Last night was my first time seeing the Rosetta episode. Hearing Lana say "story of my life" in response to Lex saying something about them being abandoned made me want to kill her slowly with a million toothpick pricks. I'd love to ignore the character, but she infuriates me too much.

I was going to say that if you wanted to convince someone that Smallville was worth their time, last night's 2 episodes would be the ones to use. There is, of course, the caveat that you must ignore all of Lana's scenes, which applies to almost any episode of Smallville. (Personally, I used her scenes to switch over to ESPN and see Clemens strike out Barry Bonds).

And if anybody can't see the HoYay after "Asylum", they are totally blind.

Heh, oops I meant toothpicks. Not pricks. But, whatever it takes.

It was Shattered and Asylum that finally managed to get me hooked on this show. Before that, I would try and watch, but it always seemed like I tuned in during one of those interminable Lana/Clark talks about how they couldn't be together or something.

Asylum is painful to watch. It's painful to watch Clark try and save someone he loves and fail, it's painful to watch Lex be tortured by Lionel and told that it's for his own good, it's horribly painful to watch Lex try and make a run for it in the teaser, it's painful to watch the final scene between Clark and Lex. It's all just painful. In a good way. I love the fact that they had Clark being drained of his powers result in Lex being saved from the electroshock therapy and then Clark getting his powers back immediately lead into Lex getting the electroshocks. I have to say though, it really bugs me that the final shot of the episode is not on Clark walking away from his friends. That kind of thing makes me feel like they don't understand what it is that is powerful about the show.

Rosetta was enjoyable because it had internal conflict for Clark about things that actually matter as opposed to his usual romantic angst. Plus, I always enjoy seeing Clark go against his parents wishes for a little bit. Plus, great guest star.

I wrod to OtherKate's Asylum paragraph.

I sometimes wonder if (some of) the writers get it, wrt what makes the show good when it's good, or if they're shooting blind and managing to hit things every once in a while.

That's the one where Lex is in an insane asylum.

Edit: Oops. Meant that to have a question mark.

An excellent episode.

OtherKate, have you see sisabet's SV vid Without You I'm Nothing yet? I mean, I'm not even into the show, but when I was done with the vid, I wanted to put my head down on the desk and weep. Lex-angst like you wouldn't believe. What a great vid.

That's the vid that made me finally conclude Lionel touches Lex too much, I think.

I'd never seen that one, thanks for the link. Great video. Poor Lex.

And, yes, Lionel does touch him too much. Never in the loving family way that he always ends up watching the Kents do with Clark, but in the very bad Daddy's going to mess up your head but good way.