Smallville / Tropes T to Z

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

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Smallville provides examples of the following tropes:

T

• Take That!:
  • The episode "Hex" in Season 8 was meant as a spoof of the infamous Chlois Theory. For those unfamiliar with it, the Chlois Theory was basically an idea created by some Chloe/Clark shippers and hardcore Chloe fans who wanted Chloe Sullivan to "become" Lois Lane, stating that at some point, she would assume this identity. Oddly enough, the theory didn't die when the actual Lois Lane was brought into the show in Season 4. Many Chlois theorists were rather aggressive in their hatred for the Lois Lane character when she was introduced, and there were massive Flame Wars between fans of Erica Durance's Lois and the Chlois theorists who still clung to the idea that Chloe would one day "replace" Erica Durance's character as the one true "iconic Lois Lane" (a phrase thrown around a lot during these debates). This occurred despite the fact that the show's creators, producers, and actors all repeatedly stated that the Chlois theory would not come true. One can only imagine that the showrunners finally got fed up and decided to write this episode to spoof it. To make the point more obvious, after spending a day as a duplicate of Lois Lane, Chloe (after being restored to her usual self) says aloud that she will never be Lois Lane, and finally chooses a new career path: working for the Justice League full-time, declaring "Watchtower (her codename) is officially online."
  • The Vigilante Registration Act, headed by one General Slade Wilson, is a subtle one aimed at Marvel's Civil War and Dark Reign storylines. The VRA is less of a take that and more of a Homage.
• Taking the Bullet
  • In "Crisis", Clark saves Lana by speeding in front of the bullet fired by Adam and taking it. Naturally, he's unharmed by it.
  • In "Unsafe": Alicia (who is not bulletproof) takes a (normal) bullet for Clark because she promised to always keep his secret, which would have been revealed if he had been shot.
  • In "Freak", Clark saves Lana from an electromagnetic burst fired by Dr. Bethany.
  • In "Stiletto", Clark takes the bullet for Lois. This is an especially heroic move since he's surrounded by kryptonite and so the bullet actually hurts and wounds him.
  • "Harvest", Clark shields Lois from a blast of Blue Kryptonite fire, receiving a dire burn on his back.
• Tap on the Head: Clark has been known to employ this rather literally, on occasion. The first such example is in "Nicodemus" when he lightly tapped Pete on the forehead and knocks him cold. Other characters also sometimes employ this trope in the traditional manner of smashing objects over someone's head. Note that since Clark has caught people and objects without any damage to the person or obstacle even if they were moving/falling at a very high velocity, it makes "sense" that his taps on the head would not have the same damage that smashing an object over someone's head would.
• Tattooed Crook:
  • "Kinetic" has a gang of burglars terrorizing the town thanks to their Power Tattoos, which are made with ink mixed with Green Rocks and allow them to pass through walls.
  • In "Arrival", Phantom Zone prisoner Aethyr has the House of Zod crest tattooed on her lower back.
  • In "Vengeance", the gangster Snake has a tattoo of a snake on part of his face and neck.
  • "Combat" features Phantom Zone prisoner Titan who is covered with Kryptonian tattoos.
• Technobabble: Any effort (particularly by Chloe) to give a scientific explanation for how a superpower works.
• Teens Are Monsters: Though not all, a lot of the meteor freaks of the week, people who usually go crazy and start killing people on Smallville, are teenagers. Part of that is likely due to the high school/college setting of the first five seasons, but it holds true in later seasons as well. Initially an Enfant Terrible, Lx-15/Alexander Luthor plunges headlong into this trope after he ages to the point where he's in his mid-teens. He attempts to assassinate Martha Kent, Clark, and Earth-2 Lionel, burns down Luthor Mansion and attacks his Parental Substitute Tess. Thank god that memory loss, and a Heel–Face Turn set in.
• Telepathy: "Stray", "Ryan"; Season 9's "Echo" centers around Clark gaining this as a temporary ability courtesy of Jor-El.
• Tell Me About My Father: Clark asks The Fortress AI (a recording of Dear Old Dad), Brainiac, Raya, and Supergirl about his parents, but mainly Jor-El. He also gets to interact with a simulation of his mom Lara (played by Helen Slater, who played Supergirl in Supergirl (1984)).
• Temporary Love Interest: Clark had a few:
  • 1: Kyla Willowbrook, a Native American who could shapeshift into a wolf. When she found out the truth of his nature, her attraction to him peaked and they began an instant romantic relationship with their First Kiss; died in one episode.
  • 2: Alicia Baker, a superpowered girl that can Teleport whom Clark dated between Lana and Lois; think Lori Lemaris from the Silver Age, only evil. Became a Yandere and tried to Murder the Hypotenuse and ended up imprisoned. Was brought back reformed 1 season later; died in two episodes.
