Hit Me With Your Best Shot

It looks like the people of Smallville are finally beginning to settle down after their last natural disaster. Lex Luthor pulled some strings with FEMA to pump reconstruction money into the town, and things are getting back to normal. That’s not to say that everything is going to be the same as before the meteor shower. Now that Clark Kent is really just mild mannered and not the man of steel, he has to get used to a lot of things. He can’t run faster than a speeding bullet, can’t burn things with his eyes, and no longer has super strengths. In a bit of irony, the limits that he is now experiencing with his physical prowess has really made it all that much easier for him to reach people emotionally. For starters, he can finally attempt the relationship he has always wanted with Lana, and we left the two of them as they were waiting to uh, reach each other emotionally.Now that we know that Clark and Lana are going at it, people probably have a lot of questions, and we could spend a lot of time speculating about the sordid details of their coupling. I don’t think there is that much to it. This is Kansas after all, what kind of sex ed did you think they were getting in Smallville? I’d say the chances of Clark even knowing what a clitoris was are remote, and I bet Lana didn’t spend much time trying to find hers, if her string of boyfriends gives us any clue. In other words, I bet it was boring. I’m sure they have good chemistry, and that is half the battle, but I am sure neither of them have the imagination in the sack of say, Lois, or even Chloe. Then again, we know our dear departed Alicia was a freak, so maybe she taught Clark a few things.

But whatever, Lana and Clark wake up in Clark’s bed, quite obviously after a little bit of the good stuff. Boring as she may be, it’s still a great thing to wake up next to Lana, and I am sure that Clark is thinking the same thing. They look at each other and share a nice little “hi,” which is not a bad morning-after greeting. It’s surely better than something like “You’re not going to walk straight for a week!” or “Get out of here, my boyfriend could come in at anytime!” They wake up when the alarm goes off at 6:30 in the morning, which doesn’t seem like a big deal, except that Clark lives on a farm, so his parents are up early, and his parents don’t know what is going on. They try and get their clothes together and begin downstairs.

Clark and Lana aren’t the only people getting a head start in Smallville. Chloe is preparing to get the hell out of Smallville. You could argue that things have never been more exciting for her the last few weeks since she knew Clark’s secret, but with Clark turning human and his brain thinking about Lana and nothing else, there isn’t much to keep her around. Just as she is about to head off down the highway, she gets a phone call from some kid named Gabriel. He tells Chloe that she is the one person that can understand what he has to do, and that she has to get out of Smallville. For her trouble, she’ll finally get her big story.

What does all of this mean? Well, earlier in the episode, we saw a kid with a gun holding up some sort of nuclear missile installation. Obviously this kid is Gabriel, as we find out later, and for some reason he wants to launch a nuclear missile. He threatens to shoot the people holding the keys if they don’t help him turn the key and start the launch sequence, but after the help, he shoots them anyway. Man, if getting hold of a nuclear weapon was that easy, why did it take Habib Marwan months of elaborate planning and a couple of hundred nuclear reactors to distract CTU long enough so he could get hold of one?

Chloe doesn’t know what to think, but she knows that she has to talk to Clark. At the Kent’s farmhouse, Lana and Clark made it downstairs without too much trouble. It looks like they are going to make the great escape without the parentals knowing any better. They knock over a candlestick, kind of giggle, and when they make their way for the front door, there are Jonathan and Martha, wondering what the hell happened. It’s kind of obvious what has been going on. Lana is wearing one of Clark’s shirts, so it’s not like she can say she came over early for some coffee. By the way ladies, we love it when you wear our shirts. There is nothing hotter. OK, maybe the tool belt, but you get what I mean.

I was wondering what the big trouble was sneaking around behind Clark’s parents. They knew he was in love with Lana, and they were teenagers once, so why get hung up with their kids expressing their love in such a way? Well, it seems like Martha really wasn’t that concerned, except that they used protection, which Clark assures him that they do. Jonathan is just a little bit more than pissed. His complaints are that it shouldn’t happen under his roof, and that they hadn’t had a chance to talk about it first. You know, Clark makes life and death decisions all the time, and even though he is not going to save the world anymore, hasn’t he earned a free pass or two?

By this time, Lana is long gone, but Chloe walks in. She wonders why Lana was in such a rush to leave, which leads me to wonder what the Kents were thinking when they saw Lana’s truck in the driveway. Did they think she let Clark borrow it to get some tampons but told him to wait to bring them back until the next morning? Anyway, Chloe sees Clark in his pajamas and has all of the explanation she needs. She tells the Kents that somebody gave her a call and said that Smallville was going to be history, and it was going to happen in about 53 minutes. Jonathan is still pissed and tells Chloe to talk to the sheriff. When Chloe says that she has used up her cry wolf cards, Jonathan decides that he should investigate himself.

