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Smallville / Tropes H to M

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Tropes A to C | Tropes D to G | Tropes H to M | Tropes N to S | Tropes T to Z

Smallville provides examples of the following tropes:

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    H 
  • Happily Adopted: Clark has boatloads of angst over his Kryptonian heritage, but he loves his parents and considers them his real family. He even explicitly says in "Rosetta" that no matter what he finds out about his people, the Kents will still be his mom and dad. He has also told Jor-El that Jonathan is his real father and never calls Jor-El "father". Except in "Abyss".
  • Happily Ever After: Crisis On Infinite Earths revealed that Clark and Lois settled down on the Kent farm, Clark depowered himself permanently, and the two have two daughters.
  • Happily Married:
    • The Kents, naturally, before Jonathan dies. They argue a few times, usually over Clark's most recent alien/superhero issues, but ultimately always support each other and him and work through their issues by talking them out.
    • General Zod and his wife Faora do genuinely love each other. Ironically things go very badly for clone Zod and clone Faora.
    • Arthur gets married to Mera offscreen in season 10 and both are extremely dedicated to each other and their commitment to justice, with him and Mera working well as a Battle Couple.
    • Clark is married to Lois in the Grand Finale. According to the flash-forward sequence set in 2018, Clark and Lois are happily married, although they chose not to display any rings at the Planet office due to their desire to keep their professional lives separate from their personal lives. By 2019, both have left the city life to live in the Kent farm with their two daughters.
  • Hammy Villain, Serious Hero: Clark Kent is about keeping the peace and order and spends most of his time fighting krypto freaks who want to take over the world. Mikhail Mxyzptlk is the exact opposite, using his powers of luck and influence, sometimes for his own personal gain and sometimes just to see what happens.
  • Hard Head: Smallville is the king of this trope. Lex and Lana have each been knocked out almost 50 times.
  • He Who Must Not Be Seen: Despite numerous allusions to his famous alter ego, we never see Clark in full Superman regalia. Even in "Finale", we only see Clark in the Superman suit in extreme long shots (where he's probably a CGI double), or extreme closeups where it's just his face with some blue and red barely visible at the shoulders. Even the final shot ends with Clark just ripping open his shirt to show the S emblem underneath. Tom Welling wearing an actual Superman costume is never shown at any point in the entire series.
  • Healing Factor: The Kryptonians, Curtis Knox and Lex possess it. Certain drugs can temporarily give anyone this power, with side effects. For a while, Chloe had not only the power to heal herself but to heal others, even resurrect them. She saved Lois' life once. She later lost that power because of Brainiac.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: Lex Luther has actually attempted to perform a Heel–Face Turn numerous times throughout the series but has always been trusted back into the world of villainy. Usually through the actions of the heroes though mainly Lana.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Lionel, who eventually becomes a father figure for Clark. It was mostly a case of Clark redeeming him. While Lionel still had ulterior motives, for the most part by Season 7, he was genuinely concerned with making sure the world didn't end as a result of Lex's various insane quests, and Clark was naturally the best means to accomplish this.
    • In "Homecoming", both Brainiac (5) and Greg Arkin (the villain of the second episode of the series who returned to his high school reunion to thank Clark for helping him overcome his madness)..
    • Tess does one in the finale of Season 9, eventually joining the team in Season 10.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Thanks to Jor-El, Clark is able to do this several times. It's practically one of his powers in the series.
  • He's a Friend: Clark tries to do this between his cousin Kara and Martian Manhunter. It didn't end well.
  • Home Base: The Watchtower, a loft apartment in Metropolis that resembles a Clock Tower is used as the headquarters for Oliver, Chloe and the Justice League.
  • Home-Early Surprise: Clark's parents go to Metropolis for an evening, so he invites a few people over. This becomes a full Wild Teen Party compete with trashed house. The next morning Clark uses his Super-Speed to clean up, figuring on his parents being none the wiser when they get home - but when he gets done he turns around to see them in the door, applauding his finish.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Clark is a tall strapping guy and most of the women in his life are fairly petite but of course Clark and Chloe are the exemplars.
  • Human Aliens: The Kryptonian Clark looks just as a regular human would, as do all Kryptonians. In fact, all of the aliens shown either look human, are shapeshifters posing as human, or disembodied beings possessing human bodies.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: A few episodes like "Insurgence", "Suspect" and "Precipice" are completely meteor-freak-less and have regular people as the Monster of the Week. Also, "Tomb" has a girl raised from the dead by a meteor rock bracelet (and a bolt of lightning) to go after an Ax-Crazy but otherwise human psych ward orderly. Who, y'know, put her there in the first place.
  • Hotter and Sexier: The show has a cast full of Head-Turning Beauties of both genders and often puts them in Fanservice outfits and situations, far more than the Silver Age Superboy comics it was loosely inspired by or even the usual Superman show.
  • Hurricane of Puns: Often happens in discussions of the freak of the week.
  • Hypocrite: Pretty much everybody from Clark and Lana to Lionel Luthor.
    • The worst example, however, has to be Lex, who constantly bitches about Clark keeping his secret from him, while simultaneously keeping an army of skeletons (all of them far, far darker than Clark's) in his own closet.
    • Lana complains constantly about Clark and Lex hiding things from her, but the minute she has a secret (the black spaceship, the fact that Lex is still alive, etc.), she goes out of her way to hide it from Clark. Which also makes her Too Dumb to Live, since in those situations Clark is probably the first person she should be talking to, as he actually has a proven track record of saving her from these situations.
    • Clark is perhaps the biggest example: he expects everyone else to be completely honest with him about everything, but builds his relationships around lies and deceit, insisting on keeping his "secret" even among his closest friends. That's probably why he's so touchy about lies; he knows people keep secrets and that somebody can be deceiving you even when it doesn't seem like it—he does so himself. Lampshaded in "Zero" where he chews out Chloe for snooping around in his past, then immediately invites her to join him in snooping into Lex's. Chloe does a double-take.
