Lionel Luthor is riding in his limo when it stops on the train tracks. He wonders if his driver has gone crazy, but the driver runs out of the car and away from the scene. Moments later, and random guy with a strange mask appears on his screen (sound familiar?) and says he is going to play a little game. If Lionel wins the game, he lives. If he loses, well, I am sure that you can take a guess.

The first game is hangman, and the strange guy says that it is a lesson that he learned from Lionel. The lesson? NO MERCY. Lionel solves the riddle and escapes his limo just before a freight train comes crashing through.

Naturally, Lionel thinks that Lex is behind this sick little game, but Lex has no idea what he is saying and basically says that his father is worth more to him alive because he has brought the company millions. It's not like Luthorcorp was hurting and eventually you bump into the law of diminishing returns, meaning that the longer you keep Lionel around, the less he is going to be able to help you. That being said, this didn't look like it was the work of Lex.

Obviously Lionel had a problem, so he had his office checked for bugs. After the technician left and said there was nothing wrong, the masked man came back, this time on Lionel's computer screen. Obviously this meant that the guys sweeping for bugs was this crazy killer. But why?

We didn't get the answer to that question, but an earlier question was answered, namely "What happened to Lionel's driver Alex?" Lionel woke up in a room with a charred body. His challenge, should he choose to accept it, was to balance two buckets of flammable liquid, and put it on a hook. If it was unbalanced, the flames coming up from the floor would set him aflame like it did for his poor limo driver Alex.

Now I thought there was a little suspense, because I do believe that they would kill off Lionel, but obviously he wasn't going to die twenty minutes into the episode, so it wasn't a surprise when he beat the first challenge. It was a little bit more of a surprise when he got to his second challenge and it involved Martha Kent. Yes, Mrs. Kent was included because she was a friend of Lionel's and the man with the mask believed she had sold her influence to him.

Matha was in a plexiglass container and water was rapidly filling that container, threatening to drown Martha. Lionel had to solve a word puzzle to save her, which he did, and together they went to the third challenge, which was in an elevator.While Martha and Lionel were doing that, Clark and Lex were looking for their parents. Clark got a call that his mother wasn't at a fundraiser, and since he recently told his mother that Lionel knew his secret, he asked Lex where they could be. Strangely enough, Lex found out his father was missing from the same fundraiser, and so they started looking around the room for clues.

Clark noticed an imperfection on a statue of Lionel's and Lex, knowing his father would only deal with a flawless specimen, smashed it open to reveal a camera. Immediately, Chloe surmised that it was high res and had a wireless carrier. She started throwing around some techno jargon like piggy back transmission, hacking sequences and terminating points, but was able to narrow the location down to a house not far away.

Now that Lex was involved, Clark was a little upset. He has to be wary of protecting his identity, so he couldn't just run off and save his mom, but he's not too worried yet, so he agrees to follow Lex. When the two of them get to the location, the only thing they find is a television with their parents on the screen, about to play the third game.

Martha and Lionel got into the elevator and after reaching the top, they were give a gun with one bullet. One person in the elevator had to die or the killer would blow the charges on the elevator lift, and both would fall to their deaths. Lionel was willing to sacrifice himself, but Martha couldn't pull the trigger. Lionel took it upon himself and pointed the gun to the bottom of his chin and pulled the trigger.

But nothing happened.

That's right, there was no bullet. The killer came out and said he only wanted to see Lionel suffer. That's when Lionel realizes this killer is going to kill them anyway. Lionely is correct, and the killer blows the charges, sending the elevator tumbling down.

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Posted by J-Unit on April 24, 2006 3:42 PM