it is that everyone is keeping secrets in this episode: Chloe is keeping Clark's and Lana's; Lana is keeping her pregnancy a secret from Clark, and keeping her renewed interest in Clark from Lex; Jimmy is keeping the fact that he's working with Lois secret from Chloe; Lois is keeping her knowledge of the GA's identity from Ollie; Clark's keeping Ollie's secret from Lois. And yet truth-telling/revelation of secrets does *not* lead to good things in this episode. Lana tells Chloe about Lex's proposal, and that news is leaked; similarly, Chloe tells Clark that keeping his secret is hard, and consequently his secret is discovered; Lana uncovering the secret that Chloe *knows* Clark's secret creates a rift between them, and makes Lana desparate to enter the charmed intimate circle of those who know Clark's secret.
Knowing someone's secret is a sign of intimacy in Smallville. For the first few seasons, for example, Lex too was desparate to enter that intimate circle of Clark's secret-keepers, the family he always wanted--and he did this at first through sharing his own secrets with Clark, and then sharing his power, money, and influence. With Helen, he shared not only secrets from his life, but also the ur-secret: his forbidden quest for knowledge about Clark (and the mutants). In season 5, he repeated this pattern with Lana, sharing secrets with her and sharing the quest for knowledge. Undoubtedly he was selective in revealing things to her, and I think as season 5 progressed Lex became convinced true intimacy was impossible. For him the quest for secrets became centered on controlling his fate and the quest for power. But since Lana shared his assumption that sharing secrets meant intimacy, she felt close to him, special, loved in a way that Clark didn't love her.
That was all recapitulated in the final scene in Hydro. Lana told Lex the truth about her feelings, in all their messy and self-absorbed glory. I assume she felt that because she was telling the truth, and giving him access to her own secrets, what she actually *said* wasn't important. Or at least that is the charitable reading of that scene. Maybe a more accurate reading would be to say that she has learned the Luthorian principle that truth-telling can also be a weapon. Just as Lex uses the truth of Lana's pregnancy as a weapon against Clark, maybe Lana is deliberately trying to tell Lex here that she may marry him, but he will never completely own her--since losing herself seems to be one of her biggest fears.
On a non-meta-y note: Happy birthday,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
random_serious!
One thing "Hydro" reminded me of is the deep irony at the heart of "Smallville": Clark must conceal the truth about himself to make Superman possible, and yet in his future life as journalist Clark Kent, he will dedicate himself to exposing the truth. Smallville has had a love-hate relationship with journalism and the quest for truth since the very beginning. In season 1, Chloe's journalistic skills are essential to revealing to Clark (and the viewer) the dangerous truths about the effects of the meteors, and uncovering the specific dangers posed every week by different FOTWs, and yet her journalistic skills are dangerous, because her curiousity might lead her to uncover Clark's secret. The threat posed by unscrupulous journalists like Roger Nixon, Carrie Castle, and Perry White all serve to underscore the hazards of this profession for Clark.
So in some ways Linda Lake is just another in a line of unscrupulous journalists on the show. Yet interestingly, she isn't blackmailing her sources or making up stories; she is simply using unorthodox tactics to get the story. (Something Chloe doesn't really have grounds to criticize her on). I wonder if part of this plotline was written to demonstrate that Chloe's concern for keeping Clark's secret is hurting not only her relationships with Lana and Jimmy, but also her professional career? In the initial confrontation between Linda and Chloe, Chloe says she could never destroy a man's career like Linda had. But Lake's revelation turned out to be true--it was simply her methods for discovering the truth that weren't orthodox. And yes, she killed the sports dude, but that was arguably self-defense. I think we're supposed to see Lake kind of as Chloe-before-she-knew-the-secret. She's ambitious, she goes after stories, but she speaks the truth, even if it puts her in danger. Yes, of course there is an element of self-interest in her tactics; she wants to get ahead, and she isn't a paragon of journalistic ethics, and there are those unspecified crimes in her past that make her the bad guy--but I think she is right in her observation that Chloe has prioritized her relationship with Clark over going after stories.
And I don't think we, the audience, are supposed to see this as a bad thing--but it will have consequences. Did anyone else think that Chloe was going to have to somehow delete a clear picture of Clark as Green Arrow, when Jimmy pulled up those files? In fact, I strongly predict that something like that will happen in a future episode. In the division between secret-keepers and truth-tellers, Chloe has entered the ranks of the secret-keepers. And keeping secrets, as Lois points out in this episode, is just a way to get around "thou shalt not lie."
