Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Since I was (as is my wont) watching Lost while taping Smallville last night, I didn't realize that my VCR had (after 7 years of hard usage) finally started to die and had stopped recording the audio track about ten minutes before the end of the episode. Therefore, everything after the last mid-show commercial break suddenly sounded like Dr. House talking to young Dr. Chase about his father issues (since I was taping Smallville over the previous day's tape of House). If you can tell me what I missed, I'd be ever so grateful.

I got everything up to the point where Lucy drove off in Lex's car, but after that, it's all weirdness.

Of course, it was intriguing and amusing (at first) to hear Hugh Laurie's voice alternately coming from the lips of Clark and Lex, and to hear Dr. Chase talking to HIS father while on screen it's Lex talking to Lionel, but that meant that I really couldn't follow the denouement at all. If anyone can fill me in on the gist of those last ten minutes or so of intense conversations between Clark and Lex, and Lionel and Lex, and Clark and Lois, etc., I'd really appreciate it.

At least I got to see and hear all of Peter Wingfield's scenes as the guest baddie, but since he was playing a fairly two-dimensional character with little dialog and a German accent, those few scenes didn't do much to satisfy my "Methos" (Highlander) cravings.

And now that I know a lot more about what kind of an emotionally starved upbringing Lois had, and of the losses she suffered and the responsibilities she'd had to take on at too young an age, I'm finding her "attack-the-world-before-it-gets-the-chance-to-attack-you" approach to life a lot easier to tolerate. Where before I thought Lois was turning into too much of a needlessly hostile pain in the ass, attacking and berating and abusing the hospitality and good nature of everyone around her, now I kind of understand where she's coming from. I didn't think there was any way to make Lois likable, at this point, but they managed it last night.

Or maybe that was all undermined by the conversations that I missed at the end?

Meanwhile, I need to go buy a new VCR sometime tomorrow, lest I be unable to tape my Sci-Fi Channel lineup tomorrow night -- oh, horrors!

But at least the old one still plays tapes alright (by the way, I checked to verify that the Smallville lapse wasn't just an aberration or a faulty tape: it's no longer recording any audio of any program on any tape, though the picture quality is still fine and the audio from whatever I've taped over comes through loud and clear), so maybe Good Will would take it, or maybe I can use it with the TV in my bedroom, for an extra touch of decadence!