**************************************************************** * LOIS AND CLARK: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN * * Detailed Episode Summaries * * * * Prepared by Jeffery D. Sykes * * sykes@ms.uky.edu * * * * Season 1: Episodes 20-21 * **************************************************************** These summaries should be distributed free of charge. Before including them in any other source or archive, please contact me at the above address. All of my summaries, as well as my Episode Guide, are available via ftp and e-mail. See my regular posting for more information. 20. BARBARIANS AT THE PLANET ------------------------ US Airdate 5/1/94 Written by Dan Levine & Deborah Joy LeVine Directed by James R. Bagdonas A warehouse door slides open and a group of stealthily-clad thugs begin searching -- their prize a crate marked Smallville 1966. The leader cracks open the crate, irradiating the darkness with the green glow of a large chunk of kryptonite! Meanwhile, Lois is aboard Lex's private jet as they return from an Italian dinner in Milano. After a few moments of Lex spewing his romanticism, he admits to her that he would like to spend the rest of his life with her. To prove his sincerity, he presents her with a huge chunk of diamond ring and asks her to be his wife. Lois squirms through a few moments of discomfort, dodging Lex's questions about Superman's being a reason for her procrastination. She then tells him that she will have to take time to think about it. At about this time, Lex's phone rings. The new owner of the kryptonite offers it to Lex for five million dollars. The next day, Lois and Clark enter the Daily Planet building playing a trivia game. Lois can't seem to remember Vixen of Santa's reindeer or Bashful of the Seven Dwarves. As they wait for the elevator, Lois all the while guessing the dwarves' names, Clark continually blows out a man's attempt to light a cigarette from a good distance. When they all board the elevator, Lois grabs the cigarette from the man and throws it out, saying "Can't you read!?" In the newsroom, they walk in on a meeting concerning the second consecutive set of bouncing paychecks. The management has announced that there may be layoffs. As the meeting winds down, they also discover that management has made excessive cutbacks, effectively restricting their investigative capabilities. As they discuss the possibility of a strike, Jimmy and Jack each receive (as Jimmy refers to them) "they really are pink" slips! Cut to Lex's office, where he is discussing his plans for taking over the Daily Planet as a means to conquer Lois. He is contacted once more by DeBain about the kryptonite and they set up the purchase. Back at the newsroom, Lois begins to tell Clark about Lex's proposal when Perry interrupts, saying an announcement is soon forthcoming. At approximately that moment, Lex and his entourage exit the elevator. He announces that he has bought the Daily Planet to keep it running, and that he promises no interference or layoffs and only some minor modifications. Clark is openly upset about this news, prompting Lois to defend Lex and reveal his proposal. Perry comes into his office to find Lex there with the Daily Planet's new Supervising Editor in Chief, Chip. Perry goes ballistic, tosses Chip out of the office, and rages at Lex about displacing him. Lex tells Perry to think of it as an adjustment period, a honeymoon. Perry angrily rebuts that Lex can think of it as a divorce and walks out, stopping only to take an Elvis picture from the wall. He vents some more as he passes Lois on his way out. Lois then discovers that Jimmy and Jack have been moved down to the printing plant. After Lex buries a story which attacks a company of which Lex is a member of the Board of Directors, Jack walks by, commenting "Who died and made you king?" When Lex confronts him, Jack doesn't back down, but repeats his comment. Finally, Lois confronts Lex about what all is going on. Lex backs down a bit, managing to cover his tail and score points with her. When Lois returns and tells Clark to give Lex a chance and some time, he responds that she has simply been blinded by his charm. Lois angrily admits that she is seriously considering Lex's proposal. This causes Clark to fly home for a rap session with his folks. He admits to them that he is in love with Lois, only to have them tell him that they've known it all along. They convince him that he must speak up. The next day he tries to get a private word with Lois, but catches her at a bad time. He decides to wait. Down in the printing plant, someone switches Jack's Superman lunchbox with an identical one. The replacement then explodes causing the nearly total destruction of the Planet building. Superman (naturally) helps to squelch the fires and rescue the injured. As they walk along the outside of the building, Lex comes rushing up with the police and has Jack arrested for the bombing, stating that the explosive