Smallville: Committed (Episode 805)

At an engagement party for Jimmy and Chloe, Jimmy cuts into a cake with their faces on it.  So, you know, we start with that bit of creepiness.

Across the room at the bar, Clark joins a tipsy Lois just as she is ordering another glass of champagne, so she adds "a Shirley Temple for the lady" to her order.  Heh.  She excuses her inebriation by claiming that she's actually way more obnoxious when she's sober.  Fair point.  Grimacing at the happy couple over the crowd, Lois worries that Chloe is too young to get married, much less to the first guy to show her some attention.  Clark wishes Lois would show some support.  She sneers at him and stands up on her stool to make a toast.  She tells a story of her and Chloe as little girls, promising each other they wouldn't get married until they found their soulmate.  The crowd awws, and Lois adds, "Just goes to show you can't take a ten-year-old on their word."  Damn.  Well, Lois, maybe you're more obnoxious when you're sober, but I guess you save the mean streak for public drunkenness.

...aaaand you're cut off, Ms. Lane.

Clark practically tackles Lois off the stool and saves the toast by clarifying that you can't predict when that special someone will come along, and for Chloe, that person is Jimmy.  Clark declares that after all they've been through since eighth grade, he's never seen Chloe so happy.

After the party, Chloe and Jimmy see off the last of their guests in the alley behind the Talon.  Chloe is disappointed Jimmy's parents couldn't be there so she could show him off, but Jimmy says his father is busy "closing a deal" in London.  Chloe is happy that Jimmy is finally okay with her history and close relationship with Clark, but when they hug, Jimmy's face suggests he's not as over it as he pretends to be.  They decide to head upstairs for some wocka chicka, but suddenly the alley is flooded with someone's high beams.  A figure standing in front of the car shoots them both.  There's no blood, so I'm thinking he used darts, but still.  Rude, much?

Speaking of rude, Lois has a rude awakening the next afternoon, finding herself on the Kent living room couch in nothing but Clark's football jersey.  She shouts for "Smallville," and Clark struts in and offers her a little plop, plop, fizz, fizz.  Lois spots her shirt hanging over a chair and fears the worst, but Clark assures her she got undressed all by herself: "In the kitchen.  For an hour."  Heh.  Lois suddenly bustles around grabbing clothing, as she's late to meet Chloe for a dress fitting.  Clark offers to drive her, since her car is still at the Talon.

At the Planet, Tess storms out of the elevator, berating an assistant for failing to acquire the IP address of an e-mail which may indicate that the producers are still calling Rosenbaum daily Lex is still alive.  Tess remains unconvinced, and orders the assistant to find out who took the crystal.  She enters her office to find Oliver in her chair.  They banter a bit about business tycoon-y stuff, until Oliver notes playfully that it seems to him Lex might have been more to Tess than a mentor.  Her expression is unreadable, but Oliver puts up the white flag and invites her to consider a truce...over dinner.  She notes that he always wants what he can't have, but Oliver smoothly retorts that sometimes a meal is just a meal.  Uh huh.

Lois gingerly opens the door of the Talon apartment and calls out that what she likes to see when she gets home is "Pants.  Pants on everyone."  Heh.  Look who's talking.  She and Clark find no Chloe or Jimmy, but the bedroom decorated like a Vegas honeymoon suite, complete with rose petals on the bed, and -- oh god -- furry handcuffs.  TMI, there, Jimmy.  Lois checks the answering machine.  There's one message from her, drunkenly telling Chloe that Clark ("the sweetest boy evereverever") came to her rescue last night.  The other is from the Smallville impound, reporting that Chloe's and Jimmy's vehicles were towed for obstructing a street cleaner.  What?  The party was downstairs at the Talon!  Chloe and Jimmy LIVE AT THE TALON; they shouldn't have had to move their cars.  How come Lois's car wasn't towed?  Sloppy, writers.  Anyway, the point is, Clark and Lois realize that Chloe and Jimmy never came home last night.

