Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Season 1, Episode 9 (14 Nov. 1993): “The Green, Green Glow of Home”
by Bryce Zabel, Les Landau

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman - Season 1, Episode 9

Title: “The Green, Green Glow of Home”

Medium: television series episode

Original airdate: 14 Nov. 1993

Publisher:
Written by: Bryce Zabel
Directed by: Les Landau

8 characters in this story:

Character (Click links for info about character and his/her religious practice, affiliation, etc.)	Religious Affiliation	Team(s) [Notes]	Pub.	# app.
Superman (Clark Kent)	Methodist / Kryptonian religion	Kryptonians; Super Friends...  The Justice League		13,409
Lois Lane	Catholic	Raleigh College [Superman's girlfriend, then wife]		3,859
Jimmy Olsen	Lutheran	The Legion of Super-Heroes [Superman's pal]		1,896
Perry White	Baptist; Elvis worship (ordained)	[Superman's (Clark Kent's) boss; Daily Planet editor]		1,574
Jonathan Kent	Methodist	[Superman's adoptive father]		816
Martha Kent	Methodist	[Superman's adoptive mother]		827
Lex Luthor	Episcopalian (lapsed); Nietzschean atheist	Injustice League; Secret Six...  Secret Society of Super Villains; The Injustice Gang; The Legion of Doom		1,508
Cat Grant	Catholic (lapsed); promiscuous hedonist	[Daily Planet gossip columnist; co-worker of Clark Kent]		140

Cat Grant is once again portrayed primarily as a one-note character in this episode - that note being her promiscuity and obsession with sex. But Cat's personality in this regard has been downplayed slightly in this and the previous episode compared to earlier episodes. While Cat Grant is still used mostly as a punchline in this episode, the actress seems less-over-the top about it. She approaches being a person one can actually imagine being allowed to work in the real-life professional environment of a big-city newspaper office. Cat's attire is still inappropriate for an office setting, but doesn't quite scream "strumpet" in the same way that most of her previous outfits have.

Timecode: 3 minutes, 30 seconds: Jimmy Olsen rushes into the newspaper office of The Daily Planet.

Cat Grant: Start being on time, Jimmy. You'll ruin your reputation.

Cat's comment about Jimmy ruining his "reputation" by arriving at work late is actually a joke about herself. The phrase "ruin your reputation" is used more often in reference to women who behave promiscuously. This line is meant ironically, coming from the woman who has proudly "ruined her reputation" through her tireless whoring. Jimmy chuckles slightly at Cat's "warning" to him.

Jimmy Olsen holds up his wrist to display a new watch. This is the first appearance in this TV series of "Jimmy Olsen's Superman signal watch," a long-time fixture in the Superman family of comics.

Jimmy Olsen: Morning, Cat. What do you think?

Cat Grant: Hmmm . . . I prefer leather.

Jimmy Olsen: I wasn't talking about fashion.

Cat Grant: [Speaking seductively.] Neither was I. [She smiles slyly.]

With this line, Cat Grant was speaking of "leather" as a way of suggesting her own interest in sado-masochism and kinky, deviant sex.

In this episode, Wayne Irig - one of the neighbor's of Clark Kent's parents - has found kryptonite on his property. The elderly farmer sent a sample of it to the government to be tested, only to find his entire farm cordoned off and investigated by a federal task force. The federal agents are posing as representatives from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) who are investigating seepage of toxic pesticides into the ground water, but really they work for the ultra-secretive Bureau 39. This secretive agency is headed by Jason Trask, an obsessive alien hunter who believes that Superman is the vanguard for an alien invasion. When Clark hears about the "EPA" shutting down his neighbor's farm, he proposes to Perry White that this might be a good news story. White agrees, imagining a headline about "The Poisoning of America," with a story about a face-off between the big government and a small farmer. White sends Lois Lane and Clark Kent to Smallville to investigate, although Lois is reluctant to go.

Timecode: 5 minutes, 32 seconds: Lois Lane and Clark Kent are in a convertable, waiting at a train crossing as a very long train goes by.

Clark Kent: America's bread basket, Lois.

Lois Lane: Don't tell me. 4-H changed your life.

Clark Kent: Hey, you can't help it if I'm a farm kid.

Lois Lane: If I ever need a cow milked, I'll remember that.

Clark Kent: You can joke, but take away Middle America and what have you got?

Lois Lane: Art, music, theater.

