Gentlemen, We Can Rebuild Him. We Have the Technology.

This week on Smallville, we got a little preview into the issues that are going to dominate the last part of the season, but first we had to introduce another friend of Clark Kent. With the show getting on in years, and original story lines harder to come by, the writers can always dip into the Superman comics to find characters that are eventually in Clark’s life. It really started in earnest last year with some villains and of course, the flash. This year we got Milton Fine, AKA Braniac, and the Aquaman episode was so successful, it possibly spawned it’s own series. It’s nice to know that he has so much help saving the world, but the person that Clark Really needs to meet is Chuck Woolery, because Clark’s real problem is with his Love Connection. I wonder if there is anybody out there that could help him with both?As with many Smallville episodes, this one starts out in a secret lab. In Smallville, all of the secret labs are somehow going to be evil, even if they have good intentions. I can’t really tell what this secret lab is all about, but there seems to be a bunch human body parts. You begin to wonder what they could be building and we soon get our answer when generic Asian scientist man sneaks in, injects something into this black kid that was locked in a cage, and then apologizes for all of the bad things that he did. Superhero 101 tells us that if this kid kills the scientist that let him out, he will be a bad guy, but this black kid, who looks like a shorter version of Taye Diggs, does nothing so he has to be a good guy.

Unfortunately, when generic Asian scientist let his people, er, person go, the alarm sounded, meaning the security for the secret lab was going to be in hot pursuit. This black kid is so fast, he is easily able to outrun the security through a maze of what looks to be some sort of huge personal container storage. I’m not *that* impressed, because he is fast, but not like the Flash. So, what makes him so special? Well, for one, he was able to run right through four inches of metal that was supposed to keep everybody inside. I’m not sure what budget these people have, but if I am doing some bionics to Taye Diggs, my secret lab would be underground, just to avoid this type of problem.

This guy might have had a nice simple life if he didn’t happen to be traveling down the same road as Lana Lang, who hits him with her truck. Black kid is not hurt, but we can’t say the same about Lana, or her truck. Luckily, black kid is nice enough to help Lana to the hospital, even though it would be very bad news for anybody to know about his abilities. I mean, there are probably more than a few people in this world that could take a hit like that, thanks to the Kryptonite and whatnot, but it’s still better to lay low.

Although I have had the feeling that Lana and Clark have been growing farther apart, he is the first one that she calls. When Clark hears that she was in an accident, he gets to the hospital fast. So fast, in fact, that Lana actually wonders why it didn’t take him long. If only she had been paying attention the last five years, she might have caught on that Clark moves around pretty well. She doesn’t dwell on the issue, but instead tells Clark about this kid that she should have run over and killed, but was walking around like nothing happened. You can understand why Clark was worried, because when you hear about indestructible people, you never know what could happen. The chances of the person being friendly aren’t that great, and if the person is another evil Kryptonian like Milton Fine or the disciples of Zod, well, everybody has a problem.

Clark catches up to the black kid, which is awesome, because Clark recognizes him. His name is Victor Stone, and he used to play wide receiver for Metropolis High. His career was cut short by a tragic accident that killed him. That’s right, it killed him. As much as Victor liked a familiar face, he had to be evading the police, not sitting around and talking. It pains him, but Victor has no choice but to throw Clark up against a wall so he can get away. Clark hits the wall, and does a lot of damage to the building, but Victor is just as surprised to see Clark get up without a scratch on him. Clearly Clark was made of something different as well. Now that he knows that Lana wasn’t lying, Clark decides to take a little x-ray peak himself, and what he sees is sure to surprise anybody.

By now, Victor wasn’t scared of Clark, and he decided to go with Clark back to Smallville and hangout in the Kent barn. And that is when Victor decided to tell his sad tale. Victor and his family died in a car accident, and he expected to wake up and be sitting in heaven with them, but obviously he didn’t die. Instead, he woke up in a lab run by a company called Syntechnics, which had been experimenting on many bodies. Victor had the dubious honor of being the first one to survive all of the work. He was there against his will, and without generic Asian doctor, he wouldn’t have been able to escape.

Hearing about Syntechnics was all that Clark needs to know in order to help. He’s going to find out about the company and make them pay. He makes it back to Metropolis in time to hear Lana and Chloe discussing Victor. They also note his likeness to Taye Diggs, and Chloe says that she might be into to tall, dark, and bionic if he was into blondes. I’m tall, dark, and have some scars, so maybe I have a chance. Besides, Victor is already taken. Yes, his girlfriend Katherine still thinks that he is dead. He wants to see her, but he is worried that she won’t treat him the same after she finds out he is so different. The last thing Victor wants is for her to stop loving him because he is a freak. Hmm, this is really beginning to sound like somebody we know. When Lana hears about his girlfriend, she wonders if Victor was just planning on lying to her and hope that she just doesn’t find out. Wow, this really is a lot like somebody we know.

The big news about this little meeting of the minds, however, was that Syntechnics was owned by none other than our favorite evil conglomerate, Luthorcorp. That means that Clark will have to see Lex. At the mansion, Clark does his normal routine by throwing around the accusations, and Lex does his normal routine denying all of the accusations. Syntechnics was a company that was recently acquired by Luthorcorp, so Lex might actually have a point. Whatever it is, Clark vows to get to the bottom of everything.

While Clark was out talking tough, Lana visited Victor, and she was talking soft. After she heard that Victor was missing a chance to be with his girlfriend, she just had to tell him that he was making a mistake. Lana tells Victor that he has a chance to tell the truth to the woman he loves, or lie to her. I am sure that she had a lot of other things to say, but her little chat was interrupted by the Syntechnics SWAT team. Clark gets there in time to knock them all out, but not before they are able to shoot Victor in the arm. They built Victor pretty well, but they didn’t make him bullet proof, or at least not his shoulder. Clark and Lana are able to move Victor to the Talon, figuring that although Clark’s mom runs the place and Lana used to live there, they would never look for Victor there. He may be safe from the SWAT team, but he is leaking fluid from his power cell. His bionics are so integrated with his body that if his power cell fails, he will die as well.

