Episode 19 — Fly Hard

I have a strong feeling the whole point of this episode is to convince viewers that Lois didn’t accept Luthor’s proposal for his money—because the entire A-plot of “Fly Hard” is so outrageously illogical that it’s hard to find even one scene that holds up. It plays like one of those absurd nightmares Clark had in “DTOSC,” with the plot defying common sense at virtually every turn.

We open with Willie, the night watchman, expecting the DP newsroom to be completely empty at 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday—which, apparently, is rush hour at any major daily newspaper in the world. Hasn’t Willie ever met a night-shift editor before?—Never mind. And why couldn’t the bad guys come in at midnight instead? Did they feel it was more important to get to bed early than to get thirty million dollars? Did they know that 1930s currencies could not circulate at all in the 1990s? By the way, the smallest tactical nuclear bomb available in this world costs somewhere between ten and twenty million dollars. If the villains already have that much money…never mind. Oh, and Grandpa Willie went to prison during Prohibition (1920–1933), when he was at least twenty-five, which puts him at eighty-five minimum in March 1994. So why did Perry want a security guard who might drop dead at any minute?—Never mind.

Or, maybe this is the writer’s way of telling us: “This is a story that was never meant to happen,” or “Don’t mind the A-plot; it’s nothing but a time-filler. Focus on the B-plot instead.” Okay, got it.



“INT. DAILY PLANET - (NIGHT #1)
Close on a digital clock as it flips over to 8:00 p.m. We PAN over and read the date off of a desk calendar. SATURDAY 3-26. We PAN further to reveal CLARK sitting at his desk which is covered with small stacks of papers and receipts.”

There is something rather weird in the first paragraph of the “Fly Hard” script. The writer-producer of this episode, Thania St. John, deliberately put a calendar on Clark’s desk—one that was never there before or since—and wrote a detailed camera-movement description to make sure that this calendar, date and all, was included in the shot. Specific dates had shown up in earlier episodes, but they were always picked during production rather than pre-set by the scriptwriter. It was as if Ms. St. John felt that “March 26th” was such an important date that the audience simply had to know about it. But why is this date so important?


“Lois, you are kind of dressed-up for an evening at the office, aren’t you?”

The blaring red alert finally pierces Clark’s singularly thick skull as he watches Lois walk into the newsroom in a stunningly sexy evening gown, about to go on an opera date with Lex Luthor. That’s right, farm boy—the girl of your dreams has somehow come to take her charming, tenacious billionaire suitor seriously. How astonishing is that?

To be fair, things aren’t that bad yet when this episode begins. Although Lois does condescendingly make a respectable choice of date dress this time, she still refuses to bother with accessories or hairstyling. On top of that, she’s clearly far more interested in her jeopardized story than in this “Prince of Metropolis” lingering closely at her heels. Which means Clark could still have a fighting chance in the courtship arena if he acts right now. Granted, there aren’t many tactics left for him at this late stage, but at least he could show her that he’s mighty upset about her going out with someone else—just like he did in “Individual Responsibility,” after he learned about Lois’s impending dinner date with Scardino. It was an embarrassingly clumsy move—pathetic, even—but it worked, didn’t it?

Of course, every reader should know by now just how hopelessly lunkheaded Clark is, so I doubt anyone would be surprised to see our Mr. Kent just sitting there like a space duck, acting like he doesn’t care and letting jealousy gnaw at him quietly—Well, what are you jealous about? You’ve never asked the girl out. How can you blame your opponent for scoring points when you’ve never even tried?


The brief unfolding of the B-plot in the opening scene is soon disrupted by the arrival of this episode’s villains. The second the elevator opens and dumps the terrorists into the pit, my brain began to undergo the unpleasant sensation of repeated short-circuiting. The first major zap comes from Clark’s claim that “If I go out there and try to get to the bomb, any one of those guys could kill any one of you.”

Seriously? Are you sure?

Let’s see what this alien is actually capable of. Take the final scene of “IOG” for example: within a single second, Clark zoomed from the newsroom to the street outside, bought a bouquet of red roses from a stall, counted out sixteen dollars in bills, put them down right under the vendor’s nose, zoomed back to the newsroom, found an empty glass vase, went to the men’s room, half-filled the vase with water, unwrapped the bouquet, stuffed the stems into the vase, tossed the wrapping paper into the trashcan, arranged the flowers into a beautiful spray, and then placed the vase of red roses on his dream girl’s desk. All in broad daylight, in full view of a roomful of people, yet not a single soul was aware that he’d done any of it.

And now he’s telling us that he couldn’t confiscate a small nuclear device plus a handful of guns without people noticing he was the one doing it?

Under different circumstances, I would have simply dismissed this glaring plot hole with an eye roll—but that's impossible when an entire episode is founded on the absurd premise that "Superman is not fast enough to confiscate a few weapons." No matter how many times I told myself to just "sit back and tolerate it" on my first watch, I kept getting distracted by the hundreds of ways Clark could have ended that hostage situation in under a minute. This plot hole bugged me so much that I had to patch it before I could keep watching, and here's what I came up with: Clark was so devastated by sending his “brother” to be incinerated in the Sun last episode that he's been avoiding sunlight ever since March 17th. As a result, by March 26th he’s already severely undercharged, with only a fraction of his superpowers remaining. He can do his vision gizmo things and break the shackles, but nothing major. It also explains why he has to stay late at the office to do his last-minute tax return instead of just blazing through it at home with super speed. This patch got me through most of the episode—until near the end, when Clark leaps from the DP rooftop to save Lois from her fall.

Apparently, in the middle of the jump, he zoomed all the way back to his apartment, stripped himself naked, yanked a Superman uniform out of his closet, stuffed himself into it, gelled his hair into a perfect Superman style in front of the mirror, and then zoomed back to the DP building to catch the damsel in mid-fall—so if he’s still capable of all that, why not confiscate the nuclear device instead?

