Alicia Baker
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Alicia Baker was a fictional character on the WB Network TV series Smallville. She was played by Canadian actress Sarah Carter. She has been at different times both a lover and an enemy to Clark Kent, and their relationship is one of the darker points in the series.
Clark Kent (Tom Welling) first meets Alicia Baker by sheer chance when they are visiting LuthorCorp Towers in Metropolis with a student tour group. A freak accident occurs when the cable holding the elevator with Clark and Alicia in it breaks and Clark has no choice but to smash his arm through the wall to stop it from falling (Obsession). This demonstrates his powers to the girl he has just saved, but Alicia naturally assumes he is another meteor freak (as she is secretly one herself). In thanks for saving her life, Alicia uses a teleportation ability to transport herself and Clark away from the wreckage, avoiding suspicion. Alicia is drawn to Clark not only because he had rescued her but because he had been willing to reveal his secret to her and no one else. She swears to protect the secret of his powers, an oath she will later break.
Clark is relieved just to have someone to confide in, but Alicia is interested in Clark on a more intimate level. Still recovering from his emotional break-up with Lana Lang, Clark decides to take a chance on a new relationship with Alicia, although he isn't sure yet how he feels about her. Clark does not realize the gravity of what he has just confided to Alicia. Immediately following their first date, Alicia teleports into Clark's room while he is sleeping and tries to seduce him. Things might have turned serious had Jonathan Kent not entered the room. Clark sees Alicia teleport out and assumes she's gone home. During the tense father and son 'conversation' that follows, Clark argues that he has finally found someone he doesn't have to lie to or endanger. Unbenownst to them, Alicia is downstairs listening undetected and overhears them mention Clark's weakness to "meteor rocks"(kryptonite).
Things take a bizarre turn when Alicia starts covering the inside of Clark's locker with pictures of herself. It is not until Clark visits Alicia's parents that it becomes clear she is mentally unstable. Mr. and Mrs. Baker live in mortal fear of their daughter, whom they had kept locked in a lead-lined room (lead being the one substance she cannot teleport through) before Alicia grew beyond their control. As punishment for warning Clark about her, Alicia teleports her father up a flight of stairs and lets him fall, nearly killing him (this occurs off-camera and is implied).
Alicia's obsession with Clark is apparent when he returns home to find a framed picture of Alicia in his loft and Lana Lang's photo scratched out of his yearbook. Alicia startles him by suddenly appearing out of nowhere. She is convinced that she and Clark are soul mates. When he rebuffs her, Alicia determines Clark will never be hers as long as he is still obsessed with Lana Lang. She plots to remove her from the picture. Clark realizes Alicia's mind is unraveling when he sees what she did to her father. Alicia implies she will turn over Clark's secret and even harm his loved ones if he dares turn her in. When reasoning with the increasingly unstable girl doesn't work, Clark lures her into following him into a room covered in lead paint. Alicia responds by taking out a piece of kryptonite, paralyzing Clark and leisurely walking back out.
Now convinced Lana is to blame, Alicia goes to the Talon coffee shop and chases after Clark's ex-girlfriend with a large knife. Still trapped in the lead-lined room, Clark struggles to kick over a paint can, covering the kryptonite with lead paint and negating its harmfulness. He then speeds to the Talon, just as Alicia raises her knife over the fallen Lana. Clark throws an unused paint can at Alicia, using his heat vision to tear it open while it is midair and splattering her with it. Alicia kneels down crying, dripping with red paint in a ghastly manner while trying to teleport away, but the lead now covering her body prevents it. She is taken to Belle Reve Sanitariium for psychotherapy.
[edit] "Cured"
A year later, Alicia is released back into society by her doctors, led by Dr. McBride, who claims she is completely cured (Unsafe). Alicia is set free on the condition that she wear a bracelet that releases minute amounts of lead into her bloodstream so she will not be able to teleport. Her first stop is the Kent farm.
Clark is not happy to see her and is skeptical when she claims she is no longer a threat. Despite his misgivings, when Clark hears about her bracelet and how she kept his secret hidden for almost a year, he can't help but believe Alicia is genuine. A naive Clark agrees to go ice skating with her, taking a chance on her honesty. While she is delighted to be forgiven, Alicia is unsettled when she sees the figure of the man responsible for her rehabilitation, Dr. McBride, at the ice rink. Everywhere Alicia goes, she lives in fear of him; McBride is growing jealous and possessive toward her and keeps tracing her movements via her lead bracelet. Eager to get away from him, she asks Clark to come away with her, an offer Clark refuses because he believes there has to be a better choice than running away. Unconvinced, Alicia breaks into the high school's Torch office to find some Smallville High commemorative rings, which are imbedded with highly dangerous red kryptonite stones.
She returns to Clark's loft to try and seduce him to leave with her. When Clark turns her down a second time, Alicia places a necklace made up of over a dozen pieces of red kryptonite around his neck, as a "memento". Clark loses all inhibition, making out with Alicia in the loft before asking her to marry him. Under the red kryptonite's powerful trance, Clark gets caught up in the moment and breaks off her lead bracelet. He and Alicia speed off to Las Vegas. Once they are married, Clark takes Alicia to the honeymoon suite. She wants to believe this is the 'real' Clark and is happier than she has ever been. Right before things get too out of hand, Alicia feels guilt for trying to sleep with Clark while he is under influence and wants their first time to be "right". While they are kissing on the bed, she reaches behind Clark's neck and undos the kryptonite necklace. Clark instantly panics, and the couple explode into an argument.
