Episode 4.15: Sacred

Jason heads to China with the map that Lionel gave him, without telling Lana what he is doing. But Lex makes sure he is there to oversee things. Lionel tells Lana what they are up to and she heads off to China to join them. But with Clark also on the hunt for the stones, after the news of Virgil Swann's death sets him on the path once more, he goes along for the ride under the guise of being there for Lana. Once in China, Clark and Lana find Lex and Jason being held captive and tortured for information on the wareabouts of the stones. When the interrogators begin to torture Lana, they awaken Isabelle from within her, before our four adventurers all fight to retrieve the stone. The stone is then "lost" during a fight between Clark and Lana/Isabelle, only to have it revealed that Jason took the stone and kept it for Lana. Meanwhile, Clark recieves one final item from Dr Swann, who arranged for it to be delivered in the event of his death. That item is the hexagonal disc, the key that unlocks the cave wall.

I believe this episode is something of a fan favourite but I gotta say it's something of a disappointment for me. The Isabelle Theroux angle is, quite frankly, an annoyance at this point. The scene in which Lana goes all Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is just stupid. She may be posessed by a witch but she's still human, so why the heck Clark doesn't use his superspeed to end the fight before it begins I'll never know. That stuff may work in an Ang Lee film but it doesn't work here.

Beyond that the plot with the stones being meshed together with the Isabelle Theroux stuff just makes no sense at all. So, Jor-El, who knows about these stones that have been here for at least 400 years, didn't think to tell Clark about them much sooner given the destructive power they could grant to the one who has all three of them? Push aside for one minute that Jor-El has already been to Earth once before and could have retrieved them himself if they were such a big deal. And push aside for one moment that at some point hundreds of years ago the Kryptonian culture decided it was a good idea to leave these stones on Earth in the first place. Just the fact that they have made Isabelle such a big deal at this point, in Clark's journey of discovery of his Kryptonian heritage, just leaves me feeling like so many better paths could have been taken. It feels like it exists just for the sake of giving Lana something to do, an element of the show that the writers always seem to struggle with.

All that being said, it's a fairly fast paced episode with a really cool setting, that puts four of the main characters together in a race to find the same maguffin, each with different motives. The fact that Clark isn't the one who walks away with the stone was quite surprising. Though it does beg the question, how did Clark not see that Jason had it? Surely he would have scanned around the place with his x-ray vision when it went missing, especially since all of the people he is standing with each have a reason to take it.

There is a moment on the Luthorcorp jet where Lana tells Clark that she feels like he is the only one in all of this who doesn't have an agenda. Silly girl! Just face it Clark, she's not "The One".

There is fun to be had with this one but, considering it's quite a big episode in the overall mythology, it feels very sloppy in its execution.

6/10