  • 3: Jessica "Jessie" Brooks, a new student at Smallville High School who dressed provocatively and liked to party, so consequently, she got along well with Clark Kent when he was affected by red kryptonite. Jessie and Clark dated briefly. Clark told Lex that Jessie was his new girl. By the end of the episode, she and her father were on the run.
• That Came Out Wrong: In "Crusade", Lois meets Martha after finding Clark in the field, amnesiac and naked:
  Lois: Guess I'm a sucker for stray dogs and naked guys. [beat after seeing Martha's expression] Okay, that didn't come out right.
• Their First Time:
  • In "Mortal", Clark is Brought Down to Normal and he and Lana end up losing their virginity with each other at the end of the episode.
  • Because of alternative timelines shenanigans, Lois had two first time with Clark (to be clear, neither of these was Lois's first time). One in "Pandora" with an alternative future version of Clark and one in "Harvest" with the Clark from her timeline.
• Themed Aliases: The Flash is a punk kid possibly named Bart Allen who has a bunch of different IDs which have different names of the Comic Book versions of the Flash: Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Wally West. In "Absolute Justice", Jay Garrick is confirmed as existing as the original Flash.
• Theme Music Withholding: John Williams' Superman Theme plays in the final scene of the final episode.
• There Is Another: Clark thinks that Cyrus Krupp in "Visitor" might be another Kryptonian. He's not.
• They Killed Kenny Again: In a dramatic use of the trope, Clark's fathers, or anyone who treats Clark as a father would, all end up dead, usually protecting him. Before the series starts, Jor-El died on Krypton to save him. Come Season 5, Jonathan dies after succumbing to his heart problems, which came about from him getting the power to save Clark in Season 3. Following this, off-screen at some point before Season 6, Virgil Swann is dead. Lionel, who is subsequently an avatar of Jor-El, is killed in Season 7 by Lex while covering up Clark's secret. Then in Season 9, the Kandorian clone of Jor-El is killed by another Kandorian. Plus, if the voice in the Fortress counts, the many times it's shut off, destroyed, taken over, or apparently destroyed pushes this number up quite a bit more.
• Title Drop: The names of the episodes tend to be mentioned by one character, it helps that the show has a One-Word Title rule.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Basically everyone at one point or another, but especially Lana Lang. (Honestly; going swimming, after dark, in the school pool, in Smallville?) One of Robert Anson Heinlein's sayings by way of his longest-lived character fits her perfectly: "Live and Learn. Or you won't live long." (The interested can look it up in The Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
  • In "Onyx" Clark, fully aware of exactly what Lex regularly experiments on, decides to follow Lex to his latest experiment.
• Took a Level in Badass: The premise of the whole series is Clark going from mild-mannered farmboy to the world's greatest hero. Arguably Clark's greatest leveling took place between Seasons 8 and 9, as evidenced by his ability to take on trained Kryptonian soldiers without his powers during Season 9. He fares better in his first fight than his last, but he "won" both of them.
• Toplessness from the Back: This shot is often used whenever female characters are naked, often combined with a Shoulders-Up Nudity shot from the front.
• Tornado Move: In "Homecoming", future Superman puts out a nuclear plant fire by flying around it really fast.
• Tragic Keepsake
  • Lana wears a piece of the meteor that killed her parents as a pendant.
  • Lex's watch, which his mother gave to him when he was a child before she died.
  • In "Skinwalker", after Kyla dies, Joseph gives Clark Kyla's bracelet for him to give to his true love. Sadly, it doesn't appear again.
  • Jonathan's watch becomes this to Clark after his death. It gets stolen in "Vengeance" by a gangster and Clark almost kills him for it. By the end of the episode, Lana buys it from a pawnshop and gives it to Clark.
  • In "Toxic", Tess wears her friend Megan's bracelet in honor of her.
• Trapped in a Sinking Car: Kicks off the plot in the first episode. Lex Luthor isn't watching as he's driving and runs Clark over, shooting off a bridge and into the lake. Clark rips the roof off of Lex's car to rescue him. Much of the rest of the series has a subplot of Lex trying to figure out how Clark did that.
• Trash the Set: Halfway through the final season, Luthor Manor (which had been a feature of the show since the "Pilot") is burned to the ground by Alexander Luthor. And earlier in the season, the Talon coffee shop/upstairs apartment is blown up by a missile launched by the Suicide Squad.
• Traumatic Haircut: Lionel Luthor, unlike Lex, had a lot of hair that he probably did not appreciate having shaved off for admission to general-population prison in "Covenant".
• Trope Trigger: Several episodes required Clark Kent to become Brainwashed and Crazy. The writers handled this by retooling red kryptonite from the Superman canon, so that instead of having some bizarre random effect on Clark it always turned him into a sociopath. It got so whenever fans saw a red glowing rock, they knew what trope would be in force for the episode.
• Tuck and Cover: Clark's default mode of rescue, mostly when it comes to explosions. First example was in the second episode, "Metamorphosis".