Where are they, we ask?  Why, tied up on the floor of a warehouse, of course!  They wake up, bound back to back, to the sound of a voice: "Dearly beloved: we are gathered here today to find out if these two are truly meant to be."  Lights up on a man and woman in matching electric chairs, facing each other, dead.

Talk about the honeymoon being over before it begins.

At the Planet, Lois tells Clark that two other engaged couples have gone missing in the last two weeks, their credit cards and phone records free of activity.  They realize Jimmy and Chloe must have been abducted.  Lois feels guilty for not going home last night; she might have stopped this.  Uh, Lois?  Number one: no.  Number two: guilt is Clark's game, not yours.  Clark wants to cross-reference Chloe and Jimmy with the other couples, but Lois has already discovered that they have the same wedding vendors in common.  Clark starts to head to the first one alone, but Lois isn't willing to leave her cousin's fate "in the hands of a mild-mannered copy boy."  I thought he was a reporter?  And even though she isn't in on Clark's secret, she's perfectly aware of his hero complex by now, so shut it, Lois.

Warehouse of Pain.  Jimmy and Chloe have replaced Unfortunate Couple #2 in the chairs.  A guy in a freaktastic opaque mask enters and bemoans the difficulty of abduction.  His job is so hard, y'all.  But he's happy to do it!  It is his duty to rescue couples from rushing into marriage without being prepared for full disclosure!  Which is why he has prepared this simple little test: each of them is hooked up to a polygraph ("All it does is listen to your heart.") and jumper cables.  If they have no secrets from each other, there is nothing to fear.  Talk about wearing your issues on your sleeve, there, Masked Cuckold.

Masked Cuckold asks Jimmy if he's ever cheated on Chloe.  Jimmy says no, the polygraph does its thing, and MC promptly electrocutes Chloe.  Jimmy freaks out, but MC explains that lies do not hurt the liar, they hurt the people he loves.  Oh, deep.  Jimmy immediately admits what happened with Maxima, but Chloe understands that it wasn't his fault.  MC is getting impatient with all this mutual support, and has decided it's Chloe's turn: what secrets is she hiding?

On the streets of Metropolis, things are not going well for our intrepid reporters, as the art of interviewing witnesses without treating them like criminals is lost on Lois.  Clark suggests she go back to the Planet and check on the background reports they requested, while he continues to look at wedding vendors.  Lois, not keen to be out of the action, has a thought: why not pretend to be a couple, and make themselves bait?  Um, because if you don't, there will be no story?

Lois drags Clark into a jewelry store.  They call each other "pumpkin" and "muffin" through clenched teeth while Lois pretends to peruse the rings and Clark chats up the store clerk.  The clerk loves his job, helping to solidify the bond between husband and wife.  Wow, they're not even bothering with a red herring, are they?  Lois chooses a ring, which the clerk creepily lauds as a beautiful piece, a perfect circle with no beginning or end.  You know: the definition of a ring.  He urges Clark to try it on Lois.  Clark is the proverbial deer in headlights, and Lois tells the clerk that her "poodle" has performance anxiety about doing this in front of a packed house.  Clark shoves the ring onto her finger without ceremony.  Heh.

Just then, Oliver walks in.  Awkward.  With the clerk still there, Clark and Lois are forced to pretend they're engaged.  Oliver laughs at first, but when they don't back down, he looks like he's been on the business end of one of his boxing arrows.  "You're just full of surprises lately, aren't you, Clark?"  Seriously, right?  You think a guy is your buddy, and then he conceals the identity of your parents' killer and gets engaged to your ex!  Clark and Lois beat a hasty retreat.

Later, as they leave the bakery, Lois remarks that if Clark is this afraid of pretend commitment, woe betide the girl who actually falls for him one day.  Ah, sweet meta.  Clark wants to split up and cover more ground, and as Lois blah-blahs about him getting into trouble on his own, he zips away behind her back.

