Episode 6.14: Trespass

Lana is stalked by a man who is very adept at hiding. But when she downplays the incident to Lex in order to protect Clark's secret, Lex goes away on a business trip, leaving Lana to face her stalker with nothing but a crap security detail, Mack and Brady, one of whom may be the man they are looking for.

At this point Lana is really caught between a rock and a hard place. She clearly doesn't trust Lex, otherwise she would tell him about the item she is hiding, which in some ways makes her a bit of a hypocrite, but understandably so. Though the argument for allowing such hipocrisy is certainly diminished once she goes snooping around Chloe's laptop. Regardless, she can't just suddenly cut ties with Lex at this point because she believes him to be the father of her child, so I can definitely sympathize.

In the scene between Chloe and Lana, when Lana shows her the phone, you can tell that Kristen Kreuk is really ill. She's really struggling to hide a croaky voice. It has no bearing on the story or the quality of the episode but it is a reminder of just how hard these actors have to work sometimes to bring the show to life, come rain or shine, sickness or health. I wonder if it's no coincidence that we get some lovely looking wintery establishing shots that we've not seen before throughout this episode.

I like how Clark is doing his chores the "normal way", without using his powers, just in case he's being watched. I imagine this would be something he's had to do a few times over the years when people have come sniffing round, but they've never really acknowledged it.

We get to see Lana's necklace again when she does some more rooting through other people's belongings, in this case Clark's bedroom drawers. I can't even remember the last time we saw this now but it's nice to see the look of surprise on Lana's face as she realizes the clear rock is what was once her green kryptonite keepsake.

It's pretty obvious from the get go that the man stalking Lana is one of the security guards. So once we see one of them get his throat slit it's a dead givaway as to whom the culprit is, especially as he is nowhere to be seen while Lana is busy falling down the stairs. They throw the paparazzi reporter in there as a red herring but it's so overplayed that it's instantly dismissible. It would have been better if we'd have found out later that Esposito had been killed after being taken into custody rather than seeing it happen. Again, it just makes the identity of the real villain blatantly obvious, which sucks out the tension.

I do like the little discussion between Clark and Jimmy over the moral implications of supply and demand when it comes to the business of snapping photos of celebrities.

I also think the final showdown is beautifully shot as Lana faces her pursuer on the snow covered roof of the mansion. There's just something incredibly cinematic about snow. It always makes things look better. The scene does owe more than a debt to The Shining however. When Mack bursts through the door with an axe I was half expecting him to say, "Heeeeere's Johnny!"

Lovely moment between Clark and Lana just after he catches her. I love the way they reveal it too, with the pan from the dead security guard to Clark's feet.

Lex goes to see Clark at the end and it's almost like he can feel that Lana is slipping away from him so he is doing everything he can to dig the knife into Clark for as long as he can. The wedding invite he hands to Clark is such a dick move. Rosenbaum plays it beautifully with the perfect amount of venom.

A very good, Lana-centric episode, let down slightly by some obvious plotting. 

8/10