In the end, I had to resign myself to believing that our Mr. Kent can only go super, super fast when he’s trying to impress Lois Lane. It’s essentially a Kryptonian version of a courtship display. He can only manage it occasionally because it’s highly taxing, particularly when he’s undercharged. And after every such flashy display, the poor guy probably has to lay low for quite a few days to recover. This theory also explains why he could zoom to Japan—located on the exact opposite side of the globe from the U.S. East Coast—to find Lois a perfect pearl in less than one second in “OP,” yet couldn’t fly around the world in under sixteen seconds to intercept a nuclear warhead in “COTOC.” It all comes down to motivation, baby.


Anyway, after gritting my teeth through all the ridiculous A-plot material, I was finally let down to find there wasn't much worth commenting on in the B-plot: The hostage situation was evidently designed to make Luthor appear courageous, as he need only consider his own escape, and to make Clark appear cowardly, as he must keep every last one of them from harm. In short, more points for Luthor, more penalties for Kent. And by cuffing Lois together with Luthor all night, the writer staged a classic “trauma bonding” situation—“A shared danger creates a false sense of closeness that ordinary situations don’t produce.” Aided in no small measure by the “adrenaline crush” inherent in such a situation, by the time the nightmare concludes, Lois has already been caught in this psychological trap and has genuinely started to believe she has feelings for Lex Luthor. Poor girl.

It's difficult to tell whether Clark realizes just how far Lois has fallen into the trap. However, his change of attitude toward her after the hostage incident suggests he’s not entirely oblivious to it. This is evident in the scene where Superman floats Lois down past the DP globe, which is simply heart-wrenching to watch: He holds Lois as far away as safety allows to minimize physical contact, and even clenches his left hand into a fist to avoid touching her bare skin. Is this a sign that he already knows he's losing her for good? It was actually rather dangerous, considering Teri was dangling in midair on nothing but a thin wire during the shoot, and she needed every bit of physical support she could get. I do hope Dean's weird hand gesture here had nothing to do with what was going on in real life at the time—My hair stood on end when I learned that Teri's wedding to her controlling husband happened at exactly the same time Lois marries Luthor.


And of course, there is also that “bomb-bouquet” scene.

LOIS: “Other women catch bouquets, I catch bombs.”
SUPERMAN: “I guess that's what makes you so special, Lois.”

No, that’s not what it means, you two lunkheads! This bomb-bouquet is clearly a warning sent by the guardian angel: The upcoming wedding is a mistake, lady. Don’t marry that guy!

But as we all knew already, this cleverly staged metaphoric warning ended up being totally ignored.


Since a metaphorical warning wasn't getting through, the writer switched to plain English instead:

CLARK: “Be careful with Luthor. You don’t know him like I do.”

Unfortunately, Lois’s somber expression tells us she’s clearly not happy to hear this unwelcome warning, especially since it comes right after she's finally begun to feel something romantic for Luthor—the only man in this wretched world who cherishes her—or so she thinks. Judging from the way Clark snapped at Luthor during the entire hostage incident, Lois likely saw Clark’s accusation as mere childish prejudice against such a decent and brave man. After all, as far as Lois knows, Clark has had much fewer encounters with Luthor than she has. So how could he possibly know Luthor even better? In the end, this desperate warning, which took Clark heaven knows how much courage to get out, did nothing more than discredit him even further in Lois's eyes.

That said, why didn't Clark warn Lois about Lex Luthor as Superman a few minutes earlier? The superhero’s god-like authority would have effectively prevented her from accepting Luthor’s proposal, and saved us from that tormenting season finale. Although I’m aware that Clark’s stupidity here is required to propel the B-plot forward, somehow I also feel that it’s quite within his character to make such a huge mistake—Maybe we shall call in a Dr. Freud to explain Clark's lunkhead behavior here.


The final scene of this episode is yet another serving of sugar-coated poison that is so characteristic of Season One.

A messenger brings a flower arrangement over. She opens the card. It reads: “Love, Lex.”

It’s worth noting that this is the first time the third richest man in the world declares his love for Lois. Actually, from what we’ve been told about Lois’s tragic dating history, this is likely the very first time any man has ever confessed his love for her. Other young women would have at least felt immensely flattered, if not deliriously happy.

So how does Lois Lane react to such a memorable moment in her young life?
She involuntarily glances over at Clark’s desk to see what the farm boy thinks of it.
And he's so buried in his work that he’s not even looking her way. Yes, he doesn’t seem to care at all.
She tosses Luthor’s card down on her desk, then sinks back into her seat with quiet resignation.

So there goes her last sliver of hope for this hack from Nowheresville.
And there goes his last chance at saving her from the approaching inferno.




A trivial sidenote: "IOG"—the episode in which Clark performed his flashiest courtship display of Season One—was also written by Thania St. John, which means she was fully aware of Clark's supposed capabilities when she wrote "Fly Hard." In addition, Ms. St. John is a highly accomplished scriptwriter-producer, well renowned for her consistently top-quality work. It’s definitely not her usual style to leave so many gaping plot holes littering an episode. For the above reasons, I think I’m entitled to suspect that this wildly illogical A-plot of “Fly Hard” is not a lapse in writing but a deliberate design—to endow this prelude to the disastrous season finale with a distinctly surreal, nightmarish atmosphere. And maybe Ms. St. John purposely slowed Clark down and hobbled his actions—another common nightmare sensation, by the way—using it as a metaphor to quietly register her disapproval of our hero's unforgivable stupidity and sluggishness when it comes to certain things.
Just a fun thought—don't take it seriously.