Back in the Warehouse of Pain, Masked Cuckold expounds upon his masked cuckoldry: he "cherished and honored" his wife, and she rewarded him with lies, lies, LIES!  So, you know, he was inspired to kill her and take it out on other couples.  Like you do.  And in that spirit, he asks Chloe if she's ever cheated on Jimmy.  She answers no, quite honestly, so Jimmy is safe.  Then MC asks if Chloe is in love with anyone else.  Stricken, Jimmy tells her not to answer, and receives a nice electric shock for his trouble.  Chloe takes a deep breath, looks straight at Jimmy with utter openness, and answers no.  Jimmy smiles in relief.  I suppose this was the only way to tell us in no uncertain terms that Chloe's feelings for Clark really are over for good.  Let us have a moment of silence.

MC is satisfied, and pronounces them husband and wife before -- wait for it -- shooting them again.  So, seriously, adultery was the only kind of lie he was interested in?  Couples can't break up over other kinds of secrets?  Gee, good news for Chloe.

That night at Luthor mansion, Oliver strolls into Tess's office to tell "Mercy" that they have reservations in less than an hour.  Tess comes up behind him in workout clothes and tosses him a fighting stick -- she likes to work up an appetite.  I can think of better ways to do that with Oliver Queen, honey.  They spar, and she gets in the first blow.  "Weak men like you make me stronger," she says, and she wonders how he can't take anything seriously.  Case in point: when he found out Lionel killed his parents, Oliver merely drank himself onto the society pages for a month.  What was he supposed to do, Tess?  Lionel's dead; take it up with the man upstairs, you know?

They continue to spar vigorously, and Tess gradually backs Oliver into a wall.  Instead of an apology for the way Oliver treated his relationship with Tess -- she caught him with a waitress -- she wants to know what he was afraid of.  He stares at her.  "You," he says.  Naturally, the only way out of an intense scene like this is to make out like it's going out of style.  So they do.

In Metropolis, Lois leaves a voicemail for Clark while she walks to her car, and sure enough, another parked car catches her in its high beams.  She berates the driver for this before hanging up, and then our Masked Cuckold assures her she'll be seeing her fiancé soon.  He shoots her and loads her into the back of a hearse before taking off his mask for the camera.  Yep, it's the jeweler.  I guess it's hard to drive with that thing on?  Limited field of vision and all that.  Safety first!

So I guess the episode so far hasn't been chronological when switching back and forth between the Warehouse of Pain and the Adventures of the Not Engaged, because Masked Cuckold cannot be in two places at once, I don't care how crazy he is.

Chloe and Jimmy wake up in Vegas their bedroom, which is still tricked out with Jimmy's painstaking romanticism.  (Creep factor: Masked Cuckold totally lit all the candles before he left. *shudder*)  They're relieved to be alive, though Chloe doesn't appreciate MC's sick joke, decorating their room like this.  Heh.  Jimmy sheepishly admits the decor is his doing, though to be fair, "it was less creepy yesterday."  Chloe smiles at him and says she wouldn't have made it out of there alive if she'd been sitting across from anyone else -- not because they're meant to be together, but because Jimmy doesn't have any secrets.  Well, Jimmy made it out of there alive, too, didn't he?  MC wasn't exactly thorough.

They call the police.  Later, downstairs, Clark arrives, glad to see they're okay but unable to find Lois.  His only clue was that she mentioned headlights, and Jimmy recognizes that as MC's m.o.  Clark presses them for more info, and when Chloe says the guy was obsessed with "solidifying the bond between husband and wife," Clark has his man.

Clark zips into Metropolis outside the jewelry store and superlistens for Lois's voice.  He rushes downstairs to find her already in the chair.  She wants him to find Chloe and Jimmy, but Clark explains that they were let go.  Where is her captor?  Right behind Clark, and unfortunately wearing a kryptonite bracelet.  MC knocks him out.

Clark wakes up later in the other chair, unable to free himself.  He calls to MC that he knows his identity, so MC removes the mask, ready to begin.  Lois wants to know what the point is, since he'll only kill them now that they've seen his face, but Unmasked Cuckold remains cagey.  He remarks that Clark must care a lot about Lois, storming in here to save her.  "Yeah, he's stupid that way," Lois spits at Clark.  Aww.  I do love when Lois's dialogue is prickly yet transparent.  UC explains the test and says that if they pass, they'll want to invite him to their wedding.  No, I think they'll want you to teach a class called Delusion 101.