U

• Ultimate Universe: Essentially this, being a re-interpretation of the Superman mythos. Not to mention that there are some DC Comics characters making guest appearances, sometimes heavily modified.
• Un-Confession: Used several times throughout the series. The 8th season alone features Lois 'admitting' to being in love with Clark under lie detector and then claiming to have fooled the machine, and (in a separate episode) Clark revealing his identity to the world. In a past episode, Clark also told Lana the truth about him before resetting time after she died, and, in a strange inversion, he once erased the knowledge of his alien heritage from Chloe's mind — which also didn't stick (i.e. she remembered).
• Uncle Pennybags: Clark and his friends benefited vastly from a series of sugar daddies. First, from Seasons 1-4, Lex Luthor often bailed Clark & friends out of their money troubles, as he was still essentially trying to buy Clark's friendship. After Lex gets caught using armed and superpowered thugs to hold Clark's parents hostage (and thus force him to reveal his secret if it had gone as he'd planned) in Season 5, Clark distances himself from Lex. However, for most of Season 5, Lionel steps in and starts eagerly playing the role of Uncle Pennybags in a desperate attempt to impress Martha with his generosity. Lex occasionally still chips in money, but only in odd circumstances when he and Clark are thrown into a position where their interests coincide. Then from Season 6 onwards till the end, Oliver Queen steps in as Team Clark's big financier, as he is the major backer of the Justice League, eventually being joined in this role by former Dark Action Girl Tess Mercer in the later seasons.
• Undressing the Unconscious:
  • In "Crusade", after touching the Mark of Transference symbol in Countess Isobel's tomb, Lana blacks out. When she next wakes up, she's in her bed back in her room, drenched in sweat and naked save for a Modesty Bedsheet and with no memory of what happened. Later when she showers, both her and the audience finds the same symbol she touched is now tattooed on her back via a Toplessness from the Back shot.
  • In "Facade", Dr. Fine gasses Lois after she notices Lois had been investigating her kryptonite plastic surgery operation. When Lois wakes up, she finds she's been stripped down to her underwear and is strapped in Dr. Fine's plastic surgery machine. Clark arrives shortly after and rescues her.
  • Subverted in "Committed", after getting wasted, Lois wakes up at the Kent's farm wearing only Clark's football jersey and freaks out for a bit thinking they either slept together or he undressed her, but Clark reassures her that nothing happened and she changed into his clothes on her own while she was drunk.
  • In "Roulette", after being drugged by Roulette, Oliver wakes up and notices his clothes are gone, he's been changed into a white suit, and is barefoot.
  • In "Conspiracy", Vala and the other Kandorians are kidnapped and stripped down to their underwear by Dr. Chisholm.
• The Unfair Sex: Lana's great aunt Louise is portrayed very sympathetically even though she cheated on her husband Dexter with a man she just met and admitted she never loved him. To make matters worse, Dexter blamed himself for not letting her go and him spending the rest of his life in jail after being framed for her murder was just punishment. It runs in the family: Lana repeatedly falls in love while she’s dating someone else. Yet the fact that Lex Really Gets Around makes him a horrible person who treats women like crap. This is especially jarring when you remember that in every committed relationship Lex has had before that episode the woman betrayed him. So it is very understandable why he would prefer meaningless flings. The woman who tried to kill him cheated on her fiancée. The only one to blame for her ruined relationship was her.
• Unfinished Business: In "Tomb", Chloe is possessed by the ghost of a girl to find and take revenge on her murderer.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • Clark saves Lana's life on a weekly basis, but she continually acts as if he's this horrible person who can't be trusted, just because he likes his privacy.
  • Lionel Luthor, as revealed in "Lineage". It turns out that Jonathan helped save Lex's life in the aftermath of the meteor shower. Lionel says if there's anything he can do for Jonathan, to let him know. He calls this favor in to ask for help faking Clark's adoption papers (since they couldn't just say he fell out of the sky in a spaceship), and Lional complies. But then he proceeds to use this favor as an opportunity to blackmail Jonathan into convincing the Ross brothers to sell their creamed corn factory to him.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Lois and Clark have a lot Belligerent Sexual Tension shortly after meeting but it evolves into UST as their relationship develops and they start getting along more. Both characters repeatedly and unconvincingly deny it, but Everyone Can See It. Starting in Season 8, it gets so intense that neither Clark nor Lois can deny it any longer, and they get together in Season 9.
• Unwanted Harem:
  • Lana used to get a Stalker with a Crush on an almost-weekly basis in the earliest seasons.
  • Clark himself has had a few. Alicia started out as a welcome suitor, who quickly became unwanted when she turned into a Stalker with a Crush. Maxima from Season 8 would definitely count as one too. Chloe in the first few seasons also had a huge crush on Clark, but this apparently faded.