When Jonathan gets to the roadblock, he is surprised at what he sees. The sheriff is being as secretive as always, and for some reason, there are soldiers just taking off into the middle of corn or soy bean fields. Jonathan thinks it may have something to do with missile silos he knows are all over Smallville; at least 15 active. His instincts turn out to be correct, and some troopers are about to storm a missile silo, but when they get there, it is empty. How are they going to get to all of the missile silos in an hour?!! Well, maybe I have watched too much 24 and other cop shows, but wouldn’t they just send a couple of guys to each station, use the police if you have to, and when the person finds the correct one, you call for backup! What’s the worst that happens? That lone person gets overpowered and killed? Isn’t that better a nuclear blast someplace?

There was no way that Clark and Chloe were just going to let things happen without trying to get to the bottom of things. They head to Gabriel’s house to find that his dad is retired military, and there are pictures of meteor freaks all over the place. Chloe is amazed at how obsessed he is with them, which really is the pot calling the kettle black. But keeping track of meteor freaks wasn’t Gabriel’s only vice, as it looked like he killed his father as well.

Talking about issues between father and son is always a good way to introduce a few scenes with Lex and Lionel. Lex has really been going crazy about his ship. He broke into Lana’s apartment to make sure she hadn’t said anything about it to anybody. It turns out that Lana had been thinking about the black ship and the people that came out of it for a long time; she has numerous sketches around her apartment depicting what happened in the field. He asks her about it, and although she told Clark about it, she says that she didn’t tell anybody because rambling about aliens and spaceships is a good way to get people to think that you are crazy.

Crazy is just how you would describe Lionel Luthor. Lex has put him under lock and key at the crazy house, but when the scientists at Luthorcorp have no luck in getting the spaceship open, Lex notices that the only thing that has changed since he brought it there was that a strange symbol had appeared on the bottom. Coincidentally, it is the same symbol that Lionel has been scrawling everywhere. He is possessed, but Lex thinks it may be an act, and doesn’t get anywhere with the questioning. Clearly he is not a Brittany Murphy fan, or he would know that if a crazy person is being incoherent, you really need Michael Douglas or you aren’t going to get anywhere. And if you really want to make progress, you should make sure Jennifer Esposito is on the case as well.

Clark and Chloe aren’t going to be able to find the missile silo Gabriel is in any faster than the authorities. What are they going to do? Well, Chloe is a friend, just call up Gabriel, have him stay on the phone, then have Chloe break into the phone company records and triangulate his position. It’s so easy! But just like the army, these kids aren’t thinking. Instead, Chloe pretends she has a flat tire and hopes that Gabriel is gullible enough to try and save her. Homicidal maniacs are always suckers to help out the blondes with the perky boobs, so this plan works well, at least when it comes to getting Gabriel to get out in the open. What didn’t work so well was Clark coming out of nowhere and trying to convince Gabriel that the doesn’t want to do any of this. Clark ends up getting shot, and in his mortal state bleeds all over the place. Chloe pleads with Gabriel to help him, but Gabriel simply grabs her and goes back to the missile silo.

Now that he finally has somebody to talk to, Gabriel can get back to the important business of filling in his captive about the reasons for his plans. Good thing Chloe got captured, or we might be missing all of this. We find that it was Gabriel’s father who was obsessed with meteor freaks; he was the one who instilled the hate within Gabriel. Things were bad enough after the first meteor shower, but the second one left many more rocks out in the open, threatening to create many more freaks. The last shower even turned him into a freak, and instead of living like a mutant, he asked his son to kill him.

Chloe knows that with Clark done, she may be the only person to have a chance at saving Smallville. She breaks out of her shackles and manages to knock out Gabriel. Even though she is a computer genius herself, she isn’t able to get past the safeguards Gabriel had set up on the computer program. Gabriel wakes up in enough time to see the launch sequence commence. He and Chloe struggle, he gets shot, and Chloe watches as the missile launches, destined to kill everybody that she knows.

Despite the imminent annihilation of Smallville, the hospital is still working, I guess it helps if the military doesn’t tell you what’s coming. Clark’s lung is pierced and he is rushed to the OR. Lana manages to sneak into the ICU in order to talk to Clark. For having surgery, Clark doesn’t look too bad. He has some gauze that is taped on his stomach, but it looks like they only had to remove a cyst or mole or birthmark or something, and didn’t spend much time looking for the bullet and repairing the damage. Actually, maybe he was just waiting for surgery, because how did all that surgery happen in ten minutes?

