Cool

## "Cool"Season 01, Episode 05

"*I'm not a crash test dummy you can use to try out your dating skills. You, if you like Lana so much, just ask her out. And you, stop acting like a Vegas bookie picks your dates. And both of you, treat me better.*"
—Chloe Sullivan to Clark Kent

**"Cool"** is the fifth episode of Season One of The CW's *Smallville*. It was written by Michael Green and directed by James A. Contner. It is the fifth episode of the series overall, and premiered on November 13, 2001.

## Synopsis

After falling through the ice and nearly drowning, a teen finds that he cannot keep himself warm without extracting heat from an outside source—mainly other people. Meanwhile, Lex persuades Clark to ask Lana out on a platonic date.

## Recap

Chloe Sullivan and Clark Kent arrive at a party full of high school students at Crater Lake which is laced with green meteor rock fragments. Lana Lang is there with Whitney Fordman. Sean Kelvin approaches Chloe and asks her out. Chloe doesn't seem impressed, but she does give him her number. Clark gives her a hard time, so she says she gave him her number just to get rid of him. Sean is throwing the football with Whitney. Sean claims he is interested in Chloe only as another conquest. When Whitney overthrows the football, Sean walks out on the ice to retrieve it and falls through the ice. The water re-freezes, trapping and drowning him.

The next morning, Sean breaks through the ice and approaches a campfire. His skin and hands are blue, but as he warms his hands by the fire they return to a normal color. He inhales warm air coming off the fire and the color of his face is also restored, but when he walks away from the fire we see that it has turned to ice.

Martha Kent is balancing the farm's books and the news is not good. Clark displays an uncanny ability for arithmetic and jokes that he could quit high school, play a professional sport and make a ton of money with endorsements. Walking to school, Chloe tells Clark and Pete Ross that Sean didn't call that morning as he promised. Sean complains to the school nurse that although he felt fine this morning, now he can't seem to get warm. He has a temperature of 38 degrees. When the nurse places her hand on his forehead, Sean grabs her hand. His color improves, but the nurse complains that now she has the chills.

Lex Luthor visits the Kent farm to buy some artichokes. He tells Martha he is hosting a dinner tomorrow night for the farming community. He wants to invest in some farms, modernize them, and make them competitive again. He is very interested in having Jonathan Kent attend the dinner. Martha and Jonathan argue about attending Lex's dinner. Eventually, Martha convinces Jonathan to go, but when they arrive at the Luthor Mansion, they find that they were the only ones to have been invited.

At the Beanery, Lex Luthor tells Lana Lang (again) that he thinks she is with the wrong guy just as Whitney arrives and breaks a date. Lex runs into Clark outside the restaurant and tells him that Lana is free tomorrow night. Lex gives him tickets and promises a limo ride if Clark gets in there and asks her in the next 60 seconds. This appears to be just the encouragement he needs, and he makes the date with Lana Lang.

Clark tells Chloe and Pete about his date with Lana, just as Sean arrives hunched over with cold and rubbing his hands. Chloe can't go with him right now, so he runs over to make a date with Jenna Barnum. It's such a cold move; Chloe can't help but feel slighted. Clark is not happy with Sean either.

At her house, Jenna invites Sean to join her in the shower, but Sean is in bad shape by now. His skin is blue and his hair is full of frost. He grabs the shower head, and the water starts coming out as hail. Jenna is terrified. Sean apologizes, but his desire for warmth overwhelms him. He embraces Jenna and kisses her. It works. Sean is restored, but Jenna is frozen solid. When Sean releases her, she shatters. Sean is sitting in front of a cold fireplace, wrapped in a blanket, shivering with cold. He is calling another girl, Bella, but she doesn't want to see him. He tries to light a match, and the flame freezes in his hand. Then he notices that he still has Chloe's number.

Chloe is trying to help Clark choose something to wear for his big date with Lana when she gets a call from Sean. She makes a date with him for coffee at the office of the Smallville Torch. Clark and Lana talk in the limo about how they retreat from the world with a good book or a telescope. The television in the limo reports that police are seeking Sean in connection with Jenna's death. Clark drops Lana off at the Beanery, and then heads for the school.

At the Torch, Chloe finds a trail of flower petals leading to the pool. Sean apologizes again and explains that he can't get warm, sitting by the fire only gives him a quick fix, body heat lasts longer. As he approaches Chloe, she falls into the water. She swims away, but Sean sucks all the heat out of the pool and it freezes just as she's climbing out. Clark arrives to free Chloe and knocks Sean across the room. Clark sends Chloe away, and turns to face Sean, but he's gone.

Back at the Torch, Chloe's research turns up a similar condition in which the thermosensitive cells in the brain are damaged. Pete arrives at the Beanery with a date and sees Lana. Whitney arrives, and Lana gives Pete the limo and asks Whitney to take her home. At an electrical substation, Sean tries to use electricity to warm himself. He tries to flag down Whitney and Lana on their way home but they crash. Sean heads for the Luthor Mansion.

Clark arrives at the crash site, and Sean attacks him. He is able to steal enough body heat from Clark to warm himself properly and leaves Clark frozen on the ground, but by the time he gets to the mansion, he's blue again and pulls the heat from the generator. Clark recovers just as Martha Kent leaves the mansion to check on the generator. Clark approaches Sean as he tries to attack Martha. As they battle, Sean steals enough heat from Clark to get warm again. Clark throws Sean into a nearby pond, which freezes and traps Sean in the ice.

Back at the Kent Farm, Jonathan is working on his motorcycle as Lex arrives to express his disappointment to have learned that Jonathan took out a loan to keep the farm going. Jonathan says he just doesn't know if he can trust Lex. Lex promises that if Jonathan ever changes his mind, the offer still stands.

Chloe adds a candle to the memorial for Jenna at school. Clark apologizes to Lana and tries to ask her out again. Lana explains that Whitney is now sufficiently jealous not to leave her any free weekends. Clark boldly asks Lana why she goes out with Whitney. Lana confides that he makes her feel safe. Whenever she needs him, he's there.

## Cast

* Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang
* Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor
* Eric Johnson as Whitney Fordman
* Sam Jones III as Pete Ross
* Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan
* Annette O'Toole as Martha Kent
* John Schneider as Jonathan Kent
* Tania Saulnier as Jenna Barnum

Co-Starring* Elizabeth McLaughlin as Nurse
* Ted Garcia as News Anchor

## Trivia

### Production Notes

* The original title was "Freeze."
* When Clark and Chloe first arrive at the party, Chloe is talking about how cold it is out there, to which Clark replies it doesn't feel that cold to him. Chloe's response is, "What? Are you from an ice planet? It's freezing!". A hat tip to the ice planet that Clark is from, Krypton.
* When Sean is in the nurse's office they take his temperature. It shows about 37 degrees which is way too low on the Fahrenheit scale (normal body temperature: 98.6 °F). They simply used a Celsius thermometer for this scene because 37.5 °C is a perfectly normal body temperature.

### Goofs

* At the beginning of the episode, Crater Lake is frozen over and Sean falls through the ice. Toward the end of the episode, when Sean and Clark are fighting on Lex Luthor's property, the pond is not frozen over. If the season is cold enough to freeze a lake, it should also freeze the pond.
* When Whitney nearly runs down Sean in his vehicle, the sound of Whitney slamming his foot on the brakes and screeching tires can be heard before Whitney actually slams his foot on the brakes, and before the car even begins braking.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.smallvilleph.com/2001/11/cool/