Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Smallville through the episode, “Committed,” originally broadcast October 16th, 2008.

Did you ever watch an episode of Fox’s “The Moment of Truth?” Yeah, me neither. From what I gathered through the promos, people allowed themselves to be hooked up to lie detectors and asked an assortment of potentially embarrassing questions, all for… what? Fabulous prizes? Who knows. I wasn’t willing to watch to find out. Well, someone in Metropolis decides to play the home game, only the contestants are playing for his/her life and the life of his/her fiancee.

Let’s run through the story. Jimmy and Chloe have an engagement party, during which an inebriated Lois gives a toast that shows that she doesn’t believe for a second that Jimmy is the love of her cousin’s life, a sentiment that I share. Clark quickly rushes Lois out of the party. After the party, Jimmy and Chloe are drugged and kidnapped. They’re strapped into chairs and hooked up to electrodes. Their captor tells them that they’ll be playing a little game of To Tell the Truth in order to determine whether they’re truly meant to be together. He’ll ask questions of each of them. A lie from one of them will result in an electric shock to the other.

Eventually, Clark and Lois figure out that Jimmy and Chloe are missing. They also find reports of other newly-engaged couples that have disappeared recently. They decide to pose as a couple shopping for their own nuptials in hopes of attracting the attention of Jimmy and Chloe’s captor. This leads to a rather humorous encounter as Lois and Clark have to tell Oliver about their “engagement” and love for each other when they run into him at the jewelers.

Jimmy is the first to face the lie detector. He lies about having cheated on Chloe, and Chloe receives a nasty shock. Not wanting to put Chloe in any more danger, he admits to kissing Maxima. Chloe is next up. The inquisitor asks if she’s in love with anyone else. Chloe answers “no.” Jimmy expects to get zapped, but the lie detector shows she’s being honest. Their captor pronounces them fit to be together and drugs them again. They wake up in Chloe’s apartment.

Lois, still looking for Chloe, gets kidnapped by the jeweler. Clark manages to track her down, but is overcome by Kryptonite in the jewelers wrist band. Both end up strapped in the chairs-o-doom. Clark gets zapped when Lois lies about having cheated on him. She eventually answers “yes” when asked whether she loves Clark. Clark is asked the same question, but before he’s forced to answer, he manages to snatch the wrist band off of the jeweler and toss it aside. Clark uses his heat vision to create a diversion and knocks the jeweler out while Lois’s view is blocked.

Later, Lois apologizes to Chloe for her speech and welcomes Jimmy to the family. She also claims to Clark that she managed to slip the lie detector’s finger monitor off before answering whether she loves him. Jimmy confesses to Chloe that he’s been lying about his background. His parents aren’t rich. His father is an alcoholic and he never knew his mother. Chloe, of course, couldn’t care less.

There was also a side story involving Oliver and Tess. They briefly rehash that Oliver cheated on her during their relationship then end up in bed together.  Oliver invites Tess to fly to Malibu with him, but she tells him it was only sex and walks out.

We keep being reminded that Tess isn’t at all the person she was when she and Oliver had their relationship. Oliver’s question to her, “what happened to you,” has to be addressed at some point. Or at least it should be addressed at some point. There’s really no reason to keep hanging that thread in front of us unless it’s going to lead somewhere eventually.

So despite my feeling that Chloe was still in love with Clark, one Jimmy and Lois apparently shared, Jimmy really is the only one in Chloe’s heart. Awwwww. Meanwhile, Lois and Clark are getting closer, too, though it seems they’re being dragged kicking and screaming. They’re both in denial about their feelings, but Lois is probably better off keeping her guard up until Clark deals with his feelings for Lana. That’s something that has come up surprisingly little so far this season.

On the whole it wasn’t a bad episode, certainly better than last week’s “Instinct.” The tension, though, is ratcheted down a bit when the jeweler lets Jimmy and Chloe go, and without asking any questions that Chloe really wouldn’t have wanted to ask. Initially, I was more concerned with what choice Chloe would make if she were faced with having to reveal Clark’s secret than whether she would admit that she still loved Clark. In fact, the way Jimmy and Chloe were questioned really made the whole question session pointless. Would anyone be so unwilling to admit infidelity that they’d rather see their partner die than to tell the truth? Maybe the jeweler killed couples if they answered honestly, but he didn’t found their answers showed they didn’t belong together.

Having been through Jimmy and Chloe’s session, the only real tension in Lois and Clark’s questioning was whether Lois and Clark would admit their true feelings. Neither Jimmy nor Chloe were asked whether they were hiding anything from the other, which would seem an obvious question, so it stood to reason that Clark’s secret was safe. Still, I couldn’t help but feel for Lois at having to admit such a personal feeling, particularly as hard as she tries to keep it from Clark in their every day lives.