Smallville Season 3: Insanity

The moral case for coming to terms with insanity.

Author’s Note: So, with the Christmas specials coming up, I’m going to be delaying the release of season 4 until January. But then it should come back regularly.

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What makes you crazy?

Is it when you can't do something you want to do? No matter how many times you try, you can't actually get it done? Or is it when other people won't do what you want them to? Most people get frustrated when you want something and you can't get it. Whether it's accomplishing a goal or having people around you who want what you want. When something like that happens, you can get a bit obsessive about finding a way to make it happen.

It can be as simple as wanting to solve a puzzle or a riddle where the answer just doesn't come to you. But it can also be the kind of person who you like which you're not sure they like you back. Maybe they do like you but just not as much as you like them. Dealing with a problem like that usually ends up one of two ways. Either you give up and choose something else to go after, or you keep at it over and over again to try and make it happen.

Previously in this space, we've looked at the ways in which people try to fit in with others around them. We've also looked at how some people don't want to fit in, they want to stand out from the crowd and be recognized for this fact. However, that's not the end of the story by any means. Trying to fit in or stand out is a difficult process. Even if you want people to accept you as one of them or acknowledge how you're different, there's no reason to assume that other people will go along with you. They can choose to reject this part of yourself. By seeing that you are different when you're trying to be like them, or by thinking you're too weird to be seen as good. This can make people crazy if you're not careful. But what happens then? What do you do when you get to the point of insanity?

“You can't keep running away Clark. We all do things we regret. Sometimes you have to stop and face your demons.”

This is very much where we find Clark at the beginning of season 3. He has come to embrace the part of himself that makes him do crazy things. His desire to be the kind of person who stands out from others doesn't work out. He tried to be the kind of person who fits in and become just one of the ordinary people. So as a result, he can't be either and it makes him want to reject both. To completely leave behind any kind of person anyone would recognize. Thankfully he has Red Kryptonite to help him with that but even this doesn't fix his problems. So he's forced to reject this attempt to go insane on some level.

At the same time, Lex has come to understand his own insanity by being left on an island alone. Enough that he even imagines an entire person who represents all of his problems. The things he hates about himself become real, in his own head anyway. In this place he has someone he can let out all his anger and frustration about his life on. His father who torments him through his constant tests and seeing him as a disappointment for not being more ruthless and willing to destroy his enemies. Lewis allows him to see what he really wants. This allows him to destroy this part of himself and hopefully become a better person... if he can manage it.

“What happened?”

“Something I didn't know I was capable of. It's ironic in the most remote solitude I still managed to find an enemy. I suppose I was just hallucinating from malaria, but the enemy I found is real. I got a good look at myself or at least the part I've always tried to ignore.”

“Lex, I guess we all gotta take a look at our dark side eventually.”

“The problem is if you stare at it long enough, it can be hard to tell the two sides apart.”

Of course, this is far from the only way to go insane. The quickest way to at the very least feel like you're going insane is by having people who are in your life that are keeping things from you. You want to know them and be a part of their life, but they keep themselves hidden, or only share the parts of themselves they want you to know about. Wanting to uncover the deeper parts of someone can make you go to extraordinary lengths to get to the truth. Things you never thought you would ever be able to do or want to do. So much so that you look crazy to the people around you.

Uncovering the truth though can be just as crazy making than wanting to know what people are hiding. You can find out things you weren't expecting about the people you care about most. It can even become the kind of truth which can completely destroy everything you ever thought you knew about the world around you. How could that not make you crazy? The question then becomes what do you do about this creeping insanity when you feel it coming on? Can you find a way to fight back or are you doomed to simply give in to the insanity when it happens?

“You don't think I'm nuts?”

“I think you have a lot of issues, but I don't think you have lost your mind.”

Different people have different ways of dealing with it, and we see this playing out in how Clark and his friends come to terms with insanity. Clark chooses to embrace that part of himself or at least the understanding that he has the capacity to do crazy things. Which isn't to say that he doesn't struggle with this fact about himself from time to time. Part of doing this requires you to come to terms with the idea that you will and can enjoy these crazy feelings and thoughts, worst of all the actions. You could harm the people around you in terrible ways. Something Clark is very aware of given the things he's done.