V

• Vagueness Is Coming: Jor-El's warning about Darkseid's coming is so pointlessly vague that Clark actually thinks he's talking about something else and ends up doing nothing to stop him.
• Van Helsing Hate Crimes:
  • Happens a lot to Meteor-Freaks, who are routinely experimented on.
  • The Kandorians perform this on humans in Season 9. With the added hypocrisy to then beg for mercy from a former test subject who decided to return the favor in kind.
• Vehicle Vanish: In a Season 9 episode, Major Zod realizes that Tess has played him. He looks across the street, and sees Tess raising her coffee cup in a sarcastic salute to him. A truck passes and in that split second, Tess is somehow gone. Unless she managed to make a highly-improbable jump onto the side of the truck and ride away with it, one wonders exactly how Tess did this, considering the fact that she has no superpowers.
• Very Special Episode: Any episode with Dr. Swann ended with a PSA about donating to the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.
• Victim of the Week: Played with at times by crossing with Monster of the Week. Also played straight, of course.
  • "Lexmas" has Clark coming across a suicidal binge-drinking "Santa", and helps him straighten out his life by catching him when he does fall from the top floor, and then roping him in to help out Chloe.
• Villain Ball:
  • In Sneeze", Lex threatens to test the Super Soldier Serum on Lana. So yeah, you give your hostage a serum that turns them into a super-fast God that can overpower you, and trust they won't do it because you're pointing a gun at their lover. Powers that can, to quote the guy administering the serum, make you swat away bullets like bugs.
  • In "Bound", despite the fact that she has Lex tied to a chair, he knows who she is, and she's got her vengeance in hand, instead of killing him with the gun she had, the killer decides to kill him by lighting brandy on fire.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • In "Descent", Lex blames Clark for stressing Jonathan into death after the latter says that Lex could have had his father's approval if he'd only tried. However Clark was warned that saving Lana would have consequences, and he chose to, leading to the death of his own father. Meaning that Lex was absolutely right.
  • Due to the anvilicious overuse of Humans Are the Real Monsters to the point where nearly a single episode can’t go by without a single character even the title character themselves mentioning how flawed humans are, it is perfectly understandable why the Human Supremacist Movement wouldn’t want their planet to be overrun with god-like beings of similar mentalities.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • In "Hothead", Coach Arnold loses his mind when he finds his fire powers can't hurt Clark, since he can't stand losing at anything.
  • In "Crush", when Justin realize the girl of his dreams knows what he's done, he starts to lose it.
  Clark: You already killed Principal Kwan, how many more are you willing to kill?
  Justin: As many as it takes!
  • Major Zod was never exactly stable, what with being an Axe-Crazy Large Ham with a Hair-Trigger Temper. He spent most of the season slowly deconstructing, as stress and his inability to cope with his failures encroached on his sanity. He was able to keep in under control for most of Season 9 however, recovering whenever he slipped up. In the Season Finale, "Salvation", however, he lost it, following his army's defection. He pulls a Blue Kryptonite knife out from under his coat, jumps on Clark and engages him in a Knife Fight, ranting at the top of his lungs the entire time.
• Villain Team-Up: In "Asylum", two meteor freaks, Eric Summers and Ian Randall, get assistance from Van McNulty because he knows Clark's weakness. They plan to escape from Belle Reve by having Eric take Clark's powers. Leads to Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
• Visions of Another Self: Done a few times in order to explore otherwise forbidden character pairings.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Lois Lane and Clark Kent naturally have this, from their first meeting in Season 4 to Season 7. From their first meeting there was plenty of UST bubbling under the surface, but Clark and Lois both managed to mask it as them being merely Vitriolic Best Buds, although Chloe, Jimmy, and the Kents saw it for what it was; in Seasons 8 and 9 it finally gets to the point where neither can deny its existence any longer.

W

• Weaksauce Weakness
  • Aquaman's guest appearance explained that he needed to be constantly wet or otherwise have a glass of water or he loses his immense strength and begins to wither. Considering he has had plenty of his own superpowered problems, this is especially glaring.
  • Clark's weakness to Kryptonite is a huge problem considering how common it is in Smallville.
  • Direct sunlight weakens Bizarro, to the point of causing Glamour Failure.
• Weight Loss Horror: "Craving" has bullied, overweight teen Jodi takes Kryptonite vegetable shakes in order to lose weight. The pounds melt off and she starts to get positive attention from her classmates. She is overjoyed until she realizes the weight loss will not stop. She eats everything in sight trying to keep weight on. When regular food no longer works, she moves to freshly killed raw meat and then to sucking all the fat and marrow out of other humans, the only thing that seems to sate the hunger. Unfortunately, it also kills them.
• Weirdness Censor: The people of Smallville seem to have a pretty strong one. In one episode, Chloe is suspended from the school paper for writing about meteor freaks... by the same principal who, a few episodes before, was set on fire by a pyrokinetic (who later immolated himself in the football team's locker room without anyone finding anything amiss about the circumstances).
• Weirdness Magnet: How else would one describe the town of Smallville? During the earlier seasons, Kryptonite infection helped created a lot of "Freaks of the week", who would then almost invariably gain a fixation on one of the main characters and end up trying to kill them, only for Clark to save the day.
  • Lana is overall the biggest weirdness magnet of the show with bizarre things happening to her that aren't even related to the meteor showers or her involvement with Clark
    • In "Accelerate": Lana's dead childhood friend is cloned and now is an Enfant Terrible with Super-Speed.
    • Season four: Lana happens to have an ancient French witch as an ancestor who starts possessing her.
    • "Thirst": Lana is turned into a vampire. She gets better.
  • Lampshaded once by the sheriff when the police find the Kent house surrounded by a forcefield.
    Officer: What the hell is this, Sheriff?
    Sheriff: [sighs] Another day in Smallville.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Lex Luthor. Made evident when Chloe—who received Temporary Powers to compel everyone around her to tell the unfiltered truth—questions Lex about why he can't just walk away from Lionel after all he's done to him, and Lex replies "Because he has the one thing that I want... I want him to love me." As if that wasn't enough, at the end of the episode an annoyed Lionel hatefully sneers that Lex is really starting to annoy him and demands to know "What do you want from me?!" and a dejected Lex quietly replies "It doesn't matter, Dad. Because I'm never going to get it." It gets to the point that, for the first couple of seasons, he was even trying to get a "Well done, son" from Clark's father. He ain't picky.
  
