Smallville Recap (Season 10, episode 15): Fortune

Clark and Chloe are married, Doctor Hamilton is an Elvis impersonator and Oliver fights off mobsters in drag. Yeah, it’s one of those episodes.

I’m told that this week’s episode of Smallville is a lot like the comedy sensation feature film The Hangover. I haven’t actually seen The Hangover, so it just seems to me that the writers are experimenting with genre again, which is undoubtedly a terrible, terrible thing. Smallville is comfortable in a very specific mold, and when removed from it, horrible things have been known to happen. Seriously, though, I kid because I love; no one mentions the Apocalypse Gods as “The Darkness” in this episode, and Tom Welling is in a bespoke tuxedo. These are both elements that work strongly in its favor. It’s all pretty silly, but if you’re as easily entertained by light, comedic fanservice stuff as I am, then it’s actually all fun to watch.

Things are kicked off with the respective bachelor/bachelorette parties of Clark and Lois, still enjoying pre-nuptial bliss. Are these kinds of things usually done as a joint venture? I’ve never been married, nor have any of my friends, so I actually don’t know. Lois’ camp includes Tess and Chloe, and Clark has invited Oliver and Doctor Hamilton. Seriously, do they even know anyone else? They crack open a bottle of champagne, merry as we’ve ever seen them, and there’s an almost immediate cut to Clark waking up, disheveled and confused, his bedroom in roughly the same shape he is. A brief survey of the room reveals a monkey with a hat on, and Chloe in a wedding dress, equally puzzling. The two are understandably confused. Realizing that they apparently got married, Clark and Chloe begin panicking.

We next find the two in the city, where Chloe has discarded the wedding dress for her more usual fashion choices, though, Clark is still in the tux. Good choice, Smallville. He looks fantastic. He tries to super-speed away, and promptly smashes into the side of a building. Clark can’t normally get drunk, much less hungover, but apparently Zatanna, the mystically empowered trickster, supplied them with enchanted liquor. Stranger things, I guess. Anyway, they see two trendy Asian girls wearing graphic T-shirts of Doctor Hamilton dressed up as Elvis. A brief interrogation reveals that the good Doctor is performing at a local venue/casino, and upon their arrival, Clark and Chloe are treated to the spectacle of Emil Hamilton and Tess Mercer in the midst of a faux-Elvis routine. Before we can truly enjoy this, however, our Elvis impersonator is arrested for the theft of an armored car. A still-drunken Tess points out that the only person she knows who could manage something like that is Clark himself. Luckily, the episode doesn’t dwell too much on Clark’s guilt complex, because that would ruin everything.

We cut next to Lois and Oliver spooning on the traintracks. Notably, Oliver is wearing a green blazer with a frilly poet shirt. I am envious of his wardrobe. Upon their waking, Lois becomes neurotic and unpleasant because she’s misplaced her wedding ring and Ollie assists her in looking for it. Lois notices a chip from the same casino that Doctor Hamilton had been performing at in her bra. In something of a logical leap she concludes that her ring must be there, and drags Ollie along, who is pointedly much more upbeat than a hungover man escorting his demanding ex-girlfriend around town probably should be. Arriving at the Casino, Lois is informed that she bet her ring on a game that she deduces had a stacked deck. Spying the ring on some guy’s pinky finger (Seriously, guy?) she immediately moves to retrieve it, when she and Oliver are assailed, kidnapped and tied up. Behind stage. Where a show is being performed on the other side. And they are not gagged. I have several questions as to the actual criminal experience of their kidnappers. Meanwhile, Doctor Hamilton is tortured by Casino employees, who in fact, meant to have the armored car stolen to collect on the insurance money; problem being, that they also wanted to keep the armored car that now resides in the Kent family barn.

After more banter, Lois and Ollie escape, donning the dancer costumes as their avenue to freedom. Clark and Chloe have shown their faces again, and are treated to their paramours dancing like 1940′s showgirls. Spying her ring again, Lois begins struggling for it as Oliver and Chloe fight off the ensuing henchmen, Oliver still dressed like a burlesque dancer. Lois, despite being a competent martial artist before either member of Smallville’s newly anointed battle-couple displayed such talents, is relatively useless, and needs to be rescued. Clark leaves to free Doctor Hamilton from having his head slowly compressed in a vice-grip meanwhile, mostly so as to not make the Casino kung fu battle too easy. Hamilton is saved, the ring is retrieved and everyone is safe.

I’ve said for a long time that the only reason I watch Smallville anymore is for the inevitable, token Batman reference. I insisted to everyone that it was soon at hand, as though this somehow justified my viewership. Well, I have had my wishes answered; in the falling action of this week’s episode, Chloe explains to Clark that she’s leaving to take a job in Star City, mentioning that he’s not alone in his superheroics, which he should know, as a member of the Justice League, a club of people just like him. Regardless, though, she mentions that she’s met a “wondrous woman” and a “billionaire gadgeteer” in her travels. Despite how totally lame this was, my heart smashed through my chest. We next see a bit of sexual tension setting the mood for a conversation between Tess and Doctor Hamilton. This is a CW show, so everyone is going to pair off, regardless of if they’ve even interacted together before.

When everyone meets up, Clark and Lois discuss their relationship for the billionth time, and its nothing new. Lois is unbelievably pleased with Clark’s articulation, though, and reasserts her feelings for him, as though that really needed to happen. Once the happy couple are done with their drama quota for the episode, they all sit down together at Watchtower and put on a video they had shot during their lost night, where we see some highlights of their hijinks. It’s all fun and games, though, until it devolves into Tess and Hamilton’s sex tape, at which point the former furiously scrambles to turn it off, much to everyone’s amusement. The fun times are not to last, though, as Chloe sneaks off, only to be followed by Oliver, her glorified ball and chain. He points out that the marriage certificate she had assumed was for her and Clark, was actually for the two of them, and chastises her for trying to run off to his home town without him. The two are rejoined, and leave for Star City together, as the credits roll.

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