X-Ray

*This article focuses on the Season One episode, **"X-Ray"**. For the Power, see **X-Ray Vision**.*

## Episode Chronology

### Followed by

"Cool"

"*This is incredible. Why would Lex Luthor need to rob a bank?*"
—Martha Kent to Jonathan Kent and Clark Kent

**"X-Ray"** is the fourth episode of Season One of The CW's *Smallville*. It was written by Mark Verheiden and directed by James Frawley. It is the fourth episode of the series overall, and premiered on November 6, 2001.

## Synopsis

Clark battles intense headaches as he tries to adjust to his emerging power of X-ray vision, an ability that he cannot control. Also, Lex is framed for an armed robbery by a teenage girl who can take on the appearance of anyone she chooses. Elsewhere, Lana finds her mother’s journal and accuses her aunt of lying to her.

## Recap

At the Smallville Savings and Loan, Lex Luthor tells the manager that he wants to close all of his accounts. The manager is very disappointed and a bit confused when Lex requests all the money in cash. When Lex's signature doesn't match the signature on record, he asks to see Lex's driver's license. Lex pulls out a gun. He leaves the bank at a run with the alarm sounding. Halfway down the block he meets up with his friend Clark Kent. When Clark asks what's going on, Lex throws him through the large front window of Speck's Optical. As he recovers, Clark has a sudden headache, and then is able to see right through Lex's skin to his skeleton. Lex's bones have an odd green glow.

Rose Greer confronts her daughter Tina about a backpack full of money she found in the house. She asks if it was Tina who robbed the bank yesterday. Tina morphs into Lex and says that it was Lex Luthor who robbed the bank. Her mother insists they return the money. They struggle over the backpack, and Tina's mother falls down the stairs to her death. Tina starts to call 911, but she doesn't report the emergency.

Martha Kent reads about the bank robbery in the newspaper. Clark insists that it couldn't have been Lex. Jonathan seems willing to believe any terrible thing about Lex. Just then, Lex shows up on the Kent's porch. Clark is surprised that he isn't in jail, but Lex explains that he had a rock solid alibi: he was in Metropolis hosting a reception for 200 fertilizer distributors. He wants to talk to Clark because Clark was listed as one of the eyewitnesses. Clark insists that the bank robber looked exactly like Lex Luthor.

In gym class, Clark is climbing rope against his buddy Pete Ross, when he suddenly looks right through Pete's skin to his muscles. Clark is so shocked, he loses his grip and falls to the floor. As he recovers, he looks right through the wall to the girls' locker room and smiles as he sees Lana Lang remove her towel. After school, he explains to his parents about his X-ray vision. His parents encourage him to practice so that he can learn to control it. Clark knows that they are just guessing and he storms out in frustration.

Tina visits Lana and wonders aloud if Lana's Aunt Nell would adopt her if anything ever happened to her mother, then she and Lana could be sisters. Lana is unnerved by the strange question and assures her that nothing is going to happen to her mom.

Clark is running errands on Main Street with his mom when he gets another headache. He starts seeing everyone on the street like an X-ray. He notices the skeleton with glowing green bones walk into the antique shop. Martha catches up and they enter the store to be greeted by "Rose" Greer. Clark asks about Tina. "Rose" explains that she is with Lana, so Clark leaves. Martha asks "Rose" for the lamp that Rose has been restoring. While Rose is in the back of the store, Martha finds a large sum of cash on the floor. "Rose" says that the lamp isn't ready and a client paid her in cash earlier that day. When Martha turns her back, "Rose" slips Martha's keys out of her purse. On the street, Martha is nearly run down by her own truck, with "Clark" at the wheel. Martha is shocked as "Clark" seemingly drives around the corner, but then appears behind her to help her to her feet.

Back at the Kent farm, Jonathan announces that the police found their truck abandoned. Martha recalls that the antique shop is the only place she stopped that day. She also notes that Rose Greer was acting strangely and that the cash she found on the floor had a Smallville Savings and Loan band, so it could be from the robbery. It seems too crazy to suspect that Rose turned into Clark until Clark admits that when he saw Tina's skeleton it seemed green and inhuman. Martha explains that Tina was born with a soft bone disease. Despite experimental treatments, she wasn't expected to live to the age of six, but she got better around her third birthday—right after the 1989 meteor shower.

Coming out of the coffee shop, Lex finds Roger Nixon, a journalist, leaning against his car. He threatens to publish a story about a previous run-in with the law Lex had at a younger age, involving a nightclub called Club Zero, unless Lex pays him $100,000 in cash. Nixon gives Lex his contact card, and tells him he has 24 hours to deliver the money or he'll publish the story about him. Enraged, Lex drives off.

