Smallville S5 E4 – Aqua

Preview

Grab your sunscreen and watch out for the undertow because things are heating up at Crater Lake! When a lakeside party goes south and Lois Lane takes a nasty bump on the head while diving into the water, a mysterious, chiseled collegiate swimmer named Arthur “A.C.” Curry rushes to her rescue. Clark Kent jumps into action to save his favorite sharp-tongued friend, only to get thoroughly humiliated underwater when this orange-and-green-clad fish-boy speeds past him like a human torpedo.

While Lois finds herself instantly swept off her feet by her handsome hero, Clark realizes A.C. has secrets running deeper than an Olympic swimming pool. It turns out Lex Luthor is testing a lethal military acoustic weapon dubbed “Project Leviathan,” and A.C. is on a covert eco-sabotage mission to blow it out of the water. Meanwhile, Clark heads to his first college lecture at Central Kansas A&M, where his sharp-witted new history professor, Dr. Milton Fine, wastes zero time planting seeds of suspicion against the Luthor empire.

Episode Review

“Aqua” is one of those quintessential Season 5 romps where Smallville fully embraces its comic book comic DNA while effortlessly expanding the DC sandbox. The show had dipped its toes into superhero team-ups back in Season 4 with Bart Allen in “Run,” but bringing in Arthur Curry who is long mocked in popular culture for talking to fish and riding seahorses was a major gamble. Thankfully, Alan Ritchson plays A.C. with an energetic, charismatic charm that instantly makes the future Aquaman cool, capable, and genuinely fun.

The chemistry in this episode fires on all cylinders. Lois Lane getting a legitimate, fast-paced fling lets Erica Durance flex both comedic chops and vulnerability, and her flirtatious banter with A.C. is pure mid-2000s TV gold. On the flip side, we get the debut of James Marsters as Professor Milton Fine (known to comic readers everywhere as Brainiac). Marsters brings a quiet, intellectual magnetism to the lecture hall that immediately establishes him as a cerebral heavyweight against Michael Rosenbaum’s Lex.

The friction between Clark and A.C. also works wonders. Instead of instant allies, their contrasting worldviews as Clark’s cautious, by-the-book morality versus A.C.’s brash, ends-justify-the-means environmental vigilantism create some sharp drama before they finally learn to trust each other. Lex’s descent into darkness accelerates here, too; seeing him casually torture an eco-protester through dehydration reveals just how far the billionaire has strayed from his early-season sympathetic roots. It’s a breezy, action-packed hour that pushes the season’s overarching mystery forward without ever losing its sense of fun.

Who Stars in the Episode

Main Cast:

• Tom Welling as Clark Kent
• Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang
• Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor
• Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan
• Erica Durance as Lois Lane
• John Glover as Lionel Luthor
• Annette O’Toole as Martha Kent
• John Schneider as Jonathan Kent

Freak of the Week (Guest Stars):

• Alan Ritchson as Arthur “A.C.” Curry (Aquaman): Not technically a meteor freak, but definitely our guest metahuman of the week! Long before donning the tactical gear in Reacher or playing Hawk in Titans, a 22-year-old Ritchson made his breakout television screen debut here in bright orange swim trunks. He nailed the brash, passionate, ocean-loving crusader so well that the creators even filmed a pilot for a standalone Aquaman/Mercy Reef spin-off shortly after.
• James Marsters as Professor Milton Fine (Brainiac): Best known to sci-fi and fantasy fans as the bleached-blonde British vampire Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Marsters slides into Smallville to play Clark’s piercing, anti-establishment history professor who is harboring a chilling extraterrestrial agenda.

Special Effects

Let’s be fair: this was 2005 on a network television budget, but the CGI in “Aqua” is definitely a mixed bag.

On the positive side, the underwater stunt work and practical speed trails look slick enough when A.C. is cruising through the open water. His signature move—condensing water between his hands into a pressurized hydro-blast to send Clark flying across the beach—is surprisingly well executed and feels straight out of an animated comic book panel.

On the rougher side, the underwater digital rendering when Clark tries to chase A.C. has that rubbery, floaty PlayStation 2 cutscene quality that hasn’t aged particularly gracefully. The explosion of the underwater facility, too, leans heavily on shaky green-screen effects and obvious miniature/matte comps. But the worst offense to the eyes is definitely the digital makeup effect on A.C. when Lex dehydrates him on the interrogation table—the flaky, crusty CGI skin looks more like a bad sunburn filter than a terrifying aquatic pathology.

