Obscura

## "Obscura"Season 01, Episode 20

**"Obscura"** is the twentieth episode of Season One of The CW's *Smallville*. It was written by Greg Walker and the teleplay by Mark Verheiden & Michael Green and was directed by Terrence O'Hara. It is the twentieth episode of the series overall, and premiered on May 14, 2002.

## Synopsis

Chloe is kidnapped and Lang is having visions of her attacker. Meanwhile, Lex finds a piece of the ship in Miller's Field and Clark asks Chloe to the spring formal.

## Recap

Lana Lang and Whitney Fordman are horseback riding when they see and hear an enormous explosion. Upon investigation, they discover an exploded gas line. Teams are already working on the problem, but they don't seem to notice that another line is about to explode. Whitney rushes in to warn them and everyone takes cover. In the resulting explosion, Lana is knocked off her feet and sprinkled with small bright green stones. Clark arrives at the Smallville Medical Center that night to find Lana asleep and Whitney by her side. Chloe Sullivan stops by on her way to Metropolis. She has an interview for an internship at the Daily Planet. She is reluctant to go because of Lana's injury, but Clark assures her that Lana wouldn't want her to miss her chance. As Chloe exits the hospital and unlocks her car, Lana has a nightmare in which she kidnaps Chloe and wakes up abruptly.

Lex gives the Kents a check for damage that was done when LuthorCorp chemicals were spilled on his property. Martha and Jonathan think it is too much, but Lex assures them that he is only repaying them the exact amount of livestock and land they lost. Later, Roger Nixon arrives at the Luthor Mansion to complain about the deal Lex made with Carrie Castle at the Metropolis Inquisitor. He has also come to tell Lex about a lead he is developing on the meteor shower. He has found a crop duster, Eddie Cole, who saw a spaceship fall, but he needs Lex to pay him to tell the whole story. When Lex and Roger go out to meet Eddie, he tells them that he saw a meteor swerve over Miller's Field. He thinks it was a ship, but when he went back to investigate later, the ship was gone. He thinks someone took it. Lex pays Eddie for his story, but he tells Roger he doesn't believe it.

The next morning at the Kent Farm, Martha Kent tries to give Clark advice about inviting Chloe to the Spring Formal. At school, Clark is trying to prepare an issue of the Torch, but everything is going wrong: the printer is jammed, the scanner is broken and the Spring Formal activity schedule is late. Lana arrives to ask about Chloe because her nightmare has her worried. Clark tries to contact her all day without success. By the time he gets home, Jonathan notices his frustration and assures him that Chloe will be fine. Clark asks Jonathan if he will accept Lex's money and Jonathan says he is still thinking about it.

At the Talon, Pete tells Clark that he is going to the Spring Formal with Erica Fox, the hottest girl in the class. Lana asks about Chloe, but they still haven't heard from her. Suddenly, Lana is struck by another vision of Chloe. This time she is blindfolded with her hands tied behind her back in a room full of teddy bears hanging from the ceiling in plastic bags. She also sees an image of a masked face in a mirror.

At the amusement park, the kidnapper is welding something while Chloe gets free of her bindings and makes for the door, but the kidnapper grabs her and injects her with something that makes her pass out.

Gabe Sullivan arrives at the Talon with Deputies Watts and Birdego. Lana tries to tell them what she saw. Deputy Watts seems to take her seriously while Deputy Birdego makes rude remarks. Mr. Sullivan gets a call that they have found Chloe's car abandoned in the woods. That night Lana visits Clark in his loft. He tells her that he and his dad have spent the afternoon trying to find Chloe and they afraid they might never see her again. Lana tells him that she spent the afternoon being questioned by the police, who looked at her like she was crazy. Clark reminisces about the first time he met her, just last year, in eighth grade. She had just transferred from Metropolis and Clark showed her around the school, then he showed her around his farm. When he brought her up to his loft, she kissed him right out of the blue. Suddenly, Lana has another vision of Chloe being buried alive under the windmill in Chandler's Field. Clark super speeds away. He uses his X-ray vision to find Chloe, then reaches into the ground and pulls her coffin out.

