Ep 2.05 - Nocturne

[Dagenspear]

Belle Reeve in that universe does seem to have the equipment and the staff needed to take care of meteor mutants though, so I'm sure they would had been able to handle Bryon's strength. Otherwise the meteor mutants would had kept on escaping from Belle Reeve on a regular basis. They seem to be awfully competent for an institution, don't you think?

I don't. Their guards are easily paid off. They allow the homocidal patients that can split in two and been have shown to have super strength free reign in the place and become people who deliver books and they allow those who hate them and hunt them to hang out in the same area with them. On two separate occasions in the same episode there were near breakouts, one from a normal human and another from a person who splits in two and that same person killed someone without getting caught and with no repercussions. And this was all after the meteor infected became more known. I don't see how Byron would be containable there.

God bless you! God bless everyone in your life!

[Aurora Moon]

Still, the low rate of break-outs is very impressive compared to places like Arkham Asylum which has a breakout almost every other day. And realistically, if supers existed in our world those institutions would be nothing but a smoking crater in the ground the minute they tried to restrain a super-powered person.
So when you think of it that way, Belle Reeve is amazingly competent despite the few corrupt guards that work there.

[Dagenspear]

Still, the low rate of break-outs is very impressive compared to places like Arkham Asylum which has a breakout almost every other day. And realistically, if supers existed in our world those institutions would be nothing but a smoking crater in the ground the minute they tried to restrain a super-powered person.
So when you think of it that way, Belle Reeve is amazingly competent despite the few corrupt guards that work there.

That doesn't change that it wouldn't be compatible for Byron. And the only reason it isn't a smoking crater is because the really powerful ones are depowered, in comas, good guys or dead.

God bless you! God bless everyone in your life!

[jon-el87]

Decided to have a quick look at this episode... and, indeed, it is disturbing. Already in the teaser, we've got Byron's father declare that he'll shoot Byron with real bullets, if he escaped again. We later learn that Byron took part in a medical experiment, with kids who displayed anti-social behavior (for the record, you don't hand out a diagnosis about that, for someone under 18), because his parents wanted him to be normal (in other words, they thought their kid was defective and wanted to "fix it"). And, instead of simply keeping the boy out of sunlight (let him have a regular room and just cover the window. Let him go outside and be with you, when it's dark), they faked the kid's death and kept him locked in a basement for the next eight years.

[Aurora Moon]

Yes! thank you... I was getting annoyed by how some other posters here didn't seem to see the problem here. >_<
Plus, the faking somebody's death is also highly illegal in itself too... alongside with locking up people in basements.

@Dragnspear-- you don't really give a real good reason for why it wouldn't be "compatible" for Bryon... as if being locked up in a basement for 8 years while everyone on the outside thinks you're dead is good for his mental health. *rolls eyes*

[Dagenspear]

Decided to have a quick look at this episode... and, indeed, it is disturbing. Already in the teaser, we've got Byron's father declare that he'll shoot Byron with real bullets, if he escaped again. We later learn that Byron took part in a medical experiment, with kids who displayed anti-social behavior (for the record, you don't hand out a diagnosis about that, for someone under 18), because his parents wanted him to be normal (in other words, they thought their kid was defective and wanted to "fix it"). And, instead of simply keeping the boy out of sunlight (let him have a regular room and just cover the window. Let him go outside and be with you, when it's dark), they faked the kid's death and kept him locked in a basement for the next eight years.

There's no guarantee that giving him a room would keep from sunlight and that's especially dangerous considering what he does while transformed and what his powers are capable of. The father threatened Byron with real bullets because he'd been hurt by him last time. Most parents want to fix their child if they display anti social behavior for fear of their child not making it in society or being ostracized in some way.

Yes! thank you... I was getting annoyed by how some other posters here didn't seem to see the problem here. >_<
Plus, the faking somebody's death is also highly illegal in itself too... alongside with locking up people in basements.

