For this week I wanted to take a look at a Smallville character I lovingly like to call (not) Supergirl. Join me in my synopsis and thoughts about the 22nd episode of Smallville’s 3rd season.
The episode opens at night in Smallville and we’re introduced to a naked blonde girl walking through the countryside where she obliterates a car before she arrives to the Kent farmhouse and tells Clark; “Hello, Clark. My name is Kara. I’m from Krypton.”
Being the season finale of Smallville season 3, there’s a lot of plot dealing with Lex Luthor and Lionel Luthor that I won’t be covering too thoroughly and I’ll mostly focus on the Clark/Kara plot line from the episode. Kara tells Clark he shouldn’t interfere with other people, specifically referring to Lex but speaking of humans in general, before she takes Clark and they fly into the air to discuss Clark’s future and what he should be doing with his powers. Of course this being Smallville, Clark is astounded that she can fly but Kara reassures him that he can’t fly “yet” alluding to him later gaining the power of flight as Superman.
It’s at this point we realize that Kara knows quite a lot about Clark’s alien past, knowing his Kryptonian name – Kal-El – the name of his birth planet – Krypton – and the name of his father – Jor-El. The pair go to the Kawatche caves where Clark notices a new crack in the cave walls where it seems Kara has been the last 14 years since Clark landed along with the meteor shower. Clark, as well as the viewer, at this point does start to feel like this may truly be another Kryptonian. While Clark seems to be on board, Jonathan and Martha are still somewhat skeptical and mention she may just be another run-of-the-mill meteor freak or possibly sent by Professor Swann. Kara then mentions the covenant that Jonathan made with Jor-El at the start of the season, Jonathan would gain Kryptonian powers to be able to return Clark to Smallville with the understanding that Clark would one day have to return to Jor-El. Kara seems to be implying that now is when Jor-El gets Clark back.
Kara, using her super senses, realizes someone is listening in to their conversation and zooms out to confront the man and the confrontation results in her vaporizing a second car so far in this episode. Jonathan then tries to get to the bottom of things on his own by taking a tea cup Kara used to Chloe Sullivan. Jonathan is hoping Chloe will have a way to track the fingerprints to see just who Kara really is. We then cut to a scene with Clark and Lana as Lana prepares to leave to go to Paris for the Summer. Lana notices Kara out in the field and asks who she is. Clark calls her his cousin from California which is a nod to Supergirl being Superman’s cousin in most iterations. Kara, after Lana leaves, tries to convince Clark to come with her and mentions that everyone on earth with betray and leave him but Clark stands his ground and says his home is in Smallville. The next few scenes show Clark seeing that Lex has a secret room in the mansion studying Clark and Lana talking with Lex before her flight convincing Clark that Kara was right about everyone betraying him.
As Clark is talking to Kara saying he’s ready to go with her now, Chloe brings the fingerprint results to Jonathan saying they’re “extremely weird”. Jonathan confronts Clark and Kara in the Kawatche caves and informs them, and the audience, that Kara isn’t who she says she is but rather a girl named Lindsey Harrison who was thought dead after a tragic accident the day of the meteor shower. Trapped in the caves for the past 14 years Jor-El had awakened her and given her powers to convince Clark to join him in finally embracing his Kryptonian heritage. At this point Kara (Lindsey) is no longer useful to Jor-El and he vaporizes her and changes his tactic to threatening Jonathan to convince Clark to join his side. Clark does eventually give in and go into the wall and the season ends with Clark on Jor-El’s side, Jonathan injured in the caves, and Martha witnessing a Kryptonian symbol being burned into her field.
Covenant was the 22nd episode of Smallville’s 3rd season and aired May 5th, 2004. Teleplay by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, story by Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer and directed by Greg Beeman. I think it’s also important to note Jeph Loeb is credited as “Consulting Producer”. Loeb worked on a lot of Smallville so it’s no surprise to see his name here but I do think it’s important to note that just a couple months before this episode aired, Superman/Batman #8 was released. Jeph Loeb wrote a lot of the Superman/Batman series but issue #8 and the next few issues after reintroduce the character of Kara Zor-El. The Kara in this episode doesn’t really share much with her comic contemporary, but the opening sequence of this episode does share some similarities with Kara’s first steps on earth from Superman/Batman #8. Kara being naked and destroying that car both seem very similar to the comic counterpart. If you’d like to learn more about the reintroduction of Kara Zor-El in the pages of Superman/Batman as well as the animated movie based on it, I wrote about both in a blog post a few weeks back (read it here).
Kara, aside from being naked in her first scene, only wears this white skirt and tank top combo throughout the episode. I’m not positive where these clothes come from because it doesn’t really seem like Martha Kent’s style and I also feel like this episode takes place over a few days but she’s only seen in this outfit which seems like a weird choice but I guess maybe Kryptonians don’t change clothes as often as the rest of us. Speaking of, the white flowing fabrics do seem somewhat reminiscent of the Kryptonian wear from the Superman movies from the 70s and 80s and somewhat like what the Argo citizens wear in the 1984 Supergirl movie. I don’t necessarily think this is a reference and probably just the creative minds behind the episode, and Jor-El, trying to portray this character as pure or angelic to help convince the viewers, and Clark, that she can be trusted.
Adrianne Palicki plays Kara/Lindsey Harrison in this episode and I think she does great with the character as she was written. I personally don’t think this character makes for the best Supergirl, but it does build on some of the early Smallville specific mythology of Superman that had been shown in the series thus far. I’m not super familiar with Palicki’s other work but I would like to note she was tied to 2 other DC shows, neither of which made it past a pilot: Aquaman (2006) and Wonder Woman (2011). While I like the mythology of Smallville with the Kawatche caves and the like and I do feel that this character fits into that nicely, I much prefer the Supergirl character that gets introduced later in season 7 of this show.
As a whole I think the episode is pretty solid and an enjoyable watch, however it doesn’t really seem to have the high stakes that season finales normally go for. Part of this boils down to the Lex and Lionel conflicts being one of the major focuses of the season and taking up a lot of the episode runtime, and many of the cliffhanger and high stakes scenes are saved until a montage in the last few minutes of the episode that show 3 main characters in possibly fatal scenarios, Lionel Luthor in prison, and Clark completely under Jor-El’s control. When I was initially considering covering this episode for the blog I remembered it as a middle of the season episode and was baffled when I opened up my season 3 box set and saw it was the finale. If Kara had been introduced a few episodes prior or even if some of the plots and elements of the episode were split into 2 it would’ve given the character a bit more time to shine and we possibly could’ve gotten some more interactions with her and Clark as she shows him more Kryptonian powers and possibly tell him more about Krypton itself. As it stands however, Kara seems much less like a character that interacts with the cast and more like a tool and voice piece used by Jor-El to manipulate Clark away from Smallville into being Kal-El who will rule the planet.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post and have any ideas for more stories to cover in the future feel free to email me at blogofsupergirl@gmail.com
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