Meanwhile, Lois is mirroring early Chloe (and current Lana) in trying to uncover the secrets about her own man. I think I have pinned down precisely why Clark's deception of Lois bothered me in this episode. She turns to Clark for help investigating--foreshadowing their future role as a team, just like working with Jimmy was also foreshadowing their future--and Clark deliberately deceives her. It's not his betrayal of their friendship that upsets me so much as his betrayal of their investigative partnership, which I think is really the heart of their relationship in Superman canon. I'm glad this isn't their first real investigation together, since that would just be wrong to me--but it is their first investigation together since Lois became serious about journalism. Of course, the choice that Clark makes her is a choice he's going to make canonically for a long time, I assume; who knows when this Lois will discover Superman's real identity?
It is textually acknowledged that Lois is different both from Linda Lake (Clark's comment "bounced off Linda Lake and landed on me") and from Chloe (who has given up certain lines of investigation because of her relationship with Clark). Clark tells her she's like "a pit bull with a pant leg," that she can't let the truth slide simply because she's in love with Oliver, even though emotionally she's wrapped up in him enough that she wouldn't mind if he were an alien from another planet. I'm just not sure if the viewer, here, is supposed to be thinking that Lois is going to be striking some very different kind of balance between truth-seeking and protecting relationships than Chloe, or if Chloe's position is the one she's supposed to end up at? Or perhaps once Clark and Superman's identities are separate, she won't be in exactly the same bind Chloe is in?
*****
I actually wanted to make some more general comments about secret-keeping and truth-telling in this episode, and somehow this has ended up being more about journalism, Chloe and Lois. But I do want to point out how interesting it is that everyone is keeping secrets in this episode: Chloe is keeping Clark's and Lana's; Lana is keeping her pregnancy a secret from Clark, and keeping her renewed interest in Clark from Lex; Jimmy is keeping the fact that he's working with Lois secret from Chloe; Lois is keeping her knowledge of the GA's identity from Ollie; Clark's keeping Ollie's secret from Lois. And yet truth-telling/revelation of secrets does *not* lead to good things in this episode. Lana tells Chloe about Lex's proposal, and that news is leaked; similarly, Chloe tells Clark that keeping his secret is hard, and consequently his secret is discovered; Lana uncovering the secret that Chloe *knows* Clark's secret creates a rift between them, and makes Lana desparate to enter the charmed intimate circle of those who know Clark's secret.
Knowing someone's secret is a sign of intimacy in Smallville. For the first few seasons, for example, Lex too was desparate to enter that intimate circle of Clark's secret-keepers, the family he always wanted--and he did this at first through sharing his own secrets with Clark, and then sharing his power, money, and influence. With Helen, he shared not only secrets from his life, but also the ur-secret: his forbidden quest for knowledge about Clark (and the mutants). In season 5, he repeated this pattern with Lana, sharing secrets with her and sharing the quest for knowledge. Undoubtedly he was selective in revealing things to her, and I think as season 5 progressed Lex became convinced true intimacy was impossible. For him the quest for secrets became centered on controlling his fate and the quest for power. But since Lana shared his assumption that sharing secrets meant intimacy, she felt close to him, special, loved in a way that Clark didn't love her.
That was all recapitulated in the final scene in Hydro. Lana told Lex the truth about her feelings, in all their messy and self-absorbed glory. I assume she felt that because she was telling the truth, and giving him access to her own secrets, what she actually *said* wasn't important. Or at least that is the charitable reading of that scene. Maybe a more accurate reading would be to say that she has learned the Luthorian principle that truth-telling can also be a weapon. Just as Lex uses the truth of Lana's pregnancy as a weapon against Clark, maybe Lana is deliberately trying to tell Lex here that she may marry him, but he will never completely own her--since losing herself seems to be one of her biggest fears.
On a non-meta-y note: Happy birthday,
random_serious!
no subject
And -- sad as it is, I beleive you are very right when you end with "maybe Lana is deliberately trying to tell Lex here that she may marry him, but he will never completely own her--since losing herself seems to be one of her biggest fears."
She is. Maybe that's one small saving grace in their relationship; each knows just who and what the other wants.
And besides, how can Lex truly complain that she loves both himself and Clark? It's clear that he still loves Clark too.
At least he'll have this, for a while.
Gosh, I need a hug now. :P
no subject
I agree with you that both Lex and Lana are still canonically fixated on Clark (and we all know they both are really still in love with him). Sometimes I really think a threesome is the obvious solution!
We are definitely moving in the direction of tragedy for everyone's relationships this season, though.
no subject
It's also possible that Lana was just so self-involved that she actually has no rationale for telling Lex what she did, beyond "this is how I feel and how I feel is, by definition, Very Important." Hmm...
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