@Dragnspear-- you don't really give a real good reason for why it wouldn't be "compatible" for Bryon... as if being locked up in a basement for 8 years while everyone on the outside thinks you're dead is good for his mental health. *rolls eyes*

It wasn't for his mental health. It was for his safety and for the safety of others. But you haven't given a reason why it's compatible, and I've given several reasons. The patient care isn't adequate, especially for Byron's abilities. There's a significant lack of security for even the most dangerous meteor infected and they allow antagonistic individuals free roam, not to mention their loose with morals guards and doctors.

It's not about there not being a problem. It's about if the problem was the only way to deal with the issue and based on the facts the conclusion is that it was. Faking an adoption and hiding an alien spacecraft is likely highly illegal too, along with many other things the Kents did for the safety of Clark and others. And many other things Clark did himself.

God bless you both! God bless everyone in your lives!

[Shelby Kent]

I think everybody makes lots of good points in this discussion -- we get viewpoints from multiple perspectives, which I find very enjoyable reading!

It's been awhile since I've watched, so I may be a bit off in my details here. But what about when Byron's mother tearfully revealed the full story behind everything that at first, on the surface, without knowing the backstory had appeared to be outright child abuse. Did that change anything for you? Give you a more sympathetic perspective as to what the parents' were going through? What I mean is, did anyone get the sense that here was a mother (and father) who loved their son, who tried to do the best they could for him, and who just felt (and really were) overwhelmed due to lack of resources; also who, at some level, seemed to feel ashamed, which in turn made it harder for them to feel like they could reach out to others for help and understanding (and not be judged as bad parents)? Does anyone think that maybe the parents were doing the best they could, given the circumstances? That they were not so much cruel, as perhaps ignorant and feeling hopeless, and also fearful of what might happen to their son if they went to outside authorities (an echo of the Kents' fears, in a way, of taking young Clark to a specialist when he began to display "powers"). And they were also afraid of what their son might do to other people if the situation were not properly managed... I'm not trying to say that they came up with an ideal or best solution, but rather their motives were not evil; they were not uncaring.

Also, enjoyed the comments about Belle Reeve. Made me laugh. Never really thought about it before but, to me, it seems you are both right: on the one hand they did seem to be fairly competent at containing some of the meteor-infected and even had special devices for them (I'm thinking right now of Tommy Lee and those special handcuffs, S5 episode Mortal) but on the other hand, people like Ian Randall, as pointed out, really had no trouble roaming around and splitting into two when he wished etc. I also agree, they had a fair amount of corruption there! Belle Reeve was kind of a mixed bag of competence and incompetence (obviously this was b/c their level of competency/security depended on whatever was need for each particular plot of each episode! but the resulting inconsistency is funny!)

[Aurora Moon]

the one flaw in this story is that it turns out that Bryon wouldn't be having those problems in the first place if the parents didn't see him as something to be "fixed" when he was just a normal kid (abliet one with a possible anti-social disorder). If his parents didn't see him as something to "fix", then he would had never gone under experimental testing with mystery chemicals being pumped into him.

It does make me wonder about all the other kids who went under experimental testing alongside Bryon.... did they end up like Bryon too or what??

Anyway, I happen to know a person who has anti-social tendencies, and you know what, he's never been a danger to others around him. The worst he ever got were to act like a Jerkass on occasion. He doesn't threaten to go out in a shooting spree, etc. So this kind of shows me that the dangers of anti-social disorder can get pretty overblown by the media and that there are varying degrees of anti-social behavior where it's not even a danger to others.

Plus, when I was a very young kid myself my teachers thought I was anti-social because I preferred reading books alone instead of interacting with other kids. Turns out that I'm just a introvert, and that at the time I didn't like how boys would pull my hair and stuff when playing recess with them.
I think that's exactly why Jon-el87 pointed out that it's kind of illegal to diagnose a young kid under 18 with anti-social disorder.... Because so many kids often express false anti-social behavior and then grow out of it to be perfectly normal adults.

