Oh Sue... I love it when you play devil's advocate (Dan)...
So I'll pop up and weakly play devil's advocate with the clone arc...
It is not by any means my favorite part of the series, however there are parts of it that I do like... now... not when it originally aired, mind you...
So how bout this for some lame, weak, excuses in support of what happened in the clone arc?
With Deter... he was supposed to be the very best of the best, he had won awards, written books, was highly esteemed. And everyone, including Perry, seemed to trust him. Plus, Clark knew that he had a tendency to get jealous where Lois was concerned when any other men were close to her... not to mention closer at that moment than he was. So maybe he didn't intervene because he thought he was misreading things due to jealousy. Also, I feel like he was probably pretty desperate by this point to have *his* Lois back safe and sound, and Deter had said there was a chance that she might not come out of this. He couldn't even bring himself to *think* about that possibility. In fact, when Jimmy mentioned that possibility, he snapped at Jimmy a little, which is normally out of character for Clark, but totally believable in context.
Okay, now for letting Lois drive off with Lex, even I have a hard time playing Devil's Advocate on this one, but I'll just suffice it to say that Lois's whole speech about how she never loved him and wanted to go with Lex, blah, blah, blah... probably totally caught him off guard, and hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest.
He had been through a lot over the past few days, married to a clone... a clone who almost killed Lois... and all he wanted was Lois back, safe and sound, and then she blindsides him, telling him that she doesn't want to marry him and she's been hiding out from him.
All I can say is that Clark looked stunned... didn't even look like he was fully functional, after she said that. He obviously wasn't thinking clearly... and in the next episode even says as much "I let her drive off with him... I'm an idiot!"
Hee hee hee. Okay, enough playing Devil's Advocate. I'd like to see someone take up this challenge...
-- MR
