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Smallville

Episode Report Card

Omar G: B- | 806 USERS: B-

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The Big Snooze

By Omar G | Season 6 | Episode 20 | Aired on 2007.05.03

In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description!

Here's the scoop, see? Jimmy Olsen really loves his dame, Chloe, so he sets up a movie picture at her work, real nice-like. Bogey and Bacall, The Big Sleep, classic gumshoe stuff. But hold on, stop the presses. Just when the gettin's good, a gunshot pierces through the office like a Chinese firecracker in an empty room. It's Lana Luthor, the gal we call, "Miss No Personality" around the office. She's been shot in the shoulder, and that bullet didn't stop to ask for directions when it nailed her in a Daily Planet elevator. Jimmy gets a shot of a creep running away with his newfangled camera-phone. Just as Jimmy's about to take a look at the goods with his computer doohickey, he gets a nasty conk on the noggin, free of charge from a mystery man. Jimmy, asleep on the desk, slips into a 1940s world of slow cars and slower men. It's black and white, deep shadows, high contrast, big cars and cigarettes that are actually good for ya. In Jimmy's dream, he's a reporter who gets sucked into a plot by Lana Luthor, a femme fatale convinced her man, Lex Luthor, is makin' time with a floozy singer who looks a lot like Lois Lane and sings like an American Idol top-24'er. Jimmy meets Chloe, who's an ace assistant at the paper, and beefy Clark Kent, a big slab of man who turns out to be a police detective with killer biceps who fell in love with Lana Luthor. Jimmy kills Lex Luthor, thinking he's protecting Lana, but they played him like a double-stringed fiddle. In the end, Lex is dead, Lana gets shot by do-gooder Clark Kent, and Jimmy goes to jail. Them's the breaks, Jimmy. Jimmy wakes up in the present day remembering a cigarette case that Lana was carrying when she was shot, and that was picked up by Lois Lane, who came to the scene sniffing for a story. How they let a reporter from a rival paper into a crime scene at The Planet we'll never know. Jimmy figures out that Lana was meeting with a Planet reporter to expose a scheme Lex has hatched with a senator. She was also trying to implicate Papa Luthor to get out from under their thumb. A reporter dies when all this comes out and Lana's in the hospital. Lana confesses to Chloe that she was forced to marry Lex to protect Clark. Papa Luthor discovers Lex's connection to the senator through a computer drive in the cigarette case that Lois stole. He tells Lois to watch her back. Clark decides to help Lana, whether she wants it or not. And that's the straight skinny, folks. Have a pleasant night and stay tuned for The Pepsodent Variety Hour.

Want more? The full recap starts right below!

I hope you love old movies! Old black-and-white movies with dames and goons! That's totally The CW's demographic sweet spot, isn't it? Young people who also happen to love Turner Classic Movies. How amazingly prescient about the tastes of its audience was The CW and the Smallville head honchos? So in tune that this was the lowest rated episode in six seasons. Bravo, Smallville. You really knocked this one out of the park. (The abandoned park.)

We open on the coast (sigh) of the Kansas metropolis of...uh, Metropolis. Lightning flashes. It's nighttime, and the city is lit up like a big Canadian coastal town. We go directly from this very wide establishing shot to the interior of The Daily Planet. According to the wall clock, it's 2:00 AM. Chloe and Jimmy, who have the place to themselves, are walking together. Jimmy's got his hands on Chloe's eyes to blindfold her as he shuffles behind her. Chloe says she won't likely be surprised, given that she knows these hallways better than anyone. Giggling, she says she can't go too far away because she needs to stay near the phone. Jimmy brings her into an archive room. He tells her that he transferred the phone over, and that it's not her fault she got stuck on phone duty on the night that Senator Burke is in town. Is a senator being in any town that big a deal? It's about as newsworthy as a president saying something dumb. We see a movie projector nearby. Jimmy says that unless the senator goes to the local pole-dancing parlor (we've seen it), they can still keep their date. They sit on the couch, and Chloe gets to have her eyes back. There's a giant bowl of popcorn and some sodas on ice. Jimmy set up a movie night complete with a big projector screen.

Chloe tells him he's the best boyfriend a girl could have. "Right back atchoo, schweetheart," he says, doing a pretty piss-poor Bogart. Jimmy, I'm saying this for your own good: don't Bogart it, dude. Chloe kisses him, despite the stale Humphreyness of it all. Jimmy gets up and starts the projector. Feisty '40s music plays immediately. Myah, see? He tells her he thought she could use a break from her own soap opera. Chloe asks what he means. The old-school WB logo appears perfectly on the screen (Jimmy's been calibrating his projector), followed by the title, The Big Sleep. Is this the one with Robert De Niro and Robin Williams in a hospital? Jimmy tells her that she lives the soap opera every day, but from the outside. "Your life's got Cagney and Stanwyck written all over it," Jimmy says. Hey, Jimmy. Sorry to correct you, buddy, but it's Cagney & Lacey. Jeez. Do I have to fix all your mistakes? Chloe grins and goes with the flow. Jimmy says they've got the billionaire mogul, the confused damsel who chose money over love, and a best friend who mysteriously appears because he can't seem to find a real job. Was that a crack at Clark? Because if so, I love it! He says there's also the "steadfast dame" they all depend on. Chloe chuckles and says it's a real glimpse into the mind of Jimmy Olsen. Frankly, I was hoping for more skeletons. I bet he wore a lame fedora in high school and tried to get everybody to listen to Etta James.