They never really showed us how Bryon acted as a young kid exactly to make his parents so alarmed over the idea that he might be anti-social. So for all we know, Bryon could had been a very normal teenager with slight anti-social tendencies that was easily manageable had his parents decide not to send him to some shady place where they were pumping mystery chemicals into kids' bodies.

so the parents might had been well-meaning and only wanted the best for their son. But I have to say they were acting like *******s about it.
"Gasp, he might be expressing anti-social behavior that experts say that 50% of kids grow out of! Alright, time to sign him up for some shady experimental stuff that doesn't even guarantee that he will turn into the kind of kid I want him to be!"
--later--
"Gee, it backfired on us. How could we have foreseen this? Think of what the neighbors and town will say about us?? I can't bear the shame, so I guess the right thing is to fake our son's death and lock him up in a basement. You know, as opposed to actually doing research on getting him help. the kind of research that would had shown us that anti-social disorder wasn't anything to panic over in the first place..."

[moviefan2k4]

If I recall correctly, Byron's treatment at LuthorCorp was due to an illness, not any kind of "anti-social" behavior. The reaction to sunlight was due to Lionel's scientists using Kryptonite in their drug trials. I always got the impression that Byron was extremely sickly before the treatment, and while Lionel's experiment helped him survive, it also necessitated him being a recluse during the day.

[Aurora Moon]

No, they specifically state in the ep that all the children in the trial were being treated for antisocial behavior. So Bryon wasn't being treated for some random illness.

Edit:
The reasons why it's illegal or wrong to medically treat kids of antisocial behavior? Because many of the symptoms of anti-social behavior tends to match up with a lot of normal problems that kids without anti-social behavior have, making it too easy to misdiagnose them.

Symptoms:
"Antisocial personality disorder symptoms may begin in childhood and are fully evident for most people during their 20s and 30s. In children, cruelty to animals, bullying behavior, impulsivity or explosions of anger, social isolation, and poor school performance may be, in some cases, early signs of the disorder."

Cruelty to animals aside many of that sounds like normal children behavior doesn't it? after all, kids are just naturally cruel and that often leads to bullying behavior.
"Haha, you're fat!" "ahaha, your freckles look like dirt. you're dirty!" etc.
And god knows how many impulsive kids we've met in our lives?
And how many kids have random temper tantrums?
And I've pointed out how my teachers thought I was anti-social when in reality I was just a introvert who liked to be by herself reading books.
And the poor school performance could be caused by other factors than anti-social behavior....

Again, doesn't this sound like it would be so easy to misdiagnose hundreds of kids of this thing?

There's not a surefire way to know if your underage kid is truly anti-social unless he's been deliberately torturing and killing animals... and well, they never show Bryon doing any of that in the ep.

The more I think about it, the less sympathetic I am to Bryon's parents. It's sounding more and more like they had no idea what a normal kid was supposed to be like, and had unrealistic expectations of what a son was supposed to be like.

[Dagenspear]

I think everybody makes lots of good points in this discussion -- we get viewpoints from multiple perspectives, which I find very enjoyable reading!

It's been awhile since I've watched, so I may be a bit off in my details here. But what about when Byron's mother tearfully revealed the full story behind everything that at first, on the surface, without knowing the backstory had appeared to be outright child abuse. Did that change anything for you? Give you a more sympathetic perspective as to what the parents' were going through? What I mean is, did anyone get the sense that here was a mother (and father) who loved their son, who tried to do the best they could for him, and who just felt (and really were) overwhelmed due to lack of resources; also who, at some level, seemed to feel ashamed, which in turn made it harder for them to feel like they could reach out to others for help and understanding (and not be judged as bad parents)? Does anyone think that maybe the parents were doing the best they could, given the circumstances? That they were not so much cruel, as perhaps ignorant and feeling hopeless, and also fearful of what might happen to their son if they went to outside authorities (an echo of the Kents' fears, in a way, of taking young Clark to a specialist when he began to display "powers"). And they were also afraid of what their son might do to other people if the situation were not properly managed... I'm not trying to say that they came up with an ideal or best solution, but rather their motives were not evil; they were not uncaring.

