"Rush" is the fourteenth episode in the second season of Smallville, and thirty-fifth episode overall. It aired on February 4, 2003.
Summary[]
After Pete and Chloe are infected by a parasitic worm, it turns them into thrill-seeking daredevils, and Pete uses red kryptonite to get Clark to join them on a dangerous adventure. Not only does Clark show off his powers, but he kisses Chloe in front of a stunned Lana.
Recap[]
→ see also Category:Screencaps from episode 2x14
Travis acts wildly impulsive at a rave.
Chloe and Pete arrive at a wild rave that is being held in the Kawatche Caves. Pete knows Clark will be worried and tries to protect the cave walls, but Chloe wants to have fun. She is suddenly accosted by Travis George, her nerdy chem lab partner. He kisses her passionately, exclaims that he's high on life, and climbs a tall scaffold. The crowd cheers him on as Travis jumps to his doom. Annoyed, Pete sits down near a wall and is stabbed in the neck by a sharp object. Suddenly, he jumps up to join the party.
The next morning, Pete rides his dirt bike up to Clark—on the Main Street sidewalk, forcing pedestrians to jump out of his way. Clark yells at him to be careful, and Pete tells him that life is too short to play it safe. He urges Clark to take his chances with Lana now that Whitney is dead and speeds away. Clark goes into the Talon, and he and Lana talk about what happened to Travis. Lana also talks about being a spectator in life, and Clark blurts that they should go on a date. Lana surprises him by accepting. He tells her he'll pick her up the next day. Later, Chloe goes to the Talon and asks Lana if she wants to go shopping tomorrow, but Lana admits that she has a date with Clark. She seems reluctant, so Chloe assures her that she doesn't have feelings for Clark anymore. Lana looks unconvinced.
Lex and Clark discuss researching the Kawatche Caves.
Clark is cleaning up the Caves when Lex arrives. They talk about the cave paintings, and Lex pulls a reference book out of Clark's backpack and sees that it is written by Dr. Frederick Walden, who researches hieroglyphics. He gives Clark unlimited access to the caves. Lex later meets with Dr. Walden and offers him a substantial amount of money to begin studying the cave paintings. Walden claims he cannot be swayed but changes his mind when Lex shows him photographs of the cave paintings.
Clark tries to get Pete some help.
Chloe and Clark talk about Pete's strange behavior. Chloe reveals that Travis had a puncture wound on his neck, along with two other kids who attended the rave and also died suddenly from extreme behavior. Clark is worried about Pete and finds him outside of the Talon, dodging traffic. Clark super speeds to knock him out of the way and tries to get him to a doctor. Pete refuses to go and threatens to tell the gathering crowd Clark's secret. Unsurprisingly, the crowd is unfazed by Pete's rantings about Clark being an alien, and Clark watches in dismay as Pete runs off screaming. Clark and Chloe go back to the caves, where Chloe sticks her hand in a crack and is pierced with something. Just then, Dr. Walden and Lex approach. Walden says that nobody can have access to the caves, including Clark. Clark goes to collect Chloe, who is petulant and rude to Dr. Walden.
Clark and Chloe make out at the Talon.
Clark goes back to his loft to find Pete. He X-rays Pete and sees a parasite moving inside him. Pete resists Clark's attempts to take him to the hospital, finally incapacitating Clark with kryptonite and running off.
At the caves, Dr. Walden reveals that they found a nest of parasites behind one of the glyphs in the cave wall. Lex orders any live specimens to be sent to Cadmus Labs in Metropolis.
Clark goes to the Torch to find Chloe making out with some random boy. She ribs Clark about his date, and Clark thinks her strange behavior is due to jealousy. He asks her to help him save Pete. He then goes to the Talon to cancel his date with Lana because Pete is sick. Just then, Pete and Chloe arrive, and Lana thinks Clark lied to her and gets upset. Clark tries again to get Pete to the hospital, but instead, Pete slips a piece of red kryptonite into Clark's shirt pocket, and Kal takes over.
The three teens go back to Clark's barn, where he demonstrates his powers for Chloe. Lex interrupts them to tell Clark that Dr. Walden still won't agree to let Clark into the caves. Kal tells him he'll go into the caves whenever he "damn well pleases." They leave and Clark and Chloe make out in the backseat while Pete drives dangerously fast. Chloe and Kal continue the make-out session at the Talon and Chloe suggests they play strip poker (with imaginary cards) and takes Kal's shirt off. His senses returned, Clark jumps up away from Chloe and she gets angry. He X-rays her and sees that she has the parasite too, but Chloe forces a kiss on him at the same time that Lana walks in. Lana starts to cry, but Clark can't stay to explain because Chloe and Pete are in danger. Outside the Talon, he tries again to get them help, but Pete punches Clark with a meteor rock and knocks him out.
