the lexmas conundrum
Mar. 11th, 2007 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotWe've been working our way through X-files 5th season SV, which I need to rant about; I've enjoyed quite a bit of it, and there's some Clex that has utterly satisfied me, but there's still a lot of WTF-ing. For now, however, I just have one question - what the hell is up with "Lexmas"?
It's a TV classic, A Christmas Carol meets It's a Wonderful Life - character has a near-death experience, is given a vision of an alternate life by an angel/ghost, and makes a decision about their future. So how the heck does Smallville screw it up so badly? Either the writers got totally confused, or Lillian Luthor is actually as evil as her husband and is trying to get Lex to go darkside. Does anyone have another interpretation for the episode? Because we have totally failed to figure it out, and not for lack of trying.
A note for future angels/ghosts, if ever you are chosen to impart such a message. There are two methods. You can show your target how terrible their life or future could be, hoping that they'll choose the opposite; or you can show them how wonderful it could be, and hope they'll choose that way. Either way, please keep in mind: the Christmas that your beloved wife dies? It is not a wonderful life. No matter how many pretty trees were purchased before she died. That's pretty much going to be your worst Christmas ever. It's like if Scrooge was told Tiny Tim was going to die of arterial blockage if he gave in and bought the Cratchits that fat turkey. Who in their right mind would ever choose that future?
There are a dozen other ways this episode could have gone.
- The easiest change to the script would have been for Lana not to have died - just hit 'pause' a few hours sooner, Lillian! Have Lex torn between happiness with his family, but having to endure a middle-class life and his father's total rejection. As it is, Lex seems quite accepting of those sacrifices if he has love - only he is told outright that the only way he can possibly have a love is if he has the money and power to keep them. Otherwise he's doomed to lose them. So, yeah. Money & power? Looking pretty good. Especially since he's not given any indication that he wouldn't have happiness if he did have them. Okay, Lionel didn't look especially happy, but he didn't look totally depressed, either - he's always in his element tormenting Lex, after all. For true Christmas Carol effect, Lionel's misery should have been an emphasis, not a side note.
- Or show the same future, but a different angle, with a bittersweet touch: Christmas the year after Lana's death; Lex struggling with his grief, with his children and the Kents helping, but maybe it's not enough for Lex, who craves love and partnership so fiercely. One of the things that gets me most about this episode is that Lillian, like a poor writer, tells instead of shows. She says it's a future of love - but then why in the end is Lex in the hospital alone? Why, when he's desperately trying to find a way to save Lana, he can't go to, oh, say, his good friend the state senator, who might have pulled some strings to save her?
Good grief, what kind of world is this, that on Christmas, a hospital isn't doing all they can to save a new mother, only because of money problems? Lionel is the only man in the world who could possibly do anything? No one else is generous enough to try to help pillar of society Lex Luthor, after all he's apparently done? No wonder Lex rejects this world. It's false affection, fake love. When the going gets tough, he's left alone, holding his wife's hand as she slips away.
That's working with the future as given in the episode. There were a couple other possibilities I'd've liked to see:
- Go with the classic, with a twist. Show Lex the dark future - and, unlike all those past chars before him, have him choose that future anyway. Lillian could have shown him in the White House, in a loveless marriage, the Kents' rejection, Clark's hatred - but he has power, he has knowledge, and secrets, and Lex might have woken up and gone, "Hey. Maybe that's not so bad after all," and how wicked would that have been?
- Or else take the super-tragic route. This wouldn't have worked in 5th season, Lex has strayed too far; 3rd would have been best. Still. Have the same basic Lexmas future, married with children, friends with the Kents, with Clark. Except Lionel is becoming President, Metropolis is burning, and the world is going to hell in a handbasket. So Lex could have his happiness, but at the expense of everything else. And Lex chooses against it, chooses the way that will give him the power to fight Lionel - not realizing that he's sealed his fate, and he will become a worse dragon yet than the monster he seeks to slay.
And if Lillian had been trying to convince Lex to choose her future anyway - what kind of woman would she have been, to want her son's happiness, at the expense of the world?
