Smallville’s pilot makes Clark and Lex’s friendship believable by letting each man save the other while both are still hoping for a different life. Clark pulls Lex from a submerged car. Later, Lex frees Clark from a cornfield, returning the kindness at a moment when the future Superman can barely move. Their friendship has something real behind it before either has much reason to trust the other.

Clark and Lex are the reason I’d return to season 1, episode 1. The pilot first aired on October 16, 2001. David Nutter directed the episode from a script by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum make the friendship easy to root for, even when you know how badly things will end.

The Bridge Accident Gives Lex A Second Chance

The Porsche hitting Clark is a wonderfully direct way to introduce the problem of having Superman’s powers before you understand your place in the world. Clark survives something that should kill him, then has to explain himself to the man whose life he has just saved.

Lex remembers enough to suspect that the explanation has holes. From Clark’s side, admitting what happened would expose a secret he barely understands himself. For now, Clark lets Lex question his own memory of the crash.

Lex keeps coming back to what Clark did for him. Lex has nearly died and someone has brought him back. When he later describes the accident as a chance to begin again, the idea feels credible. Clark has done something for him that carries far more weight than an introduction at one of Lionel’s business functions.

Knowing who Lex will become gives that hope an uncomfortable sincerity. For a little while, you want him to make something decent of the opportunity.

Clark And Lex Both Want To Be Seen Differently

Clark spends much of the pilot wishing that his abilities would stop interfering with ordinary teenage life. Playing football matters to him. So does speaking to Lana without ending up on the ground. His strength gives him very little help with feeling accepted.

Lex arrives with a different burden. His surname has already introduced him to everyone in town, and plenty of people have formed their opinion before he opens his mouth. Money makes him conspicuous while doing very little to make him welcome.

Their circumstances give them a reason to take an interest in each other. Clark can meet Lex as the man he rescued, with the possibility of judging him for himself. Lex takes Clark seriously at a time when Clark feels restricted by almost everyone around him.

The age difference still makes Lex’s eagerness conspicuous. Lex is an adult with money to spare, and Clark is still a freshman asking permission to play football. Lex seems lonely enough to overlook how odd that friendship might look. Even his enormous house sounds miserable when he describes living in it.

Jonathan’s Distrust Complicates The Gift

The truck Lex sends Clark is where the friendship becomes a family argument. Clark sees an extraordinary thank-you present. Jonathan sees Luthor money arriving on his property, accompanied by memories of people who trusted Lionel and suffered for it.

John Schneider’s Jonathan has a concrete reason to be wary. He knows how generosity can prepare the way for a business arrangement that favors the person handing out gifts. A truck from that family deserves some scrutiny.

Clark’s objection matters just as much. Holding Lex responsible for his father’s conduct would make it very difficult for him to become anyone else. Clark wants to leave that possibility open, which feels entirely right for the boy who will become Superman.

Lex, meanwhile, has chosen an expensive object to express something personal. The gift can be sincere and still reveal how readily he reaches for money. Returning it forces both of them to work out what their connection means without the truck doing the talking.

The Cornfield Rescue Makes The Friendship Convincing

The pilot earns Lex’s place in Clark’s life when he finds him tied up after Whitney’s hazing. Lana’s meteor-rock necklace has left Clark helpless. His extraordinary body offers no protection from the cruelty of the boys who put him there.

Lex gets him down. The simplicity of that response is what I like about the scene. He recognizes someone in trouble and helps, giving Clark the same consideration Clark offered him at the river.

There is an ugly memory underneath the cornfield rescue. As a child, Lex encountered Jeremy Creek tied up in a field shortly before the meteor shower struck. The episode returns him to a familiar kind of suffering and lets him act.

Clark can go on to stop Jeremy only after Lex has freed him. That gives Lex a meaningful part in the ending, beyond being the wealthy new acquaintance with an interest in Clark’s survival. The future Superman has needed his help.

Clark’s Secret Already Limits Their Trust

Revisiting the pilot also means noticing how quickly Clark has to conceal something from a person he likes. Lex’s questions about the accident are reasonable. Anyone who remembered driving straight into another person would want to understand how that person walked away.

For Clark, the explanation would reach into his parents’ lives and the discovery of where he came from. Keeping quiet makes sense. It also means Lex’s first experience of Clark includes an account of the accident that conflicts with his own memory.

That is enough tension for a pilot. Lex’s gratitude leaves room for uncomfortable questions, and Clark has good reason to keep avoiding them. The episode leaves them with a friendship worth pursuing and a very specific subject they cannot comfortably discuss.

Knowing where they end up, I’m glad the pilot gives them this much time to like each other.

The Friendship Deserves To Feel Genuine

In their 25th anniversary interview with the Television Academy, Welling and Rosenbaum returned to the appeal of meeting Clark and Lex while their identities were still taking shape. Rosenbaum also discussed the contrast between the Kent household and Lex’s relationship with Lionel, played by John Glover.

The pilot gives that contrast an immediate consequence. Clark has a father whose protection can feel suffocating, while Lex struggles to imagine a future outside his father’s influence. They each offer the other a little room to become someone different.

I find that possibility more interesting than treating every friendly gesture as a warning about the villain Lex will become. His later choices remain his responsibility. The friendship hurts more if he once cared about Clark, and the pilot gives us ample reason to believe that he did.

By the end of their first episode, each has seen the other helpless and chosen to help. Twenty-five years later, that is still a persuasive beginning.