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Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
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| Title: | The House of Luthor (2) |
| Episode Number: | 22 |
| Season: | 1 |
| Season Episode #.: | 22 |
| Production Number: | 455320 |
| Original Airdate: | Sunday May 08th, 1994 |
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Lex has destroyed the planet and scattered the employees to the far winds, a scene he recreates in virtual reality, casting himself in the role of Superman. But when Clark and Perry realize Jimmy has vanished, they reunite to find him. That task isn’t particularly difficult: Jimmy and Jack both appear at Clark’s door, Jack on the lam from the juvenile authorities. Just like old days, Perry assigns each of them a specific task and they uncover a good deal of information about what really happened to the planet. All they need is the final pieces to be supplied by Clark. But Lex has lured Superman to a remote location and trapped him in a cage that emits green kryptonite radiation! Unless Superman can escape, Lex may win even as his victims zero in on the truth!
| There are no foreign summaries for this episode
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| No Guest Stars Found (Add Here)
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| Tracy Scoggins does not appear in this episode.
| We learn that Clark shaves by reflecting his heat vision from a mirror and using it to burn off his stubble.
| We can infer that Lex is nominally Catholic. When Lois realizes an archbishop will preside at her wedding to Lex, he facetiously claims that the Pope had a prior engagement. Although a number of faiths have archbishoprics, only Catholicism has a papacy. From the choices Lex makes we can infer that he pays at best lip service to his faith.
| Media mogul Franklin Stern acquires the Daily Planet at the conclusion of this episode.
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| Clark: How are you? You sound... tan.
Perry: Well, you tell me. I get up around nine, take a walk on the beach. I get back, Alice has breakfast for me. Weather’s perfect, never changes. Haven’t been run down by a cab since I got here...
Clark: You’re miserable.
Perry: Completely.
| Lois: I haven’t talked to Perry, or Jimmy, or Cat...
Lex: Clark?
Lois: Or Clark... in weeks.
Lex: So why don’t you give them a call?
Lois: I think I will.
| Jimmy: Jack... why did you break out, huh?
Jack: Overheard some stuff. They brought in a new kid last week. He’s bragging about how he and his brother pulled this frame-up. Planting incriminating evidence in some guy’s crib.
Jimmy: So?
Jack: I was the framee! He was talking about me and the explosive they found in my place after the fire at the Planet. I have to clear my name, Jimmy. And it’s not going to happen with me on the inside. I’m going to need help.
| Lois: Clark?
Clark: Yeah?
Lois: I miss you.
Clark: I miss you, too, Lois.
| Perry: All right. Jimmy, Jack, I want you to find out where we can contact this John Black character. And Clark? Get me whatever you can on anyone called, ‘The Boss.’ I’m going to start digging into some of the Daily Planet finances.
Jimmy: Just like old times.
| Jack: Pete Black didn’t just “happen” to be sent to juvvie. He was put there to look for me.
| Perry: Every single member of the Planet’s old board of directors has been ducking me. I finally did get ahold of a transcript of the session where they agreed to sell the paper to Luthor. But my instinct tells me they’re hiding something from me. What I need is some leverage.
Clark: I just hope we’re not too late.
| Clark: Just about every criminal element in Metropolis pays protection money to a shadowy character they call “The Boss.” Most of them have no idea who he is, and those who might? Too terrified to talk.
| (Lois pulls up next to Clark in a Mercedes.)
Lois: Need a lift, big boy?
Clark: Present from Luthor?
Lois: I borrowed it.
Clark: (coldly) Well, then, I guess you owe him one, don’t you?
| Clark: I could never hate you, Lois. But I’m not going to sit there and watch you walk down the aisle with that...
Lois: What? Thief? Gangster? Psychopath? Murderer?
Clark: Maybe all of the above!
Lois: Can’t you see what is happening? You are driving us farther and farther apart!
Clark: I’m not the one doing the driving, Lois. You are. And if you’re so sure Lex is filled with good intentions, you might want to ask him about Lex-L Investments, and the extra insurance policy they took out on the Daily Planet! A policy that may have made it very easy to rebuild the paper. You’re an investigative reporter, Lois. Investigate!
| Lex: Modern surveillance technology is a wonderful thing, isn’t it Mrs. Cox? If the Borgias had had it, they’d still be running Italy.
| Lex: I was just thinking how everything’s falling into line. I made the Daily Planet vulnerable for takeover, I bought it and I destroyed it. I broke Lois Lane from her comfortable routine and made a few bucks in the process. And now, when these highly insulting accusations of Mr. Kent prove false, well, that should drive the final wedge between Lois and her old life.
Mrs. Cox: Part one of your plan is complete.
Lex: Time for part two: to conclude our business with Superman. Is everything complete?
Mrs. Cox: Yes...
| Superman: You live in a fantasy world, Luthor! Neither Clark nor I will ever do anything to support your marriage to Lois.