Pete apologizes for his wild behavior.
Lana does not accept Clark's apology.
Clark is sprawled on the ground in the entranceway to the café, so Lana pours a bucket of water on him to wake him up. He speeds away to find them. He catches Pete's car just as they drive it off a cliff and gets them to the hospital. He visits them later and is relieved to learn that Chloe has no memory of their adventures. He runs into Lana, but she doesn't want to talk to him. She tells Chloe that Clark screwed up his date by making out with another girl, but doesn't tell Chloe who.
At home, Jonathan is talking to Clark about what Chloe knows and what Pete did when Pete comes to apologize.
Lex gets off the phone with Cadmus Labs and finds out that the parasite could be alien in origin. He tells Dr. Walden that Clark gets unfettered access to the cave because he is sure Clark knows more about the cave than he's letting on.
Clark later goes back to the Talon to apologize to Lana again, bringing her a rose. Lana is still upset and demands answers. She thinks Clark and Chloe still have feelings for each other, but Clark says they are just friends. Lana says she knows why Chloe was kissing him but asks, why was he kissing Chloe back. Clark doesn't answer because he can't tell her about red kryptonite and leaves silently, and Lana throws his rose away.
Cast[]
Starring[]
- Tom Welling as Clark Kent
- Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang
- Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor
- Sam Jones III as Pete Ross
- Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan
- John Glover as Lionel Luthor (credit only)
- Annette O'Toole as Martha Kent
- John Schneider as Jonathan Kent
Guest Starring[]
- Rob LaBelle as Dr. Frederick Walden
Co-Starring[]
- Shaun Sipos as Chloe's Boy Thing
- Haig Sutherland as Travis George
- Jason Jenkins as Assistant
- Luciana Carro as Talon Waitress
Mentioned[]
- Whitney Fordman
- Kyla Willowbrook
- Principal Terrence Reynolds
- Judge Abigail Ross
- Gabe Sullivan
Featured Music[]
- "Never Gonna Come Back Down" - BT
- "Somewhere" - Stephen Phillips
- "Integrity" - Amy Drum
- "Just Wanna Be Loved" - AM Radio
- "Forever Yours" - Bosshouse.
- "Bread and Water" - Sheila Nicholls
- "Don't Dream It's Over" - Sixpence None The Richer
Title[]
- To rush means move or progress fast.
- The title refers to the adrenaline rush that Pete and Chloe feel after being infected by the parasite.
Notes[]
- Antagonists: Adrenaline Parasites
- Clark uses the following abilities in this episode: super strength, super speed, X-ray vision, and heat vision. Chloe inquires whether he has the power of Flight, but Clark answers in the negative.
- Chloe, while affected by a parasite, calls Dr. Walden a "cunning linguist", a play on words and a reference that is questionably appropriate for a family show.
- Pete refers to Clark as a boy scout, foreshadowing his future role in the Justice League.
- On the Talon banner, it says Morning Rush, a reference to the title of the episode.
- Lionel Luthor doesn't appear in this episode.
- This episode once again features red kryptonite and while under the influence of the parasite, Chloe and Pete wear a lot of red.
- Travis is also wearing red at the rave. The sweater vest, white dress shirt and glasses he wears makes him bear a resemblance to a teenage Clark Kent as he was portrayed in comics prior to the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
- This is the first time Chloe learns Clark's secret, though she forgets about it near the end of the episode.
- In the scene where Pete and Chloe intentionally drive their car off a cliff and Clark speeds in to catch it before it hits the ground, to attain the shot of Clark catching Pete’s car required the crew to suspend the car from a crane with Sam Jones III and Allison Mack inside the car. The scene was filmed in a rock quarry, as there are not many cliffs in the Vancouver area, with segments of the scene created digitally. The car was then filmed as it was being pulled into the air backwards—the footage was then reversed to give the impression that it was falling. Initially, Mike Walls and his crew tried to pull the car straight up, but it was not working. The movement of the car had to be tweaked to give a sense of reality.
