All Is Mystery: Shattered
Written by Hope

In every production office, there are folks who are good at dialogue, good at character episodes, good at mythology, good at humor... and then there are the folks who get things done. The go-to writers, who have mastered the basic craft of screenwriting, and have moved well on into mastering the artistry. Smallville's go-to guy is Ken Biller, who penned "Insurgence" (with Jeph Loeb,) Lineage (in a story by M&G,) "Calling," and now the seminal conversion episode "Shattered."

On this show, Mark Verheiden and Ken Biller are the guys who turn the characters. Through lengthy character arcs, with characters that necessarily have to end up very far from where they started (while still maintaining who they were at the beginning,) MV and KB write the episodes where these conversions happen. They know the ubercanon, and they know the canon-yet-to-come, and they can make the necessary twists to keep the characters going in the right direction.

And though MV is my tv boyfriend, I have to admit that Ken Biller is the better writer. Biller has a grasp not only on craft and function in screenwriting (getting the characters to do interesting stuff without losing our interest,) but he has a finesse with all the characters in their grey and confusing glory. He's also a gifted enough writer that he's moved beyond simple four-act plotting, and can dig into the reserves of creative story approach.

He and Verheiden have both done this (Verheiden most recently with "Suspect,") but whereas Verheiden's style sometimes consumes substance (the resolution to "Suspect" being especially unsatisfying, because we had no clues the mystery would end the way it did- it was surprising only because it was completely out of left field.) Biller, however, never forgets that for the audience to *believe* the events of an episode, they must be supported.

This is why the Interesting Writer Trick 325 he tried in "Shattered" was both brilliant for the episode, and for the long-term good of the show. Interesting Writer Trick 325: The Unreliable Narrator. Crafting an unreliable narrator (or unreliable POV character, which is what this really is, but that's far too wordy to repeat often,) is difficult because there must be clues to understand what's *really* going on, but those clues must be presented while maintaining the integrity of the narrator's warped view of events.

The teaser and first few minutes of Act I are a perfect capsule examination of that. We (and Lex,) see a masked man break into the mansion, murder the guard Darius, and attempt to murder Lex. Not only are we shown these events, we're shown the evidence of this attack: glass shattered, bullet holes in the walls, and missing skylight plates. Lex flees the assassin by jumping through a window, injuring himself and leaving a mighty big hole in a stained glass window.

That version of events is exactly what Lex believes happened; it's the version of events he tells Clark in the Fortress of Solitude the next morning. And when Clark returns to the mansion, all of these visual clues have disappeared. First moment of tension for Clark, and us: perhaps Lex is seriously mistaken. By wit, he gets a piece of evidence we, the audience, can't find on our own- x-ray vision reveals to him a piece of shattered glass. Now Clark (our reliable witness) and Lex (our unreliable narrator) are on the same path, and we, the audience, can believe that Lex told the truth, and that powerful forces are conspiring against him.

At least, we can all believe that until Clark finds Lex singing to a rolled up blanket in his barn. Not only is that a fantastic reversal (once again putting question into Clark, and the audience's mind, about what's really going on with Lex,) but it's the perfect execution of the unreliable narrator. The events in *every* scene with Lex in it- be he alone, or wit
someone else- cannot be trusted to be the absolute truth. The only scenes we can take for the absolute truth in this episode are scenes in which information Lex gave someone else can be independently verified. Lex believes he was drugged- and Clark strong-arms the formerly late Darius into telling him how the drugs were delivered: because of that, we know for an absolute certainty that the drugging *really* happened.

Conversely, we don't know for an absolute certainty that Lionel actually had a hand in this, because the information was delivered unreliably. Morgan Edge has a compelling reason to *lie* to Lex, to implicate Lionel, and it's something that Lex- in his drug addled state- already believes; it's something that he wants to believe. And, because of the way the story unfolded here, it's something that Clark believes... but because the audience always knows a little more than the characters, it's not something we should necessarily take as a gospel truth. We're meant to be left wondering just *what* Lionel did, *how* involved he was, or *if*, in fact, he was involved at all. (Personally, I think he was involved, but believing he didn't is equally supportable because of our delicious unreliable narrator.)

This episode is actually a bastion of things we just don't know (yet.) DC Comics fans know that Dr. Claire Foster was the psychiatrist who counseled Superman post-crisis- she is, in the comics canon- a scrupulously ethical professional. Her actions in this episode could support that- she only tried to give Lex a sedative (reliably confirmed by Chloe, in a Lexless scene,) she tried to explain to him what she believed to be wrong, she *wanted* to help, and she was *not* happy with the outcome. Or, Dr. Foster is part of the conspiracy who felt it convenient to give Lex a sedative so she and Lionel could cart young master Luthor off to Belle Reve Sanitarium with little struggle, and her displeasure lay in the difficulty of completing the task.

