For those of you not familiar with the show, Smallville follows the adventures of Clark Kent as he goes from awkward high school teenager to mild mannered reporter. We not only learn about him, but all of the characters that surround his life, including such familiar names as Lex Luthor and Lana Lang. There is a large amount of debate on the way the show has constructed the Superman universe, but that discussion is boring and inconsequential to anybody except the biggest whiny ass fanboys. Smallville manages to take elements of the movie and the comic book, not only for the story, but the actors as well. So with that history lesson over, let's get back to the show.

Fans of Smallville were left with one of the best cliffhangers last year when Chloe Sullivan, enterprising Smallville High reporter, and her dad were killed in an explosion while supposedly in FBI custody. She was set to testify against Lex Luthor's dad, Lionel, in his murder trial. Perhaps they would have been safe if the US Marshals were on the job, since they are the ones in charge of witness protection, but I digress. Her death meant the trial against Lionel would be hard pressed for a conviction. More importantly to the viewer, it left an opening to introduce Lois Lane, who is Chloe's cousin, and determined to investigate the causes of her death. So what about Lois? She is played by Erica Durance who, by early returns, is quite the hottie (Smallville always has some of the best brunettes on TV), although it's too early to tell if she is going to challenge the uberhot Kristin Kreuk for lead vixen on the show. We can only hope she tries as hard as humanly possible.

The only thing Lois had about Chloe was a message she left Clark asking her to investigate her death. Therefore, Lois must go out in search of Clark and heads to the Kent farm. Clark's situation was also up in the air at the end of last season. In Smallville's universe, the people from Clark's home planet Krypton are not the benevolent people some of us might now from the movies. Clark's dad Jor-El, is determined for Clark to be a conqueror of earth, in stark contrast to Clark's human parents, Jon and Martha Kent, who want Clark to do good for mankind. Jor-El sort of abducted Clark at the end of last season, and left Jonathan Kent in a coma. Luckily for Lois, Clark decides to crash land to earth at the same time she is driving to look for him. Unfortunately, he doesn't remember who he is, so Lois has no idea who she stumbled upon except that he is naked and should probably go to the hospital. Once there, they run into Martha Kent, who hasn't seen her son in three months, and decides to take him home, despite his ramblings that they he is searching for a sign. There was also another shot of Clark's backside before the hospital folks handed him some scrubs. Fans of Tom Welling no doubt loved this episode as there was plenty of Clark's bare ass for all to see.

Speaking of bare asses we all love to see, Lana Lang, played by the aforementioned Kristin Kreuk, is enjoying her time in Paris studying art or some shit like that. She has a boyfriend, and they enjoy doing stupid things like riding from Paris to Nice in a vespa. The thought just makes me want to go to europe and run them over with an Expedition or something. Lana left Smallville because Clark never put out like she wanted him to, emotionally or otherwise. While studying in an old church, she extricates herself from her boyfriend Jason long enough to make an imprint of an etching of a female priestess of some sort. Lana notices some familiar markings on her impression, and when she touches it, a white light flashes and she passes out. When she wakes up the next day, she has a tattoo at the small of her back, but has no idea how it got there.

What caused this flash of light? Like many strange things happening in Smalliville, it appears to be the work of a Luthor, in this case Lex. Lex is in Egypt searching tombs of the Pharaohs for an artifact. He finds the one he wants, complete with markings similar to ones in the ancient cave that seems to hold so much information on Clark's past. There was also a cliffhanger involving Lex last season. When we left him, he had just succumb to poison somebody left in his brandy. He survived, but the toxin is apparently so potent that he must have his blood cleansed every 72 hours or face organ failure. As he is flying back from Egypt, he drops his artifact, which devastates him until he sees that it contained a precious clear stone inside. This stone was his until Clark broke into his plane and stole it from him.

Posted by J-Unit on September 23, 2004 12:00 AM