In the garage, Lana finds a box with some of her mother's high school things, including a diary. She asks her aunt about her mother. From the diary, Lana learns that her mother hated cheerleading and dreamed of leaving Smallville. Aunt Nell admits that she told Lana the things she thought Lana could handle at the time. Lana laments that she has been trying to live up to a Laura Lang that didn't exist. Aunt Nell tells Lana that Laura gave the graduation speech. The first line said: "I never made a difference here, but maybe my children can."

At school, Clark stares at Tina, trying to see her skeleton. Chloe and Pete agree that the only thing weird about Tina is the amount of time she spends idolizing Lana. When Lana emerges from her classroom, Tina tells her that her mom is moving to Metropolis, but she doesn't want to pull Tina out of school. Tina wants to know if she can move in with Lana and Nell. When Lana hesitates, Tina takes it as a rejection and storms off. Clark is successful in focusing his X-ray vision and spying a backpack full of cash in Tina's locker. Clark tells his parents about what he found.

At the antique shop, Tina morphs into her mother just as two sheriff's deputies approach, looking for Tina. They admit that a kid with an anonymous tip led them to find the money from the bank robbery in her locker.

"Lana" arrives at the loft to tell Clark about Tina. When she kisses him, she morphs back into Tina and throws Clark through the wall. She has guessed correctly that it was Clark who tipped off the police. She leaves Clark for dead. Clark tells his parents they can't call the police because Clark is the only one who can recognize Tina.

Lana goes to the Smallville Torch office to ask Chloe Sullivan to help her find the graduation speech her mother delivered in 1977. Chloe discovers that due to its controversial nature, the editors decided not to print it that year.

At the Luthor Mansion, Roger Nixon arrives to deliver the files and collect his money. Lex tells him that if he walks out that door Lex will make him disappear. He tells Roger that he has deleted all records of the man's existence, and announces that he wants Nixon's help. He wants him to print positive stories about him and kill negative ones. Lex takes him to a large room with a wrecked Porsche. He wants Nixon to find out how Lex survived the crash.

Clark is in the barn practicing his X-ray vision on a lead box when Lana comes to visit. She tells Clark about her mother's diary. Clark muses about what he might ask his biological parents if he ever had the chance. Later, he and Pete go to the antique shop to investigate. Clark sees a skeleton in a cabinet and they open it to find Tina's mother's body. They also find pages with Lana's signature over and over, and guess that Lana will be Tina's next victim.

Tina appears as Lana and asks Whitney for his letterman jacket. At the cemetery, Lana is visiting her parents' grave when Tina appears as Whitney. She says terrible things about how Lana has a great life, but she can't see it. She has no right to be unhappy, and she doesn't deserve her own life. Tina morphs back into herself and strangles Lana, stealing her meteorite necklace. Lana wakes up inside a crypt. When Clark arrives at the cemetery, he finds Tina-as-Whitney with the necklace in her pocket. At first Tina has the upper hand, but when she takes off the jacket, Clark recovers. During their battle, Tina tells Clark that Lana is dead. Clark scans the cemetery and sees one of the skeletons is moving. He breaks into the crypt and lifts Lana from the tomb.

Clark's parents let him know that Tina will not be able to hurt anyone else. Whitney arrives to comfort Lana. Clark's X-ray vision activates and he is pained as he watches Whitney and Lana enter the house and embrace.

Chloe locates an audiotape copy of the graduation speech and Lana is able to hear her mother's speech.

## Cast

* Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang/Tina Greer
* Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor/Tina Greer
* Eric Johnson as Whitney Fordman/Tina Greer
* Sam Jones III as Pete Ross
* Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan
* Annette O'Toole as Martha Kent
* John Schneider as Jonathan Kent
* Tom O'Brien as Roger Nixon
* Beverley Breuer as Rose Greer/Tina Greer
* Sarah-Jane Redmond as Nell Potter

Co-Starring* Annabel Kershaw as Flower Shopper
* Mark McConchie as Mr. Ellis
* Brian Jensen as Coach
* Mitch Kosterman as Sheriff Ethan Miller

## Trivia

### Production Notes

* As the title might suggest, this is the first episode in the series to highlight Clark Kent's X-Ray Vision.

### Goofs

* Lana Lang says the theme of her mother's prom was Saturday Night Fever, however she was in the class of 1977 and the movie didn't come out until December of that year.
* At the cemetery, Tina-as-Whitney morphs back to her own form, but in so doing, she ends up at the same height as Whitney, who in all other scenes is nearly a foot taller than Tina. In the next cut, she is about the same height as Lana.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.smallvilleph.com/2001/11/x-ray/