Lana is by Clark’s side, and for dramatic effect, she makes sure to tell Clark everything that she never got a chance to say, hoping that he hears her through his little semi-coma. Among other things, she said that she always knew that no one could make her happier except Clark, and that she pulled herself away so many times because she knew that with the way he loved to help people, there was always a chance that he would get badly hurt. Clark wakes up, looks at her, and then goes into cardiac arrest. The doctors come in, tell Lana to get out, but conveniently left the door open while they worked on Clark. It was a great arrangement if Lana wanted to see Clark die.

Yes, that is right. Clark died. They tried a lot of things. Well, actually, they didn’t try that much. I would think that they would have some hospital scene expertise at the WB since Warner Bros. produces ER, but that wasn’t the case. Maybe the hospital was still trying to regroup after the meteor shower, but they didn’t try any blood transfusions or anything. Clark would have been better with some green tea and Robitussin. Lana starts crying, and can barely stand. The Kents see her, and can only think of the worst. They begin to break down when the doctor tells them Clark is dead.

One of the things they did with Clark is to defibrillate him, and every shock he had seemed to wake up Lionel. The glaze over his eyes left, and he suddenly had super strength and super speed. I am sure that people can put two and two together and were not surprised to hear that Clark was missing from his room. Lionel took him to the fortress of solitude, where Jor-el revived him. At the end of last season, when Clark was bringing the final pieces of the stones together, Lionel was affected by the stone and passed out. He was left in the catatonic state, which we learn was just a temporary state until there was a time that Jor-el could use his body to help Clark. When Clark died, that time came. Clark would get all of his powers back, but there would be a consequence. The life force Clark received was going to be taken away from somebody he loved.

With that taken care of, Clark needs to get back to Smallville and stop the warhead. He gets there, but not in time to stop the launch. Things would be so much easier if he could fly like the beginning of last season. What happened with that anyway? The writers are such a tease. Clark is able to jump high enough to grab onto the booster rocket, and by the time it is in space, he makes it to the top of the warhead, pulls it out, and throws it into space. There’s really not much else that he can do but to plummet back to earth.

Clark returns home, and his parents are unbelievably happy to see him. Just imagine, just an hour or so earlier, they were upset that Clark might have been playing a little sticky finger (or stinky finger – whatever floats your boat) with Lana. They know that he had to have his powers back, and they aren’t sure what to think other than they are so happy to see him alive. Clark is happy to see his parents, but he seem to deal with the idea that he is not human anymore, and that in order to bring him back, somebody else is going to die. Jor-el said that the lessons you learn from pain are the ones that make you the strongest. When Lana stumbles into the back door (shouldn’t they have tried that at the beginning of the episode?) she sees Clark, and I am sure that Clark is thinking about what his father said.

I am not sure how Lionel got back from the fortress of solitude, but it appears that he doesn’t remember a thing. Lex doesn’t believe anything that he says. How did he know Lionel wasn’t acting the whole time? Earlier his dad said that he would never be able to open the spaceship and “only he can open it.” This is enough to make Lex even more wary of his dad. For Lex, the day has been crazy. Clark was shot and died, which meant that he was mortal, but came back from the dead which means something is going on. Lana comes to ask why Lex asked for Clark’s paperwork at the hospital, and wonders if he was happy to see that all the tests were normal. This leads to the always present “leave us alone” talk from Lana, while Lex does his “what kind of lies is he telling you” routine. This would all be easier if Lex didn’t have such a boner for Lana, but still, the resurrection from the dead, plus the disappearance, puts enough doubt in Lana’s head to get her thinking.

Clark is in his loft, contemplating his situation, when Chloe joins the party. He doesn’t know how to deal with the statement from Jor-el that his darkest hour is about to come, but he can’t even deal with how this is going to change his relationship with Lana. Chloe, who doesn’t want to speak with Clark about Lana, gives him some advice. Now she says that she is a big girl and the discussion doesn’t need to happen, but you can tell she was so happy because she felt that she had a closeness to Clark that Lana didn’t have. She tells Clark that he will never be able to hide so many things from Lana, and despite everything that has brought Clark and Lana closer, he is still worried that Lana wouldn’t accept him, and he would rather have him reject her because he hid things from her than deal with the pain of being honest and still being rejected.

So we all knew that Clark was going to get his powers back, and I am dying to figure out who is going to die. (DON’T SEND ME SPOILERS) I am guessing Chloe because it would be a convenient way to get rid of her and transition Lois back in, and it is Lois that has the future, at least if we judge by the comics and the movies. We don’t think it is going to be one of the Kents. Who knows, maybe it will be the dog?

What did you think of the episode? How long are Clark and Lana going to last? Who do you think is going to die? What is in the spaceship, and where is James Marsters?