    • He admits that his reactions to things are what keep people from telling him things in "Luthor". He starts the episode off by telling (secret) Luthor Tess that all Luthors are dangerous and evil. He then is furious and offended when he finds out that she hid Lex's clone from him. He then disappears into the plot before Tess can admit to her heritage, so we don't know how he would've taken that. At the end of the episode, however, he's realized that blaming the entire Luthor bloodline for Lionel's influence is the exact reason why Tess didn't tell him the truth, so he stops being a jerk about it.
    • In "Nocturne", he peevishly comments that Lana's Secret Admirer sounds like a stalker. This, from Mr. Peeping Telescope.
    • Clark gets a lot of heat in the start of season 3, acting like a totally different person under the influence of red kryptonite. The thing is, the same thing happened to Chloe in "Devoted", Lana in "Spell" and Lex in "Onyx" later in season 4. Either Clark can't bring himself to call them out on it, or it never occurred to him.

    I 
  • I Am Not My Father:
    • Lionel is introduced as a proto-Lex Luthor and Lex becomes closer, and closer to what Lionel is as the story advances, much to his horror. In "Memoria", Clark even warns Lex about it.
    Clark: You always tell me how you don't want to turn into your father, and I believe that, but the more you two go at each other, the more like him you become and the more people get hurt.
    Lex: I will never become my father. I would never sacrifice you or anybody I cared about to bring him down.
  • I Can Explain
    • In "Zero" Lex attempts to convince a female friend that she deserves better and got her to a nightclub, where she found the man she is engaged with when he is supposed to be on a business trip. The guy says the line repeatedly but it's quite clear he's just a cheating Jerkass.
    • When Chloe and Clark are both not themselves, they do some intense making out right under Lana's nose. When Chloe strips Clark, the red kryptonite is removed and he is back to normal. He says this to Lana who slams the door in his face after Not What It Looks Like. He can't explain anyway as he must save Chloe before she get herself killed as some parasite makes her dangerously impulsive, and Clark can't tell Lana about the red kryptonite anyway.
    • Lana once says this when Lex finds out she stole his car. There is absolutely nothing she could explain, really.
    • Jimmy says this when Chloe, who is at the time his girlfriend, walked in on Kara and him alone but not doing anything suspicious.
    • Clark would often tell this to Lois in later seasons, when he often had to ditch her for heroics but couldn't quite explain it, such as in "Infamous" when he left her in the rain for three hours and in "Echo" when he didn't show up for a date.
  • I Can't Dance: Clark is a terrible dancer, which is a Running Gag on the show and especially noticeably in "Spell" when he's forced to dance due to a spell being cast.
  • I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: In early seasons, Clark was usually baffled whenever a girl expressed interest in him, especially Lana, because his self-esteem was so low that he was oblivious to the fact that even without superpowers, he's still very attractive and buff.
  • I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: The early seasons treated several of the "Freak of the week" as a metaphor for drug addiction. Red Kryptonite that makes Clark Not Himself was given a similar treatment.
  • Ignore the Fanservice:
  • I Just Want to Be Badass: This is the show's interpretation of the Wonder Twins and Booster Gold.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Clark, especially in the early seasonsIn the early seasons, just wished to be a normal guy with no superpowers and secrets. In "Hex", when Zatanna granted his deepest wish he lost his powers and his memory of them (Chloe was able to snap him out of it). In Season 9, it's even less likely he wants to be normal, as he has accepted his destiny to help humanity with his powers. This could be considered as part of the character growth as a virtual human raised by humans who is on the cusp of fully accepting who and what he is and thus becoming Superman. Even the "incident" with Zatanna is treated less like Clark wanting to give up his abilities completely, and more like just wanting to take a vacation in the land of the ordinary human for a day or two.
  • I Just Want to Be Special:
    • Pete Ross is shown to have a desire for superpowers, mostly to get out of Clark's shadow. Whenever he does get powers, something goes wrong.
    • This is one of Lex's main motivations. After being put through traumas that include losing his hair as a child, being bullied at school, Taking the Heat for his mother murdering his infant brother, having his mother pass away from cancer while he was away and dealing with his emotionally abusive father, Lex desperately needed to believe that it was all for a higher purpose as the alternative (That it was all for nothing) is far too horrible to contemplate. This goes to explain his resentment of Clark who constantly rejects his amazing power and doesn't want to fulfill the destiny Lex believes he is entitled to.
  • I Just Want to Be You
    • Tina Greer is a meteor freak shapeshifter who grew up envying Lana's seemingly perfect life. When we meet her, she has already styled her hair to resemble Lana's and dresses in clothes that are basically the same clothes that Lana wears... even going as far as buying an emerald necklace to imitate the Kryptonite necklace Lana wears (that was made from the meteor that killed Lana's parents). After the death of her mother (which she was responsible for), Tina shapeshifts to impersonate her mother while concocting a story that her mother is moving to Metropolis, and asks Lana if she can move in with her and Aunt Nell. When Lana says that she needs to ask Aunt Nell for permission (a perfectly reasonable point), Tina freaks out and takes this as a sign of rejection... and then decides that she's going to murder Lana and use her shapeshifting abilities to assume Lana's identity, even going as far as practicing writing Lana's signature multiple times as preparation. When she returns in another episode her obsession with Lana became romantic and she dropped this angle.
    • Bizarro started as a pure evil wraith. He was viewed as a monster by his creators and trapped in the Phantom Zone. He never knew happiness. When he was freed from the Zone he possessed human bodies to survive. Until he got Clark's DNA, memories and powers. He tried to replace Clark while he was trapped in the fortress after he genuinely falls in love with Lana.
    • In "Rage", Oliver becomes addicted to a Psycho Serum that gives him a Healing Factor but turns him increasingly psychotic. After he is stopped and recovers from the addiction, he admits that he was jealous of Clark's abilities and was trying to emulate them.