was in his lunchbox and other evidence was found at his place. Lex tries to act like it's such a tragedy about Jack, but Perry diverts the focus to the fact that there will be no Daily Planet edition for the first time in 219 years. As they watch the globe being lowered from the roof, Perry reminds them that Lex has announced that the Planet will remained closed for the foreseeable future. Perry, Clark, and Jimmy reminisce about the good times at the Planet, but Lois refuses to give up. Perry then announces that he has decided to take an early retirement. Lois goes to see Lex to attempt to convince him to rebuild the planet. After introducing her to Mrs. Cox, his newest personal assistant, he explains that the building had been underinsured and he can't afford to rebuild. He then proceeds to offer her a job at his news network, LNN. Lois has Clark meet her at the LNN studios, where she tries to convince him to work with her there. But he is aghast at how quickly she has given up on the Planet and he tells her he'll never work for Lex. He convinces her that they need to talk alone and takes her to a park, where he proceeds to divulge his true emotions. He explains that she is the one thing that he couldn't stand to lose about the Planet -- because he is in love with her. She balks at this, explaining that she respects and admires him, and even that she loves him -- but as a friend. Understandably depressed by her response, he quickly asks if she is in love with Lex. She tells him that she doesn't know and that she really needs to talk to Superman, asking Clark to let him know that she is looking for him. That night, Lex meets DeBain to buy the kryptonite, but finds a double-cross. A gunfight erupts. Mrs. Cox and Luthor manage to gun down all of the thugs, but Luthor seemingly has been killed. However, Lex then steps out of the car, revealing the other to be a double. He then leans over DeBain, and while jesting "Is that kryptonite in your pocket, or are you glad to see me?" removes the rock from his coat pocket. Superman arrives at Lois' apartment, where she questions whether or not there is a future for the two of them. He tells her that there is too much about him she wouldn't understand, but she replies that she would love him even if he were a regular guy with no powers. He tells her that under the circumstances he can't believe her. She sadly turns away. When she turns back, tears staining her cheek, she finds that he has already gone. Lois manages to fit into her new job quickly, though she clearly is terribly lonely for her friends. Clark goes to visit Jack, who relates his experiences with the lawyer that Luthor provided. He then asks Clark if he could get Superman to bust him out. Of course Clark says no. Tensions run very high at Perry's retirement party that night -- for everyone but Perry, who (under the influence) is jovially relating Elvis tales and singing loudly! Lois and Clark step aside and continue their running argument about Luthor. Clark informs her that he is investigating Luthor's involvement in the Planet's downfall. She will hear none of it, defending Lex vehemently. They leave the party, going their separate ways. Lois goes directly to Lex's penthouse, where she asks him to tell him things about himself he wouldn't want anyone else to know. He tells her how he was orphaned at thirteen and that he admits to having been no saint. While he continues to snow her under, he flashes back to planting the bomb in the fake lunchbox, setting up the Planet's buyout, and obtaining the kryptonite. He then informs her that from now on, his life is completely committed to her. He reposes the question and she accepts. Superman, floating outside the window, watches Lex slide the ring onto her finger then flies to one of the poles, where he releases a deafening scream of despair. TO BE CONTINUED ***************************************************************************** 21. THE HOUSE OF LUTHOR ------------------- US Airdate 5/8/94 Written by Deborah Joy LeVine & Dan Levine Directed by Alan J. Levi Over the night skies of Metropolis soars the not-so-familiar blue-and-red-clad figure of ... Lex-man!? SuperLex flies by Lois' place, where she is being fit for her wedding dress. He gives his chest a lovesick pat and then proceeds to Clark's apartment. Upon seeing Clark amid a mound of crumpled papers, his attempts at writing in vain, Lex emits an evil chuckle. Continuing his "patrol" of Metropolis, he happens upon the unemployed Jimmy huddled in front of the want-ads on a park bench, Jack pacing in his cell at Juvenile Hall, and Perry asleep on the front porch of his house, enjoying (?) his retirement. Finally, he comes to land in a graveyard -- in front of Superman's gravestone. Lex emerges from his virtual reality fantasy with a smug grin of satisfaction. Clark is floating in mid-air, legs crossed, typewriter in his lap, trying to work on his novel. At a whim he picks up the phone and