As it is, I'm absolutely baffled as to what choice she actually wanted Lex to make, how she could have imagined that he would ever choose the life she offered, given what she showed him about it. It's Smallville's underlying problem with Lex yet again - they are writing a Lex who, instead of giving into corruption, is being shoved down that path, never given any other options. He's the victim, not the villain.
There's something else about "Lexmas" that disturbs me as much as the nonsensical writing. How cruel is it to tell your child that the way for him to be happy is for him to change himself completely - to imply that the person he is cannot be loved? This is the opposite of unconditional love - this is setting up conditions that might be impossible to meet, just to watch him jump through hoops trying. The Lex Luthor presented in "Lexmas" is unrecognizable - except for being bald, he is nothing like Lex. He's a mild-mannered, clumsy, unambitious, utterly average (and content to be) middle-class man*. Don't get me wrong, he's adorable in blue jeans - but he's not Lex. Lex Luthor is not so pathetic that when his loved one is dying, all he can think of to do is to throw himself at his father's boots and lick. He doesn't even really get angry at the useless, compassionless hospital. The closest we've ever seen Lex like this is at the end of "Asylum", practically lobotomized, sublimely happy in what he's lost and forgotten. Ignorance is bliss - maybe that's why Lex rejects this future, not because of Lana's death, but because upon considering it, he's so repulsed by the helpless, if happy, dweeb he's doomed to become.
* My god. I just described Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent. Is Lex in Lexmas secretly a superhero, and he simply never found out in the course of the vision???
The only other way I can make sense of "Lexmas" is that Lillian is secretly a Clexer. In this interpretation, the moment Lex wakes up, Lillian is shouting at him, "No, wait! You haven't seen the part that Clark shows up to comfort you and you marry him and live happily ever after!" Because Clark? Is not-so-secretly in love with Lex in that future. (That scene on the porch, Clark's questioning look at "I know you love...loved her." Aww.)
(Actually that's another a version in itself. Clark's love-life in this future is on the rocks - Lana's married, Lex is married, Chloe's just a friend, and Lois is MIA (was she Jor-El's sacrifice instead of Jonathan?) Clark seems reserved, if not in fact depressed - if Lex had chosen to sacrifice his own guaranteed happiness for Clark's potential future...eeee. Fangirl meltdown!)
It's a TV classic, A Christmas Carol meets It's a Wonderful Life - character has a near-death experience, is given a vision of an alternate life by an angel/ghost, and makes a decision about their future. So how the heck does Smallville screw it up so badly? Either the writers got totally confused, or Lillian Luthor is actually as evil as her husband and is trying to get Lex to go darkside. Does anyone have another interpretation for the episode? Because we have totally failed to figure it out, and not for lack of trying.
A note for future angels/ghosts, if ever you are chosen to impart such a message. There are two methods. You can show your target how terrible their life or future could be, hoping that they'll choose the opposite; or you can show them how wonderful it could be, and hope they'll choose that way. Either way, please keep in mind: the Christmas that your beloved wife dies? It is not a wonderful life. No matter how many pretty trees were purchased before she died. That's pretty much going to be your worst Christmas ever. It's like if Scrooge was told Tiny Tim was going to die of arterial blockage if he gave in and bought the Cratchits that fat turkey. Who in their right mind would ever choose that future?
There are a dozen other ways this episode could have gone.
- The easiest change to the script would have been for Lana not to have died - just hit 'pause' a few hours sooner, Lillian! Have Lex torn between happiness with his family, but having to endure a middle-class life and his father's total rejection. As it is, Lex seems quite accepting of those sacrifices if he has love - only he is told outright that the only way he can possibly have a love is if he has the money and power to keep them. Otherwise he's doomed to lose them. So, yeah. Money & power? Looking pretty good. Especially since he's not given any indication that he wouldn't have happiness if he did have them. Okay, Lionel didn't look especially happy, but he didn't look totally depressed, either - he's always in his element tormenting Lex, after all. For true Christmas Carol effect, Lionel's misery should have been an emphasis, not a side note.
- Or show the same future, but a different angle, with a bittersweet touch: Christmas the year after Lana's death; Lex struggling with his grief, with his children and the Kents helping, but maybe it's not enough for Lex, who craves love and partnership so fiercely. One of the things that gets me most about this episode is that Lillian, like a poor writer, tells instead of shows. She says it's a future of love - but then why in the end is Lex in the hospital alone? Why, when he's desperately trying to find a way to save Lana, he can't go to, oh, say, his good friend the state senator, who might have pulled some strings to save her?
