So I am on a rewatch kick of LnC... and I am to the point of the ARGH. I want to power through those episodes again, even though I generally tend to skip them.

I watched MOST of 'I now pronounce you...' and I haven't seen it in a LONG time! Was happy to see some really sweet scenes I had forgotten about. But I honestly had to stop for the last 10 minutes when they got to the church because I KNEW what was coming and I just -- can't! But I WILL this weekend!

So, first, anyone interested in giving it a go this weekend? And second, what gets you through those eps or do you tend to skip them as well? I'm determined to find something redeemable about them... perhaps find a little inspiration for a fic?

I avoid them unless there is something I *have* to find for the story. (I watched Double Jeopardy enough for a lifetime, while working on ML). I agree out of all of them INPY is to most watchable with those WAFFy bits. Clois is funny and sad all at once. Deter is like fingernails down a chalkboard painful to watch. So, an arc that not only has Lex Luthor, Lois rejecting Clark (more than once), Clark allowing her to go off with Lex, and Deter is just torture, pure and simple. And then to follow it with the high school reunion and then the NK arc, I feel as if I had been put through the wringer as a fan. I almost feel like they should have sent them back to Spencer's island afterwards to give us and them a break.

I wish you luck. May I recommend a nice box of chocolate, or brownies, or chocolate ice cream? Or all three?

All of the above. I think I am a glutton for punishment anyway...

OK, so just rewatched Double Jeopardy... omg, where do I begin? So many better ways they could have played that one. The worst offense is towards the end though... If Clark had introduced himself at the bar with his full name, then she would have at least had something to mull over -- why he had the names of both her supposed villain and hero. And it was the lowest of the low of Lex to have Lois as Wanda pretend to be Lois and break Clark's heart that way! Argh!!!

What really bugs me about the whole thing -- and I think it just gets worse in the eps with the psychologist -- is that I want Lois to sense SOMETHING about Clark. Fine, have Luthor capture her and be the evil villain that he is, but Lois should realize there is something about Clark, a connection she can't explain...

Usually this show is really good about LnC's almost spiritual connection -- we see it in Home is Where the Hurt Is, when Clark wakes up from the coma and when she hears him say 'I love you' when he leaves for New Krypton -- I really, really needed this element through these torturous 'arghs'!

Perhaps I should rename this thread ARGH therapy.

EDIT:
Now watching 'Seconds.' I have to give it to John Shea, he makes even Luthor's craziest schemes seem possible -- like the transferring of souls into another body, what?! And Lois DOES have somewhat of a spiritual connection to Clark through her dreams, but it still isn't enough, IMO. Not with all the emotional turmoil they put you through in these eps... OK, on with the show!

Yes, John Shea really pours it on for his Luthor. Best villianous acting in this ep for sure!

But oh, the amnesia at the end! Poor Clark! Well, that is enough for tonight... will continue the torture tomorrow!

The Last time I watched "I Now Pronounce You" I just stopped when Lois showed up at the Church and decided I was going to pretend in my mind that the wedding worked.

"Forget Me Not" and "Edipus Wrecks" and not that horrible. OK, they are, but since we have Clark and Lois working together, they are livable. "Seconds" and "Double Jeopardy" are just too horrible. I am not sure I have ever watched all of them. I recently got myself to go through "Barbarians and the Planet" and "Fall of the House of Luthor" and realized there were parts that I had never ever gotten myself to watch, like when Luthor is explaining his past to Lois.

The whole going 5 episodes was way too much, especially since some of them involved no interaction between Lois and Clark.

I have to agree, I think Lois outright rejecting Clark is the worst part.

Although, it never made sense that Clark did not just call 911 the second Lex showed up. That is what he should do. This attempt to work with Lex made no sense at all.

Also, why does he not actually listen to Jimmy and the talk of the story, and introduce himself as Kent?

The letting Lois go with Lex made no sense. Lex is a wanted criminal. It does not matter is Lois wants to go with him. There is no way that Clark should do anything else but detain him. By letting Lex go he is breaking the law. Lex was serving multiple life sentences for his crime, there is no way Clark should have let him go.

That is EXACTLY what I did on Thursday! Just imagined everything is OK! Only forced myself to watch the ending Friday night in this torturous rehashing I'm putting myself through! :p

I know! Having them work together was really bogus considering the stakes!
Exactly!!
I completely agree! The choices the writers made for Clark were justhorrible in these eps!!

Forget Me Not -- SO bittersweet! The almost-investigating together is great. And the scene at Clark's apartment is precious, as we see just a glimpse of the old LnC... But how trusting Clark is of Dr Deter is infinitely frustrating...

Deter at one point suggests that Clark could just check her out and I wish he had just done that! Deter is just pure slime... and there is just some writing that isn't logical... why would even an amnesiac Lois trust someone (Deter) completely when there were other people in her life who she had known before?

And the phone call with Clark when Lois sounds like she is talking crazy... ugh! Just listen to her, Clark! Help her try to understand what is going on!

And the end of the episode, where she begins to remember and then she thinks she loves DETER... ARGH!!

Oedipus Wrecks is next... and then, I can breathe again!

Yeah, it's a rough stretch, no doubt. I haven’t watched the ARGH episodes all the way through since I got my DVDs years ago, although I do end up rewatching certain scenes when I am vidding. I will say that Shea did very good work in that one scene in “Seconds” where he is facing down Clark with that crazy weapon. There’s a lot of drama there, with Lex knowing Clark’s true identity and facing him on that level, all the while displaying how much he hates Superman in forcing Clark to beg for the lives of his parents.