Also, enjoyed the comments about Belle Reeve. Made me laugh. Never really thought about it before but, to me, it seems you are both right: on the one hand they did seem to be fairly competent at containing some of the meteor-infected and even had special devices for them (I'm thinking right now of Tommy Lee and those special handcuffs, S5 episode Mortal) but on the other hand, people like Ian Randall, as pointed out, really had no trouble roaming around and splitting into two when he wished etc. I also agree, they had a fair amount of corruption there! Belle Reeve was kind of a mixed bag of competence and incompetence (obviously this was b/c their level of competency/security depended on whatever was need for each particular plot of each episode! but the resulting inconsistency is funny!)

Well to be fair mortal was in season 5 after Lex took more of an interest in the meteor infected. You could say, although I don't think it's confirmed, that Lex paid for the new better facilities they had then.

God bless you! God bless everyone in your life!

[Shelby Kent]

Well to be fair mortal was in season 5 after Lex took more of an interest in the meteor infected. You could say, although I don't think it's confirmed, that Lex paid for the new better facilities they had then.

God bless you! God bless everyone in your life!

Good point. The Luthors' interest in the meteor-infected did mean they took more interest in the Belle Reeve residents. Though I think that often resulted in them removing the residents to their own labs. But it makes sense that they (Luthors) would have been willing to invest, as benefactors, in better security for Belle Reeve and perhaps there would have been more recognition at Belle Reeve that a certain portion of the residents did not meet your "typical" DSM categories, but rather had unusual "abilities." I don't remember if we, the audience, ever got any kind of confirmation that the Belle Reeve scientists and doctors explicitly knew that they were often dealing with unusual manifestations b/c of meteor-infections, or if it was just up to us to assume and infer that they -- like the Kents, Lex, Chloe and various other individuals -- understood that people had been adversely affected by the meteor rocks?

[Shelby Kent]

They never really showed us how Bryon acted as a young kid exactly to make his parents so alarmed over the idea that he might be anti-social. So for all we know, Bryon could had been a very normal teenager with slight anti-social tendencies that was easily manageable had his parents decide not to send him to some shady place where they were pumping mystery chemicals into kids' bodies.

I agree that, without the writers giving us a flashback or a bit further detail, the audience has wide latitude to fill in the details and so I can certainly see where you are coming from. We each bring our own perspectives, experiences, education and expertise to how we view the situation. I had not thought about how the story might appear from the viewpoint you put forth, and, though that is not how I see the story, I can certainly see how a portion of viewers would see the story from your perspective. When I first saw the ep, I imagined (not consciously, but just automatically) that Byron must have had a type of autism, on the autism spectrum that manifested as a tendency to self-injure and also to lash out at others. Something that would make him uncontrollable, especially as he got older. I'm not saying this is typical of autism, but there are cases like that. That's just part of the backstory I automatically filled in b/c, to me, the mother seemed convincing when she told the story of trying to help Byron. But again, I know others would see this differently. And that's where -- if writers want to be absolutely certain of something -- they need to include a scene that does not leave room for interpretation. Since there were elements of this story that make the parents unsympathetic at the beginning (before we know more details; and for some people even after we know more details) then, if the writers intent had been for there to be no doubt that there should be some sympathy for the parents' part in the situation, they should have provided a bit more detail, as you point out.

after all, kids are just naturally cruel and that often leads to bullying behavior.

Interesting viewpoint, but not one I share

[Aurora Moon]

I like to call it "Cruel Innocence"... since how kids of a certain age can say plenty of cruel stuff without even thinking about how their words would harm others, etc. And they often tend to single out those who are different, because anything different tends to catch their eye very easily than those who fits in. So while their intentions might had not been to bully, they were still naturally cruel because they didn't have social filters in place to know fully why saying such things could be considered impolite or very hurtful. And kids also love fitting into social groups, so if they see other kids making fun of somebody they're more likely to want to fit in.... so they'll join in on the bullying without thinking about why it might be wrong.

Teenagers have most of those social filters in place, but there's still that part of them who wants to fit in with social groups... so thoughtlessly they'll still join in on group bullying of others.