Although Alicia knew he was bulletproof, she teleported in front of him when Dr. McBride shot a bullet at him. She tells him that she did it to protect his secret. Clark says too much has happened for them to keep seeing each other and leaves.
Once healed, Alicia visits Clark one last time on the farm to express regret at what happened. She tells him she will always love him. As she is walking away, Clark calls to her to wait. Alicia buries her head in Clark's arms and cries.
[edit] "Pariah"
Alicia and Clark walk into the Talon coffee house during "karaoke night" as a couple in the episode Pariah. Alicia's presence immediately incites outrage, particularly among Alicia's intended murder victim Lana Lang and her then-boyfriend, Jason Teague. Alicia and Lana's distorted past comes out into the open. When Lana is showering later that night, she is attacked and almost suffocated with her own shower curtain by an assailant who could apparently bypass her lock. Suspicion immediately falls on Alicia. She becomes the number one suspect of the Smallville police, and everyone in town assumes she is guilty since no one else has motive. When Clark comes to see Lana in the hospital, Jason turns him away at the door.
Clark's unshakable faith in Alicia starts to waver when everyone he knows, including his parents, Martha and Jonathan, Lois, Chloe, Lana, and Jason, all show their mutual disgust for Clark's bringing Alicia back into town. The situation worsens when Jason is nearly strangled when he gets into his his car by a perpetrator using Alicia's scarf. Although this solidifies Alicia's guilt in the minds of everybody else, Clark promises he won't abandon Alicia, as long as she promises not to run. Alicia tries to convince Clark that the only way they can truly be free and be together is if he exposes his secret. Clark is too hesitant to try. Alicia is hurt by his refusal and teleports out of his grasp again.
Sheriff Adams later confides to Clark that at the time of the attempted murder, Alicia was beng interrogated across town. She is not the attacker.
Fed up with the predjudice leveled against her for being a mutant, Alicia devises an elaborate plan to 'out' Clark. That night, she pays a visit to one of her critics, Chloe Sullivan, at her office at the Torch. She cryptically tells Chloe that she doesn't even realize one of her best friends is a freak. Alicia teleports herself and Chloe into her car and drives off to arrange a "demonstration". Alicia calls Clark on her cellphone and tells him the brakes on her car have gone out, then puts her sedan in automatic drive and speeds it off of a ramp by the highway. When the car launches into the air, Alicia and Chloe have already teleported to a safe distance. From this vantage, Chloe observes Clark appearing out of nowhere at hyper-speed, catching the car and lowering it carefully to the ground, thus giving away his superhuman strength and speed. Not seeing anyone in the car, Clark speeds off to find where Alicia went, leaving Chloe astounded and now a party to his secret. Chloe assumes, as Alicia had, that Clark gained his abilities from the abundant meteors in town.
Shortly thereafter, Alicia hides in Granville to avoid the police, against Clark's earlier request. She discovers Tim Westcott, a Smallville Museum curator and boy about her age, about to plant another one of her belongings at a crime scene. He is eerily calm and makes no effort to conceal what he is doing. When Alicia makes the mistake of confronting him, Westcott knocks her out with chloroform and hangs her by her neck in the nearby barn, staging it to look like suicide. Westcott had gotten inside the Talon apartment and Jason's car undetected because he had 'sandman' abilities, allowing him to seep though doors. Apparently a self-loathing mutant, he is bent on restoring Smallville to its pre-meteor shower existence. He detested Lana and Jason's relationship and tried to kill them, then plant evidence at the scene that pointed to Alicia.
Clark speeds off to Granville when he learns where Alicia was headed, but too late; Alicia is found dangling from a rope in the barn, dead. Clark unties her and holds her limp body in his arms, screaming with rage. Lois is right behind him, and tells him her suspicions about who the real killer is (she had met Tim at the museum earlier and felt his behavior and manifesto chilling). Clark super-speeds ahead of Lois to find Westcott, who attacks him and gloats that even Clark thought Alicia was guilty. The two super-powers duel in the museum, with Westcott turning into a blur of sand and choking Clark. Clark uses his his heat vision to subdue the sandman, badly burning him and forcing him to reshape back into solid form. Clark is so overwhelmed with anger at Westcott for snatching away Alicia's last chance at redemption that he looks like he is actually about to choke him to death before Lois catches up to him and begs him to stop. Presumably the police arrive and Tim is arrested, leaving a shattered Clark with Lois.
Clark is found alone the next morning in his loft, distraught and grieving the loss of Alicia. Not even his parents can comfort him. At the end of the episode, Chloe, who has begun to understand the burden Clark must bear every day, visits him at Alicia Baker's grave and gives him some measure of peace. She does not reveal to him what she knows. Clark comes to the conclusion that it was his fault she died because he was afraid to go to the Sheriff and divulge his superpowers. He feels his fear of being discovered indirectly led to Alicia's murder. Clark may never completely forgive himself for her death.
| Episodes: Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 4 • Season 5 • Season 6 |
| Characters |
| Clark Kent • Lana Lang • Lex Luthor • Chloe Sullivan |
| Lionel Luthor • Lois Lane • Jimmy Olsen • Martha Kent • Oliver Queen • Jonathan Kent |
| Pete Ross • Jason Teague • Whitney Fordman |
| Guest characters |
| Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 4 • Season 5 • Season 6 |
| Related information |
| Smallville DVD releases • Media information • Kryptonite • Kryptonian Crystals |