calls Perry, who "sounds tan!" It takes Clark no time to determine that Perry is miserable without his work. After he tells Perry that Jimmy has been evicted from his apartment, Perry convinces him that he should come help him to find Jimmy and get the dirt on Luthor. In Lex's penthouse, he and Lois are considering the plans for their new home, including a 3000-square-foot master bedroom. When Lex gets a bit anxious about the wedding, cracking a honeymoon joke, Lois thanks him for understanding her need to wait until the honeymoon. At this time, Mrs. Cox interrupts to go over Lex's schedule for the next day. But before they get any real work done, Lex is called out of the room for a phone call. While he is gone, Lois asks about Mrs. Cox's husband, whom she discovers is dead -- though Mrs. Cox says she's not sorry about it! When Lex returns and Mrs. Cox leaves, Lois makes it known that she doesn't care for her. When Lex exhibits concern, Lois admits that she really just misses her friends. Jimmy has found work distributing fliers outside of a strip joint. While on the job, he is approached by Jack, who has broken out of Juvenile Hall after running across one of the brothers who planted the evidence used to frame him. They decide that it's time for help. Lois finally buckles under and calls Clark, but their conversation is littered with little more than small talk. Finally, as they are about to hang up, they admit they miss each other. The next morning, as Clark has just finished shaving (by reflecting his heat vision off of a mirror), Perry shows up just before Jimmy and Jack. The four of them decide to investigate further as a team, with Jimmy looking for John Black, one of the brothers who framed Jack, with Clark trying to find out about the Boss they were working for, and with Perry digging into the Planet's finances. They decide that for his own safety, Jack should not return to the Juvenile Hall. Suddenly, Clark leaves to answer a bank alarm as Superman. When he arrives, he finds that the alarms were false and begins to feel sudden pain and weakness. Across the street, Mrs. Cox calls Lex to tell him that the kryptonite is genuine. After talking with his mom about the kryptonite, Clark is joined by Perry, who has decided that the Planet's Board of Directors is hiding things from him. Clark has meanwhile discovered that the Boss seems to run a protection racket throughout most of Metropolis. And Perry has discovered that the insurance held on the Planet building was through a subsidiary of LexCorp. Jack has managed to find that the original vote by the Board on whether to sell the Planet to Lex was no, but that now each of the Board members is driving a new Ferrari! Clark finally suggests that maybe the Boss is actually Luthor himself. As he returns home, Clark is approached by Lois, who is driving a new convertible supplied by Lex. She begs him to come to her wedding, but he continues to refuse. Their tempers flare once more and Clark asks her to investigate the insurance policies Lex had on the Planet. Lex, having had the car bugged, hears the entire conversation then gloats over how he has managed to drive a wedge between Lois and her former life. He then has Mrs. Cox contact Clark so that he might ask Superman to meet with Lex. When Superman finally shows up to meet Lex, he is taken to a wine cellar in Lex's building, where Lex asks him to convince Clark to attend the wedding. When Superman tells Lex that neither he nor Clark will have anything to do with the wedding, Luthor expresses his regrets and drops a cage around Superman. Superman is mildly amused until he realizes that Luthor has lined the cage with the kryptonite. Luthor then gleefully leaves. Jimmy and Jack meet with Perry back at Clark's apartment, where Perry is cooking a Cajun meal. Jimmy has managed to get a confession from John Black that they were hired by Mrs. Cox to plant the bomb, Jack obtained a confession from a Board member that they were bribed by Lex, and Perry discovered that Lex had the Planet building insured for $75 million -- more than twice what it would have cost to rebuild. They decide it's time to go to the police -- just as soon as Clark returns. While Superman continues to struggle inside the cage, Lex and Lois are returning from a production of Othello. Lois, however, is distracted -- as exhibited by her accepting Lex's statement that Othello was written by Dr. Seuss instead of Shakespeare. She admits that she is dejected by the fact that her friends have not told her that they will be coming to the wedding. After Lex lightens the mood by mentioning that their honeymoon will be clothing-optional, she returns to her somber mood and asks him about the insurance Clark had mentioned. He snows her with a line about it being underinsured and that he'd actually only bought it to get closer to her. Perry drops in on Franklin Stern, the Donald Trump of Metropolis, and tries to convince him to buy and rebuild the Daily