  Lex actually does get a minor "Well done, son" from Jonathan. In an episode where Lionel froze all of Lex's assets, and Lex crashed at the Kent farm rather than submit to Lionel, Jonathan foisted a bunch of farm chores off on Lex to earn his keep. Jonathan later compliments Lex that he did every filthy, backbreaking job Jonathan could think of, did them without complaining, and did them well.
• We Used to Be Friends: One of the premises of the series asks the question, "What if Clark Kent and Lex Luthor were once best friends before becoming mortal enemies?"
• Well-Intentioned Extremist
  • Lex Luthor's main drive starts out as "protecting mankind from aliens and meteor freaks". Yes, Clark and Chloe are probably on those two hitlists respectively, and you know where he ended up.
  • Tess Mercer wants to save the world, with leads her to do several questionable things, such as her "alliance" with Zod and the Kandorians.
  • All of Jor-El's decisions and manipulations are for the goal of turning Clark into the hero he's destined to be.
• Wham Episode: Season 10's "Fortune" was—based on the fact that Allison Mack was only going to be in five episodes in the Finale Season—Chloe's probably-final appearance, so her leaving in this episode was not a surprise. The fact that Oliver goes with her for an undetermined length of time is the surprise. Oh, and Tess and Emil might just be hooking up now...
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Spoken verbatim by Chloe in "Masquerade". Naturally, quite a bit does.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Lucas, Lex's brother, vanishes after his first episode "Prodigal". Initially justified as he was in hiding from Lionel. However, when both Lionel and Lex die, their is no reason for him not to step forward and claim a huge inheritance. One could argue that Lex's will left everything to Tess, so there was nothing for Lucas to claim. Still, it's a bit odd he was never mentioned, either after Lex's death, in Earth-2 (unless he never existed there), or after it's revealed Tess is also a Luthor. It's also possible that Lex had Lucas killed to avoid the inheritance problem after Lionel's death. Tess didn't know about the Luthor-blood thing yet, so she was no threat.
  • Averted with Pete, who vanishes for several seasons, but eventually does resurface and Clark and him get closure.
  • "Prey" ends with Tess recruiting Randy Klein to her team, but he's never seen again ever when the Injustice gang makes their debut.
  • In Season 9, Mia Dearden (the second Speedy in the comics) appears in two episodes, over the course of which Green Arrow accepts her as his sidekick. She is then never mentioned again until the season 11 comics.
  • In "Prophecy", Toyman assembles a Legion of Doom out of Metallo, Roulette, Dark Archer, Black Manta, Captain Cold, and Solomon Grundy, a team he calls Marionette Ventures. He shows them a list of the heroes and commands them to each target and kill one of them. They never appear nor are mentioned again, not even in the Season 11 comics.
  • Conner Kent shows up partway through Season 10. Clark invites him to live on the farm and he enrolls in Smallville High. A couple of episodes later he's 'visiting Martha in Washington' and he never shows up or is mentioned again. Not even, y'know, when the world is ending and having another person around with Clark's powers could be useful. He does return in the Season 11 comics.
• "What Do They Fear?" Episode: "Scare", a LuthorCorp project goes awry when an explosion occurs and causes a toxin to be released into the air, causing the townspeople of Smallville to hallucinate their worst fears. To be specific, Jason sees Lana making out with Clark and then stabbing him (Jason). Also, that Lana suspects that Jason is hiding something (that part is true). Chloe hallucinates meeting a crazed version of herself with her mother's voice. Lana hallucinates seeing her loved ones and then herself dead. Clark hallucinates another meteor shower hitting Smallville, and then Lana finding out his secret, blaming him for her parents' deaths, and coming at him with a shard of Kryptonite. Last, Lex hallucinates himself bringing about a nuclear war. Alternate scene is his mother in a wedding dress telling him he'll bring destruction to everyone.
• What If?:
  • "Reckoning": If Clark reversed time to save Lana...
  • "Infamous": If Clark had Lois report his secret to the world...
  • "Pandora": If the Kandorians gained their powers...
  • "Luthor": If Kal-El was found and raised by Lionel Luthor instead of the Kents...
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?
  • "Combat" has Clark upset after he unintentionally kills the decidedly non-human alien Titan in a forced arena fight.
  • Lampshaded and tossed it aside in "Arctic". The sentient, apparently emotional robot Brainiac, at Clark's mercy, tells him he could never kill a man. Clark quickly replies "You're a machine," then electrifies him.
• Whole-Plot Reference: For a show about a young Clark Kent, the show did sometimes like to take the idea of "What if (Movie Plot) with Superman as a side character?".
  • "Void" has Lana living the first half of Flatliners.
  • "Mercy" bears many similarities to the Saw franchise, with a very similar style of video message from the captor as well as seemingly inescapable and Deadly Game taking place within a run-down industrial setting which is designed to teach some kind of lesson to the participants.
  • "Legion" shares lots of similarities with the Superman: The Animated Series episode "New Kids in Town", where Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy come from the future to help a young Clark Kent defeat Brainiac.
  • In the episode "Roulette", Oliver's storyline is based on the 1997 Michael Douglas film The Game (1997), right up to the male lead having suicidal tendencies and it all turning out to be Friendly Scheming.
  • "Fortune", is based on The Hangover, as the main characters are 'drugged' which resulted in them getting out of control and waking up with no memories of the night before. They also piece together what happened the night before via clues and video footage.
• Who's Laughing Now?: Several of the Monster of the Week in the early seasons were someone who got stressed/abused by people, and then suddenly obtained superpowers from Kryptonite and went mad on Revenge.
• Why Are You Not My Son?: This is part of the subtext of the slow disintegration of Clark and Lex's friendship. Lex's father Lionel seems constantly disappointed with his son, while at the same time respecting Clark immensely, to the point of actually calling him "son" to his face. Clark, for his, part despises Lionel for a number of reasons, most notably because of Lionel's continued abuse of Lex. Also inverted with Lex, who for several years wants Clark's father Jonathan to be his father instead of Lionel.
• Wicked Stepmother: Jennifer Small, the wife of Lana's biological father Henry, threatens to divorce her husband due to his trying to forge a relationship with his daughter, and not to Henry himself but to Lana, attempting to guilt the poor girl for the simple problem that Jennifer is envious that she is no longer the only important woman in her husband's life, causing Lana to cut ties with her father, whom the two realize now fully embrace and love each other as Father and Daughter, so he may preserve his marriage and his family.
• Widowed at the Wedding: Narrowly averted in two on-screen weddings:
  • In "Bride", Doomsday crashes Jimmy and Chloe's wedding and almost kills Jimmy.
  • In "Finale", Darkseid, possessing Oliver, tried to put a gold kryptonite ring on Clark's finger, but fortunately Chloe spotted it just in time.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Extremely common, given Clark is very inexperienced and young and makes several mistakes, in both his social and hero life, and gets chewed out a lot by other characters. Chloe and Oliver are also frequently given this due to their Unscrupulous Hero tendencies.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?:
  • It's strongly implied by both more knowledgeable aliens and characters with Psychic Powers that Clark will outlive his loved ones. This was a recurring theme especially during Season 7, where it was used to create tension in Clark and Lana's relationship.
  • Lionel himself never intended to live forever, as he gave his own heart to resurrect Lex in exchange for having Darkseid claim his soul.
