Luthor Potential Denied

By: Rhonda Eudaly [reudaly@earthlink.net]

Lionel Luthor is the king. The King of Storylines Not Realized. Season Two of Smallville was rife with the potential for great - almost Soap Operatic - drama and angst. Yet after a few teasing episodes, those stories were wrapped up in relatively neat and very unsatisfying bows. The sad part was that almost all the story lines were interconnected, which would've made for excellent story arcing. But alas, this was not meant to be.

The Lionel Lines started from the beginning of the Second Season when he came out of the tornados blind. I'm sure most of the fans could see some of the lines in their potential about to happen, but I'm jumping ahead of myself. The blindness was the catalyst for Luthor Potential Denied.

The First Potential Denied stemmed from Lionel's wooing of Martha into his employ. The blindness made a trustworthy assistant mandatory, and Smallville canon establishes there is none more trustworthy than anyone named "Kent". For Martha's part, there's not only the desire for new adventure but also the Do-Gooder conviction of being able to change "Evil" to "Good". She always knew, of course, the possibility of Lionel seducing her "to the Dark Side".

This almost played out in the episode where Lionel gave her the expensive, engraved watch. This should have started a season-long circling and snarling of Alpha Males between Lionel and Jonathan. Almost and should being the key elements to this point. Just as the tension reached monumental angst and drama, The Powers That Be pulled the plug with the "Who Shot Lionel Luthor" episode.

Though we understood why Jonathan was a prime suspect in the crime, it was over too quickly. The attempted murder solved and everything was back to the First Season relationships. We never got to see Martha resign. We never got to see the battle between Martha, Jonathan, and Lionel leading up to her passionate - though tearful or angry is left to fanish imagination - leave-taking. And it would have been passionate!

This leads us to the Second Potential Denied - Lucas - the Long Lost Son. This Potential was two-fold. First Lex's search for a mysterious brother was introduced only once and Lionel's use of this son is glossed over. This, however, is another story for another time, and a much bigger debate. The second part is what's key here.

Lucas started what could've been an amazing second story arc concerning Lionel's blindness. Lucas was the one who tumbled to Lionel's regaining his sight - which should have been introduced slowly and subtly in episodes leading up to this one. And then it's revealed much too quickly to Lex in the final scenes! This should've been drawn out over many episodes for Lex to discover in stages for good drama.

The only thing that went even close to right was the Third Potential Denied, which was the Third Season Revelation of Lionel's own obsession with Clark Kent and meteor rocks. There were hints of this all through the series, but less defined than Lex's own obsession. Lionel's obsession seemed more with the Kents Senior, not Junior.

Then we saw the initial reports of Lionel's terminal liver disease. The research into the Meteor Rocks and Clark's DNA gave him evidence of some hope of recovery - though why Lionel hasn't just bought a transplant is beyond me. That's definitely another story. This story is overshadowed by a vague arc that Lionel murdered his parents that was introduced spottily throughout Season Three. The disease is finally revealed to Lex in the final episode with a decided lack of fanfare and no closure.

It was just one more way each season of Smallville leaves us with the question of "Will this be the season they off Lionel Luthor?" They've dropped him, clobbered him, shot him, given him this terminal disease, and stuffed him in prison. But he's miraculously survived them all. In many cases, he's even recovered to full health by the next episode. That has to be hard on a constitution - even one as strong as Lionel's. And with all we've been through with Lionel, we can only hope that he will once more pull off the miraculous and survive jail, liver disease, and - most importantly - the loss of his glorious hair.

But no matter what happens, I can nearly guarantee most of us Lionel Fans will be glued to Season Four to see what tortures they put Lionel through - and the ones he puts the rest of the cast through. We'll wait anxiously to see if this is finally they season that answers the question: "Is this the season Lionel Luthor dies?" And though we hope the answer is a resounding, "NO!", we also wonder what will be the next Luthor Potential Denied.

-End-

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