Smallville 5.12: "Reckoning"

Written by Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson
Directed by Greg Beeman

In which Clark decides to tell Lana his secret, but when that leads to her death, Clark strikes a deal to turn back time, unaware that the consequences will be fatal for someone else…


There was a lot of hoopla over the possibility of who would die in this episode. Early projections pointed to Chloe, if only because she’s one of the few non-comics characters on the series. However, it’s become very clear in the past several episodes that Chloe is the new Pete, the one friend that Clark can count on to discuss his unique situation with and get strong advice. That being the case, Chloe simply wasn’t in the line of fire. Instead, it came down to two obvious choices.

The structure of the episode was definitely meant to mirror the ideas in “Lexmas”. Just as Lex let the fear of losing Lana in some possible future lead to a presumably final turn towards the dark side, Clark lets his overwhelming fear over losing Lana lead to the loss of his moral compass. Lana is made even more of a pivot point for the struggle between Clark and Lex, and as each of them deal with personal demons based on possible futures that only they truly understand, the writers get the chance to explore how the two characters diverge from similar roads.

That said, the parallels could have been stronger, and the depth of emotion could have been more obvious. One big problem with this episode is Tom Welling. Usually, I don’t mind his acting, but this time he wasn’t displaying nearly enough pain and suffering, despite the iconic imagery and near-perfection of the funeral scene (love that song by Peter Gabriel!). After Lana’s apparent death, Clark’s reaction was just not convincing enough.

Also, while I am intrigued by how the writers have slowly but surely placed Lana as the central source of conflict between Clark and Lex, I can’t help but wonder if things would have been far more interesting if the writers had killed both Lana and Jonathan. Talk about learning a harsh lesson!

Chloe made a very good point, which is something that Clark will no doubt dwell upon in future episodes: Clark didn’t have to forego telling Lana the truth; he simply had to tell her what he had experienced after revealing the truth, thus giving her the chance to change her own destiny. Clark and Lex both fail to see why they cannot get what they want: neither one is willing to take Lana’s desires into consideration.

To a certain extent, it looks like I’ll get my wish. Jonathan still has a secret that could undermine the memory of his moral character, and thus force Clark to question his own moral code. Clark doesn’t have the best track record for making choices on his own, and he already has a tendency to make choices for people in the name of “doing what’s best”. That’s one of the dangers of power in general: all the good intentions in the world can still lead to megalomania. It may be too easy, however, for Clark to use Lionel Luthor as an excuse for whatever Jonathan was hiding.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about this episode is that the end result is a relatively strict adherence to continuity: Jonathan dies while Clark is still young. That’s not much of a shocker; the writers basically resorted to a trick to show the audience what they probably would have enjoyed (a deviation from expectation), only to slip back into all-too-familiar territory. And that possible accidental death for Lois was just wrong!

Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 2/4

Final Rating: 8/10