Alien Nation
Updated 2006-12-11 16:00:00
How not to do an episode of Smallville that has to do with illegal immigration: have all the laborious field work immigrants do in Kansas taking place in the dead of December. Hire an actor for the sympathetic lead role as a kid just off the coyote truck, looking for his mom, who sounds like he was born and raised in Ohio and whose Spanish is worse than when Professor SoFine or Lex have spoken the language. The kid, Javier (who claims he learned English watching American TV, presumably for about fifty years), is part of a group of laborers at a Smallville farm who are being exploited because of their undocumented status. Javier runs away, and his friend is eaten by some sort of giant Tremors creature, it seems, as they try to escape. Javier takes refuge at the Kent Farm, and Clark, who considers himself to be the illegal immigrant, tries to help. MamaKent balks at the idea, but eventually wants to help. Long episode short, the owner of the slave labor farm is a moleman (yes, a man who is like a mole) who can dig through the Earth, saving lots of money on tractors. With the help of Token Hispanic Immigration Officer who is on a bloodthirsty hunt for one undocumented immigrant (only 11,999,999 to go!), Clark figures out the crime and puts a stop to Farmer Moleman's reign of terror. Sadly, no one is available to stop the reign of terror inflicted by the script. In other plots, Lex still doesn't have an answer to his marriage proposal, but he flies Lana to Amsterdam to check out an art exhibit. She's wowed by the perks of livin' large, and decides that she and Lex could do a lot of good in the world. She decides to help the undocumented immigrants. She visits with Clark, who sort of calls her Lex's puppet, and she is suitably angry. Jimmy tells Clark that, with regard to Chloe, he's a "bro, not a foe," which veers dangerously close to Michael Richards territory. Lex walks through what looks like a bad music video as he puts Farmer Moleman into Level 33.1. Stay tuned for a full recap, where I'll rip this one a new dirt hole. Señor.