  • I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In "Stiletto", when Lois is operating as a superheroine. Note that this is late at night and Shelby, Clark's dog, is in Smallville, not Metropolis.
    Police Scanner: Attention downtown units. Silent alarm at Riverside Jewelry on 5th and Water, handle code 10-38.
    [Clark and Lois stands up abruptly to leave]
    Clark: Well, I better... go feed Shelby.
    Lois: Uh, I should hit the gym.
  • I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine:
  • I'll Kill You!:
    Clark Luthor: Give me the box.
    Tess: And if I don't?
    Clark Luthor: I'll kill you.
  • I'm Cold... So Cold...: Subverted. Eric says something like this when he is drained of Clark's powers, but he survived.
  • I'm Your Biggest Fan: Samantha Drake in "Fanatic" is president of the Students for Lex Luthor group. She shaves her head to resemble him and goes to great lengths to get Jonathan Kent to drop out of the Senate race. She expects praise from Lex for the assault on Jonathan.
  • I'm Standing Right Here: In "Kara", Kara insults Chloe by saying she is "just a human" condescendingly when she is standing right there; Clark defends her by saying Chloe is smarter than both of them put together.
  • Identical Grandson: In "Relic", Clark's father and Lana's great-aunt are portrayed by Clark and Lana's respective actors. Lana's distant ancestor Countess Isobel also looks just like her.
  • Identity Impersonator: In a variation on the usual Superman formula, "Hydro" sees Clark dressed up as the Green Arrow in order to help Oliver 'prove' to Lois that he and Green Arrow are two different people. Lois (who was dating Oliver at the time) plants a kiss on her hero — only to realize her mistake as Oliver appears. Oliver would later repay the favour to Clark in "Identity" when Jimmy Olsen put two-and-two together. However, Jimmy didn't kiss him.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: They always use One Word Titles. Played With in "Absolute Justice", the two-hour special. But then again, it was a double-length episode, but played straight when you consider that the two individual episodes "Absolute Justice" is comprised of are named "Society" and "Legends", and thus stick to using one-word titles. It also forced them coming up with more and more elaborate synonyms for "Red". Like "Crimson".
  • Idiot Ball: This also has the Unfortunate Implications to often be combined with Hysterical Woman. In "Nemesis", a military officer who is able to conduct CIA style informational espionage kidnaps Lex and rigs 5 miles of explosives because she knows her husband is alive.
  • If I Can't Have You…: An astounding number of meteor freaks who pursued Lana had this as a modus operandi.
    • Davis, who was apparently A-OK with burying himself alive to stop his Superpowered Evil Side from rampaging around the world, but only if Chloe loved him. If not...
    • Spoken word-for-word by Conner on red kryptonite towards Lois in "Scion".
  • If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Or so Lana tells Clark (regarding Lex) in Season Eight's "Requiem".
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Since possession and other influence causing a main character to temporarily become an opponent is very common; the phrase is often spoken but it is usually not much of a fight.
    • Subverted in "Bloodline" when Faora has possessed Lois and is attacking Clark:
      Clark: Lois, stop!
      Faora: Lois can't hear you.
    • In "Legion", there isn't much of a fight between Clark and Chloe (possessed by Brainiac) because Brainiac knows Clark can't bring himself to hit Chloe. He even taunts Clark about it.
    • In "Booster", Booster Gold successfully talks down Jaime Reyes when he is taken over by the Blue Beetle scarab, proving to Clark that he is a true hero after all.
    • Played straight in "Finale" when Oliver attacks Clark at his wedding while being controlled by Darkseid and Clark successfully talks him down.
  • Immune to Fate: In "Hereafter", a boy named Jordan can foresee the death of anyone he touches but is powerless to change it. When he touches Clark he doesn't see a death, however, just Clark going on "forever". Then Clark proceeds to save someone from the death that Jordan has foreseen. This leads them to conclude that Clark has the power to change predestined events.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Many characters die this way: it seems everyone is Made of Plasticine and metal rods (however blunt) will punch right through you as if you were made of tissue paper.
  • Important Haircut:
    • Lionel Luthor has his head shaved at the end of "Covenant", the season finale of the third season, while we're shown his son choking to death on poisoned wine and Chloe Sullivan being blown up. The dramatic effect was somewhat lessened the next season when it turned out that they had both miraculously survived, and one of the attempted murders hadn't even been committed by Lionel.
    • In "Power", Lana chops off some hair after her Training from Hell, to signify she has Take a Level in Badass.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills
    • Green Arrow is an impressive shot, able to shoot a specific country on a globe or into the opening of a soda can.
    • Dark Archer, Green Arrow's Evil Counterpart has similarly impressive aiming.
    • Clark hardly ever misses, whether he throws a football, basketball, bowling ball, knife, can, anything. He even shoots a bullet out of the air with his heat vision. It is implied that his talent comes from his powers, as in one episode where he was Brought Down to Normal, he found that he now sucked at basketball. Heat vision is also hard to miss when you are faster than the speeding bullet and all you need to do is look directly at your target.
    • Black Canary had deadly accuracy with her throwing knives.
    • Deadshot, naturally. He once shot two officers simultaneously, with the bullets curving past either side of Chloe's face.
  • Informed Wrongness: In "Conspiracy", the Villain of the Week Dr. Chisholm sounds like just another 'alien-conspiracy' nutcase killing off helpless Kandorians who just want to live peacefully among humans but whom he fears are part of an Alien Invasion. Good thing the cruel and horrific experiments the 'peaceful' Kandorians performed on him and other humans to regain their Kryptonian powers so they could Take Over the World occurred offscreen or they'd seem more like asshole victims. Even Clark called them out on that one, saying that human beings are not their personal guinea pigs. Part of his agreement to help was because they were his people.