Clark Kent: Crime, drugs, poverty.

Lois Lane: Oh! How long is this gonna take? [Impatiently referring to the train that is going by in front of them.]

Clark Kent: It takes as long as it takes.

Lois Lane: I didn't realize Zen was so popular in the country.

Clark Kent: It always takes people from the city a while to decompress. Fortunately for you, this weekend Smallville's holding an annual corn festival.

Lois Lane: This is a good thing?

Clark Kent: Sure. We'll get to see the Corn Queen Pageant, the Huskoff, the Corn-o-Rama. Popcorn, cream corn, corn on the cob. We are in luck.

Lois Lane: [Sarcastically.] Oh! Be still my heart!

Clark Kent chuckles at Lois Lane's discomfort.

BELOW: Scenes of Clark Kent and Lois Lane at the Smallville Cornfest. Note how the scene opens by focusing on what appears to be a church adorned with corn husks. The corn husks even suggest a cross. Lois later refers to what she sees here as "ritual crop worship."

This may seem like a peculiar way to describe what the people of Smallville regard as simply a community function. But the truth is, if most contemporary Americans were to view a comparable event taking place in a culture quite removed from our own - perhaps in a another country where they don't speak the language, or in another time period, most educated Americans would regard what they see as "religious" in nature. Events such as these, which are human constructs, not universal in form, and are not mathematically or scientifically mandated, are correctly identified as as "religious rituals" from a sociological perspective. The Smallville Cornfest does not serve a mathematically measurable function (such as increasing crop yield) and it can not be proven to have any purely material, biologically-driven benefit. It is quintessentially "religious" in nature.

Lois Lane is only half joking when she calls the Smallville Cornfest a "religious ritual." Clark would not have thought to see it this way, which is not surprising because he was raised in this culture. Most of the religious rituals and beliefs that people are accustomed to and never question do not seem to them to be "religious" in nature. But Lois Lane is very much an outsider in Smallville. She is a city girl both by virtue of having spent many years in Metropolis and other international cities, as well as by choice and disposition. Lois Lane has a sufficiently "outside" or "foreign" perspective that to her, the Smallville Cornfest is analogous to the religious festivals in other countries, such as Hindu festival in India or a Shinto festival in Japan.

Timecode: 13 minutes, 31 seconds: After spending time at the corn festival in "downtown" Smallville, Clark Kent and Lois Lane have just arrived at the Kent farmhouse with Clark's parents.

Martha Kent: Now, Lois, you'll be in Clark's room. Clark you'll be on the couch.

Clark nods his head in agreement. Then a look of distress comes over Martha's face as she considers another possibility, and clumsily tries to handle the situation "tactfully."

Martha Kent: Unless you two are . . .

The words Clark's mother suddenly thought but thankfully left (mostly) unsaid are "sleeping together, in which case you'll want to stay together tonight." Clark Kent and Lois Lane both exhibit shocked expressions on their faces at Martha's words and implication.

Lois Lane: No, we're not.

Lois chuckles uncomfortably. The look on Clark's face shifts from shock to annoyance. Clark puts his hand to his forehead while shaking his head slightly, thinking to himself, "I can't believe my mom said that!"

Lois Lane: [Repeating herself emphatically.] Not. No, we're not. No.

Now a look of shock comes over Martha's face, as she realizes what she has said. She feels embarrassed.

Martha Kent: Oh, uh . . .

[Martha pulls her husband Jonathan into the next room, saying she needs her help. She probably just wants to extricate herself from this uncomfortable moment. After Clark's parents leave the room, Clark clears his throat uncomfortably.]

Clark Kent is surprised and also bothered that his parents, with whom he has an extremely close relationship, would suggest something like this. Actually, it was only Clark's mother who had such a thought. Realistically, she knows better. She knows that she knows her son well enough to know that he embraces the values he was rasied with. But, still, he has been living in Metropolis for a while now and she knows how fond her son is of Lois. She can see it in his eyes when he talks about her during his frequent visits home for dinner with the family. And Martha Kent has almost certainly had a number of her friends whose children were "raised right" but nevertheless strayed from the religious and moral values they were raised with in Smallville once they got to the big city. So, although Martha feels she knows Clark and trusts him, the possibility that he might become sexually active before marriage is very much on this religiously conservative mother's mind.

Clark Kent: [To Lois.] Not exactly what you had in mind, huh?

