Smallville: 05-13, “Reckoning”
Rating: 
Clark’s known for quite some time that since he was given the opportunity to come back to life, the life of someone close to him would be taken. I was hoping it would be Lana and the episode started out showing such promise. As I’ve stated elsewhere, Lana’s death would destroy Lex’s one last shred of humanity and his transformation into a villian would be complete.
There’s not much I can say about this episode without spoiling it, so meet me on the inside.
Spoilers inside! Continue reading at your own risk.
The episode jumps straight into Clark bringing Lana to the Fortress of Solitude, telling her about his secret, and asking her to marry him. After thinking it over, Lana agrees. Jonathan Kent is elected Senator and Lex calls Lana away from the party presumably for friendship and support since he’s not feeling very good about losing. Lex has been drinking and once he sees Lana’s engagement ring, he flips. Lana runs out of the mansion and Lex follows her. The car chase ends with a bus crashing head first into Lana’s SUV, flipping it over and killing her instantly.
That was awesome! That would have progressed the storyline wonderfully. Lex would not only lose the only person in the world he loves, but he would be the cause of it! Not only that, but he saw Clark run up out of nowhere.
Unfortunately, Clark returned to the Fortress to have a little chit chat with Jor-El about how things went down. He wants another chance, and Jor-El decides to give him one, but warns him that preventing this from happening will only trigger a different chain of events.
Clark returns to that day’s morning. He decides not to tell Lana the truth about himself, which only gets her angry since he’d invited her over telling her it would be a day she’d never forget. She’s reluctantly at the campaign party and is all too eager to duck out of it when Lex calls her. This time around, there’s no ring to flip over and in fact, Lex learns that Clark and Lana are about to break up. He tries to seize this opportunity by kissing Lana, but she isn’t quite ready for that yet. So she runs away and Lex chases her, just as before. This time though, Clark is able to stop the bus that would have killed Lana.
Jonathan Kent was on his way back to his farm, after receiving a phone call from Lionel Luthor wanting to meet there. The first time around, he was stopped by the scene of the accident. This time there’s nothing to stop him and he makes his appointment. Of course, Lionel wants to control Kent and Jonathan is so unhappy about this that he has a heart attack and dies.
Yep - cliche. I guess in the movie Clark’s father dies when he’s in college, so this is fitting enough. I don’t like the fact that Jonathan’s gone, though it will be refreshing for Clark to have a little less opposition all the time when it comes to just about everything. I guess Lex will become Senator by default, which I’m sure will advance him down the path of evilness, but not the same way Lana’s death would have.
The funeral scene was beautiful and easily made up for the fact that the rest of the episode was a bit disappointing. They’ve been toying with Jonathan’s death for several seasons now and I guess it’s best that it’s over with so I’m not left wondering.
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grkgrl88
I thought the episode was excellent up until Clark’s time reversal, too.
Seeing the engagement ring, Lex knew he lost Lana to Clark. Two losses to two Kents in one night. Then with Lana’s death, I’m sure he would have tipped over the edge. Lana’s death would have forwarded the characters in an interesting way.
Smallville could use a little push right about now, and I’m sorry that Jonathan’s death will do that instead. I agree that the funeral scene was beautiful and probably one of the few on televison with no dialogue.