Lois first: has she ever cheated on her fiancé?  Lois tosses off a no, and the polygraph goes crazy.  That doesn't make much sense, since she can hardly cheat on someone she isn't with, but whatever -- Clark gets a nice dose of sparkle.  UC patronizes Lois that her lies are killing Clark.  As UC recharges the zapper, Lois pipes up that they aren't really a couple, so this is all meaningless, but UC is undeterred: deep down, does she love Clark anyway?  Oh.  Uh-oh.  Clark tells her not to overthink, to just answer honestly, but UC has to repeat twice more before Lois, about to cry, finally answers yes.  Clark, bless him, actually braces himself for the shock, but the polygraph is silent.  He stares at Lois.  UC crosses to Clark and asks the same question, but he leans too close and Clark headbutts him and grabs the bracelet, throwing it into a floor drain.  Clark visiblasts a nearby pipe, which fills the room with steam and obscures Lois's vision from the fight that ensues.  Because she couldn't see him SHOOT FIRE FROM HIS EYES?  Okay.  Clark crosses to Lois and begins removing her bonds normally.  Awkward.

At ISIS, because they haven't used that set this week, Lois watches the video from her drunktacular speechifying.  She's horrified by this "whole new low" in the Open Mouth Insert Foot department, but Chloe assures her it's second to the time Lois crashed Lana's engagement party.  True, though Clark certainly had his part to play in that one.  Lois explains that she just didn't want happiness taken away from Chloe the way it was for her and Oliver or Clark and Lana.  Chloe, however, can "just feel it" that she and Jimmy are meant to be.  Fair enough, but we'll have to see what you "feel" the next time you hae a scene with Davis, shall we?  Jimmy comes in then, and Lois gives him a hug to welcome him to the family before leaving them alone.

Chloe wants to talk honeymoon, but Jimmy wants to get something off his chest: he's been lying about his parents.  His dad is not an investment banker in New York, but rather an alcoholic mechanic in Oklahoma City, and he never met his mom.  When he got to Metropolis, he needed to fit in by pretending to be someone else -- not to mention a guy like him doesn't get a girl like Chloe.  Uh, dude?  She's from a town called Smallville, Kansas.  Chloe smiles indulgently and kisses him.

At Luthor mansion, Oliver wakes up in Tess's bed alone and finds her at the vanity, getting ready for work.  Oliver has other ideas: perhaps dinner in Malibu in time for the sunset?  Tess is surprised by his tone of romance, and he produces a velvet box containing a diamond bracelet.  Tess is clearly touched for a moment, but then she closes the box in his hand and tells him to save it to tip another hostess.  Ouch.  She declares that last night was not romance: "I had an itch.  You scratched it."  Oliver's face crumbles.  He wants to know what happened to her.  She replies that she grew up, and he left just when things were getting interesting.  I really like that they're taking the time to let us wonder what happened to these two, and whether we should want them to get back together.  They certainly have the chemistry for it.

At the Planet, Lois is clearly trying to avoid Clark, but he finds her at the elevator.  When it opens and he steps inside, she tries to take the stairs instead.  "Statistically, this is the safer way to travel."   Oh, he's enjoying this.  Lois gets in and Clark enjoys her discomfort for a moment before rescuing her: "Who'd have thought you were such a good liar, huh?"  Lois pounces on this loophole and adds that she slipped the sensor off her finger for that question.  Ever gullible, Clark's face falls as he realizes this means she was lying after all.  They both pretend that this is excellent news, and when Lois gets off the elevator, she remarks that it's a good thing she was the one under the gun, since Clark can't lie to save his life.  Ah, sweet irony.  Lois shudders to think where they'd be now if Clark had had to answer that question.

He thinks that over as she walks away, and the chimes of inevitability ring.