  • The character of Curtis Knox actually has had to deal with this multiple times, leading him to commit multiple murders to acquire meteor-infected body parts so his (current) wife can live forever with him, since he is immortal. He's like a worst-case possible future version of Clark, crossed with Vandal Savage.
• Why Are We Whispering?: In the "Pilot", between Pete Ross and Chloe Sullivan. Chloe doesn't know why they're whispering and doesn't whisper herself.
• Wicked Cultured: Lionel, Lex and Tess too all have high-class taste and wicked personalities. It runs in the family.
• Wild Card Excuse: Used often in by Clark during the earlier seasons, when asked about his interest in the caves or any Native American symbols that were related to his Kryptonian heritage were met with "It's for a term paper" — to the point where Lex himself actually lampshades it later. What makes it doubly strange is that he had a perfectly reasonable excuse: His dead girlfriend died to protect the caves, and he is trying to honor her memory by learning as much about them as possible. He uses this excuse all of once, and Lex actually buys it.
• Wild Teen Party:
  • In "Jitters", Clark Kent accidentally hosted, and managed to clean the entire trashed house in a few seconds with his Super-Speed — only to find his parents are back early and are standing in the door Sarcastic Clapping before explaining they called six times last night, and none of the six people who answered even knew a Clark Kent. However, they're soon distracted when Clark tells them about finding Jonathan's friend Earl Jenkins (who's since been taken in the hospital and is wanted for murder) in the loft.
  • "Spell" has another wild party (though this one was Lois's fault - it was a surprise party for Chloe's birthday), and again Clark's parents find evidence of it happening. Again, they're somewhat distracted from it by more serious matters: namely, when Clark tells them about the witches he was dealing with the night before, and that magic can hurt him.
• Will They or Won't They?:
  • Chloe and Clark, while Doomed by Canon, was heavily teased in the early seasons but nothing ever came out of it and Chloe eventually moved on.
  • Clark and Lois were teased ever since her introduction in season 4, with heavy Belligerent Sexual Tension at first that eventually evolved into Unresolved Sexual Tension when they started to get along to them eventually becoming the Official Couple in season 9 and 10.
• With Friends Like These...:
  • Clark and Pete the former repeatedly forced Clark to lie, cheat, steal, threatened to expose his secret then act like nothing happened. This is especially seen in "Velocity" and "Hero".
  • This is a major thing with Clark and Lex before they become enemies. Even while claiming to be the best of friends, they are always heavily distrustful of one another, accusing each other of various crimes (often without cause or evidence of any kind), and making pointed remarks about each other's psychological and relationship problems. How much of this is planned building on their later relationship is an exercise left up to the viewer.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: All over the place, especially in the earlier seasons. Kryptonite infection usually results in violent obsession in those who gain powers, and the early seasons are littered full of "freak of the week" encounters with previously normal (if often a bit self-centered or jerkish) people who gain powers and soon embark on insane rampages.
• Woman Scorned:
  • In "Zero", Amanda Rothman is revealed to have shot and killed her fiancé Jude when she finds him at Club Zero with other women.
  • In "Lineage", we learn about Rachel Dunleavy, a nurse hired by Lionel when his wife's heart condition whom eventually had an affair with Lionel, resulting in a son named Lucas whom Lionel took to be raised somewhere else while she was placed in a psychiatric ward. She comes back to Smallville years later with a beef against Lionel.
  • In "Bound", a stalker of Lex tries to kill him in revenge for breaking her heart after she cheated on her fiancee with him and he didn't return her calls declaring her love for him or even acknowledge her in any way.
• Wonder Twin Powers
  • In "Mortal", a pair of freaks of the week are some Creepy Twins (though adults) who can generate force fields when their hand's touch.
  • The actual Wonder Twins turn up in "Idol". Complete with "Powers, activate!"
• Working Out Their Emotions: Tess is often seem training or practicing some sport or martial art in the Luthor Manor. In "Instinct" she tells Chloe she does it because it "focuses her anger".
• Working the Same Case: Happens a few times, where characters finding out they were both separately working on the "case of the week". Most notably and awkward one is in "Exposed" where Lois (posing as a stripper) is assigned to dance for Clark (who's posing as a client).
• World of Badass: Being the first fully-fleshed out live-action version of The DCU, Smallville quite naturally evolved into a massive example of this trope. First of all, it's centered around the future Superman, young Clark Kent, along with Badass Normal characters like Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, and Jonathan Kent. And then we get other superheroes like Green Arrow and the rest of the Justice League of America, along with many of DC's supervillains. Put it this way, almost every main or recurring character (and even most of the one-shot characters) either are badass already, or become badass with Character Development.
• World of Muscle Men: Maybe because it's based on the Superman comics but the series has not just Clark but all the males muscular.
• World of Snark: Almost every main character and several of the recurring ones qualify as a Deadpan Snarker, with Snark-to-Snark Combat being extremely often.
• Worst News Judgment Ever:
  • There's an episode where the entire front page of the Daily Planet was devoted to a bank robbery. The commentary track joked about how you don't get a font that big unless the world is ending.
  • Another episode had the Daily Planet featuring Lois Lane's historical report on a former hero society up on the front page. Apparently nothing happened anywhere in the world that day.
• Would Hit a Girl: There are plenty of female Meteor Freaks and metahumans out there, meaning that this trope is in full effect. It would be easier to list the guys who won't hit back, as everyone from Lex to Oliver to Clark is more than willing to. It's never really discussed either; in a world full of superheroes, it's just an occupational hazard. Tess in particular gets Neck Lifted by Clark a couple of times.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Played With, Clark doesn't have this a code, but it is enforced by the writing. It's notable how many times he gets weakened by conveniently placed Kryptonite and gets his ass handed to him by a female villain who then gets conveniently defeated by happenstance, whilst he's allowed to throw around male villains who are a lot weaker than him. Once Lois is introduced, she's usually the one who gets to fight the female villains.
  • In Tina Greer's episodes she has to morph into a male form before Clark's "allowed" to fight her.
  • Justified in "Bloodline" with Clark hesitating to fight Faora, because she was possessing Lois's body.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Two Phantom Zone escapees, Aldar and Titan specialize in these. Then again, they are played by Batista and Kane respectively.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: The Retcon done in "Power" where instead of Lana leaving Clark of her own free will, she was kidnapped by Lex. This means that Lex was building the Prometheus suit to fight Clark and save his battered body long before he was even aware of Clark's secret and was wounded in the Fortress. Sure he had deals going on like Aries that led to it, but Lana seemed to be on to it way sooner than she should have. That was cool but everything about it here just fell totally flat. There is no way Lex would have let it get out to Lana like that, especially after the Fortress when he needed it the most.
• Wrote the Book:
  • In "Hothead", Lex claims the Luthors wrote the book on uncomfortable silences.
  • Chloe also says she wrote the book on pining over Clark.

