Smallville: Toxic (Episode 803)

Sorry for the tardiness, folks, but Brainiac took my computer hostage for the better part of a week.  More proof that Marsters is a bit of a bitch?  You decide.

We find a snappily dressed Clark and Chloe at a rainforest preservation benefit thrown by Oliver Queen.  Scantily clad wait staff work the event, and Chloe snarks that global warming is just an excuse to take our clothes off.  Sadly, the two of them have never followed the crowd.  Chloe teases Clark a bit about Lois's usual presence in his life these days, but he complains that Lois spends most of her time pointing out his typos.  Ugh, we've been over this.  Lois is the canonically bad speller, not Clark!  It's not as if the writers don't know this, because they poked fun at her for it themselves back when Lois was writing for the Inquisitor.  The discontinuity, it burns us, precious.

Nothing like a Save The Rainforests campaign to distract us from piddly concerns like the national budget, the global economy, and an upcoming election.

Oliver arrives then, but as Clark and Chloe and a slew of photographers look on, he takes a swig of champagne and promptly slumps to the floor.  Certain Oliver would not arrive drunk, Clark rushes to his side and insists on the hospital; but Oliver flatly dismisses medical attention and pants that he's been poisoned and has twelve hours to live.  Nah, you've just been made a regular, hon.

After the credits, Chloe and Clark (supporting Oliver) stumble into the ISIS Foundation.  Chloe reports that Davis is on his way, but Clark wants Oliver to see a real doctor.  Chloe insists that if Oliver said no hospitals, he must have had a good reason.  Seriously, right?  Damn HMOs.

Davis arrives and checks Oliver's vitals, determining that Oliver is stable but in bad condition.  He agrees to take a blood sample to the lab, but insists that he's obliged to bring him in if Oliver isn't better in an hour.  He leaves to fetch a heart monitor, and Clark tells Chloe that Oliver's date, Adriana, won't pick up her phone.  He decides to return to the party to see if she's still there.

At the Planet, Lois barges into Tess's office to deliver an article on a murder spree.  On Tess's desk, she notices a bunch of proofs of Oliver's, uh, staggering arrival at the benefit that evening.  She wonders why a drunken humanitarian is considered news.  Tess is confident there's more to it, but when Lois defends Oliver as a good person who "stands up against corruption and social injustice," Tess insinuates she's not objective enough to take the story herself.  Her journalistic integrity affronted, Lois contends that she and Oliver are long over, and she's perfectly capable of handling the assignment.

Back at the benefit, Clark dials Adriana's phone again and listens for the ring.  He finds her outside, being loaded into an ambulance and barely breathing.  Meanwhile, at ISIS, Chloe watches over an artfully glistening Oliver as he twitches fitfully, clearly dreaming...

...about washing up on shore somewhere, surrounded by driftwood and what appear to be the remains of a wrecked boat.  He calls into the jungle, but the Others stay out of sight no one answers.

Two minutes of commercials deposit us a few days later, and Ollie crawls through the jungle, his clothes rank and his hair in need of a nice hot oil treatment.  He meets up with a ginormous caterpillar and tries to psych himself into eating it, but a few days without food isn't quite enough to resort to chowing down on something "with more than 99 legs."  Good to see the wit has not gone the way of the hair gel.  He hears a boar growl (bray? squeal?) nearby, and as it is a much tastier prospect, he prowls toward it.

Unfortunately the boar is not stunned into submission by the sex appeal of its predator, and easily outruns Oliver.  He decides his bare hands aren't going to get him anywhere, and proceeds to montage his way through making a bow and arrows and teaching himself to hit a bullseye carved into a tree.  Eventually he can split one bullseyed arrow with another -- blindfolded.  Sheesh, he thought he was hungry before!  The montage even shows us where Green Arrow's hood comes from: Oliver has fashioned one to protect his head and neck from the burning sun.  He wears it with, uh, no shirt.

One day, as he preens over his archery skillz, he hears an engine on shore.  He tears through the jungle and thrusts aside a flowered bush to see several men unloading crates, but before he can invite them to play Cowboys and Indians, he passes out from contact with the plant.