Good grief, what kind of world is this, that on Christmas, a hospital isn't doing all they can to save a new mother, only because of money problems? Lionel is the only man in the world who could possibly do anything? No one else is generous enough to try to help pillar of society Lex Luthor, after all he's apparently done? No wonder Lex rejects this world. It's false affection, fake love. When the going gets tough, he's left alone, holding his wife's hand as she slips away.
That's working with the future as given in the episode. There were a couple other possibilities I'd've liked to see:
- Go with the classic, with a twist. Show Lex the dark future - and, unlike all those past chars before him, have him choose that future anyway. Lillian could have shown him in the White House, in a loveless marriage, the Kents' rejection, Clark's hatred - but he has power, he has knowledge, and secrets, and Lex might have woken up and gone, "Hey. Maybe that's not so bad after all," and how wicked would that have been?
- Or else take the super-tragic route. This wouldn't have worked in 5th season, Lex has strayed too far; 3rd would have been best. Still. Have the same basic Lexmas future, married with children, friends with the Kents, with Clark. Except Lionel is becoming President, Metropolis is burning, and the world is going to hell in a handbasket. So Lex could have his happiness, but at the expense of everything else. And Lex chooses against it, chooses the way that will give him the power to fight Lionel - not realizing that he's sealed his fate, and he will become a worse dragon yet than the monster he seeks to slay.
And if Lillian had been trying to convince Lex to choose her future anyway - what kind of woman would she have been, to want her son's happiness, at the expense of the world?
As it is, I'm absolutely baffled as to what choice she actually wanted Lex to make, how she could have imagined that he would ever choose the life she offered, given what she showed him about it. It's Smallville's underlying problem with Lex yet again - they are writing a Lex who, instead of giving into corruption, is being shoved down that path, never given any other options. He's the victim, not the villain.
There's something else about "Lexmas" that disturbs me as much as the nonsensical writing. How cruel is it to tell your child that the way for him to be happy is for him to change himself completely - to imply that the person he is cannot be loved? This is the opposite of unconditional love - this is setting up conditions that might be impossible to meet, just to watch him jump through hoops trying. The Lex Luthor presented in "Lexmas" is unrecognizable - except for being bald, he is nothing like Lex. He's a mild-mannered, clumsy, unambitious, utterly average (and content to be) middle-class man*. Don't get me wrong, he's adorable in blue jeans - but he's not Lex. Lex Luthor is not so pathetic that when his loved one is dying, all he can think of to do is to throw himself at his father's boots and lick. He doesn't even really get angry at the useless, compassionless hospital. The closest we've ever seen Lex like this is at the end of "Asylum", practically lobotomized, sublimely happy in what he's lost and forgotten. Ignorance is bliss - maybe that's why Lex rejects this future, not because of Lana's death, but because upon considering it, he's so repulsed by the helpless, if happy, dweeb he's doomed to become.
* My god. I just described Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent. Is Lex in Lexmas secretly a superhero, and he simply never found out in the course of the vision???
The only other way I can make sense of "Lexmas" is that Lillian is secretly a Clexer. In this interpretation, the moment Lex wakes up, Lillian is shouting at him, "No, wait! You haven't seen the part that Clark shows up to comfort you and you marry him and live happily ever after!" Because Clark? Is not-so-secretly in love with Lex in that future. (That scene on the porch, Clark's questioning look at "I know you love...loved her." Aww.)
(Actually that's another a version in itself. Clark's love-life in this future is on the rocks - Lana's married, Lex is married, Chloe's just a friend, and Lois is MIA (was she Jor-El's sacrifice instead of Jonathan?) Clark seems reserved, if not in fact depressed - if Lex had chosen to sacrifice his own guaranteed happiness for Clark's potential future...eeee. Fangirl meltdown!)
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Date: 2007-03-11 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 06:25 pm (UTC)Actually I'd like to believe that if an individual reached omniscience, they'd be good by default.
I'll give Lex-comes-back-from-the-Source a try. At least that's a simple, clear-cut concept :D