Planet. He declines, but when Perry mentions on his way out that Luthor would win, Stern seems to have second thoughts. Lex drops by Superman's cage just before the wedding to gloat a bit more, taunting him with which cumberbun he should wear -- the red or the white. Superman grunts that Clark knows where he is, to which Luthor responds that he'll just have to kill Clark as well. He leaves the white cumberbun draped around Superman's head and closes the cage, pondering whether losing the challenge represented by Superman would be worse than actually losing to him time after time. As he trots up the stairs, he leaves the keys to the cage in plain sight, though out of reach. Lois, while preparing for the ceremony, is tearfully trying to decide what her new name should be. She tries various combinations with Luthor and Lane, finally trying (in a questioning voice) "Lois Lane Kent." Tearfully she exclaims "What am I going to do?" Her Mother comes over to comfort her, reminding Lois that it's still not too late to back out. Meanwhile in the cellar, Superman is trying to bring the key to him by drawing in huge amounts of air, but the key gets caught on the lip of the barrel it is lying on. As he coughs from the pain he is feeling, he hears the ceremony beginning. Getting an idea, he uses the cumberbun to bring the key down from the barrel by blowing the catch up to the key's ring, hooking it, and dropping it to the floor. He stretches for the key but cannot reach it; so he struggles to his feet and flings himself at the cage, edging it closer to the key. But the strain causes him to collapse to the floor. Up at the ceremony, Lois begins her walk down the aisle. As she slowly makes her way to the front of the room, she flashes back to several tender moments with Clark. As she reaches the front, the Archbishop steps up to perform the ceremony, astonishing Lois. Lex calmly replies that the Pope was not available! Her fear and emotions finally get the better of her when it is her turn to say I do, and she refuses to marry Lex. At precisely that moment, Perry, Inspector Henderson, and several police officers burst into the room. Perry tells Lois that she can't marry Lex because they have evidence to put him away. Lex acts as if they're crazy until Henderson produces an arrest warrant and Mrs. Cox is led in handcuffed. He then tells Lois that he will take a raincheck, lays out a few cops, and bursts out of the room, locking the door behind him. Lex proceeds first to the wine cellar where he plans to at least finish off Superman, but he finds the door to the cage open and Superman gone. (Note that during the ceremony, Lex's cumberbun was never shown but here it is black. It remains that way from here on.) As Lex leaves, Superman -- hiding behind the vats -- tries to regain some strength. As everyone clears the building, Lois is so dejected that she had not read Lex correctly and then notices that Clark is not there. But he emerges from around the corner of the building and the two embrace in a powerful hug. Meanwhile, Lex has made his way up to the penthouse, where he types something into his computer quickly, clears his desk, and runs to the terrace as the police burst in. Rather than be captured he flings himself over the ledge. Everyone below sees him falling, and Clark lunges to fly up to save Lex (with no regard for his identity); however, he is still to weak to do so. Lois buries her face into Clark's chest as we see her bouquet hit the ground and a man's black dress shoe step on it. The next few paper editions report that Lex's body is stolen from the morgue -- and that he is sighted with Elvis!! Back at the Planet, everyone is mourning the end of the paper when Franklin Stern shows up accompanying the Daily Planet Globe. He announces that he has bought and will rebuild the Planet -- with some minor modernization. Of course Perry is not sure about the changes, but they are all thrilled to see their home is back. Lois and Clark are left alone by the others and they begin to talk about their situation. It is painfully clear that Lois is about to return Clark's affections, but as they both begin to speak, Clark makes her let him go first. He then proceeds to tell her that he would have done anything to keep her from marrying Luthor, so he lied about the fact that he was in love with her. (Of course he has his fingers crossed the whole time he is telling her this -- the big boy scout!) He loves having her friendship. They agree that they will be best of friends and partners forever. Clark hears an emergency in progress and rushes to the rescue. As he flies overhead as Superman, Lois spots him and promises to herself that she's not done with him yet either! ***************************************************************************** Jeffery D. Sykes University of Kentucky sykes@ms.uky.edu Department of Mathematics (606) 257-6806 *****************************************************************************