Rush

## "Rush"Season 02, Episode 14

**"Rush"** is the fourteenth episode of Season Two of The CW's *Smallville*. It was written by Todd Slavkin & Darren Swimmer and directed by Rick Rosenthal. It is the thirty-fifth episode of the series overall, and premiered on February 4, 2003.

## Synopsis

Students are engaging in wild, sometimes suicidal stunts, and Chloe and Pete are the next ones to become "infected"... and they use a piece of red meteor rock to get Clark to join them.

## Recap

Chloe and Pete arrive at a wild rave that is being held in the Kawatche Caves. Pete knows Clark will be worried and tries to protect the cave walls, but Chloe wants to have fun. She is suddenly accosted by Travis George, her nerdy chem lab partner. He kisses her passionately, exclaims that he's high on life, and climbs a tall scaffold. The crowd cheers him on as Travis jumps to his doom. Annoyed, Pete sits down near a wall and is stabbed in the neck by a sharp object. Suddenly, he jumps up to join the party.

The next morning, Pete rides his dirt bike up to Clark—on the Main Street sidewalk, forcing pedestrians to jump out of his way. Clark yells at him to be careful, and Pete tells him that life is too short to play it safe. He urges Clark to take his chances with Lana now that Whitney is dead and speeds away. Clark goes into the Talon, and he and Lana talk about what happened to Travis. Lana also talks about being a spectator in life, and Clark blurts that they should go on a date. Lana surprises him by accepting. He tells her he'll pick her up the next day. Later, Chloe goes to the Talon and asks Lana if she wants to go shopping tomorrow, but Lana admits that she has a date with Clark. She seems reluctant, so Chloe assures her that she doesn't have feelings for Clark anymore. Lana looks unconvinced.

Clark is cleaning up the Caves when Lex arrives. They talk about the cave paintings, and Lex pulls a reference book out of Clark's backpack and sees that it is written by Dr. Frederick Walden, who researches hieroglyphics. He gives Clark unlimited access to the caves. Lex later meets with Dr. Walden and offers him a substantial amount of money to begin studying the cave paintings. Walden claims he cannot be swayed but changes his mind when Lex shows him photographs of the cave paintings.

Chloe and Clark talk about Pete's strange behavior. Chloe reveals that Travis had a puncture wound on his neck, along with two other kids who attended the rave and also died suddenly from extreme behavior. Clark is worried about Pete and finds him outside of the Talon, dodging traffic. Clark super speeds to knock him out of the way and tries to get him to a doctor. Pete refuses to go and threatens to tell the gathering crowd Clark's secret. Unsurprisingly, the crowd is unfazed by Pete's rantings about Clark being an alien, and Clark watches in dismay as Pete runs off screaming. Clark and Chloe go back to the caves, where Chloe sticks her hand in a crack and is pierced with something. Just then, Dr. Walden and Lex approach. Walden says that nobody can have access to the caves, including Clark. Clark goes to collect Chloe, who is petulant and rude to Dr. Walden.

Clark goes back to his loft to find Pete. He X-rays Pete and sees a parasite moving inside him. Pete resists Clark's attempts to take him to the hospital, finally incapacitating Clark with kryptonite and running off.

At the caves, Dr. Walden reveals that they found a nest of parasites behind one of the glyphs in the cave wall. Lex orders any live specimens to be sent to Cadmus Labs in Metropolis.

Clark goes to the Torch to find Chloe making out with some random boy. She ribs Clark about his date, and Clark thinks her strange behavior is due to jealousy. He asks her to help him save Pete. He then goes to the Talon to cancel his date with Lana because Pete is sick. Just then, Pete and Chloe arrive, and Lana thinks Clark lied to her and gets upset. Clark tries again to get Pete to the hospital, but instead, Pete slips a piece of red kryptonite into Clark's shirt pocket, and Kal takes over.

The three teens go back to Clark's barn, where he demonstrates his powers for Chloe. Lex interrupts them to tell Clark that Dr. Walden still won't agree to let Clark into the caves. Kal tells him he'll go into the caves whenever he "damn well pleases." They leave and Clark and Chloe make out in the backseat while Pete drives dangerously fast. Chloe and Kal continue the make-out session at the Talon and Chloe suggests they play strip poker (with imaginary cards) and takes Kal's shirt off. His senses returned, Clark jumps up away from Chloe and she gets angry. He X-rays her and sees that she has the parasite too, but Chloe forces a kiss on him at the same time that Lana walks in. Lana starts to cry, but Clark can't stay to explain because Chloe and Pete are in danger. Outside the Talon, he tries again to get them help, but Pete punches Clark with a meteor rock and knocks him out.

Clark is sprawled on the ground in the entranceway to the café, so Lana pours a bucket of water on him to wake him up. He speeds away to find them. He catches Pete's car just as they drive it off a cliff and gets them to the hospital. He visits them later and is relieved to learn that Chloe has no memory of their adventures. He runs into Lana, but she doesn't want to talk to him. She tells Chloe that Clark screwed up his date by making out with another girl, but doesn't tell Chloe who.

At home, Jonathan is talking to Clark about what Chloe knows and what Pete did when Pete comes to apologize.

Lex gets off the phone with Cadmus Labs and finds out that the parasite could be alien in origin. He tells Dr. Walden that Clark gets unfettered access to the cave because he is sure Clark knows more about the cave than he's letting on.

Clark later goes back to the Talon to apologize to Lana again, bringing her a rose. Lana is still upset and demands answers. She thinks Clark and Chloe still have feelings for each other, but Clark says they are just friends. Lana says she knows why Chloe was kissing him but asks, why was he kissing Chloe back. Clark doesn't answer because he can't tell her about red kryptonite and leaves silently, and Lana throws his rose away.

## 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 (credit only)
* Annette O'Toole as Martha Kent
* John Schneider as Jonathan Kent

Co-Starring* Shaun Sipos as Chloe's Boy Thing
* Haig Sutherland as Travis George
* Jason Jenkins as Walden's Assistant
* Luciana Carro as Talon Waitress

## Trivia

### Production Notes

* Chloe, while affected by a parasite, calls Dr. Walden a "cunning linguist", a play on words and a reference that is questionably appropriate for a family show.
* On the Talon banner, it says Morning Rush, a reference to the title of the episode.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat/Smallville/Season-2/Episode-14