[jon-el87]

Important development for Martha. She gets a job as Lionel's personal assistant (starting her path towards becoming a United States Senator). I like that they included lines, that establish that Martha has an education and have worked previously (even if they don't go into it). It demonstrates that O'Toole's Martha is a more modern character. Previous live-action Marthas came from earlier generations, where the norm for women was simply get a husband and be a housewife. I don't think they ever establish Martha's age, but having met Jonathan in college, she's probably around the same age as him. Graduating high school in the late 70's/early 80's. By which point, when getting a higher education and a job were becoming more usual. Not to mention, by the early 2000's, we're past the farmer's wife, who does nothing but stand around baking cookies. Even K Callan's Martha on L&C was shown to engage in other activities beyond farm work (not remembering if they established that she was taking classes or something).

"Nocturne" was the first episode penned by Kelly Sounders and Brian Peterson. It tells about Byron Moore, a young man who is kept in his parents basement. Rewatching it, I think it should've been a two-parter. A lot is left unexplained. Byron is having a crush on Lana, but how could he be familiar with Lana, if he's been locked in a basement for eight years? The whole thing is really just a motivator for him to become involved with Clark and friends, but one they needed to explain. Byron's also said to have gotten into his current condition, because of medical experiments on kids who demonstrated anti-social behavior, but that's never explained in any detail. Looking at Wikipedia "anti-social behavior" can mean a lot of things. It can be an inability to conform to social norms or an inability to make friends. Mrs. Moore says that they just wanted their son to be normal. As young Byron's "anti-social behavior" isn't fleshed out, you're left wondering what exactly the problem was. When Byron gets out into the sun, he becomes violent and aggressive. Was that how Byron behaved? As they don't flesh out how Byron behaved, before the treatment, we can't be sure that his behavior isn't a side effect to built-up rage of having been locked up for eight years. His father is portrayed as a big hunter and this being a small town (and Byron's behavior, when he isn't in the sunlight), it wouldn't surprise me if they signed up Byron for the treatment, because he "wasn't manly enough" for his dad. That young Byron was a sensitive child (possibly gay or bisexual, which I'll get into in a moment) and his parents decided to try and "cure" him. Make him a "real boy".

As I noted above, this episode was co-written by Brian Peterson. Peterson got his start writing the film But I'm a Cheerleader, about a girl who is sent to one of those "conversion therapy" places. Factoring in that (and the fact that Byron recites sonnet 17, which is about the beauty of a young man, while he's with Clark and Lana; along with a few other details), I can't help but feel like this work is supposed to be in the same vein, only they left out the reveal about Byron's sexuality (either because it was 2002 or because he'd go psycho and Clark would have to stop him. Meaning they'd be having a gay/bisexual kid (possible the first acknowledged such in this genre) go evil and have to be stopped by a straight kid). Byron's parents feared that he was gay, so they arranged for him to get this treatment, in an attempt to "cure" him. It could also explain how Byron got to know about Lana and tried to win her affection. His parents may have used a photo of her, as part of another attempt of "converstion therapy". Or he saw her picture in a newspaper and, having been locked up for eight years (since he was a little kid), became convinced that if he could get this girl to love him, then everything would be okay. No longer would his parents keep him locked up, because he'd won the love of a girl.

According to Wikipedia, the idea of this episode was to have Clark think that he was doing the right thing, when he actually caused the problem. Then why include medical experiments on a little kid (if it isn't what I've talked about above)? Kryptonite was well-established as having caused random mutations in people. Byron could've easily been exposed to meteor rocks, by accident, while playing one day and his mutation forces his parents to keep him indoors. That would've allowed for a scenario, where Clark takes the kid out into the sun and causes the problems. Instead, we're shown Byron having been abused (being locked in a basement for eight years, with limited human contact and his father threatening to shoot him, if he runs away again) and subjected to questionable medical experiments (more abuse), something that is never dealt with in the end (were Byron's parents arrested for what they had done?). Hence the need to either make it a two-parter or have a follow-up episode (like with Ryan James, Sasha Woodman and Greg Arkin).