Music & Track Listing

• “All the Money or the Simple Life Honey” by The Dandy Warhols: Plays during the Crater Lake beach party scene where Lois takes her dive and A.C. makes his grand, dripping entrance.
• “Waiting for Your Letter” by Cary Brothers: Plays in the Talon as Lois and A.C. share coffee and some heavy, flirty banter while she tries to decode who he really is.
• “Everyday Is Like the Weekend” by Amy Ward: Heard playing in the background during the social and town scenes.

Rating

5 out of 5 Stars

A high-energy, entertaining adventure that honors DC comic book lore, introduces Brainiac, and provides the blueprint for the Justice League team-ups that define later seasons.

Complete Synopsis & Plot Breakdown

The episode kicks off at Crater Lake, where Clark, Lana, Lois, and Chloe are enjoying a rare sunny day off. Lois decides to dive off a high pier into the water, but strikes an underwater rock and gets knocked unconscious. Clark rushes into the lake to save her, but before he can reach Lois, a mysterious blonde swimmer blasts past him through the depths like a human torpedo. The young man brings Lois to shore, effortlessly revives her, introduces himself as “A.C.” (Arthur Curry), and disappears back into the lake after an exchange of smoldering glances with Lois.

Back at the Kent farm, Clark is baffled. He knows nobody can swim that fast under normal human biology, not even a meteor freak. Meanwhile, Clark attends his first class at Central Kansas A&M, taught by charismatic, sharp-tongued Dr. Milton Fine. Fine challenges his students’ unquestioning trust in mega-corporations and openly calls out LuthorCorp for corrupt defense contracting, prompting Clark to take note.

A.C. tracks Lois down to the Talon, wearing loud orange and green clothing. The two immediately hit it off, trading quick-witted banter and setting up an evening date. But A.C.’s real objective in Smallville isn’t romance: he is investigating “Project Leviathan,” a covert military sonar weapon developed by LuthorCorp that shoots destructive sound waves through the water, slaughtering marine wildlife and causing catastrophic damage to ocean ecosystems.

When A.C. slips back into Crater Lake to sabotage a LuthorCorp aquatic testing facility, the sonic weapon is activated, incapacitating him with intense auditory pain and causing his ears to bleed. Lois, waiting for him by the dock, is stunned when he washes up disoriented. Clark suspects A.C. is hiding something dangerous and confronts him at the beach. A heated argument breaks out over vigilante justice; when Clark tries to stop him from going on a destructive crusade against Lex, A.C. unleashes a pressurized hydro-kinetic blast that knocks Clark off his feet, escaping into the water.

A.C. breaks into LuthorCorp’s research facility intending to destroy the Leviathan torpedo with explosives. Lex Luthor and his private security ambush him. Recognizing that A.C. draws his physiological strength from hydration, Lex locks him inside a specialized chamber, tying him to a gurney and blasting him with extreme heat to slowly dehydrate him. Lex smugly taunts A.C. with a glass of water, showing off his cold, ruthless streak as A.C.’s skin begins to crack and whither.

Realizing A.C. has walked into a trap, Clark teams up with Chloe to track down the testing bunker. Clark breaks into the facility, takes out the guards, and triggers the emergency fire overhead sprinkler system. The moment water douses A.C., his strength instantly returns; he snaps his restraints, and together the two super-powered heroes bust through the security perimeter. A.C. swims out into the deep water to disable the Leviathan torpedo prototype just as Lex initiates a demo for Pentagon buyers, effectively ruining Lex’s multi-million dollar defense contract.

In the aftermath, A.C. bids a tender farewell to Lois, leaving her heartbroken but charmed as he heads back to his beloved ocean. Before departing, A.C. and Clark share a final conversation by the water. A.C. jokes that they should team up and form a “Junior Lifeguard Association”. Clark laughs, replying that he’s “not ready for the JLA just yet”. The episode wraps on a darker note as Clark visits Professor Fine’s office to accept a research assistant job, completely unaware that the enigmatic academic is actually the Kryptonian artificial intelligence Brainiac in human guise.

Clark’s Lessons & The Road to Superman

1. Widening the World Beyond Kansas: Up to this point in the series, Clark had generally assumed that strange, extraordinary abilities came from only two places: his own alien lineage from Krypton, or the green meteor rocks that scarred Smallville. Meeting Arthur Curry shatters that narrow view. A.C. represents a whole hidden corner of the planet with its own natural mysteries and metahuman protectors, forcing Clark to understand that safeguarding the world is going to require looking far past his own backyard.
2. Duty Over Personal Comfort: Clark is continually reluctant to step into the public eye or embrace a proactive hero role. A.C. serves as an ideological foil: passionate, vocal, and willing to throw himself on the line to defend defenseless creatures from corporate exploitation. While Clark rightfully checks A.C.’s reckless, lethal methods, A.C. successfully challenges Clark’s passivity, nudging him toward the realization that having power demands a proactive moral responsibility.
3. The Seeds of the Justice League: That iconic closing banter about a “Junior Lifeguard Association” or “JLA” isn’t just fan service, it marks the thematic birth of the Justice League in the Smallville continuity. Clark learns that he does not have to carry the weight of the entire world on his shoulders alone; there are other good people out there fighting the good fight, setting the stage for the network of heroes he will eventually lead as the Man of Steel.