By this, Clark is referring to Lois Lane's entire "Smallville experience," not just her recent conversation with his parents.

Lois Lane: Well, let's see. So far I've been given a glimpse of ritual crop worship, treated as your girlfriend, and I insulted your parents. No, I couldn't have planned this. Uh-huh.

The "insult" to Clark's parents that Lois refers to here is two-fold, and has nothing to do with the awkward moment when Clark's mother wondered if Clark and Lois were sleeping togehter. When Lois first arrived at the corn festival, she told Clark that she "knows all about these small towns." She suggested that the man cooking hamburgers over there was probably a "cross-dresser," only to be told moments later that the man is Clark's father. Martha, upon hearing what Lois had said, explained, "Oh, honey, I can't him to buy a dress for me, much less get one for himself." Later, upon arriving at the farmhouse, Lois said she needs to receive a fax and then proceeded to explain in condescending terms what a "fax machine" is, only to learn that Martha and Jonathan Kent not only know what a fax is, but that they actually have a fax machine themselves. These are the two instances that Lois is thinking of when she says she insulted Clark's parents.

Clark Kent: Heh. You're having more fun that you want to admit.

Timecode: 22 minutes, 26 seconds: Clark Kent and Lois Lane are eating at a table outdoors at the corn festival. The watress knows Clark from way back and lets slip that she knows about Lois Lane writing a romance novel, something that Lois never told anybody but Clark, who accidentally let it slip in conversation to his mother, who accidentally told the whole town.

Maizie (waitress): That's just Smallville for you, honey. Everybody knows everything about everybody else.

Lois Lane: Then why haven't I heard any dirt on Clark here?

Maizie: Oh, with Clark here, what you see is what you get.

Clark Kent truly was a morally upstanding young man while growing up in Smallville. The waitress genuinely can't think of any "dirt" to dish up on him, nor can anybody else.

Maizie: Here you go. [Puts two menus on the table for Lois and Clark.] Back in a jiff. [Walks away.]

Lois Lane smiles broadly and repeats the waitress's words, which amused her, as it somehow seems fitting that somebody would say something like this about Clark.

Lois Lane: "What you see is what you get."

Timecode: 23 minutes, 1 seconds: The cell phone sitting on their table here at the outdoor corn festival rings. Lois grabs the phone and answers.

Lois Lane: Lois Lane . . . Mr. Irig, where are you?

Wayne Irig: [His voice can be heard on the phone.] I think I'm somewhere outside of Salt Lake City.

Lois Lane: [Shocked.] Salt Lake City?!

Wayne Irig: Well, I-- I, uh, just got in my Winnebago and decided to visit my sister.

Camer cuts to the interior of a tent on the farm of Wayne Irig. This is the tent set up as a command post by Bureau 39. Bureau leader Jason Trask, wearing his military-style uniform, stands over Mr. Irig threateningly, listing in on his phone conversation using earphones while a tape machine records the whole conversation. Wayn Irig is reading haltingly from a paper prepared by Trask. Wayne Irig is not actually in Salt Lake City. He is still here in Smallville, being held captive by Bureau 39. Trask is having Irig call Lois and Clark in an attempt to dissuade the reporters from continuing to look for Irig.

Wayne Irig: I've been on the road so long, I hardly know where I am.

Camera cuts back to Lois and Clark, eating at an outdoor table at the corn festival, taking Mr.Irig's call.

Lois Lane: Mr. Irig, I'm going to put you on with Clark Kent.

Lois hands the phone to Clark, whispering, "He sounds so weird" to him as she does so.

Clark Kent: Hello, Wayne, uh, can I have a number where I can call you back?

Cut back to Wayne Irig and Jason Trask in the command post tent. Trask hears Clark Kent's question and silently shakes his head no as an instruction to Irig about how to handle Clark's question.

Wayne Irig: Uh, I-- I don't see one here. Uh, I'm in a truck stop.

Clark Kent: Well, what did the EPA guys tell you about the work they were doing on your property?

Wayne Irig: Just that they needed to do some digging.

Clark Kent: Wayne, is everything okay?

Wayne Irig: There's, uh, no problem.

Jason Trask gives Irig a hand signal, telling him to end the phone conversation.

Wayne Irig: Uh, looks like somebody else needs to use the phone. Good-bye, Clark.

Clark Kent: Wait, wait! Wayne, I--

Click. Dial tone. Jason Trask has cut the line. Clark Kent, perplexed, hands the phone back to Lois.

