Episode 5.10: Fanatic

Jonathan Kent is at a political rally where it appears as though Lois Lane is about to assassinate him from the rafters with a rifle. The man that Lex hired in 'Lexmas', to dig up dirt on Jonathan, is killed by Lionel who takes said 'dirt' from him and destroys it. He then offers Martha money to pay for Jonathan's campaign. At first she does not take it but, later has a change of heart, telling Lois to keep it quiet. Lex has a young woman working for him who turns out to be the 'fanatic' of the title, stopping at nothing to help Lex win the senate race, even if it means forcing Lois to pull the trigger on Jonathan. Meanwhile, Clark is pulling away from Lana because he fears that if they get physical, he could end up hurting her.

I'm not a fan of opening an episode with a scene that we then spend the rest of the episode building up to. I've said this before, but if it is going to be done, the rest of the episode needs to keep you guessing how that scene is going to play out. Fanatic does manage to do that but only because they don't show you what is really going on. Once we get to the gun being fired we find that it wasn't Lois who pulled the trigger after all. This kind of feels like they cheated. Even so, it's better than, say, 'Spirit', where there was absolutely no suspense from showing what was to come, because as soon as the freak of the week was revealed you knew exactly how it was going to get there.

When Clark is being grilled by Lana and he somehow manages to make it all about her and her newfound obsession with the meteor shower, I like that she calls him out on it, as he is in fact being a bit douchey here. As annoying as Lana can be, it's mostly because of Clark, as she is merely reacting to his secretive and sketchy behaviour. So, while she can often come off as whiney, it's quite understandable that she has something to whine about. She does come back to him at the end and tell him that he wasn't entirely wrong. She knows a ship came down in the first meteor shower and, given her previous experience with the occupants of the ship from the last meteor shower, this will only serve to fuel Clark's fears of how she might react to finding out he's an alien.

Annie Burgstede, who plays fanatic Samantha Drake, really oversells it in her performance I think. It's like she took every class in psycho 101. I guess it's partly the way it is written but I feel like a better actor could have brought more nuance to the role. There is one nice touch, which truly shows how deranged this woman is, where Lex spots her 'Lex' neclace and she tells him that she used to wear a cross. You can't really put someone on a higher pedestal than that now can you!

I like when Lois steps up to the plate and calls out Jonathan's campaign manager for not really getting who the Kent's are. This does result in her becoming Jonathan's new campaign manager. It's a nice scene because it shows the impact that Jonathan and Martha have on everyone they interact with besides Clark.

There is a bit of a contradiction in Lex's behaviour here as he states that he never would have condoned Samantha's behaviour after she has Jonathan beaten up. Yet, in the previous episode, we saw that he had committed to the decision to dig up dirt on Mr Kent in order to push him out of the race. Make your mind up Lex! You are either a hero or you are the villain of the story!

8/10