Season 1, Episode 7: Craving

"Craving"
Episode 7
Air Date: November 27th, 2001

You know, I forget that Smallville during these early seasons would drift into the realm of the complete insanity and self parody with the various superpowers these meteor freaks would display that Clark would have to..."contend".  Here we have Jodi, played by a VERY unknown Amy Adams at the time, who gives a decent performance given the extreme silliness of her character's predicament.  Once again, we have a very high school dilemma with a teen girl struggling with her weight, especially when it gets her constantly bullied in school by the stereotypical a$$hole but its how Jodi gets her power and what kind of power that it turns out to be that it just....WOW!!! LOL Thanks to her green house in her backyard being covered in meteor rock and her drinking the plants to make herself a shake for her diet, she is losing weight so fast that she becomes a fat sucking vampire.....I am NOT kidding!!! I feel like an episode like this could have only worked during the WB era of television as the CW generation would find this so problematic, embarrassing and insulting.  Or maybe they wouldn't be watching the show considering how stupid the whole thing is even when it first aired back in 2001. And of course, Jodi's new power drives her insane to the point where she must avenge her persistent humiliation by fat sucking her bully who suddenly finds her irresistible because of how skinny and beautiful she is now.....now THAT I can believe. Cause teenage boys are brainless and stupid enough to be that transparent and unknowingly superficial.

Also, we have to give Pete something to do since...oh yeah, Pete! So he has a bit of a romance with Jodi as he comes to defense when she's bullied and decides to ask her out on a date to Lana's party.  But all it does it end with him being just another damsel in distress for Clark to save during the big confrontation at the end between him and the meteor freak of week.  Bleh! Speaking of Clark, he is busy wrapped up in Lana's subplot of birthday party blues when Nell plans a big bash for her at Lex's mansion but she just wants something more simplistic than extravagant for her birthday.  With Whitney off in Metropolis after a football scholarship for college potentially, Clark is Lana's NOT date while making his feelings for the girl next door so predictably visible.  Sigh...I'm just glad we are so early in the series where their sexual tension/high school romance is in its cute phase before "Oh god not again!" became the norm for this overdone coupling of redundancy and stretching out. Case and point, the birthday present that Clark gives Lana at the end is truly heartwarming and sweet. So there's that plus for the episode.

 As usual the most interesting and intriguing plot revolves around Lex's growing attraction to the meteor rocks that landed in Smallville and knowing more about; which leads him to former famed scientist Dr. Hamilton, played with such mystique and vigor by veteran actor Joe Morton, who instantly brings a lot of mystery to the character.  Of course, Lex's interest in funding his research is simply to know more about the power behind the meteor rocks since apparently not only did it make him lose his hair but also gave him an overabundance of white blood cells that may be keeping him from getting sick.  I wish the writers would have built on this more in hindsight instead of Lex simply losing his asthma.  That's about that all can be said about this one besides the horrendous CGI of Jodi's jaw dropping literally to fat suck a dead deer. Seriously, what were the writers thinking with this one??? O_o lol

Final Kryptonite: D