Suspect

## "Suspect"Season 02, Episode 13

**"Suspect"** is the thirteenth episode of Season Two of The CW's *Smallville*. It was written by Mark Verheiden & Philip Levens and directed by Greg Beeman. It is the thirty-fourth episode of the series overall, and premiered on January 28, 2003.

## Synopsis

Lionel is shot in the manor, and Jonathan is the prime suspect.

## Recap

At the Luthor Mansion, Lionel is reading in the library and making plans to return to Metropolis. He indicates that Martha Kent is no longer in his employ. Someone enters the room without identifying himself (but Lionel seems to know who it is) and shoots Lionel twice in the chest. He falls from the balcony and crashes through a glass table below. Sheriff Miller finds Jonathan Kent passed out in his truck with a bottle of tequila and pistol in his hand. He is placed under arrest and taken into custody.

At the county jail, Martha and Clark visit Jonathan. Jonathan says he only had half a beer the night before, but he started to feel sick as soon as he got in his truck. Then he doesn't remember anything until the police pulled him out. Clark says that the gun they found is the same caliber as the one that shot Lionel. Martha offers to ask her father to defend him, but they decide to ask Henry Small instead.

At Smallville Medical Center, Lex arrives to check on his father. He finds Dominic Sanatori instead. Dominic thinks Lex shot Lionel.

At the Talon, Henry Small refuses to represent Jonathan saying only that he isn’t the right man for the job. Lana tells Clark that she was at the mansion yesterday, and she overheard Jonathan arguing with Lionel about the watch he gave Martha. At the Kent Farm, Sheriff Ethan is serving a search warrant. He finds that the watch that Lionel gave Martha has been smashed. Martha admits that she hid it from Jonathan. Sheriff Ethan also says that the bartender at the Wild Coyote told him that Jonathan was berating Lionel Luthor and doing double shots of tequila last night before he bought the whole bottle and left. His blood alcohol level was 2.0 and there was gunpowder residue on his hands. Eyewitnesses at the mansion say they saw Jonathan's truck leaving the mansion after the shots were heard.

Clark and Pete go out to search the site where the police found Jonathan's truck. Clark uses his x-ray vision to find a bullet in a shed. He guesses that someone drugged his dad, followed him until he pulled over, put the gun in his hand and fired it at the shed, so that he would have gunpowder residue on his hands.

At the hospital, Lex has just learned that his father remains in critical condition. Clark arrives to tell Sheriff Miller about the bullet in the shed and the theory that his dad is being framed. The sheriff promises to follow up on it, but he doesn’t seem enthusiastic. Dominic Sanatori also approaches the sheriff with his version of events. He tells the sheriff that Lex and Lionel had an argument the night before. Lionel has been approaching the Smallville residents who invested in LexCorp and buying up their shares. Lex is furious at the prospect of losing his company to his father. Lionel seems to think of it as another training mission to make Lex a sharper and more ruthless businessman.

Lana finds Chloe at the Smallville Torch making up the front page featuring Jonathan Kent's arrest. Chloe also tells Lana that she did some investigating of Henry Small. It turns out that he used to work for a firm that provided criminal defense for LuthorCorp. He lost his job at that firm when LuthorCorp filed a complaint against him.

Clark goes to the mansion to confront Lex about the fact that he was also arguing with his father the night before. Lex refuses to discuss it with him and throws him out. Martha visits Jonathan in jail, and Jonathan laments that no jury is going to believe he is innocent.

The next day, Clark and Pete drive out to the Wild Coyote to ask the bartender a few questions. Clark thinks that someone drugged his father here at the bar, but the bartender is no help. He seems pretty sure Jonathan did it, and Clark gets pretty mad at him when he says so. On the drive back to town, a masked gunman in a big rig ambushes Clark and Pete. He runs them off the road, and then he shoots the gas tank, blowing up the car. Clark uses his super strength and super speed to get them out in time.

At the Smallville Medical Center, Pete gets checked out while Lex talks with Clark about his theory of who shot his father. Dominic Sanatori was not at all happy last night when he found out that Lionel was going to take Lex back into the company after he bought out LexCorp. Dominic was under the impression that Lex would be out and he would be in, but Lionel made it clear that, although Dominic has been loyal, Lex is family.

Henry Small comes to the Talon to see Lana. She confesses that she has been looking into his past and learned about how the Luthors had him dismissed from his firm. He's upset that she went snooping around, but he tells her that the real story is that the Luthors complained about him because he wouldn't go along with an unethical scheme. The real reason that he refused to take Jonathan's case is that he lost a capital case in which the defendant was innocent, but the defendant was executed before his family could get the evidence retested.

When Clark arrives at the jail to visit his dad, he finds Lana, who has convinced Henry to take the case. Henry has a plan to get Jonathan out on bail by the end of the day, but he can't keep the case from going to trial without poking holes in the testimony of the bartender. But he has disappeared, so Clark and Pete go back to the Wild Coyote to see what they can find out. They find the bartender dead and packed in a freezer, but they also find another clue that gives Clark an idea for laying a trap for the shooter.

First, they put out the word that Lionel was getting better; then they move him to another floor. Sheriff Miller shows up and shoots Lionel's empty bed. Clark disarms him and confronts him with everything he knows: the sheriff had a business arrangement with the bartender at the Wild Coyote, which is how he got away with repeatedly violating the law against serving minors. The sheriff also faked Jonathan's blood alcohol test.

The next day in the loft, Clark shows Lex his dad's old yearbook. Ethan and Jonathan had been friends. Lex has to decide if he's going back to work for his father. At the Smallville Medical Center, Lionel explains to Lex that it was the sheriff who got him the dirt on the LexCorp board members. Lionel used that information to blackmail them into selling their shares to him. He then threatened to expose the sheriff if he didn't continue to do favors for LuthorCorp from time to time.

## Cast

* Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang
* Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor
* Sam Jones III as Pete Ross
* Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan
* John Glover as Lionel Luthor
* Annette O'Toole as Martha Kent
* John Schneider as Jonathan Kent
* Mitchell Kosterman as Sheriff Ethan Miller
* Patrick Cassidy as Henry Small

Co-Starring* Eric Keenleyside as Mike the Bartender
* Barclay Hope as Doctor

## Trivia

### Production Notes

* The book which is being read by Lionel Luthor at the beginning is titled 'Beyond Good and Evil' written by famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
* When Petes car gets ran off the road it flys in the air in slow motion. John Schenider was Bo Duke on Dukes of Hazzard which made that car effect happen on a regular basis.

### Goofs

* Clark talks to Lex about his dad old year book. He says that his dad was the QB in high school. In a previous episode.Clark says he was going to be taking his dads old position, the starting tailback.
* In all of the renditions of Lionel's attempted murder, two shots are fired. However, in the sequence involving Sheriff Ethan, three shots are fired.
* When the sheriff tells the Kents Jonathan's blood alcohol level he says it is a 2.0. Having a .50 could cause death. The highest recorded BAC in history is is a 1.6.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat/Smallville/Season-2/Episode-13