Hothead takes onto the Smallville Crows, the highschool football team overseen by the arrogant Coach Arnold (Dan Lauria). And Arnold is going to be our freak of the week.

Written by Greg Walker this episode, which is helping to continue setting the pace and style for the series, first aired on 30 October, 2001.

Arnold has a habit of taking saunas, and unfortunately he’s been using kryptonite-infused rocks. And somehow this triggers a pyrotechnic ability. One he will use to get his way, and make sure his team, the Crows, win.

Even if he clashes with the principal (Hiro Kanagawa) over suspending players who are flunking academically. Which could lead to a little firestarter action. Lauria does this kind of role with apparent ease, and he very much fits into the early tapestry being created here.

Clark (Tom Welling), despite some misgivings of his father, Jonathan (John Schneider) and mother, Martha (Annette O’Toole), joins the team.

Character narratives are still growing, Pete (Sam Jones III) and Chole (Allison Mack) are still developing. Lionel Luthor (John Glover) makes his first appearance since the pilot, and helps establish the complicated relationship between he and Lex (Micheal Rosenbaum).

To date, the most developed characters are Clark and Lana (Kristin Kreuk) with Lex as a third. The rest haven’t shown much yet, but it’s still very early days for the series. I do like the dynamic developing between Jonathan Kent and Clark, there’s a reality to it.

The show can’t help but be compared to Buffy, and like that show, the casting is top-notch, and Welling is proving very quickly that he can shoulder the show.

X-Ray opens with Lex robbing a bank!! Or is it? When Clark bumps into him and gets knocked aside, he has a new ability kicking in… his x-ray vision, and whoever this Lex is they have kryptonite infused to their bones…

We learn that it is Tina (Lizzy Caplan) is a shapeshifter thanks to the kryptonite. That makes her the freak of the week in this episode written by Mark Verheiden. This episode first debuted on 6 November, 2001.

Lex checks in with Clark, unable to believe that he’s listed as a witness. Lex has an actual alibi, and while Clark hopes to help him, he’s also dealing with his strange new ability.

Meanwhile, Tina wanted to rob the bank so that she can afford the life that she thinks Lana has. But when her mother is accidentally killed, Tina believes that maybe she should just be Lana instead.

For the time, and on a budget, the x-ray effects are surprisingly solid. Even if you can tell they are computer-generated.

The episode does a little more to build Lana’s character, and add some friction to the relationship with her Aunt Nell (Sarah-Jane Redmond). Martha realizes how much Clark cares for Lana, and Whitney (Eric Johnson) is still around.

And Lex, well Lex is initially blackmailed by a reporter, Roger Nixon (Tom O’Brien), but then gets him to dig into the mystery of how he survived the car crash in the Pilot, and how he could have been saved.

The freak of the week thing is already tiring, but the character work, and the music on the series is top-notch. I also like how they are establishing over-arching narratives.