Lois arrives at ISIS all fired up to cure Oliver's hangover with "a sports drink, as much vitamin B as you can get your hands on, and one dill pickle."  Heh.  Then she notices the heart monitor, and Chloe explains that he's been poisoned and doesn't want a doctor.  Lois nods her understanding and crosses to Oliver, asking if he can hear her.  "Mercy," Oliver murmurs.  "Mercy..."

...and Lois's face and voice fade into those of none other than Tess Mercer, crouching over him in a tent in the jungle.  She looks disheveled but softer, prettier than she does now.  There's a woman tied up on the ground nearby, and a man guarding the entrance to the tent with a shotgun.  Oh, and there's also the matter of Oliver's bare chest being COVERED IN LEECHES OMG EW.  He is understandably freaked out, but Tess, with a nervous glance at the armed man, tries to get Oliver to calm down.  The leeches have left several welts on his skin, but they're the reason he's not dead: they produce a "curing enzyme" that fights the poison from the plant.  Oh right, I'd forgotten she's a marine biologist.  A hospital, Tess says, would have misdiagnosed him and given him adrenaline, which would have killed him.  Gosh, good thing he's on a desert island with no hospitals, then.  Oliver asks about Rambo outside the tent, and Tess explains that she and her friend have been kidnapped.

At the hospital, Davis gathers several bottles of adrenaline for his bag.  Uh oh.  Clark shows up, asking about Oliver's date.  Davis points her out: Adriana is doing fine, having had a good dose of adrenaline, and Davis plans to do the same for Oliver.  But wait!  On cue, Adriana starts to convulse, and Davis barely has time to bark orders at some nurses before she totally flatlines.  Apparently there is no hope for her now, as Davis is the world's only paramedic with no CPR training.

Back in the Jungle of Ill-Fated Sexual Tension, Tess tends to Oliver's leechy wounds.  He remarks that this is not the scenario he envisioned for his first time meeting a woman on this island.  Tess doesn't even smile.  No doubt concerned that his charm may have gotten rusty with no one to practice on, Oliver asks what happened to her.  Tess's marine research group was attacked at sea by two guys in a speedboat, who killed almost everyone.

One of those guys, Marcos, enters the tent then.  He has guessed Oliver's identity, having heard all over the news about "rich brat" Oliver Queen and his buddies boozing themselves into a shipwreck two years previous.  Two years, and that's all the stubble you can manage?  Oh dear.  No longer needing the two girls for a ransom that would be piddly next to what he'll score for Oliver, Marcos shoots Tess's friend and takes aim at Tess, but Oliver throws himself in front of her.  He says that if he's going to die, it'll be for a good reason.  Marcos sneers at them to be ready to leave soon.

Back in Oliver's less conscious but similarly bare-chested-and-glistening present, Lois mops his forehead and chastises him for not holding up his end of their deal: she let him go, and he was supposed to save the world.  Dying doesn't qualify.  Aww.  Clark returns from the hospital and lays a comforting hand on Lois's shoulder before Chloe asks him to join her in the next room.  She rapid-fires through a lengthy train of thought that boils down to the poison originating from a sub-species of oleander found only in the South Pacific.  Clark stares at her.  Chloe: "Why are you looking at me like that?"  Clark: "You mean like I'm at a Met U lecture?"  Heh.

Clark points out that Chloe has become exponentially smarter since her encounter with Brainiac, but Chloe ignores him, turning to the bank of monitors and scrolling through files at lightning speed on all of them at once.  Due to Lex's obsession with toxins and viruses, she says, Luthorcorp has the world's largest collection of organic material.  She finds the oleander file and prints it out.  Clark is still a little stuck on the fact that Brainiac did this to her.  Chloe rolls her eyes and snarks that Clark is probably making a mental list of all the possible ways this could be his fault -- hee! -- but as she's choosing to use this gift for good, he should let it go.  She hands him the printout and tells him to call in a favor from his new boss.

Clark visits Tess at the Planet.  Her immediate flirtation recalls her flashback encounter with Oliver, except with the tables turned, as all it does to Clark is embarrass him.  I SEE WHAT YOU DID THAR.  Clark explains that his friend has been poisoned, and he believes Luthorcorp owns the lab that makes the antidote.  Tess is evasive, but Clark shows her the printout and mentions Oliver's name.  Rattled with recognition, Tess says that the lab has been relocated to Brazil, and the antidote couldn't get here fast enough even if she made a call.  Pfft, this is a matter of travel?  Give us something difficult, honey.