He’s going to feel that one in the morning.

Looks like the only way to save Victor is to find the doctor who saved him. We now know generic Asian scientist as Dr. Hong. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Syntechnics had bugged Dr. Hong’s house and would be waiting for Clark, but maybe they didn’t have to go that far. Clark looked into Dr. Hong’s garage and discovered that he had killed himself by sitting in his car while it was running. Well, either that, or somebody helped him along with it. Somehow, Lex also found his way to Dr. Hong’s house. After Clark tipped him off, he started to look into Syntechnics and discovered that it wasn’t really up to ethical standards. Lex wants to help Victor, and considering there aren’t that many people that have the technology to keep Victor from dying, Clark decides that he can trust Lex.

Clark decides to go back to Victor at the Talon, but found out that he went to his girlfriend’s house. Stupid Lana, she can’t even keep a heartsick bionic man away from the love of his life. In truth, there wasn’t much that she could have done to stop him, but she should have tried harder. Clark knew that the first place they would look for Victor is his old girlfriend’s house, and he was right. When Victor gets there, stumbling from all of the, well whatever that was that was coming out of him, he finds that Syntechnics is waiting for him. They have Katherine, and the only way he’ll be able to see her is if he goes back to the lab with them.

I would have thought that Katherine’s house would have been an easy place to guess to look for Victor along with the graves of his family, and his old house, but they had a little bit of help. Lex told them where to find it, so I guess Clark was wrong to trust him. Hmm, it’s not often when Lex completely lies to Clark, but this was one of them. Perhaps he didn’t know about Syntechnics before, but when he found out what they were doing, he wasn’t about to shut down the project. Instead, he wanted to make sure that Victor, which signifies an investment even more than six million dollars, would be able to stay alive. Oh, and just in case he started getting all bleary eyed about his past life, Syntechnics was going to implant a chip in his brain that removed all of his emotion. Inserting the chip was much easier than having them watch Lana and Clark talk about their feelings; that’s how I learn about acting with no emotion. I’ve got a million of the folks.

Now, we all know that the chip never had a chance of being put into Victor’s head. Clark saved him from the operating table and the two of them were able to escape. Victor filled him in on how Clark had just missed Lex saying that Victor basically belonged to Luthorcorp. This pisses Clark off enough that he goes to visit Lex, who has a few questions of his own, like how Victor was able to escape from the lab. Clark doesn’t even deny that he had something to do with it. Lex lies about how he was involved, saying that anything Victor heard was wrong because he was under anesthesia. He is also a little upset that Clark doesn’t realize the good work Syntechnics is doing. Their research will go to help people with amputations and many other serious injuries. Some medical miracles might cost a lot of money, but that doesn’t make them any less profound.

Everything is going pretty well, but there is only one thing to make this more perfect. You knew Katherine must have thought it strange when Syntechnics came to her house and took her away. By the way, did anybody wonder where her parents where? No matter, because now she was safe, and although Syntechnics was still looking for Victor and my guess would have been following every move she makes, she heads to Smallville and visits Victor in the Kent’s barn. And although it was Victor’s greatest fear in the world to be rejected by her, she was only happy to see him alive. He was different but they loved each other and she accepted it.

Of course we have heard this story before, because we have sort of had an hour-long reminder about Clark and Lana’s relationship. When Lana visits Clark later that day, she asks him why he always hides what she is really feeling, and then acknowledges a little fact we have all caught onto long ago, namely that Clark and Lana just keep going around in circles and can’t move forward. Admitting you have the problem is the first step, but they can’t get much past that. Instead, we get the “do you love me” routine, followed by the “I’ve always loved you” routine, and Lana leaves one again. Will it ever be like it was before? I would try and answer that question, but you know they’ll ask us again in a few weeks.

It was fun to meet Victor, who as I said before appears in Superman comics. His character is known as Cyborg, and although they didn’t mention it specifically, I think they did a good job adapting the character to the Smallville universe. If Clark ever needs to get his Justice League friends together, I’m sure he would want Victor to be there.

There was another element to this episode, however, and it had to do with Martha Kent. She decided to take Jonathan’s senate seat, and almost immediately, she gets her first blackmail demand. Somebody has video of Clark rescuing a body from burning building. Martha doesn’t have the money, and is about to pay the guy off when Lionel Luthor comes by. They were set to have a meeting about her decision to join the senate, and he noticed how bothered she seemed and followed her to the drop off point. Lionel scared away the guy who was asking for money and told Martha that he was going to take care of it, and take care of it he does.

Lionel told Martha that you can never give into demands of blackmailers, and she was thankful, but you knew that there had to be something in it for him. Although he said he was only interested in helping Martha, Lionel had his own interests, and rather than telling the guy never to bother Martha again, and breaking his toes off with a crowbar, Lionel simply buys the blackmail evidence away from the guy. Poor Martha, she thought she was burning up the only DVD copy that the guy had. For Lionel, it was the jackpot. Looking at the video in super slow motion, it shows Clark racing out of the fire holding Lana. Once again, he has proof that Clark is Kal-el, and the only question is what is he going to do with that knowledge. When he and Clark switched bodies, nobody could believe him. Now he had something that both Clark *and* his mother couldn’t just ignore. Looks like Lionel Luthor is back with a vengeance.

Is anybody else surprised this is the only video of Clark our there?

What did you think of the episode? Was Victor Stone or Aquaman the best looking Clark sidekick this season? What will Lionel do with his new smoking gun?