Smallville - S6E3

Wither
First Aired: Thursday October 12, 2006

While "on assignment", Chloe and Jimmy encounter a dead girl in the woods. Clark investigates and finds her boyfriend, but he has been affected by strange foliage. Also, Lana and Lex get closer while Lois meets Oliver Queen.

This episode begins with Jimmy and Chloe at Make-Out Point. They hear a scream from the path and Chloe makes them go investigate. They find a woman impaled on a tree. During the search party the next day, Clark meets Gloria, the alluring park ranger, before using his X-Ray vision to find the dead womans boyfriend in some vines. Trying to help, Clark is cut by the vines. At the hospital, X-rays reveal strange pods in the mans stomach and Chloe's bio professor tells her the plant is not of this Earth. Elsewhere, Lex is throwing a costume charity ball for Black Thursday, but Lana is continuing to have doubts about their "relationship". At the Kent residence, Lois snubs billionaire Oliver Queen, thinking he is a courier. Martha later corrects her and tells her Queen was there to talk about how he could help Martha's political platform. In the woods, Jimmy has taken it upon himself to find pictures, but he instead encounters Gloria. She uses her strange powers on him. At the hospital, surgeons try to remove the pods from the boyfriends stomach but apparently they burst and start to grow, killing the man. As Clark rushes to the forest after finding out Gloria is not the real park ranger, Chloe witnesses electricity killing the vines. In Metropolis, Lois goes to apologize to Oliver, who anticipated her arrival and asks her to Lex's ball. Clark finds Gloria in the forest and she reveals that she had been a prisoner of the Phantom Zone that escaped when Clark opened the gate. She subdues him and goes towards Lex's party for more suitors. Chloe shows up with a tazer gun and uses it to release Clark and Jimmy. Clark gets to Lex's greenhouse and defeats Gloria. Lana has come to terms with Lex and shows up at the ball. During the ball, Lex notices Oliver and they exchange some barbed words. Oliver, wowed by Lois, agrees to help Martha. When he takes Lois home later, she agrees to kiss him if he can shoot a can with his Robin Hood bow and arrows, but he misses (intentionally). The episode ends with Lois and Lex undressing while Clark sits alone in his loft.

This was a decent episode, nothing spectacular, though it seems the production value for some of the powers/action sequences has increased. This was more soap opera like then the previous two, but I guess it was needed to push the three relationships to the forefront now instead of later. It was funny to see Oliver dressed as Robin Hood, but I still don't know how I feel about him as the Green Arrow. I think we already have one arrogant billionaire (Lex). I also don't know what I think of Jimmy, since I would like to see Clark and Chloe instead of Chloe and Jimmy.

Score: 3 / 5