We’ve made it to the end of Season 3! Don’t fret, I’ll be back with Season 4 next week, but these episodes are, in a way, a perfect way to reflect back on the season that was. Up, up, and away!
1. Why use Clark and not Superman here?
So, there’s a knick knacks shop in Metropolis that is selling all sorts of Superman souvenirs. Jimmy buys a brick with Superman’s thumb print in it and, if we’re being honest, that is where I thought this week’s plot was going. What if they got Superman’s finger print and tried to match it to people in Metropolis? I think that would’ve been a fun episode, but it’s not what we got. It turns out that, in addition to real Superman artifacts, the shop owner is bending knives using a vise and selling them as authentic.
Clark goes to the store and catches the shopkeep in the act, and the bender is less than contrite about his crime. I bet he would’ve cared more if Superman caught him doing it, but Clark thinks that a reporter will make more of a impact? I don’t understand why he wouldn’t use the best option he has at his disposal.
2. An actual mystery!
I am surprised how deep of a mystery we got in this episode, and how clever the plan actually was. Of course, it is nonsensical in such a way that you never could have guessed it, but that’s almost besides the point. Essentially, someone is knocking out people that have these bent knives and stealing them. No one can figure out why this is happening, but through Clark this time using his secret identity properly, he’s able to figure out most of it. It turns out that the knives that are bent are made of an alloy that, when hit with a high powered x-ray, say, Superman’s x-ray vision, it turns into a very valuable metal.
The part of this episode that is most unbelievable is that the scientist who discovered it had a million dollars to pay off the thugs that were doing the stealing. I bet you could get garden variety thugs much cheaper than seven figures, and also, if you already have a million in cash just laying around, do you really need these super valuable alloys enough to go to this length to create this crime spree? Couldn’t you just buy the knives and tell Superman that if he changes them into the new substance, you’ll donate half the proceeds to charity?
3. Lousy editing
The episode ends with a weird joke about the owner of the shop know owning a bakery. As Superman visits him and then leaves, the shopkeep/baker is daydreaming and leans into his freshly iced cake, destroying it. Or, at least I think that is what happens, because the scene fades out when he’s juuuuust about to lean on the cake. You see in the fade that he does it, so it’s not like they faded out to save the precious cake, but it kills all the humor to only see him sort of crush it. Did they quite literally run out of film at that moment?
4. Borat voice
“King for a Day” is the second episode this season where Jimmy Olsen steps in shit and winds up incredibly lucky. In “Olsen’s Millions,” he squandered a million dollars pretty stupidly, and here, he is mistaken for a returning king in the fictional country of Burgonia. I only mention the country because literally everyone in the episode has a different accent, from non-regional American to British, to this guy doing a Kazakhstan voice. He even says “my life” the way Borat says “My wife.”
5. A weird, fun episode to end the season on
There’s something charming about this episode, which should be incredibly frustrating. This is a clear case of mistaken identity that could’ve been cleared up in any number of ways, but Superman decides to play coy instead of really help. But the ridiculousness of Olsen pretending to be royalty was fun, as was the ever-expanding situations that Clark found himself in to try to save Jimmy’s life.
Here’s hoping that season 4 is more of the same. We’ll find out next week!
