Metamorphosis
From Smallville Wiki
| Metamorphosis | |
|---|---|
| |
| Series | 1x02 |
| Episode | 2 |
| Writer | Alfred Gough & Miles Millar |
| Director | Michael Watkins & Philip Sgriccia |
| Broadcast Date | October 23, 2001 |
| Production Code | 227601 |
| Navigation | |
| Previous Episode: Pilot
Next Episode: Hothead | |
Contents |
[edit] Summary
Greg Arkin has a passion for insects and Lana Lang. When meteor rock-infected bugs swarm him, he takes on insectoid characteristics. Clark wakes up to find himself floating above his bed. Lex tries to help Clark woo Lana by giving him her necklace. Clark discovers that he can protect himself from its effects with lead. Greg kidnaps Lana, and Clark battles Greg to rescue her.
[edit] Recap
The next morning, Mrs. Arkin enters his room to find all the cages are empty. She doesn't notice her son stuck to the ceiling with a web-like material.
Clark Kent is dreaming of flying. He flies into Lana's house and floats over her bed; she wakes up and tells him, "It's all your fault". Clark wakes up floating above his bed. He tells his dad he woke up floating, but Jonathan says he can't provide any explanation, but they will deal with whatever comes their way.
At the farmer's market, Clark confronts Whitney Fordman, who tells him the Scarecrow incident was a joke. Whitney asks for Lana's necklace, but Clark doesn't have it. Meanwhile, Lana runs into Greg, who asks her for help on a school assignment. Lex Luthor is also at the market. He notices Clark's interest in Lana and asks him about the previous night in the cornfield.
Greg's mother comes home to find the thermostat set to 103 degrees. Some of the walls are covered with webs. Greg explains that he is planning to eat, then molt then mate. Then he explains that the pharaoh spider kills its mother after it hatches.
Lex gives Clark Lana's necklace. It makes Clark sick, but Lex shuts it up in a lead box and Clark doesn't feel its effects anymore. Clark doesn't want to take it, but Lex persuades him to use the necklace to woo Lana. At school, Lana confronts Whitney about the prank on Clark and requests her necklace back. Whitney says he lost it, and she walks away. She passes Greg, who reminds her about helping him with the assignment. Lana tells him she's busy, that she has to see Clark.
Clark experiments with the meteor rock in the lead box before Lana finds him in the barn and apologizes for Whitney. When she admires his loft, Clark says that his dad built and calls it his "Fortress of Solitude". Clark skips this opportunity to return her necklace.
Greg molts in the shower and then goes to the barn to attack Clark. Jonathan is there and is nearly killed, but Clark saves him. Clark recognizes Greg and Martha remembers they used to be friends. Clark admits to his father that he feels responsible for all the weird things that have happened in Smallville since the meteor shower.
Chloe finds an article about Amazonian tribesmen who take on characteristics of insects after being bitten by them. She deduces that meteor rock-infected bugs must have bitten Greg and turned him into a "bugboy." Pete and Clark talk about how they used to be close friends with Greg in grade school. He had a treehouse near the foundry but Pete remembers that Clark always got sick when they played there. Clark, Chloe, and Pete go to Greg's house to investigate and find a mess: pieces of Greg's skin in the shower, a video of Lana and the corpse of his mother. They deduce that Greg will come after Lana next and go to try and save her.
Whitney tries to apologize to Lana and Greg appears and throws him across the barn. When Clark arrives, Whitney tells him that Greg has kidnapped Lana and headed off into the woods. Clark deduces that Greg took her to the treehouse. He gives Whitney directions and takes off at super speed.
At the treehouse, Clark finds Lana in a cocoon. Clark and Greg battle from the tree house to the Creekside Foundry. The place is littered with meteor rocks, which weaken Clark until he realizes that lead shields him from its effects. Clark finds Greg and throws him across the room. Greg then is squashed when some heavy equipment falls on him. Back at the treehouse, Whitney rescues Lana and they walk away with their arms around each other. That night, Clark leaves Lana's necklace on her front doorknob.
[edit] Guest Cast
[edit] Featured Music
- "Everything" - Lifehouse
- "Last Resort" - Papa Roach
- "Island in the Sun" - Weezer
- "I Do" - Better than Ezra
- "Underdog (Save Me)" - Turin Brakes
- "Damaged" - Aeon Spoke
- "Love You Madly" - Cake
- "Wherever You Will Go" - The Calling
- "Maybe" - Stereophonics
[edit] Episode Title
- Metamorphosis refers to the change that Greg undergoes after being bitten by the meteor-infected bugs.
- Metamorphosis is also the name of a famous book by Franz Kafka, in which the main character finds himself transformed into a bug.
[edit] Notes
- This episode takes place directly following the events of the Pilot, with Whitney dropping Lana off after the dance.
- Among the bug in-jokes: Greg drives a VW "bug", and the music playing right before he crashes is "Last Resort", by Papa Roach. Greg has a poster of Papa Roach in his room.
- Greg Arkin's powers and origin story are remarkably similar to Marvel Comic's Spider-Man. Both were bitten by super-charged insects; Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider, and Greg was bitten by krypto-infected bugs. Their powers and abilities were also similar: super strength, speed, agility, the ability to cling to solid surfaces, and the ability to shoot webbing.
- Clark is seen floating relatively early in the series, since Clark has yet to master the power of flight even as late as Season Eight. One possibility is that Clark's conscious mind is being held back by his well-known fear of heights.
- According to the special features on the Smallville DVD release of the first two episodes, the skin that Greg Arkin peels off his body and drops to the shower floor during his molting was actually ham cold cuts.
- When Greg gets his powers, the song playing is "Last Resort" by the group "Papa Roach". Ironically enough, roach is a kind of a bug, and he is bitten by bugs.
[edit] Continuity
- Lex tells Clark that he got the lead box from his mother. It is seen in the Season 3 episode Memoria that Lionel gave him the box after his 12th birthday party. Lionel explains that Lex's mother wanted to give him the box in person, but as a result of her difficult pregnancy, needed to rest.
[edit] Quotes
- Martha: Clark! We're leaving in fifteen minutes and you haven't done your chores yet!
- Jonathan: I don't know. It seems kind of out there.
- Martha: This coming from the man who's been hiding a spaceship in his storm cellar for the last twelve years.
- Clark: Dad, something else happened to me this morning. When I woke up, I was kind of floating.
- Jonathan: Floating.
- Clark: As soon as I woke up, I crashed. I mean, Dad, what's happening to me?
- Jonathan: I honestly don't know. As soon as you start breaking the law of gravity, we're definitely in uncharted territory.
- Lex: You want to tell me what happened last night?
- Clark: It was just a stupid prank.
- Lex: You were tied to a stake in the middle of a field. Even the Romans saved that for special occasions.
- Pete: (of Greg Arkin) He had a killer tree fort his dad built in the woods.
- Clark: It was okay.
- Pete: Clark never liked it. He used to get sick just walking over there.
- Chloe: How come?
- Pete: He was afraid of heights.
- Clark: I didn't believe it was structurally sound.
- Lana: Did you know you can see my house from here?
- Clark: (innocently) No. Really? (he moves the telescope, to take the focus off her house)
[edit] External Link
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