Lex on the other hand chooses to try and deny who he is and what he's capable of. He refuses to consider the insanity of what he's doing for fear of what it might imply about what he might become. The most obvious thing being his father. It's something that Lex has fought against for the longest time, to avoid what seems like his destiny to be as power hungry and destructive as Lionel can be.

Yet what has happened because of it is that his father has made Lex feel as though he's going crazy. He can see how other people are with their parents, particularly their fathers and knows that what he has is different. It's weird and the kind of thing which any sane person would never accept or understand. Compared to them, his relationship with his father is insane.

“When people think you're insane and you're holding a rifle to their head, they tend to do what you ask.”

In that way he very much mirrors the people around him in the asylum. Whether it's Eric Summers or Ian Randall, some part of him understands why they are the way they are. Even to some extent people like Adam who while not necessarily crazy in some ways, is ultimately driven to act insane thanks to his circumstances. Being someone who is dying will make someone do strange things they wouldn't ordinarily want to.

Emily Dinsmore and Alicia Baker present an even more dangerous type of crazy. Although they are obviously crazy in so many ways, their motivations are fundamentally different. Eric, Ian and Adam do terrible things for their own selfish reasons. Emily and Alicia are the kinds of people who don't actually believe they're crazy. They believe they're sane, it's the rest of the world which is crazy for not wanting to go along with what they believe and how they feel. Worse than that their motivations are ones born out of love. Maybe a twisted kind of love but still a kind of love.

“It's sad to see a man who's lost his mind, but it's tragic when he's convinced himself he's sane.”

Then you have the problem of people like Jordan and Garrett who either think they're crazy or are told they are crazy but aren't. Or become crazy as a result of the circumstances they find themselves in. Sometimes because they have abilities other people don't, or due to a family member who wants to save people from looking at them as if they're crazy. People want to be saved from this fate or do what they can to protect those they love from ending up this way.

You could argue that Lionel Luthor falls into this category in some aspects. During some scenarios he can be reasonably thought of as pretty sane. His apparent reaction to his son's disappearance at sea or the desperation he feels at having an incurable disease. However, because of this same desperation, he's willing to enact insane plans like developing an experimental drug that might end up curing him or turn Lex into a violent, unstable sociopath who needs to be institutionalized for his own safety just to protect the fact that Lionel killed his parents for the insurance money. He is even willing to go so far as to believe that cave paintings can unlock the secrets of the universe and perhaps even save his life. While some of that might be true, does that make him crazy? Or just incredibly motivated?

“Oh it's one of those days because I can never tell with you if you're going to walk in and it's going to be an apology or an accusation.”

He strikes a strange and painful balance between the two of them. Being the kind of person who isn't afraid to think outside the box. Entertain the strangest and least likely ideas for even the smallest of possibilities that he might be correct. Allowing people to think he's crazy just to feel as though he can do whatever he wants. For most people though, this isn't necessarily the best way to go. Which is much easier to do when you have the kind of money and power that Lionel does.

“A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them. They're who they've been throughout your whole relationship.”

He comes to believe that he's completely untouchable from the path of destruction he leaves in his wake. This naturally leads to a kind of insanity. Believing that he is beyond any kind of consequences for his actions. Maybe even on par with the kind of power Clark has, though in many ways Clark tries to reject that aspect of himself due to how insane it makes him.

It's part of why Clark is so tempted by Kara's offer to help him fully embrace who he is. She presents him with the idea that he doesn't have to feel like he's standing out or trying to fit in. Clark doesn't have to feel like a crazy person with all kinds of moral dilemmas to work his way through. Kara becomes his way out of the madness. Offering him a larger perspective with which to view the world.

“The worst sin of age is to forget the trials of youth.”

One benefit of being insane is that it broadens your way of thinking. It's harder to think in black and white terms about good and evil when you know that insanity is another possibility. You will have ideas other people simply won't because your view of the world isn't limited, it's a big broad world out there.

But we'll get into that when we explore season 4.

Smallville is available on Max and Hulu in the United States and Amazon Prime.