  • In Name Only:
    • While Smallville is full of different takes on the featured comic book characters, Cat Grant is absolutely nothing like her comic book counterpart. In the comics, she started out as a promiscuous gossip columnist and later became a cougar with breast implants and low cut blouses where the TV version actually spells the word "sex" at one point because she's too uptight to say it and is actually kind of pudgy and conservatively dressed. All this to turn her into a Straw Conservative where the comic book version couldn't care less about politics.
    • Slade bears very little resemblance to his comic book counterpart, Deathstroke. He's actually much closer personality-wise to Wade Eiling or Marvel's Senator Kelly.
  • Informed Attribute: Throughout Season 9, Zod frequently claims that Kryptonians have superior intelligence to humans, despite the fact that they juggle the Idiot Ball and Villain Ball nearly all series long and make a symphony of blunders and bad decisions.
  • Informed Small Town: Despite being described as a small town, Smallville has a population of 45,001, which would make it one of the most populous cities in Kansas at the time the series aired.
  • Insane Troll Logic:
    • Albeit not as strong of an example as others have been, one episode has Jimmy figuring out Clark's secret as a vigilante. The general train of logic goes something like this. Jimmy takes picture of blurred red figure (Clark saving both him and Lois from a mugger using superspeed in his typical red jacket), Smallville has people being saved from various "accidents" (past episode kinds of things), then after seeing a picture of Clark in his red jacket, thinks Clark is the vigilante. While the end conclusion is correct, the train of logic/actions taken to figure this out is wildly weird. It's reasonable to start looking in Smallville first, seeing that most of the incidents occurred over in that area. But the real head turner is how he managed to pinpoint Clark of all people as the Blur. Because he's clearly the only person on the planet who wears a freaking red jacket.
    • Lana’s notion in "Power" that she had finally become Clark's equal after gaining power through selfishness, money, lies, and near suicide.
    • Pete in "Nicodemus". Just watch his thought process when he came to the conclusion that if he killed Lex Luthor, Chloe would like him.
  • In-Series Nickname:
    • Lois usually calls Clark "Smallville", but "Clarky" on rare occasions. Lois almost always just call Chloe "cous" (as in, "cousin") or "Chlo,"note  or more rarely "Goldilocks". She once calls Jimmy "Baby Bear", and he is not happy.
    • Chloe sometimes calls Lois "Lo".
    • Jimmy sometimes calls Chloe "Brighteyes". And yes, she has eyes that you can't stop staring at.
    • Chloe's boss at the Daily Planet used to call her "Chloster". Jimmy picked it up. She is not amused.
      Chloe: How much blunt trauma do you think a stapler to the back of the head would cause?
    • The names Martian Manhunter and Supergirl starts out as Chloe's nickname for them in Smallville. She is also known for calling Clark the Man of Steel.
    • Oliver started the tradition of calling Clark "Boy Scout" and Bart "Impulse". Bizarrely, Brainiac sometimes also call him that, but he always refer to him as Kal-El face to face.
  • Instant Expert: Lana's martial arts skills. She was trained by Lex in the early seasons and worked out much like Tess did later, including wearing boxing gloves and hitting the heavy bag. The episode we see Lana being trained by Lex has her facing a guy who'd been threatening her, and kicking him so hard he's knocked into a table and ends up unconscious. She couldn't have had more than a few days practice with Lex until that point. Basically anything Lana tries, she becomes this. Even when she gains Clark's abilities she knows how to use them instantly; it took Clark years to master his powers. This is especially jarring since Eric Summers didn't instantly master those abilities.
  • Instant Sedation: Has happened multiple times to almost every female regular, but the hands-down winners are Chloe, Lana, and Lois. Basically, if you're a female character who's attracted to Clark, chances are it'll happen to you. Combines naturally with Damsel in Distress for maximum effect.
  • Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Isobel finds a sai in a Chinese temple in "Sacred".
  • Interclass Friendship:
    • The relationship between alien farm boy Clark Kent and human billionaire Lex Luthor actually starts with the two future arch-enemies being friends. Pretty much everybody was sceptical of the two being friends since Lex was a Luthor. Despite that, Clark did genuine consider Lex a friend and was his confidant. Sadly, the two do have a falling out thanks to all the lies and secrets being too much.
    • By the time Clark and Lex's friendship was falling apart, rich boy Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow enter to be Clark's new ally. Though, it does start out rough and the two did have a falling out after Ollie killed Lex. They do make up and Ollie actually becomes Clark's best man at his wedding to Lois.
  • Interspecies Romance: Clark and any of his girlfriends, as well as Bizarro/Lana. Other Kryptonian-human relationships also apply. It helps that they are Human Alien.
  • Intrepid Reporter: The show is saturated with these. Chloe and later Lois and Clark are the most prominent examples.
  • Involuntary Shapeshifter:
    • Davis is actually Doomsday in disguise, and gradually loses control over his alter ego.
    • This also happens to Bizarro as well whenever he's exposed to sunlight, revealing his true nature as a Phantom who stole some of Clark's DNA in order to gain his appearance.
  • Ironic Echo:
    • Listen to Clark's explanation to Lana in seasons 1-3 about why he can’t be truthful. Then listen to Lana’s explanation to Adam about why she left Paris.
    • After Lionel puts Lex in Belle Reeve for electrotherapy, watching him in a straitjacket from behind two-way glass, it's Lex's turn to watch Lionel in a straitjacket from behind two-way glass after having one of the season's MacGuffins on his person when it activates causes him to go catatonic. They even keep the camera angles and everything.
    • After all the grief Clark gets for not telling Lana the truth about himself, the end of season 5 has Lex developing similar powers from a syringe by Brainiac, to prepare him to be Zod's vessel. He then goes on to rub it in everyone's faces by reusing Clark's reasons when he tells Lana.