At ISIS, Lois places bags of ice on Oliver's torso.  Davis arrives and notes that she must be Lois.  Lois notes that he must be the person qualified to do this.  Friendly.  Even more friendly when Davis says Oliver is dying.  Lois gets all up in his grill and tells "Dimples" that he'd better have a miracle in his bag, because Oliver will NOT die today.  Davis says the best he can do is keep him alive another few minutes (and hope he doesn't need CPR).  He shines a light in Oliver's eyes, which prompts another flashback.

In the tent, Oliver palms a three-pronged fish hook when the guard isn't looking, then goes to Tess, who is sniffling over dead Megan's body.  Gazing at a bracelet on Megan's wrist, Tess remembers that she gave her that bracelet, and that Megan joked at the time that she'd wear it until the day she died.  As Tess is unable to remove it herself with shaking fingers, Oliver retreives it for her, and wraps his arms around her as she cries.  After a moment, he puts his hand to her hair and slowly pulls the rubber band out of it.  Because this is totally the moment for a kinky move like that?  But Oliver has other ideas: he swore to himself that if he ever got off this island, that he would change his life.  That starts now.  They stare fiercely at each other, and the guard tells them it's time to go.

As they walk in single-file toward the beach, Oliver stealthily wraps the rubber band around the hook and a small stick.  As they pass the oleander bush, Oliver throws down on the surprised guard.  Marcos tries to pull his gun, but Oliver flings his homemade dart so that it catches a berry from the oleander before spearing Marcos in the shoulder.  Sweet.  Marcos falls to the ground, poisoned.  Oliver grabs the shotgun and advises Marcos to go dogpaddle in the leech pond if he cares to live.  Tess snatches the boat keys, and they high-tail it out of there.

At ISIS, Oliver's fever spikes at 106.  "Just like Adriana," Davis says.  What?  I thought she was all fine and dandy until she suddenly crashed.  Or maybe Davis means this is in a prophetic way, because just then Oliver begins to convulse, and he flatlines.  Davis's CPR training comes back to him in a rush and he begins compressions, but apparently needs Lois to do the breathing part.  Oh come on, show.  You got over the male-on-male mouth-to-mouth resuscitation "squick" in the first damn episode.  Clark fleets in with a syringe and hands it to Davis, who plunges it into Oliver's heart.  Almost instantly, Oliver's rhythm returns and he wakes.  Relief is palpable, but Davis wants to know how Clark obtained an antidote that doesn't exist.  Clark lies that it came from a nearby Queen Industries lab.  That, uh, Oliver failed to mention.  Speaking of Oliver, he suddenly shouts that they need to find "Mercy" -- Tess Mercer.  He says whoever poisoned him would be after her next.  Clark is stunned that Oliver knows her, but when Oliver is all, NOT IMPORTANT, GET A MOVE ON, Clark rushes to the Planet.

Tess is just leaving; she walks around the corner to her car.  She parks on the street?  Okay.  Anyhoo, she finds a large hunting knife stuck in her front tire, which seems a little overkill for random vandalism.  Suddenly Marcos is there, pointing the knife at her throat.  He accuses her of leaving him on the island to die.  Look who's talking, asshole.  He says she's not an easy woman to track, because as editor-in-chief of the Planet, she's totally anonymous.  Marcos taunts that she's still a scared little girl, but Tess head-butts him and totally kicks his ass a little until he finally knocks her down.  As he approaches with the knife, Clark streaks onto the scene and elects to heat-blast some power lines onto Marcos in order to stop him.  Clearly the most efficient method.  By the time Tess sits up and looks around, Clark is gone.

The next day, Oliver visits Tess at Luthor mansion and plops a Planet gossip column on her desk.  The headline "Billionaire Bender" accompanies a photo of Oliver collapsing at the benefit.  Without preamble, he simply says, "Really?"  Heh.  Tess smiles and "reminds" herself that he's a humanitarian now, and she was his first save.  Oliver catches sight of Megan's bracelet on Tess's wrist, and says tenderly that she was much more than that.  She shrugs off her own momentary softness by claiming that she needs him alive so that the old Luthorcorp-Queen Industries competition can flourish.  He notes that she's come a long way from protesting whaler ships, though he shouldn't be surprised, considering her ruthless streak.  She claims she wasn't going to sit around moping after he left her without saying goodbye.  Oliver: "Is that why you asked me here?  Because it's on the tip of my tongue."  Emotions flit across Tess's face, including, possibly, a mad impulse to kiss him.  Instead she hands him a red folder, saying that even though Lionel Luthor is dead and gone, this might help him sleep at night.  Oliver opens it, and what he sees there seems quite profound.