Clark and Lana visit Chloe at the hospital. She is just getting off the phone with the Daily Planet. They want to do a story about her, but she intends to write her own story for the Torch. Clark asks her what she remembers but when she tries to recount her ordeal, she begins to cry, and Clark and Lana turn to leave so she can rest. She reluctantly asks Clark to stay a little longer. When Lana leaves Clark and Chloe alone, she has another vision of the kidnapper watching her, but when she turns around, there is no one there.

Clark stays with Chloe all night and returns home in the morning to help Jonathan with farm chores. Jonathan tells Clark he intends to cash Lex's check. On the way, they discover that Lex is conducting an excavation in Miller's Field. Lex claims that he is just testing the soil, but Jonathan doesn't believe him. He gives him back the check and angrily stalks off. Clark protests, saying Lex wasn't doing any harm, but Jonathan reveals that he finds it suspicious that Lex is excavating this particular field because it is the one in which they found Clark. Just as they are leaving Dr. Hamilton finds something interesting. Later, Lex visits Clark in his loft. Clark admits that both he and Jonathan don't believe Lex's story that it a routine soil test. Lex tries to explain that he is obsessed with the meteor shower because it changed his life and he needs to know why. He admits that he met a man who said he saw a ship. Clark tries to deflect him, but Lex is determined to investigate.

Whitney arrives at the Talon to show Lana some military medals he found while going through his father's things. He tells Lana how his father earned them for courage while fighting in the Vietnam War. Whitney takes it as a sign that he doesn't have to throw a ball to do something important with this life.

The next day at the Torch, Clark explains to Whitney and Chloe his theory about how Lana began receiving visions. He has done research on the De Kretser Syndrome and explains that after the London blitz, several cases were reported of people who became psychically linked with the people they were with when the bombs exploded. Lana was with Whitney, Watts, and Birdego at the time of the explosion. They guess that if she is linked to one of the deputies, he might be aware and might come after Lana

At the Talon, Deputy Birdego arrives to ask Lana a couple of questions. Lana has a vision of the kidnapper entering the Talon and hitting Deputy Birdego over the head. When Clark, Chloe and Whitney arrive they find Deputy Birdego, but Lana is gone. The deputy tells Clark that his partner is working as a security guard at the carnival grounds. At the carnival, Lana wakes up in the same room where Chloe was held, bound but not blindfolded. She shouts out for help. Deputy Watts walks in and explains that he kidnapped Chloe in order to take credit for finding her and now his plan is to solve Lana's murder. Clark arrives just in time to deflect the bullet with his hand. Watts flees with Clark in pursuit. Watts fires several bullets at Clark with no effect and Clark throws Watts into a ticket booth. As backup arrives, Clark zooms away. Lana has her final vision of Watts being shot down by his fellow deputies.

The next day at the Kent Farm, Chloe comes by to tell Clark that she got the internship at the Daily Planet. Even though she missed her interview, they were impressed with the story she wrote about the kidnapping cop, which was published in the Smallville Ledger (instead of the Torch). Awkwardly, Clark asks Chloe to be his date to the Spring Formal and Chloe accepts enthusiastically. As she leaves, Clark grins happily.

At the mansion, Dr. Hamilton has the preliminary results on the object they found in Miller's Field. It is an octagon-shaped disc about three inches in diameter and a quarter inch thick. The alloy it is made from is like nothing else on Earth. Unfortunately, Eddie Cole is no longer available for questioning.

## 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
* Darrin Klimek as Deputy Gary Watts
* Aaron Douglas as Deputy Michael Vertigo
* Robert Wisden as Gabe Sullivan
* Joe Morton as Dr. Steven Hamilton

Co-Starring* Frank C. Turner as Eddie Cole
* John Dadey as Gas Company Worker
* Mitchell Kosterman as Sheriff Ethan Miller

## Trivia

### Production Notes

* When Lana and Clark are talking at the Torch, Lana tells him that he won't have a future in journalism. This is a reference to the older Clark Kent that works at the Daily Planet as a journalist.
* In previous episodes it is established that Clark and Chloe have known each other for years. However, in this episode Clark states they met in 8th grade. Given that they're freshmen - or possibly sophomores - this season they would have only known each other for a year to a year and a half.

### Goofs

* When Jonathan and Clark are loading the truck you can see the truck move with the weight of the bags Johnathan adds but not the ones Clark throws inside.