Season 4, Episode 10: Scare

"Scare"

Episode 10

Air Date: December 1st, 2004

While I commend the writers for doing an outbreak type of episode, Scare, outside of a few harrowing moments and perfectly timed visual jump scares (of course!), the episode is nothing more special than your average episode of Smallville.  I mean the concept of a mysterious toxin that when inhaled can cause a person to live their greatest fear before falling into a deadly state of unconscious panic until they die sounds really horrifying...but the script by Kelly Sounders and Brian Peterson only achieves a handle of scenes that really do the plot justice without it reaching its full potential.  I mean this could have really been a well done psychological episode that showed our cast of characters dealing with their deepest, darkest fears that give us more insight into who they are, what they are going through, not to mention develop them significantly, but I can only think of one fear that actually excelled at doing that.  When Clark and Chloe are investigating the Luthorcorp plant, we get a very Nightmare of Elm Street meets Gothika type sequence where Chloe walks into a room where an asylum patient in sitting in the spotlight; only to reveal it is her in the jacket, looking grotesque as hell and showing Chloe is clearly afraid of being put into an asylum.  By episode's end, she cares the reason behind her greatest fear is finally finding her abandoning mother....who has ended up at an insane asylum and her mental illness is hereditary.  Well that would explain her damn near inhuman behavior during the first 2 seasons! I'm kidding, don't get triggered! :P

It's a well acted moment by Allison Mack who mixes her vulnerability with a self assurance of finally coming clean about her secret.  Of course, this is a segway into Clark's own secret and having to lie about his greatest fear but it still corresponds with his intense reservations over telling more people about his secret. Chloe for once gives Clark some good advice about ending up alone like he says if he doesn't alleviate the burden of his secret and tell someone or he will in fact end up alone.  Yeah, always secrets and lies but come on, he's an alien from another planet and despite all the bizarre and weird things you guys have seen the past  3 years, wouldn't surprise as it would be something you guys draw the line on. Oh well, the other nightmares are as superfluous as they come.  Outside of another terrifying jump scare, Lana's greatest fear hallucination is just her losing everyone she loves.....funny how Clark isn't there but Chloe and Jason are??? O_O I'm just saying! WOW! Something that's not out of the ordinary for her and very plausible so....  Then there's Clark's extremely expensive looking one with a meteor shower happening all of a sudden and Lana finding out that he's an alien when he protects her from a meteor.  It's a bit too exaggerated for my tastes and I just don't buy that Clark's fear could be that intense.  I mean Lana killing him with kryptonite and blaming him for her parents' death??!!! Jesus, you're NOT the reason that Krypton exploded man!!! The hell?! O_O 

But Jason and Lex's are the worst as Jason is afraid of Lana preferring Clark over him all of a sudden and beating him up in a fight before Lana kills him for it.....yeah...this reeks of the show creator's disturbing obsession of Lana rather than Jason really have such fear.  If anything. why not be more about his parents and why he has such an estranged relationship with his mother??? Kinda make more sense! O_o Then Lex just has a clip show of that vision of his future we saw in "Hourglass", but nuclear weapons going off around the world and destroying it.  So...Lex's greatest fear is becoming an evil tyrant that destroys humanity??? O_o  Once again, how could Lex come to that conclusion??? I know he's afraid of becoming like his father but world domination and global tyranny doesn't make sense in his development yet. Well, at least to not be so self aware of it at this point. *Groan* -_-  Also, Lana and Jason have a whole secrets and lies moment like her and Clark because apparently no relationship in Smallville can last the angst all over town more than the kryptonite! O_o  Yeah, Jason has changed since he's been in Smallville, every guy since Lana has dated or been interested in since Whitney is all dark, mystery and can't trust her.  Jesus, she might need a shrink after this....naw too realistic for this show.  Oh and someone has overturned Lionel's conviction but we don't know who yet and is left as a cliffhanger.  Hmmmmm I wonder if.... Scare is an average hour like I said with some moments of genuine imagery and chilling atmosphere but the story just feels like such a non-event considering how massive the outbreak was.  I'mm almost as frustrated as Chloe by the end of the episode that things are just back to status quo so quickly without ANY consequences; making it seem like this was all for nothing outside of Jason leaving. Bah! 

 

Final Kryptonite: C