This week’s episode is all about exploring Lex’s issues and let me tell you, he does have a lot of them. He sleeps with countless, nameless, faceless women. Well, they probably all had names, but he just doesn’t know them most of the time. They must have had faces too, but he doesn’t remember those, although the initial draw of these faces was a resemblance to his mother. Oedipal complex, anyone?

And if one of his conquests wishes to pursue further relations with him, he sends her on her merry way with a pair of expensive diamond earrings. That is a little touch he learned from his father. But let’s start from the beginning....

When Lex wakes up next to the body of a one night stand he hires Corrine Harper as his attorney. He slept with her, too, by the way. Harper doesn’t seem to take any action to investigate the murder and appears to make the big bucks by talking big and griping about how Lex does not remember sleeping with her. Hey, maybe she just wasn’t very good!

The cops, on the other hand, literally do nothing to investigate this murder. That is perfectly alright, however, because even the best attorney and the police could never have the investigative skills that Chloe and Clark possess. Thank God for Google and Chloe’s connections to the people in charge of elevator surveillance cameras.

In an attempt to learn more, Clark goes to see Lionel. Lionel goes all Hannibal and gives Clark some information about Lex’s patterns (translation: issues). It’s interesting, but the really interesting part is when Lionel explains to Clark the change that has come over him. He describes his memory of waking up during the jail riot and feeling a miraculous positive energy. Lionel is a changed man and he wants to help Lex....for reals this time!

It would be nice to see future episodes explore the change in Lionel, how he deals with it, and what amends he tries to make.

Chloe and Clark discover that there were in fact two girls involved in Lex’s wild night. There was the girl he was kissing in the elevator and Eve Andrews, the girl that was found dead next to him in the morning. It turns out that Lex has scorned plenty of women and their natural course of action was to stalk him and plot revenge. The girl that didn’t die that night is one of these crazy stalkers.

Stalker chick does a few more crazy things. She kills Corrine, pistol whips Lex, and brings him to his mansion where she ties him up. Her name is Shannon Ball and she’s nuts. She whines about how she was engaged, but she destroyed her relationship by cheating on her fiance with Lex. She was heartbroken when Lex sent her away with the earrings. She goes on and on with her whining. It’s very hard to feel any sympathy for her because honestly, she’s just a really dumb slut (cheating is bad!) who happens to be completely insane. She tricked Eve into thinking that Lex wanted to see her. After spending the night with Lex she placed Eve’s dead body next to him. This frame up would be her revenge.

Chloe and Clark discover what is going on just in time. Clark rushes to Lex’s rescue just as Shannon begins to light him on fire. Because he’s moving so quickly neither Lex nor Shannon see him as he knocks her down and puts out the fire.

The show ends with Lex rejecting Lionel’s attempt to make peace. And of course with Clark acting all indignant because Lex lied to him about all the women he had slept with. I really hate when Clark does that. When he comes clean to all his friends he’ll earn the right to get mad at them for being dishonest with him.

A few minutes of the show were devoted to Lana having bad dreams about the Countess being burned at the stake.

Also, Jason’s mother comes to visit her and it just so happens that Lana had already seen this woman in her dream. How this is relevant we don’t know yet, but I’m willing to bet we’ll find out and we’ll have another really lousy episode on our hands.

It seems like this episode was trying to shed a little more light into the workings of Lex’s mind and giving us more reasons for why he eventually turns into Darth Lex.

In future episodes I would really love to see a lot more of that and a lot less of Lana’s little drama with the Countess. Seriously, what is that plot line all about? Did someone’s script get rejected form Buffy and now he’s trying to work it in to Smallville? It’s a ridiculous storyline and it really has no place in a show about Clark Kent’s youth.

Honda Dimitriu