X

• Xanatos Gambit:
  • "Absolute Justice" has Amanda Waller and Checkmate. She uses her Suicide Squad (or a member of it) to go after the JSA, not really caring that he kills a couple but killing him when he tried to kill everyone. Why? She wanted to bring them out of hiding to join the budding JLA and prepare for the coming Apocalypse (or is it Apokolips?).
  • Both Clark and Bizarro were searching for Dax-Ur for different reasons. Brainiac separately told both of them to find Dax-Ur's shield, a device that would transport the user to Dax-Ur himself. Clark manages to find it and locates Dax-Ur. It didn't matter to Brainiac who reached Dax-Ur. What's important was that the activation of the shield emitted a beacon which allowed Brainiac to reach Dax-Ur, who had created him. Brainiac wanted to download information from Dax-Ur's brain to upgrade himself and become more powerful.
  • In Season 5, Brainiac had wanted to use Clark as Zod's vessel. When that didn't work, he simply used Lex as Zod's vessel.
• Xanatos Speed Chess:
  • Lionel Luthor is extremely good at this. To exemplify: When Chloe is blessed/cursed with the gift of having anyone answer her questions truthfully, she does of course start asking Lionel questions. He realizes what's going on after the first question and immediately counter-attacks her on her weak spots, thereby distracting a highly intelligent, fearless and incredibly nosy young woman from using her golden chance to get into the secrets of a powerful, rich baddie. She could have asked questions every moment, she was just too stunned to do so.
  • In "Persona", Brainiac pulls one to track down his creator, Dax-Ur. First, he directs Bizarro to find Dax-Ur; this leads Bizarro to search for Dax-Ur's shield, which leads him to the Fortress, alerting Jor-El to his return and prompting him to free Clark from his icy imprisonment. Clark then goes to LuthorCorp and speaks with Brainiac disguised as Lionel, who tells him how to use the shield. After obtaining the shield from Chloe (who kept it from Bizarro because she correctly suspected that he wasn't Clark), Clark activates it, causing it to emit a beacon that allows Brainiac to later find Dax-Ur.
  • Chloe herself pulled one in "Roulette", regarding a complicated Batman Gambit, manipulating Oliver and Clark in an attempt to help Oliver find his inner heroism.
• X-Ray Vision: One of the most common Kryptonian powers, which Clark gains in the appropriately named "X-Ray". Clark's vision do indeed resemble real-life X-ray photos, using the colors blue, white and black during it. On a few occasions, Clark has used the "see-through vision" variant, such as the first time he activated it and accidentally got a peek inside the girl's locker room.