Photos/Video

Comparing “Aqua” to the Unaired Aquaman Pilot (“Mercy Reef”)

“Aqua” proved to be the highest-rated episode of Smallville Season 5, which immediately prompted creators Al Gough and Miles Millar to pitch an Aquaman series. The resulting 2006 pilot, commonly referred to as Mercy Reef or simply Aquaman, never got picked up when The WB merged into The CW, though it eventually surfaced as a massive digital hit on iTunes. Putting the two side-by-side reveals some fascinating creative choices:

Cast and Recasting

• The Lead: The most jarring contrast is that Alan Ritchson did not star in the pilot. The network felt Ritchson was still too green as an actor to carry an entire hour-long drama week after week, so they cast Justin Hartley as Arthur Curry. Hartley brought a charming, laid-back beach vibe to the role, which impressed the producers so much that when the pilot died, they quickly hired him onto Smallville to play Oliver Queen / Green Arrow.
• Shared Smallville DNA: The pilot is packed with actors who also popped up in Smallville. Adrianne Palicki played the siren villain Nadia in the pilot, having previously appeared as the fake Kara Zor-El in Smallville Season 3’s “Covenant”. Lou Diamond Phillips played Arthur’s Coast Guard stepfather Tom Curry, and Denise Quiñones played Lt. Rachel Torres (she would later show up on Smallville as Andrea Rojas / Angel of Vengeance).

Mythology and Tone

• Standalone Universe vs. Shared Continuity: Despite coming from the same showrunners and sharing director Greg Beeman, Mercy Reef was not treated as an in-canon spin-off. It wiped the slate clean to build an independent mythology.
• A.C.’s Origins and Backstory: In “Aqua,” A.C. is an already self-assured, active collegiate eco-warrior whose father was a simple lighthouse keeper who took him in after his mother passed. In the pilot, Arthur runs a beachfront dive bar in the Florida Keys, completely in the dark about his royal Atlantean heritage until a mysterious mentor named McCaffery shows up with ancient texts to train him. The pilot leaned heavy into Bermuda Triangle conspiracies, military intrigue, and shape-shifting sirens, feeling much more like a coastal mystery procedural compared to the bright, superhero-crossover energy of “Aqua”.
• Visual Effects Demands: “Aqua” kept Aquaman’s aquatic exploits mostly focused around a freshwater lake with quick bursts of super-swimming and water blasts. The pilot attempted full ocean photography, naval jets crashing into the sea, siren transformations, and underwater vortexes. While ambitious, the pilot struggled under the weight of trying to pull off expensive ocean-based CGI on a broadcast television budget.

Ultimately, “Aqua” succeeded because it worked within the tight, focused boundaries of a guest spot where A.C. could bounce off Clark, Lois, and Lex. The unaired pilot tried to build an entire world in 42 minutes, but its cancellation ended up being a blessing in disguise for Smallville fans, as it brought Justin Hartley directly into Clark’s orbit as Green Arrow for years to come.

Review Notes

Aquaman Spinoff / Aqua episode Notes

I also watched the Aquaman spinoff so these are combined notes from both.

WTF why is Kara on this spinoff….oh wait shes a siren now, confusing recency bias maybe less jarring if I wasn’t binging.

Thad/Hawk/Reacher does a fantastic job here, so good they ordered a spinoff and stupidly cast someone else (Justin Hartley from Tracker) The pilot also starred Lou Diamond Phillips, Ving Rhames, and Denise Quiñones it was good and Hartley did a good job, but they wanted it far more removed than a spinoff. It became a massive digital hit, climbing to the number-one most downloaded spot on iTunes before later airing on Canadian television.

Rot in hell you scaly bitch made me spit out my coffee.

Its pretty good, feels like a Smallville episode though its the same creators so makes sense. did feel a tad gratuitous for the skin.

On to Smallville…

OK more skin show…

It’s Thad! Perfect Aquaman casting.

Love the dynamic with him and Clark and we got a cool underwater fight between them.

Well, Lex is now officially a bad guy… really really bad.

I just love all the little Justice League Easter eggs makes it fun.

They play off each other really well.

I like how they are doing the Brainiac slow burn putting him having power over Clark in the simplest way.

Clark giving Lois love advice LOL