In addition to all that was wrong with Dr. Deter, it was also kind of nuts to add yet another man who was “in love” with Lois to the mix. I mean, she’s an awesome woman, yes, but Clark, Lex and this guy all falling at her feet? It just kind of reduced Lois to the “damsel in distress” whom everyone had to fight over. I felt as if she kind of lost her agency.

I agree. I think this is Shea's best acting in the series.

That is a good way of putting it. It really did reduce her character and even her relationship with Clark to a 'she's mine' kind of baseness.

So I've watched Oedipus Wrecks... and after all they put us through, I feel we needed a larger moment when Lois finally comes back. It was sort of 'you're back? - I'm back! - let's fly!' and felt very rushed. Yeah it was nice that Lois punched Deter in the face, but the wrap-up didn't feel very satisfying to me...

But to wrap-up THIS little thread... does anyone know any fics to recommend that fix the ARGH in a satisfying way? I'm curious to read some that actually use some of the torturous elements -- such as Deter, the amnesia, and even the clone -- but with a more satisfying plot or which leads to a more satisfying resolution.

To me, Lex Luthor is one of the redeeming factors of these episodes. He's one of the stronger villains the show ever featured, and seeing Luthor finally knowing that Clark was Superman made for some great scenes. The episodes after Luthor was gone were less enjoyable to me because Deter just wasn't as entertaining of a villain as Lex was.

And just to end on a funny note... during 'It's a Small World After All,' this is what kept popping in my head, especially after the Mighty Mouse reference: Teeny Little Super Guy

The IRC group just watched INPY on Saturday, and we all groaned thru the frog parts. DJ is scheduled for July 13th, so if you want to come drink....I mean watch the ep with us, feel free!

My fav part of this ep wasn't the wedding (altho if I didn't know about frogbreath it would have been) - it was the 'toasts', and Clark getting choked up telling Lois that he loved her. *siiiigh*

Would love to join, but I think they happen in the middle of the night my time. Can you tell me the times you guys chat again and I'll double check? Thanks!

I recommend Nowhere to Run by M.L. There's Deter and amnesia, but the resolution is way, way better.

Andreia

So... just read 'Nowhere to Run.' Not sure how I missed that one... Definitely a LOT better than the ARGH! Thanks for the rec!

How about that. I just read that (again) too....

I guess the problem is that if Clark had acted half rationally, he would have been like "there has been cloning, why is Lois saying 'prepare to be stunned and eating what sounds like a frog in the bathroom, wait, I just heard a frog, this is a clone of Lois, I better leave and find where the real Lois is."

True, Clark would not be scanning the bathroom, but he has super-hearing, so he should hear here eat the frog.

Well, she does get hypnotized into going with Deter, so essentially she does loose her agency.

If they had ended things with Lois really remembering at the end of "Forget me Not" and realizing she loves Clark, than I would have been OK with it. While I love the whole Lois punching Deter scene at the end of "Edipus Wrecks", I really think it would have been a lot better if Lois had remembered she loved Clark. Either that, or they should have included the trial and sentencing of Deter at some point for manipulating his patients. At least shown him working some menial job at some point in Season 4 showing he had been kicked out of the profession for his unethical behavior.

LabRat's "Masques" is a super-long (I think it was the longest story on the archive until "Missing Lois" was written) work that redoes the Wedding Arrrgh in a way that is not so absolutely horrible.

I have been working on some stories that improve the Aargh, I have one where Clark does not let Lex get away but instead turns him over to the police. So he gets Lois who thinks she is Wanda Detroit. Of course, I guess that builds on Clark having done lots of Aargh worthy things before that, starting with not going with Lois to sign the wedding register. Hey, even if he did already sign it, he should take another opportunity to walk with Lois and keep her calm.

Here http://www.lcfanfic.com/stories/2003/doublemi.txt has to be my favorite version of the Wedding Aargh yet. True, it does end up leaving almost a whole episode, however you don't have to read through that because evidently it stays the same. I love how things work out, mainly because Clark actually thinks.

BTW, the story John references above is RL's Double Misdirection and it does a good job cooking Lex's goose.

Sorry about not including the name in the story. I would say I is a better way to get Lex than in the story I was working on, the best is when he gets defeated when he thinks he is winning. Nothing shows his claims to being smarter than Superman false more than that.

I haven't finished watching the series yet in part because I'm stuck in the rut of these episodes, but knowing there's light on the horizon is comforting. lol. The last one I watched was Forget Me Not and I hate Dr. Maxwell Deter SOOOOOO much it's hard to take. But hearing from this topic that he's thwarted soon is immensely comforting and makes me want to push through again.

I could hardly believe how horrible Double Jeopardy was. It's like the show instantly degenerated into a ridiculously nonsensical and contrived soap opera. Thankfully, Seconds had some major improvements and overall was surprisingly enjoyable for me, which has a lot to do with the portrayal of Lex Luthor and the clone. I thought the way the clone was executed was really stupid in Double Jeopardy, but treated much more seriously in Seconds, in a way that was very heart-rending overall in a very good way.

I confess, I've never seen Seconds or Forget Me Not. INPY and DJ were so painful (how does Clark kiss Clois and not notice the taste o'toad??) that I cheated by peeking at the plot synopses to see where the arc ended, then jumped forward to Oedipus Wrecks.

Is it worth it to make myself actually sit through the arc?

I might be in the minority but I enjoyed some of those episodes. I think it was the angst, which I enjoy. The pain in Clark's face or the musical montage in one of those episodes (can't remember which one this early in the morning).

Think of it this way, they worked so hard to be together and everyone has obstacles, this is just one more obstacle they had to overcome. Not everyone has evil Lex Luthor's or amnesia, or doubles, but they have money, jobs, addictions, and so on. Lois and Clark came out stronger at the end for what happened.