Clark Kent: Salt Lake City?

Lois Lane: That's where he said he was calling from. He could've been anywhere.

Later, Lois Lane is getting more "into" the Smallville scene. She even buys a "country girl" dress. Clark is surprised when he sees Lois in it. Lois is pleased with herself, and is evidently relaxing and enjoying herself in this small farming town.

Timecode: 24 minutes, 57 seconds:

Lois Lane: Maybe you should try corn husking.

Clark Kent: What is this?

Lois Lane: When in Smallville . . .

Lois here paraphrases and modifies the aphorism: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." The expressions on Lois Lane's face are a mixture of humility and sincerity and fun. In the next scene we see Lois Lane enjoying line dancing with Clark. Square dancing is something she has made fun of in the past, but she takes to this traditional "country" dance form with zest. Timecode: 25 minutes, 23 seconds.

Clark Kent: You can really do this.

Lois Lane: Last year I had a girlfriend who convinced me it was a great way to meet guys.

Clark Kent: Was it?

Lois Lane: Hah. Define "guys."

Clark Kent laughs.

Timecode: 26 minutes, 43 seconds: Scene: Newspaper chief editor Perry White's office at the Daily Planet. Perry White sits "Indian style" on the floor next to his desk. He is sitting in a traditional Buddhist meditation stance, known as the "lotus position", with his hands facing upward on his knees, his thumbs touching his index fingers. His eyes are closed. Amazon jungle noices can be heard in the background. He sits absolutely still for a long time. Finally the serene scene is interrupted when Jimmy Olsen barges through the door. Before saying anything Jimmy looks around and listens, surprised at what he is seeing and hearing here. He has never seen his boss do anything like this before, and he finds it rather odd. Jimmy tentatively walks closer to Perry White.

Jimmy Olsen: Chief?

Without opening his eyes, Perry White speaks.

Perry White: The rain forest, Jimmy. The sounds of nature promote harmony in all living things. There are no animals with high blood pressure.

Jimmy Olsen: Still stressing, huh?

Perry White opens his eyes.

Perry White: Stressing? I'm not stressing. What do you want??

Jimmy Olsen picks up the phone on Perry's desk and holds it out to Perry.

Jimmy Olsen: Clark's on the phone.

Perry White: Give me that!

Perry White grabs the phone from Jimmy's hands and takes Clark's call. At the same time that Perry is talking to Clark, Cat Grant enters Perry's office to tell him that Lois Lane is on line two. Perry White talks to both Lois Lane and Clark Kent. Based on Lois's instincts, Perry feels there's a big story happening in Smallville. He decides to send a photographer there. Timecode: 28 minutes, 26 seconds.

Perry White: Jimmy, I got to get a photographer down there right away.

Perry awkwardly stands up from his lotus sitting position.

Jimmy Olsen: Ready, Chief.

Perry White: Where's Johnson?

Jimmy Olsen: Uh, Utah.

Perry White: Oh, I got it. I got it. Sevens.

Jimmy Olsen: Winnipeg, sir.

Perry White: Oh! Photographers! Just when you need one you can't find one.

Running into dead ends talking to the on-site "EPA" spokesperson and trying to find Wayne Irig, Lois Lane and Clark Kent decide to take a closer look for themselves at what is happening on the Irig farm. After they get close to Bureau 39's perimiter on the farm site, however, they are immediately apprehended by Bureau 39 operatives. Clark and Lois are brought before Jason Trask, the head of Bureau and a man they have run into before in an earlier episode. In fact, it was Trask who threw them out of an airplane in an attempt to force them to contact Superman. In the following scene, Trask exchanges words with Lois and Clark, making it clear that none of them are actually out of genuine concern for environmentalism. The "EPA" clean-up has always been merely a front, and Clark himself is investigating because he is interested in the meteor rock from his home planet Krypton.

Timecode: 30 minutes, 16 seconds:

Lois Lane: Trask! What are you doing in Smallville?

Jason Trask: Now, here I was just wondering the same thing about you.

Clark Kent: Our newspaper sent us to investigate an EPA cleanup.

Jason Trask: You're not here for your environmental virtue any more than I am. You know it and I know it.

The process of listing characters who appeared in this source is not yet complete. Webpage for Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman - Season 1, Episode 9 (14 Nov. 1993) created 29 December 2007. Last modified 11 June 2014.

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