    • "Hothead":
      • When Coach Arnold is trying to convince Clark to join the football team, he tells him football is in his genes. In the final act, after Arnold witnesses Clark walk through a wall of fire unscathed and asks how he did so, Clark remarks "It's in the genes."
      • After insulting Dominic and two other LuthorCorp employees, Lex dismissively tells them "This meeting is adjourned." Later, after Lionel bests Lex in their fencing match and orders him to fire 20% of his employees, he tells Lex "Meeting adjourned."
    • In "Leech", after beating the Hardwicks, Lex remarks to Sir Harry, "That's what you get when you trust family" (because Sir Harry sent Victoria to get cozy with Lex so she could dig up information he could use in his takeover of LuthorCorp). In the final act, Lionel tells Lex the exact same thing... right before Lex receives evidence that he set up the whole thing.
    • In "Exodus", when Pete enters the Kawatche Caves to distract Lionel so Clark can Super-Speed in and swipe the Kryptonite key, Pete tells the guards who apprehend him "You know you hate [Lionel]," to which Lionel remarks he knows they hate him and that hatred and anger is a weakness. After Lionel finds the Kryptonite key missing and suspects that Pete stole it, he prepares to strike Pete after he plays dumb, at which point Pete reminds him, "Careful, Mr. Luthor; you wouldn't want to look weak."
    • In "Delete", computer genius Molly asks Lex Luthor how he found her. He shrugs and says "Birds of a feather." Later, when Clark walks in to search for the CD containing the program she's been using to hurt his friends, Lex has already surreptitiously stolen it. When Molly responds with shock and asks "How did you get that?" he replies "Birds of a feather."
  • Is Nothing Sacred?: In the episode "Hero".
    Clark: I found the source of Pete's powers. Kryptonite-enhanced gum. I found a whole stockpile.
    Chloe: Chewing gum? Is nothing sacred anymore?
  • It Always Rains at Funerals: It rained heavily during the funeral of Whitney's father, and it snowed at Jonathan Kent's funeral. But for everyone else...
  • It's Always Sunny at Funerals: It was a bright sunny day at Henry James "Jimmy" Olsen's funeral; and it was also sunny at Carter Hall's funeral in Egypt in "Luthor", albeit was held indoors.
  • It's All My Fault: Clark keeps blaming himself for the damages and conditions that resulted from the meteor shower that he arrived in, even though he had absolutely no control over the situation. He says this often.
  • It's a Wonderful Plot: When Clark received a message in "Apocalypse" telling him that Brainiac is going to the past to erase him from history, he thinks the world might be better off that way. Jor-El shows him what life would be like for everyone if he hadn't made it to Earth.
  • Ivy League for Everyone: Clark has a scout from freakin Princeton come to see him in a season 4 episode...for football, even though Princeton isn't known for its football program. Thankfully the show actually subverts this.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The show tends has a lot of this going around in the early seasons. Typically, whenever Lana has moved on from Clark and entered a new relationship, Clark will often be seen sadly saying something along these lines. Meanwhile, this is also Chloe's attitude towards Clark's attraction to Lana. Exaggerated in season five, in which both of them complain to her about their sex life, then Clark decides to tell Lana his secret and proposes to her. Clark thinks Chloe would say they are too young and whatnot, but instead she provides her support and encouragement. Chloe supportively says "If there's anyone who deserves to be happy, Clark, it's you."And this, in turn, was also Pete's attitude towards Chloe's teenage crush on Clark during the early seasons of the show. Thankfully, everyone involved eventually moved on to much healthier relationships.

    K 
  • Karma Houdini:
    • Lex and Oliver after it was revealed in the Season 6 episode "Reunion" that he indirectly causes the death of one of the classmates that he bullied though no one calls him out on it, not even Clark.
    • Lana Lang is probably the ultimate example of this. She has kidnapped and tortured an old man, ran a shadow organization, spied on an old lover, beat him senseless, knocked out people at a major press who will not run one of her stories, released Brainiac into the world, and got away with it all as she did it to help the person she loved.
  • Karmic Transformation: The Meteor Freaks often have their powers be related to something that they are in contact with or close to during the exposure to the meteors. Like Coach Arnold who got his Playing with Fire powers during a sauna or Desirée Atkins who got her Living Aphrodisiac powers while she was having sex with her boyfriend.
  • Keeping Secrets Sucks: Lana's motto, which she repeated to Clark over and over from Seasons 2 through 6... not that it stopped her from keeping her own big secrets during that time period. Chloe in particular gets a lot of pressure from Lana when the latter (finally) figures out Chloe is protecting Clark.
  • Kick the Dog: Lex does this more and more as the years go by: he begins lying, cheating, and stealing to get his hands on the Kryptonian artifacts, and the following season begins kidnapping and torturing superpowered characters. He also sends a band of superpowered murderers to kidnap the Kents and Lana in a selfish (and dangerous) attempt to force Clark to reveal his powers against his will (this ends up destroying his friendship with Clark once Clark finds out it was Lex who orchestrated the whole thing), and eventually Lex begins murdering people to get what he wants.
  • Killed Off for Real:
    • Main/recurring characters who died include Whitney Fordman, Dr. Virgil Swann, Jason and Genevieve Teague, Sheriff Nancy Adams, Jonathan Kent, Lionel Luthor, Henry James "Jimmy" Olsen, and Davis Bloome.
    • Lex was thought to likely be a case of Not Quite Dead or Never Found the Body. It turns out that Lex really was dead after Oliver killed him; Earth-2 Lionel Luthor, however, brought him back through a deal with Darkseid, at the cost of his own life and soul.
  • Klingon Promotion: By Season 7, Lex really, really wants to be evil. But he just can't pull it off convincingly. The solution? Kill the biggest baddie around, Lionel Luthor. Also a case of Dying to Be Replaced.
