Lionel reveals to Lex he knows that Lex has been bugging him and working with the Feds, and refuses to tell his son about his illness. Lionel is working with FBI Agent Loder, who's burying Lex's info and investigating Clark and Pete. Clark is left feeling abandoned when Lana doesn't show up and he goes to the Talon and meets Emily, who lays a fake story of Lana's departure on him. Clark compares notes with Lex and figures out Emily is lying. He confronts her and she flees, while Lionel goes to Chloe for help tracking down Emily. Lana tries to make a break for it, antagonizing Emily who gasses her with chlorine, and Clark figures out where they're hiding out in the nick of time. In the resulting super-speed struggle Clark knocks a water tank over on her, knocking her out. She gets sent to Belle Reve but disappears.

That night, Loder picks up Pete while Chloe and Lex compare notes on Lionel. Chloe reveals the connection between Morgan Edge and Lionel, and Chloe turns over the recovered voice mail (from "Truth"). Loder beats Pete for information on Clark but Lex catches up to him and gives Loder the voice mail transcript to put him back on Lionel's case. Pete warns Clark about both Loder and Lex, then leaves for Wichita with his mother rather then risk betraying Clark. Clark decides not to tell her his secret, seeing what it's done to Pete. And the FBI and Lex show up to have Lionel arrested for the murder of his parents Lachlan and Eliza.
[back to top]

The shortest point between two lines are the episodes at the end of a season. So it is on this episode, in which meandering plot lines are quickly brought to the fore (or rushed through and discarded like empty Mountain Dew cans). First: Clark decides to tell Lana his secret, mostly because she's finally leaving for Paris and Lex has given her a first-class seat. Because flying to Paris in Coach sucks. Believe me. Lana has her own crap to deal with, because Little Clone Emily (now the grown-up Alanis Morissette Emily) has returned and now she can walk through walls and stick her hand in people's chests to kill them. It's all very Mortal Kombat. AME kidnaps Lana and keeps her in Hannibal Lecter's glass cell, but Clark rescues Lana before she's gassed to death, and defeats Alanis with a water tower. Seriously. Meanwhile, Pete -- in a very brief subplot befitting his time on the show -- is roughed up by the FBI's Seedy Chris Isaak, who tries to pump him for information on Clark. Pete doesn't give up Clark's secret, but decides he's had enough of this sh*t and is going to move with his mother to Wichita. So, goodbye Pete. Maybe he'll move in next door to Luke and Anna from The O.C. on the Island of Moved-Away Supporting Characters. And in the coup de grâce (can you tell I just went to France?), Lex's wire is exposed with a shirt-ripping from Papa Luthor, but Lex still manages to get the feds riled up with enough evidence to put Papa away. In the final scene, they take the Magnificent Bastard away to the pokey. Where, presumably, he'll be treated to an entirely different kind of pokey.
By: Omar L. Gallaga (TWoP)

Clark decides to tell Lana his secret so they can finally be together. Meanwhile, an errant FBI agent kidnaps and tortures Pete to try and force him to reveal Clark's secret. Also, Lex panics after the FBI gives him 24 hours to turn over information on his father or face jail time, but help arrives from an unexpected source. Allison Mack, Annette O'Toole and John Schneider also star.

Pete (to Clark): The whole yo-yo thing with you and Lana has got to stop.

Martha (to Clark): I trust you to make your own decision.

Emily: I'm sorry Lana.

Lana: You can't force someone to be your friend... a friend would never keep me locked up in here.
Emily: Get used to it. I did.

Lex (to Lionel): That's not the face of someone who's scored another government contract.

Lex: What's so important?
Lionel: If you had given me any reason to trust you, you wouldn't have had to ask that question.

Lex (to Clark): My father has mastered the art of covering his tracks.

Chloe: Just when you thought it was safe to go into the hallways.
Lionel: You can cut the sarcasm.

Chloe (to Clark): Then the question is what would you do to keep someone from leaving.

Chloe (to Lex): You got Morgan Edge's confession on tape, but daddy dearest erased it.

Chloe (to Lex): Besides, I know you won't let anything happen to me.

Loder (to Lex): You know, I really don't want a morality lesson from someone who'd rat out his own father.

Loder (to Lex): You're making a mistake Lex. This kid is hittin' on something bigger than you and even your dad.

Pete: That guy was going to kill me. I suppose I owe you a thanks.
Lex: When the time comes, I'm sure you'll do the same for me.

Pete: Clark, you've gotta keep an eye on him. Watch out for yourself... There's a lot of things I could handle, but I could never live with myself if I betrayed you.

Clark: I just wanted to tell you... have a great time in Paris. I hope you find what you're looking for.
Lana: Godbye Clark.

Lionel (to Lex): Forgive them for they know not what they do... I always tried to teach you, Lex - the devil's in the details. If you don't watch the details, he wins... Don't forget - Judus hung himself with his own rope.

The clone of Lana Lang's childhood best friend, Emily Dinsmore (from "Accelerate"), who's been living at Luthorcorp, finds out Lana's leaving for Paris and vibrates through a wall Flash-style to make her stay...and I do mean MAKE her. She kills the new owner of the Talon, pretends to be his daughter (Emma—clever, eh?), then kidnaps Lana (who doesn't recognize her because she's aged so quickly) and keeps her in a plastic cage at the Dinsmore farm. And nobody realizes Lana's actually missing, because Lex bought her an open-ended ticket to Paris and Emily tells Clark—who was going to tell Lana his BIG SECRET at dinner—she decided to leave early. Lionel comes looking for Emily, who would be proof of his cloning program, and shows a picture to Chloe, while Clark complains to Lex, who looks into it and finds out Lana never left. Clark puts two and two together and rushes out to the Dinsmore farm to save Lana from an angry Emily by knocking over a water tower with his heat vision.

Meanwhile, Lionel confronts Lex about his working for the FBI and also bribes the agent in charge, Loder, to get him to drop the charges as well as look into Clark's secret. So, while Lex re-discovers Lionel's secret (that he had his parents murdered) from Chloe, Loder kidnaps Pete, beats him up, and threatens to throw him into a river. But Lex finds out and shows up to save Pete, give Loder the goods on Lionel (a transcript of Lionel's recorded confession that Chloe recovered), and have Loder and his men arrest Lionel for murder at the end.

Also, Emily disappears from Belle Reve Sanatorium (and Lionel's comment seems to indicate it wasn't an escape), and Clark decides not to tell Lana his secret once again because Pete has decided to move to Wichita with his mom after nearly being killed over Clark's secret.

The good things about this episode include the use, once again, of a different structure from the norm, with Clark's confrontation with the Freak of the Week coming about two-thirds of the way through the episode rather than at the end, leaving more time for the aftermath and the real meat of the show: the relationships between the characters; the Luthor family opera (of course); following up on a character from earlier in the series; and Pete's scenes with Clark, especially the good-bye and Pete telling Clark that The whole yo-yo thing with you and Lana has got to stop, a sentiment shared by many SMALLVILLE fans.

But the bad was still there—choosing Emily (not one of my favorites) to follow up on; the fact that Pete is leaving; and the pacing of this episode just felt slow for some reason. Plus, despite the writers' obvious awareness of the problem, the Clark-Lana-yo-you thing DOES seem to continue. (more...)
By Christopher Valin