Despite the previews, I didn't believe for a second they were going to kill Martha. First of all, that's not something undertaken lightly, even during February sweeps, and secondly, it's not the kind of thing you admit to in the promo commercials. Besides, fanboys already know that next week will be the big sweeps Event.

Still, by 9:30 or so, I wasn't quite sure. And for the first time in I don't know how long, I experienced real suspense. It was interesting, and I wanted to know what was going to happen next. Not that I didn't have a problem or two with the episode's events, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. The important thing is I enjoyed myself, and I hope you all did too.

Martha, still haunted or otherwise troubled by whatever she saw the spaceship do during the tornado, releases some glowy-green toxins while frantically trying to bury the octagon and the flour can in the cellar. She's immediately felled by a mysterious illness, and it's in the hospital that the first major secret comes to light: she's pregnant.

Didn't see that coming, now, did I?

Dr. Helen Bryce, Lex's ladyfriend, you remember, the one we haven't seen in the past month, the one with whom some actual chemistry took place, is overseeing Martha's care. She's not sure what has happened, but the potential public hazard of the unknown toxin brings in a disease control team to search the Kent farm.

Clark and Pete are dispatched post haste to get rid of the ship, releasing more of the glowy green dust in the process. They remove the ship in time for the biohazard suits to find the flour and the octagonal disk. Though it doesn't act as fast on Clark, he catches the krypto-flu as well, and collapses at home.

Martha regains consciousness enough to apologize to Jonathan for not telling him about the baby. She thinks the ship healed her infertility somehow, and that might be a good thing, but she's still afraid Clark would want to leave them if he ever got more intimate with the ship. (I was right, sorta!)

Might as well address this one now: I'm not thrilled with the idea, frankly. It doesn't gel with established Super-mythos, and while I don't always need to be gellin' this particular deviation is unacceptably broad.

Clark has always been an only child. He's always been one-of-a-kind, both as human and alien. I just don't see what possible good a baby Kent could bring to the story.

Don't babies always kill the franchise, anyway?

And god help me if they're trying to claim the spaceship itself impregnated Ma, because the timing is so implausible that I couldn't take it. I don't care if this is a half-assed attempt to give the world a Supergirl.

With Clark out of commission, Jonathan has to rely on Dr. Bryce's grasp of doctor-patient confidentiality to diagnose him. She's able to draw Clark's blood, to his father's great surprise, and promises that she personally will handle his blood work. Luckily for the Kents, she's kept from spilling any beans to Lex, but maybe she talks in her sleep … who knows?

This is where it got a little silly (well, a lot silly, but exciting nonetheless). Martha takes a turn for the worse, and Jonathan heads off for the one thing he thinks might cure her. He breaks into the classified facility to retrieve the octagon, where he is saved from certain capture by the ailing, but still superfast, superstrong Clark. They escape, under heavy pursuit.

Actually, Pete escapes, and the Kent boys get the spaceship to the hospital just in time to save the flatlining Martha with a blinding, earth-shaking flash of light. Clark seems to be fine, too.

So now everyone's happy, and healthy, and has made appropriately miraculous recoveries. Lex has invited Dr. Helen to come stay with him at the mansion, instead of accepting a research position at Johns Hopkins. Of course, he's also bribed one of the disease control doctors for Martha's file, so who knows what he suspects, or if in fact he suspects anything? Maybe he just needs the file for LuthorCorp's insurance purposes.

There's no real answer, but meteoric mold spores seem to be the explanation, and that's good enough for government work so they end their investigation. I'd be happier with a slightly more expansive "how," but I'd also be happier if Pete hadn't made the world's lamest shill for the new Smallville soundtrack.

And if Chloe hadn't melodramatically read a sappy letter to the unconscious Clark, which Lana later found, and if I thought something would ever in a million years happen to resolve this new, no less infuriating triangle.

Next week, this new mythos unfolds a bit more, in an episode penned by creators Gough and Millar (as have been other important installments, such as Lineage and Zero), guest starring Christopher Reeve. And the soundtrack is available for purchase now, though released next week.

Sarah Stanek