Lex: I see. Well, then, I suppose I have no further use for you. (Lex operates a control and a heavy steel cage drops, surrounding Superman.)
Superman: Bars won’t hold me, Luthor.
Lex: Oh? I think they will. (Lex operates a remote control, and the bars begin to emit the lethal green radiation characteristic of green kryptonite, weakening Superman. Lex begins to gloat.) I live in a fantasy world? Perhaps. But my fantasy is about to come true!
| Jack: Mr. Simon Truesdale, former board member of the Daily Planet, has had a sudden attack of conscience. He’s now willing to admit he received a substantial cash inducement, I think he called it, to support the sale of the Planet to Luthor.
Jimmy: Any particular reason for this sudden attack of conscience?
Jack: May have to do with a certain videotape which he hopes his wife never receives.
Perry: Ha, ha! Poor woman.
Jack: Not after the divorce settlement!
| Lex: (addressing Superman who is trapped in a kryptonite cage) Still feeling a little... green around the gills, are we?
| (Lois notices who will celebrate their wedding.)
Lois: The archbishop?!?
Lex: Yes, I’m sorry. The Pope had a prior engagement.
| Archbishop: Do you, Lex, take this woman to be your wedded bride from this day forward, for richer, for poorer ... until death do you part?
Lex: I do.
Archbishop: And do you, Lois, take this man to be your wedded husband from this day forward, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until death do you part?
Lois: I... I...
Lex: Lois?
Lois: I can’t!
| Perry: Stop the wedding! You can’t marry this man!
Lois: What, is there an echo in here? I just said that!
Perry: The meaning of this is, Luthor, you’re through. We have all the evidence against you we need.
Lois: Evidence? Evidence for what?
Inspector Henderson: This is warrant for your arrest for arson and other crimes too numerous to mention.
| Lex: Lex Luthor will not live in a cage! (Moments before he jumps to his apparent death.)
| Lois: You never gave up. On the Planet. On your friends. On me.
Clark: I couldn’t. You just named, probably, everything in the world that’s precious to me.
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| Lex suggests if the Borgias had had modern surveillance technology, they’d still be running Italy. During the Renaissance, the Borgias (originally Spanish royalty) were a powerful and influential family in Italy where they became involved in all manner of crime and scandal. One of their number, Rodrigo, eventually rose to the Catholic papacy as Alexander VI during a corrupt period in Church history. Lucretia Borgia is famous for the frequent use of poison to eliminate enemies, but there is doubt among historians about this. Perhaps the first “crime family,” the name Borgia has become synonymous with corruption, evil, and the abuse of power. Viewers are perhaps meant to believe that Lex admires and seeks to emulate them, rather than regarding them poorly as most would.
| Lex’s “Et tu, Mrs. Cox?” is a variation on Julius Caesar’s line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Stabbed a dozen or more times, and knowing death was at hand, Caesar’s worst realization was that one of the daggers was in the hand of Brutus, a man he’d called friend and confidant. All he could say was, “Et tu, Brute?” which literally means, “And you, Brutus?” Variations on the line appear in situations where someone is the victim of a betrayal, especially a betrayal from a wholly unexpected quarter.
| The inspiration for the episode title is revealed only late in the episode, and in an unlikely way: a newspaper “spin” reveals a headline from after Lex’s villainy stands revealed: The Fall of the House of Luthor. From this one can see the title comes from the title of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Fall of the House of Usher. The titular characters in Poe’s work suffered from various psychological problems; this episode and the first part of the story it concludes reveal that Lex probably does, as well. There is a subtle pun, as well, since falling is the manner of Lex’s apparent death.
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| The early scene, where Lex (as a version of Superman) flies through the air and spies on all the people whose lives he has damaged reveals the central driving force in his life since Superman appeared: jealousy. Lex needs to be in total control, something he could largely achieve with his wealth before Superman appeared. He knows, on some level, that he can never control Superman no matter how wealthy he becomes, so he yearns for the death of Superman and the ability to replace him.
| In the “real world” Lex’s plunge would be the end of him, but in the world of comic books, it is common for a villain to apparently die, and then appear at a future point hale and hearty (usually), sometimes with no explanation how he cheated death! A trope of comic book worlds is: “they’re not dead unless you see the body, and sometimes not even then.” The disappearance of Lex’s body from the morgue certainly foreshadows his eventual return.
| Superman cannot save Lex because long exposure to kryptonite has weakened him and temporarily eliminated his ability to fly. This is the classic twist of the villain undone by his own misdeeds. It is clear that Clark would have saved Lex if he could have, even if it meant revealing who he was. This highlights Superman’s goodness by contrast with Lex’s evil. (Superheroes in comic books often maintain secret identities to protect their friends and family, at whom enemies might strike while the hero was otherwise occupied.)
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