  • Kneel Before Zod:
    • Naturally. In the case of the season six premiere when Zod is introduced, Clark responds with an instance of I Surrender, Suckers. And in the Season 9 finale, the Trope Namer himself turns it into a Badass Boast:
      Zod: Unlike you, I would rule from a throne, not the shadows. Every human on this planet, including the woman you love, will kneel before Zod!
    • Flipped in Season 9, when Major Zod commands his troops to "Kneel before Kal-El".
  • Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Brought up to ridiculous levels. The meteor shower in Smallville made it so Kryptonite can show up anywhere and with anyone.
  • Kung-Fu Sonic Boom: Whenever Kryptonians battle.

    L 
  • Lancer vs. Dragon: Oliver has served as Clark's Lancer ever since he was promoted to series regular. In the series finale he kills Darkseid's Co-Dragons.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia:
    • All the time in the early seasons, it is a convenient cop-out whenever anyone discovers Clark's powers they get hit by this, if not outright dying. It doesn't matter how you found out, what you saw, or what he did under the influence of this week's phlebotinum. Your memory will be wiped, often without explanation. In later seasons, nearly every important cast member but Lex is in the know, so there's less need for this. The superhero cameos learn quickly, but keep the secret since they're on the same side.
    • In the very first episode, Jeremy forgets everything after electrocuting himself.
    • Lana, Jonathan, and Pete forget everything after they are cured of the Nicodemus flower's toxin.
    • Chloe forget all about Clark's secret after the parasite inside her is removed.]]
    • Judging by what happened to Lois's memory after her Love Potion wore off, the writers seem to think that all drugs erase your memory.
    • We've lost count of the number of times a bump on the head has wiped Lana's memory of seeing some super-heroics.
    • However, one notable subversion to all this is Javier Ramirez in "Subterranean", who does find out and does not get amnesia by the end of the episode.
    • In a rare example of plot-central, rather than "convenient", amnesia, Season 3 has Lex undergo a mind-wipe disguised as electroshock therapy for his supposed schizophrenia.
    • Lois and Sheriff Adams see Clark use his powers in "Blank". Luckily, the metahuman he just met can erase the last few moments of someone's memory and he owes Clark a favor.
    • In "Freak", Daniel and later Chloe has their memory of Lex's secret lab wiped after being experimented on. After the viewers see the trauma Chloe goes through as Lex's lab rat, it's possibly best for her to forget.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    • At the end of the two-part pilot, Jonathan asks Clark if he'll be okay. Clark asks him to get back to him in about five years. The line makes no sense (a high-school-aged teenager would be thinking in four-year increments if anything) except as a reference to the amount of time needed to complete the 100-episode minimum necessary for effective second-run syndication. This is confirmed in the DVD commentary, in which the producers joke that it would have been too obvious to have Clark say "Ask me again in a hundred episodes."
    • In "Tempest", Remy Zero appears as themselves and plays "Save Me" for the high school dance. Clark and his friends comment, "These guys are awesome."
    • Legion" did this a lot. For example, surprised at Clark not being Superman, Lightning Lad expresses dislike at the "No tights, no flights!", and they mention that they've never heard of Chloe. Possibly also a Mythology Gag in reference to the Legion visiting Post-Crisis Superman for the first time and being surprised at how he was not the Superman they were expecting. That story was a pivotal attempt at explaining how the Legion could remain non-retconned after the retconning of Superman removed his Superboy adventures. It didn't work.
    • In "Thirst", Clark tells Professor Milton Fine, who is played by James Marsters (who also played the vampire Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer) about the vampires, to which Fine replies "Clark, there's no such thing as vampires". The name of the chief vampire in the episode is Buffy Saunders.
    • In "Fortune", during Clark and Lois' engagement party, Oliver Queen makes the toast: "They've finally realised what the rest of us have known for a very long time."
  • Let's Split Up, Gang!: Clark and Kara in the S&M club in "Supergirl".
  • Let's You and Him Fight: How the first meeting between Clark and another superhero usually goes.
  • Lightning Can Do Anything:
  • Like Parent, Like Spouse: Isn't it a little peculiar how much Lex's mother looked a lot like, and sounded a lot like, Lana?
  • Limb-Sensation Fascination: One episode has Lionel and Clark switch bodies; Lionel then admires his new body in a mirror.
  • Limited Wardrobe: A side-effect of Colour-Coded for Your Convenience — Clark's blue shirt and red jacket combo. Every time he wears something else, he's probably at work, it's a special occasion, or he is evil/"dead".
    • It got to the point where, in "Identity", Jimmy caught the red/blue blur on his camera and came to the conclusion that it was Clark going around saving people, just based on the colors. The episode also included a scene where Clark gets all his clothes out to sort the red and blue ones from the rest and dispose of them, only to discover that they are all red and blue.
    • By Season 9, Clark doesn't wear any red and blue on his uniform, though sometimes in his everyday clothes.
    • Perhaps made fun of in "Warrior", where Clark goes to the Smallville universe's version of Comic-Con. We see somebody wearing what looks like Clark's red and blue. This would mark the first time Clark has worn red and blue since "Doomsday" (the Season Eight finale, which was over eleven episodes ago)... if it weren't for the fact we see Clark bump into the guy wearing what looks like his old outfit, and is wearing his Daily Planet suit.
    • Clark was in a major funk after the episode "Doomsday", feeling responsible for the death of Henry Olsen and regretting his humanity, so he took on an all-black motif until early in season 10 where he is wearing at least maroon and blue.
  • Literal Change of Heart:
    • In "Cure", Knox tries to do this to Chloe.
    • Darkseid takes Lionel's heart out and plants it in the Lex clone's body.
  • Loners Are Freaks:
    • Most loners turn out to become Freaks of the Week, though a fair number of popular kids in that show turned out to be evil too.