Y

• Yank the Dog's Chain
  • "Reckoning" had Clark finally tell Lana his secret and propose to her at the same time. That was The Teaser! She accepts the proposal, Jonathan Kent wins the state senate seat, beating Lex Luthor and everything seems perfect up til the 30-minute mark when Lana is killed in a car accident caused by Lex trying to get Clark's secret out of her. Clark gets Jor-El to rewind time, ignoring his warning that the universe would find someone else to die if he saves Lana. Clark doesn't tell Lana his secret, but Jonathan still wins the senate seat only to die from a heart attack.
  • Season 8 did this to Chloe all the time.
    • Finally rescued from the Hellhole Prison after locked in there for three months... Clark dies in her arms (he gets better, obviously).
    • Meeting this friendly, handsome paramedic... turns out to be the human form of Doomsday.
    • Getting married to Jimmy... only for Doomsday to crash the wedding, kidnap her to be possessed by Brainiac and maul Jimmy half to death. Oh, and she came this close to dying about three times.
    • Clark reveals his secret to the world and she is happy for him... then Doomsday killed her. Good thing the Reset Button was handy.
    • Jimmy is finally getting better and she is convinced it is going to be happily ever after...Jimmy divorces her and spirals into drug abuse at the end of the same episode.
    • Davis is split from Doomsday, Jimmy makes up with her... then Davis goes crazy jealous and kills Jimmy. Lois vanishes and Clark abandons her.
• Yet Another Christmas Carol:
  • "Lexmas" actually subverted when Lex decides to pursue money and power in order to save the life of his potential future wife Lana, who would have died if he had become a Nice Guy, setting up his future status as the antithesis of Superman. Really more of an It's a Wonderful Plot.
  • Despite not happening at Christmas, "Homecoming" fits the mold better, with Brainiac 5 showing Clark his past, present, and future to get him back on track.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are
  • In "Visitor", Clark's words to Cyrus as he urges him to heal a mortally injured Kyle.
  Clark: Cyrus, you can save him.
  Cyrus: They're here. I can't; I'll be stranded on this world forever.
  Clark: You have the power to heal.
  Cyrus: Why do you care about them?
  Clark: Cyrus, don't let him die. We both know you're better than that.
  • "Memoria": In a Pet the Dog moment, Lionel gives a speech to Lex when explaining him the significance of the lead box he gifted him.
  Lionel: So when people are cruel to you, you take all of your fears and your doubts and you put them in here, in this box. And you lock it. And you'll find that you're stronger than you think you are.
  • In "Fracture", Clark tells Alexander/Lex's good side that he is stronger than he thinks.
  • In "Finale" Lex, in his own twisted way, gives Clark a pep talk, reminding him of the destiny the two have yet to play out.
  Lex: You and I, we will both be great men. Because of each other. You and I have a destiny together Clark, on opposite sides.
• You Don't Look Like You:
  • Lana Lang's look is heavily altered from her look in the comics. From a Caucasian redhead to part-Asian with dark brown hair.
  • Smallville's version of Mxyzptlk is not longer a cartoony imp, but a normal human teenager with short brown hair.
• You Must Be Cold: Clark has done this on a few occasions thanks to the fact that he almost always wears a jacket. Most rescuees were girls, but one was a little boy who had been aged into a teenager, tearing his clothes.
• You Never Did That for Me: Jimmy has this attitude towards Chloe, who has done more for Clark than he would ever know.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame
  • In "Arctic", Brainiac is impressed that Chloe, a member of a "weak-willed" race, would be brave enough to use kryptonite on Kara.
  • In "Scion", Tess ousts Earth-2 Lionel from LuthorCorp, which he had previously stolen from her. After she explains how she proved that he's not Earth-1 Lionel, she adds that she had spiked his drink with nano-trackers so that if he tries to hurt her or the rest of the Justice League, she'd know where to find him. As Lionel leaves he takes one parting shot by telling her that no matter how hard she tries to change for Clark, she'll always be a Luthor (which is one of the few times he acknowledges that she's more his daughter than just by DNA). Given the nervous and almost-ill look on Tess's face as he walks away, she was clearly thinking this trope.
• Your Door Was Open: Characters barge in each others homes so often that characters Lampshade it. Particularly nonsensical in the Luthor mansion, which has cameras and security staff yet guests often walk into his study unannounced, surprising him.
• You're Just Jealous: Lana often reacts this way when Clark tries attempts to warn Lana her about the Freak of the Week. Which to be fair, he also usually is.
• You're Not My Father:
  • Clark says this to Jonathan under the effect of the Red Kryptonite in both "Red" and "Exile".
  • "Exodus": Clark says this to Jor-El when the latter insists he will obey him.
  Jor-El: You will obey me, Kal-El.
  Clark: You're not my father. I won't let you control me!

• Yo-Yo Plot Point
  • Clark and Lana kept hooking op and breaking up (usually due to his secret) for over 8 seasons, to the points some viewers started to see the relationship as a Romantic Plot Tumor.
  • The earlier seasons had this problem with Lex Luthor, who was repeatedly shown to be good, then evil, then good again, then evil again. Repeat ad nauseum until he finally switched for good.

Z

• Zen Survivor: Lionel is this to his son. By screwing with Lex's head, Lionel hopes to turn his son into the man he always wanted him to be.
• Zombie Apocalypse: "Rabid" has a mysterious virus turn most of Metropolis' citizens into violent zombies.
• Zorro Mark: Clark started doing this with his famous "S". The practice was mocked by Oliver in "Rabid", who thought Clark was being egotistical. "What does the 'S' stand for, 'Superstar'?"