For each character "fact" we learn, there is an opposite explanation that is just as possible. Dr. Foster is in on the conspiracy; Dr. Foster is unaware of the conspiracy. Lionel Luthor planned this for his child; Lionel Luthor was unaware of Morgan Edge's plans to destroy his son and by proxy, Lionel himself. Lex accidentally killed Julian; Lionel has been trying to convince Lex for years that he killed Julian. This was not a character development episode for Lex in the least (even though it told us some things about Lex's internal fortitude,) this was a character reaction episode. Lex didn't display any trait last night, even drugged to the gills, that we haven't seen him display when he's in full control of his faculties. Some of those traits were amplified to a frightening degree- the way Lex clings to memories of those he's lost, for example. Wearing the watch his mother had made for him, and searching an entire mansion on hands and knees to find it is his normal reaction to loss, the abnormal end of that spectrum is cradling a blanket and singing lullabies to it. One is a pale shade of grey, the other, very dark, but they are both the same in motivation, if not in execution.

This was, however, a character development episode for Clark and Lana. Clark had a lot of choices to make here, a lot of choices he had to make independently, even against what would normally be good advice from his parents, from a psychiatric professional, from even his friends. These are the inklings of Superman, the early glimmers of a man with incredible powers who can seek good counsel, but who ultimately has to make decisions for himself. The application of the darker side of himself, the part he liked to call Kal, is evidence that he's integrating that aspect into his everyday self- *Clark* chose to strongarm Darius, he *chose* to threaten him, not out of a panic as he's done with Roger Nixon, but with deliberation and forethought.

But he is not Superman yet, and the seeds of what makes *this* Superman refuse to give up on Lex, refuses to *stop* watching over Lex, is that after a series of right choices, good choices in the face of conflicting information, he still panicked at the end and left Lex at the point when Lex arguably needed him the most. As far as Clark has come since first season, he's still young, and when faced with a dire choice- allow Lex to *die* or reveal his powers, he chose to reveal his powers. However, letting a van full of strangers discover his secret is still too overwhelming a concept for him to process, for him to quickly think of alternatives, and he fled. Clark is the only person alive (besides possibly Lionel Luthor,) who knows that Lex was drugged. He is the only person alive who knows that Lex wasn't crazy, and he *left* him out of fear for himself. And that's going to eat at him, both in coming episodes, and no doubt, in the far future, where his best friend has become his worst enemy.

This episode fully realizes Lana's role in this triangle. She'll always be a bridge between Lex and Clark, she's the girl who chooses to stay behind, whose presence represents calm and safety. More interesting than that, however, is that Lana finally *became* all of the things that Clark has believed she is- strong, caring, and compassionate. She saved her questions about leaving the house in the middle of the night with a basket of food until she *arrived* at the stables. She talked quietly to Lex, and tried to comfort him in his time of need. And despite the trauma that befell her, the first question she asked Clark was a compassionate one. "How's Lex?" Most people wouldn't *care* how Lex is, considering what happened, but she did, and I truly believed that she wanted to know.

Likewise, for Lana to be the girl who chooses to stay behind, she has to know what the alternative is. She's tried to convince herself for quite some time now that Clark's reticence and worries were gossamer, unimportant, but now she's seen firsthand that what he says is true. It's dangerous to be around him. She still had her first season belief that Clark "isn't always around when you want him, but he's always there when you need him" - and that had always been true until now. That made for a painful moment of clarity for her, but one she really needed. Lana has finally chosen the path of what's best for *her* as opposed to what she really *wants*.

Episodes like this reaffirm my belief that this is not just a fun show to watch; it's actually a *good* show. In spite of missteps and flaws in the series as a whole, "Shattered" never could have happened without the other fifty episodes we've already seen. I had to watch this episode several times to actually think about the screenwriting process- like "Rosetta" and "Insurgence" before it, "Shattered" was so well-crafted, the performances were so compelling, and the story so wonderfully told, that during my first viewing, I forgot about the craft entirely and spent an hour completely immersed in the art.

That doesn't happen very often, so my many thanks to Ken Biller for sharing his gifts. Smallville wouldn't be the same without him.

Screenwriting: A+
To Watch: A+

Next Week: Lana and Chloe start an all girl rock band and... hey! Who put the Josie and the Pussycats in place of my Smallville? Frickenfrackin' hiatus. *grump*

Note: The views of Hope don't necessarily represent the thoughts and feelings of everyone at KryptonSite.

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