    • Subverted in "Hug", with Lana and Whitney automatically assuming that the local hermit is responsible for Lana falling off her horse simply because he happened to be around at the time (Lana so strongly believes in his guilt that she turns on Clark when he isn't prepared to judge as quickly). As it turns out, it really was just an accident and the episode's true villain is a Faux Affably Evil Corrupt Corporate Executive who prides himself on (pretending to) being everyone's buddy.
  • Long Runner: After running for ten years, Smallville beat Stargate SG-1 as the longest running American Sci-Fi shownote  . The difference in length is only three episodes, however, and the SG-1 movies Continuum and Stargate: The Ark of Truth put it over the top if counted.
  • Loss of Inhibitions:
    • This is the effect of Red Kryptonite on humans and Kryptonians. It is especially bad when it happens to Clark is his powers combined with a lack of inhibitions make him very, very dangerous.
    • The episode "Nicodemus" has a scientist use Green Kryptonite to resurrect a toxic flower which has been extinct for 100 years. If someone is sprayed by the flower's toxic mist, they lose all of their inhibitions. Jonathan, Lana and Pete are all infected with the flower's toxins and begin to act dangerously Out of Character; Lana becomes more outgoing to the point of suicidal recklessness, Pete reveals his feelings for Chloe and tries to kill Lex and Jonathan tries to kill an employee at the bank who turned him down for a loan.
  • Love at First Sight: In "Fierce", Kara has an immediate crush on Jimmy Olsen that triggers her heat vision, which is caused by sexual thoughts.
  • Love Potion: "Devoted" has a slight twist on the usual formula, as anyone who already has a true love grows even more devoted to the person they're infatuated with.

    M 
  • MacGuffin: The show loved this trope. Almost every season features at least one object—often of Kryptonian origin—that various characters would be jockeying for control of, due to the perception that it would either grant them power or help them solve some mystery. Season 4's plot was especially centered around this trope, as Lex, Lionel, Genevieve Teague, Jason Teague, Lana, Lana's undead witch ancestor Countess Margaret Isobel Thoreaux, Dr. Swann's foundation, and even a rogue unit of Chinese soldiers all start plotting and feuding with each other and tripping all over themselves to track down the Stones of Power, which combine to form the Fortress of Solitude. Clark is reluctant to jump into the middle of this, as his life now has some semblance of normalcy for once, but circumstances and Jor-El essentially force him to hunt down the Stones himself, because—in Jor-El's words—if any of these factions unite the Stones before he does, they could very well be overwhelmed by the temptation to misuse the Fortress's power. Jor-El fears that this would lead to The End of the World as We Know It.
  • Made of Iron
    • Every single character who does have Nigh-Invulnerability powers suffers from this, easily recovering from beatings, gunshot wounds, and blows to the head.
    • Double subverted in "Precipe". Lana is attacked by a guy named Andy who also makes the mistake of making misogynistic comments about her to Clark. Clark throws the guy onto a car and he sues the Kents for the resulting injuries. However, it turns out that Andy is actually faking his injuries - getting thrown onto a moving car didn't hurt him at all.
    • Jason Teague in Season 4 might be the best example He's shot by Lionel and falls off of a cliff and into a waterfall. He somehow recovers enough to arrive at the Kent farmhouse, take them hostage, and then doesn't go down until he's been hit by a meteor.
    • Chloe Sullivan once took a Super-Strength punch from Clark directly to the face.
    • Lana was once beaten up by Zod and is up and about in no time.
    • Lois once had her and her car thrown high into the sky then crash down courtesy of a Yandere Maxima. She barely had a scratch on her.
    • Yes, he spent a few weeks in the hospital, but Jimmy Olsen still looks pretty good for someone who has been mauled in the chest by freaking Doomsday.
    • Chloe was once knocked down and showered by shattered glass, which doesn't leave a single scratch on her. The odd thing is, Oliver is covered in small cuts in the same scene.
    • A special mention also goes to Tess, who was voluntarily killed by a defibrillator and then brought back to life with atropine. She wakes up, sits up, looks weak for about five seconds, and then walks out of the room as if she wasn't dead ten seconds earlier.
    • Slade is probably the very worse case. He took a couple of hits from Hawkman's mace and somehow survives not one, but two huge explosions. The first one took one eye. The second one doesn't seem to even scratch him. Lampshaded on the second occasion - a possible explanation might be that he is under the influence of Darkseid.
  • Magic from Technology: Kryptonian technology was mistaken for magic on medieval Earth, and can boost Countess Isobel's real magic somehow.
  • Magic Meteor: Superman himself may not count, but the Monster of the Week was often a "meteor freak", i.e. got their power from exposure to Kryptonite. This powers didn't have anything to do with regular Kryptonian powers either.
  • Magical Computer: Much to the heroes' delight, Chloe is a hacking pro.
  • Magical Defibrillator: In "Fever", doctors defibrillate a flatlined patient.
  • Make Way for the Princess:
  • Malfunction Malady: How Clark discovers his super-breath. And superhearing too, if you think about it.
  • Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex: Clark has the typical problem with his relationship with Lana, to the point he actually complains to poor Chloe about his sex life at one point. When Chloe wonders what the big deal is since they can shake hands and hug without Clark pulverizing her. Clark explains, rather embarrassed, that it always takes him some time to adjust his "abilities" to new circumstances. Chloe decides to cruise right past that mental image. The problem is eventually resolved when Clark is DePowered and they have Their First Time, but when his powers return, he's back at Can't Have Sex, Ever. They only have sex again in "Wrath" and "Requiem" due to Lana gaining similar powers to his and their sex ends up being a Destructo-Nookie both times. Later, when he's in a relationship with Lois, he gained enough control over his abilities that the problem no longer exists. He outright states that his training at the Fortress of Solitude included learning exactly that sort of control.
  • Marked Change: Clark is branded by Jor-El, Lana getting her ancestor's witch-mark on her back.
  • The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Many problems befalling Clark's love life stems from Clark's refusal to tell anybody about his powers, though Clark's fear is quite justified considering that superpowered individuals and their loved ones tend to get targeted by government conspiracies and mad scientists.