- It's kind of peculiar why Clark didn't just super speed, and clean up the cave's mess in seconds.
- When Chloe asks Pete to make a stop, her hand is on his shoulder; when he asks where, it is gone; when she says the Talon, it is back.
- When Clark and Chloe make out in the Talon, after Chloe strips him and the red kryptonite falls out, Clark comes to his senses, immediately puts on a coat and zips it up. However, when Lana comes in, he zips it up again.
- The effects of the parasites are similar to red kryptonite, which is also featured in this episode, and the Nicodemus flower, which appeared in Nicodemus. Pete is the only person who has been affected by both the parasites and the flower. It appears that while the parasite turn people impulsive and reckless, it seems to be more dangerous to the hosts themselves (making them drive off a cliff) while the nicodemus flower seems to be more dangerous to others as the affected person turns violent very quickly when denied, as shown when Pete held Chloe at gunpoint during Nicodemus. Red kryptonite appears to be somewhere in between, but it may be more similar to the flowers as the impulsiveness be simply from Kal's lack of inhibition when it comes to showing his powers.
- Pete refers to Clark as "my brother ... from another planet" - a reference to the 1984 sci-fi film, which starred Joe Morton (Steven Hamilton) in the title role.
- It is odd that even under the parasite's influence, Pete does not show any sign of jealousy at Clark and Chloe making out right next to him, despite that he has expressed affection towards Chloe subtly multiple times (and not-so-subtly when he is under the influence of the Nicodemus flower, which has similar effects to the parasites).
In Other Media[]
- Pete carrying a kryptonite rock around to handle Clark Kent is something that Batman does in the comic books.
Continuity[]
- The parasite from the cave would later be shown again in Covenant and the comic book story Rampage.
- The novel Temptation would later provide an origin for the Red Kryptonite that Pete is shown to have during the events of the episode.
Allusions[]
- Chloe jokes that "a little Moby" won't hurt the caves, a reference to techno/electronica musician Moby. Actually, BT, another popular techno musician, is playing.
- Pete describes Clark as "my brother ...from another planet", perhaps a reference to the 1984 film The Brother from Another Planet.
Locations[]
Quotes[]
- Clark: We should go on a date. Together. In the near future.
- Lana: Are you serious?
- Clark: I was. But if you don't want to go...
- Lana: When?
- Clark: You mean you'll go?
- Lana: Yeah. I assume that was the answer you were looking for.
- Clark: Just give me until tomorrow.
- Jonathan: No.
- Clark: It's really important.
- Martha: What is it?
- Clark: I've got a date. With Lana.
- Jonathan: A study date?
- Clark: An actual date.
- Martha: (whispers) Jonathan, you have to let him go.
- Jonathan: Will you promise me that you'll get your homework done and your chores done before you set one foot outside of that door?
- Clark: Absolutely.
- Jonathan: Okay.
- Clark: Thanks, Mom.
- Pete: Try and touch me, you freak.
- Clark: Pete, you're coming with me whether you want to or not!
- Pete: You think because you have all those powers, you always get your way! News flash! I know your weakness.
- Chloe: (to Lex) You know, I always wondered. For a boy who has all the money in the world, you'd think he could afford a good toupee.
- Lex: You wouldn't be keeping secrets from me, would you, Clark?
- Pete: Clark, I know you're worried about me. You're my boy. You always have been. But I figured it out. In your world, green means stop. And red-- (he slips a red meteor rock into Clark's shirt pocket) Red means go.
- Chloe: My own personal superhero. I always knew there was something special about you, Clark Kent.
- Kal: (to Lex) Let me give you some [advice]. If you know what's good for you, stay the hell away from me.
- Chloe: Hey Clark. What other superpowers you got?
- Kal: Why don't you come back here and find out?
- Pete: (Chloe crawls to the backseat) Hey, hey, hey, this isn't the pimp mobile!
- Chloe: I love the way I feel. So maybe this is exactly what I need, to spend more time actually living life and less time reporting it. (kisses Clark; Lana arrives, Clark breaks away)
- Clark: Lana, this is not what it looks like. (Lana stares at him then sweeps past him)
- Chloe: Yes it is, Lana, it is exactly what it looks like. Oh, and guess what? Clark told me everything. (Lana pauses at the door) And I mean, everything.(Chloe walks out of the Talon)
- Clark: Lana, I can explain. (Lana slams the door behind her with tears streaming down her face)
External links[]
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