The Smallville Storyline That Ruined A Great Season

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Smallville was built around a simple premise: a young Clark Kent navigates high school, young love, and keeping his powers secret while forming an unlikely friendship with the ultimate nepo baby, Lex Luthor. Starring Tom Welling as Clark and Michael Rosenbaum as Lex, the series was a massive hit, ultimately running for 10 seasons from 2001 to 2011. A key factor in Smallville"s success was its first leading lady, Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang.
Lana was Clark"s first love, who started off as the out-of-his-league girl next door before transitioning into his on-again, off-again girlfriend. As someone who grew up watching Smallville, I have a complicated relationship with Lana. Kreuk is a talented actress, and she plays the character well, but the writing doesn"t always make Lana easy to root for. She and Clark are often caught between other love interests, and his secret hangs over them like the sword of Damocles for most of their relationship.
Understandably, Lana gets fed up with Clark often. After all, she didn"t know he had a good reason to constantly lie to her. By the time Lana finds out the truth, the series" second—and arguably better—female lead has already entered the picture: Lois Lane. The first time I watched season 4 of Smallville, I was conflicted about Lois" arrival. A lifelong Superman fan, I love the plucky Daily Planet journalist, and Erica Durance captured her sassy attitude from the first moment she appeared on Smallville.
However, the series had spent the previous few years getting audiences invested in Clark and Lana. This created an awkward transition over the next couple of seasons as Clark grew up, but his love life didn"t. Smallville took some wild turns to maintain Lana"s relevance even after his destined adult love interest joined the show, including having her married to Lex in season 6. Admittedly, I enjoyed Lex and Lana"s somewhat problematic romance, but then the writers broke the Luthors up, and Lana went back to Clark. Around this time, she finally discovered his powers, but this did little to fix their stale dynamic.
Worse yet, once Lana exited the show starting with its eighth season, Lois and Clark"s romance started blooming. That is, their relationship was heating up until Lana showed back up midway through season 8 with a short arc that I can"t help but feel did more harm than good to her overall story in Smallville.
Smallville's Divisive Transition From Lana To Lois Lana Lang And Clark Kent's Will-They-Won't-They Put Ross And Rachel To Shame

Despite being over half a decade into the show and three seasons after the cast graduated from high school, Lana and Clark fell into their old toxic patterns when they got back together in season 7. Finding out Clark"s secret did give Lana a more natural way to interact with the season"s over-arching plot, but she remained largely confined to being either Clark"s girlfriend or Lex"s ex. Combining that with a non-consensual encounter with Bizarro and being made catatonic by Brainiac, Lana was put through the wringer. It wasn"t exactly a surprise for the audience when she decided to leave Smallville, and Clark, altogether, even though the young Superman was heartbroken.
I genuinely think Lana had the potential to be an interesting side character if she ever broke out of her girl-next-door mold, but Smallville never let her.
While it would be easy to hate Lana for overstaying her welcome, Smallville did not seem to know what to do with her other than be Clark"s love interest. She had some interesting plots over the years, such as being tied to the Stones of Power in season 4 and enacting revenge on Lionel Luthor in season 7. However, her more interesting developments were often reset, with Clark telling her not to give in to her inner darkness and so on. I genuinely think Lana had the potential to be an interesting side character if she ever broke out of her girl-next-door mold, but Smallville never let her.

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