At the Planet, Clark breezes in, sets his coffee on Lois's desk, and before he can argue, she claims it as her own.  Heh.  She's working on a kitten adoption story instead of the article on Oliver, which Clark thinks is rather out of character for her.  Oh, you think?  Clark warns Lois against burying her emotions in work; he says that just because their relationship is over, doesn't mean the feelings just go away.  He's certainly watched Lana's goodbye tape more than once.  That makes one of us.

Lois claims her ego is too fragile to date a guy with a hero complex, and she's got to trust that she and Oliver broke up for a reason.  "Exactly," Clark says, with a strange look on his face.  Her spunk returned, Lois dumps the kitten adoption story in Clark's lap, claiming she's allergic to cats anyway.

Chloe enters her office at ISIS to find Davis there, in the super-secret surveillance room.  He claims he came to check on Oliver and the doors were open.  While Chloe tears around trying to put away her more revealingly genius notes, Davis wonders gently if she's embarrassed to be smart.  Chloe: "When the seating chart at your wedding looks more like a Euclidian algorithm than a dining hall, there's something seriously wrong."  Granted.  Also, it's good to know that whatever she said to Clark, her brand new MENSA-level brain does bother Chloe after all.  Davis asks what Jimmy thinks, but from Chloe's grimace, he guesses that Jimmy doesn't know.  Chloe asks Davis to keep it to himself for now.  He grins his dimply, aw-shucks smile and says everyone has something under the surface -- even him.  Chloe's patronizing smile suggests she doesn't believe someone so adorable could possibly have anything to hide.  Yes, I can see why she'd think how rare it is for attractive people to turn out evil.

At the Ace of Clubs, Oliver sits at the bar, downing shots alone.  Clark enters, and Oliver coldly congratulates him on putting Tess's attacker behind bars.  Clark wants to know why Oliver didn't tell him he knew Tess.  Oh, I think you're going to lose this round of "Why Didn't You Tell Me Such and Such," Clark.  Oliver isn't proud of how things turned out with Tess, but he also doesn't tell Clark the whole story; he intimates that the poisoner was simply going after the two industry magnates of Metropolis.

Clark wonders whether getting drunk is the best idea.  Oliver snaps that Clark should stick to his milkshakes -- heh -- and passes him the red folder.  The contents show that Luthorcorp mechanics were on the maintenance log for Oliver's parents' plane before it went down.  Oliver can tell from Clark's shifty expression that Clark knew Lionel was responsible.  Clark says he was afraid Oliver would do something he'd regret, but Oliver is no Luthor -- he wouldn't have killed Lionel.  He shouts (no, really) that he survived two years of rain, sun, and mosquitoes (not to mention lack of hair care products) alone on an island.  This made Oliver strong, but though Clark is invincible, he is not fearless.  He's afraid to trust his friends and afraid to face his destiny.  "Maybe your island's still out there, Clark," Oliver says, leaving.  I'm not sure what the island has to do with trusting one's friends, since Oliver has never told anyone about his little green alter ego either -- the people who know have all found out on their own, much as they have with Clark.  I suppose he's got the destiny part down, but to be fair, Clark is working on that.

On a Metropolis street corner, Marcos gets into a taxi headed for the airport.  But before it can drive away, Tess reaches through the open window and scratches the back of Marcos's hand with a sprig of the oleander.  She reveals that she paid his bail herself, as jail is too good for him.  As Marcos keels over in the back seat, she tells the cabbie he might be having a heart attack and should go to the ER -- they'll know what to do.  Heh.  Nice.

The cab drives away.  She drops the flower in the street -- so some unsuspecting person can come along and pick it up? -- gets into her silver Porsche Carrera, and peels out, flattening the flower.  Her license plate reads "NO MERCY."

Oh, hell yeah.