  • Mass Super-Empowering Event: The Kryptonite meteor shower in which Clark first arrived to Earth and at the same time giving many of the locals odd powers and/or altering their personality sometimes and causing them to become the Monster of the Week. There are a few humans empowered by Kryptonian technology, and it's vaguely implied that there's some Kryptonian ancestry among humanity. Chloe says the meteor shower was what turned Smallville into a Weirdness Magnet town.
    Chloe: I call it 'The Wall of Weird.' It's every strange, bizarre, and unexplained event that's happened in Smallville since the meteor shower. That's when it all began—when the town went schizo.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: "Void" is about a serum that brings a person near death, giving them visions of their loved ones that have passed on. Which could merely be drug-induced hallucination and nothing more, but then the "vision" of Jonathan Kent tells Clark something that Jonathan didn't live to tell anyone.
  • Mind Manipulation: Several Meteor Freaks have this power, or something similar.
  • Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: "Blank" starts off with the freak of the week using his Laser-Guided Amnesia powers to steal money. Then Clark is wiped, and the boy's powers are revealed to be the result of a botched procedure to alter his memories after his brother was killed by a shot from his own gun. Which later turns out to be implanted memories by his father, who created the procedure at Summerholt. At least there's some positive fallout, as the law finally clamps down on Summerholt in the end.
  • A Minor Kidroduction: The first episode's prologue is this to Clark Kent and Lex Luthor.
  • Modesty Bedsheet: Sheets are extremely prevalent whenever characters sleep together.
  • Moment Killer
    • In "Shimmer", Lionel drops in on Lex as the latter's in the middle of making out with Victoria.
    • Done to an extreme in "Tempest": after building up for several episodes, Chloe and Clark is about to kiss at the dance before being interrupted by a tornado warning.
    • In "Bound", a mother and her kids appear when Chloe and Clark are, er, alone in the elevator.
      Chloe: Nothing was happening! We weren't doing anything!
    • "Bride": Clark and Lois are about to kiss for the first time, "officially", when there is a shout of "Oh my god!" and Clark's ex, Lana Lang, walks in.
    • "Instinct": Lois interrupts Clark and Maxima's wild romp in the elevator, which actually manages to break off Clark from the lust daze Maxima's kiss put him in.
  • Monster of the Week:
    • The show has Meteor Freak of the Week, mutants created by kryptonite. Season 6 also gave us the Phantom Zone escapees-of-the-week. As the series has progressed, it has much more of a Story Arc, but often keeps the Monster of the Week format.
    • It also had an interesting variation starting in Season 4: Hero of the Week. Every season would have about two or three episodes where a superhero or two from the comics would guest star, run amuck, get on Clark's bad side, then ultimately they'd make their peace and help each other out before leaving in a manner that some could interpret as a Poorly Disguised Pilot.
  • Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Metropolis University must be the world's leading college for obtaining a Morally Ambiguous Doctorate, because almost every single doctor appearing on the show is either evil or a Well-Intentioned Extremist doing unethical experiments For Science! (or, y'know, in return for Luthor money). Even a regular medical doctor Helen Bryce turned out to be evil in Season 3.
  • Moral Myopia: In Hero Chloe goes to Lex's office and yells at him about stealing her files despite the fact that she has repeatedly stole information in the past.
  • Mordor: The Phantom Zone is a desolate wasteland populated by Krypton's worst criminals, many of whom are Phantoms, seeking new bodies. Nothing grows, the wind always blows at gale force, and the terrain is treacherous. It actually gets worse in Season 10, when General Zod seizes control of it in the name of Darkseid and carves out a hollow empire from it ruins, forces many of the residents into his army, and institutes a brutal series of gladiatorial games that prune out those who nature and their fellow criminals have missed.
  • Motive Decay:
    • Jason Teague. He goes from refusing to help his mother after learning she may be manipulating him and Lana, to being a fully clued-in accomplice to her plan and treated as though he always was. It smacks of rushing him out of the show.
    • Similarly, Davis Bloome's transition from good-hearted paramedic to completely-unstable killer that murders Jimmy when he realizes Chloe doesn't love him reeks of contrivance, simply to make Clark leave at the end of Season 8 because Humans Are the Real Monsters. Many people were upset, including Sam Witwer.
  • The Mountains of Illinois: Kansas is famously as flat as a pancake. At least 11 episodes have mountains in the background.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Several of the male characters are quite attractive and have a few fanservice scenes, even many of the Special Guest or Monster of the Week characters. The most notable recurring examples are:
  • Ms. Fanservice: Just like Mr. Fanservice, several of the female characters apply, including many Special Guest or Monster of the Week. The most notable recurring examples are:
  • Mundane Utility: Clark has been known to use his powers for several mundane tasks such as using heat vision to make toast, popcorn, heat drinks and light candles; using his Super-Speed to clean up or run to school whenever he misses the bus, in "Lexmas", Chloe recruited him Clark for an to deliver Christmas presents to thousands of children in Metropolis; he uses Super-Strength to drive nails with his bare hands, plant fence posts, and lift cars and tractors instead of using a jack; even using his X-Ray Vision to locate the fish in a fishing trip with his father. During one of Clark's more Jerkass moments, he actually accused Jonathan and Martha of exploiting his abilities to keep the farm running more cheaply and efficiently than hiring extra hands or buying new farm equipment. Jerk Ass Has A Point is Ziz-Zagged, as the chores his parents give are typical farm labor, and could be done perfectly well with the tools on hand, Clark's abilities just let him do them faster and more efficiently.
  • The Multiverse: As of 2019, Smallville was retroactively added to the Arrowverse as Earth-167, and this version of Clark Kent and Lois Lane appeared in the Crisis Crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019).
  • Mythology Gag: The show has countless references to the comic book continuity and Superman mythos.

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