Bunnies!

Even if I hadn't been inclined to give this episode a favorable review, it's quite possible I would have been won over by the little bunny rabbit. As it stands, that was just a bonus, and this was, almost inexplicably, a fine episode.

Inspired by The X-Files, but in a good way, the story wove krypto-freakiness, Luthor-evilness, set-up for the season finale, and even some promising forward motion for Clark and Lana into a very interesting hour of television. It began on a good note, even, for Lana has finally taken my advice and set up the Talon for its right and proper use, as a movie theater. Showing old movies.

Shaken enough by the classic horror imagery, she's even more shaken when it appears she's being haunted by the ghost of a childhood friend named Emily.

When they were 10 years old, the girl died, falling off a bridge into a raging river below, in an accident that still haunts Lana to this day. (Have any of the producers ever been anywhere near Kansas? It didn't bother me too much this time, but I'm honor-bound to mention it.)

Emily's father (played excellently if too briefly by Neil Flynn, the Janitor on NBC's Scrubs) denies knowledge of a ghost, zombie, or any current incarnation of his deceased daughter, but he's lying; kudos to the script for revealing that right away, leaving room for other things. The first cryptic reference to the bunnies is quickly forgotten as Dad is impaled and admitted to the hospital. Little Emily is no benign repeater, it seems.

Nor is she a zombie. Clark x-rays her grave, finding an intact, undisturbed skeleton, looking up to find Emily herself. In an excellent effects sequence, not too showy and not too cheesy looking, the mysterious girl takes off at superspeed and Clark dodges the falling rain to follow her. Poor Emily is more than a little confused, wondering why she's seen her own grave, not to mention the thing with the bunnies, and why Lana seems so scared of her.

In the hospital, Dad remains in a coma, and is visited by Lionel Luthor, thickening the plot just a little. Lex meets Emily, too, intrigued by her sudden disappearances and by her father's connection to his own. Clark and Lana do a little B&E to find answers, and at the half-hour mark -- again, great pacing -- is not only vaguely surprising but perfectly creepy, as well.

A krypto-cloning lab. Little Emilys in glowy-green glass chambers. Because Daddy was a LuthorCorp scientist, driven mad by his daughter's death … or is he mad at all?

Lex fills in the holes with the bunnies: while still an employee, he devised a way to use the meteor rocks essentially as Miracle Gro, and tested it by running the rabbits through their life cycles in weeks and months. "All ethics aside, it's an astonishing accomplishment."

True dat, Lex, but soon Dad wakes up enough to issue one of those "what have I wrought" warnings. Because the Emily-clone was gestated so quickly and artificially, she's utterly without a conscience. She's dangerous. Presumably, so were the bunnies?

(Those of you serious dorks like me who read and research in the expanded Star Wars universe know that those clones were also prone to these kinds of problems, and to extra vowels in their names. Something about Force disruptions, so the ysalamiri … on second thought, never mind.)

And now that she knows her original self is dead, and that Lana is partly responsible, well, it's a good thing Lana has a savior. Lana didn't just watch Emily fall from the highly improbable bridge that day, she actually fell in first. Emily jumped in to help her, and was carried away by the current while Lana was able to get to shore. And did nothing to save her friend. So Emily is only too quick to push Lana off the same rickety, unrepaired bridge into the rushing water below.

My disbelief will not be suspended enough to buy that, though. A kid drowned and there isn't a brand new slip-proof fully enclosed bridge?

But Clark is there to save Lana, after believing her crazy ghost stories, helping her find answers, and supporting her, and after all these many episodes, it's all starting to sink in (or the guilt is starting to overpower her). Lana has finally softened and it looks like she's ready to make some puppy dog eyes back at Clark.

Great, sez I. Anything to change the status quo. It will be interesting to see Clark trying to keep his secret and keep up his world-saving ways with a girlfriend at his side, and that's a lesson he should start learning. It's sometimes exhausting being a grown-up watching these shows written for teenagers, because the relationships are presented so utterly absurdly and the TV shorthand for "really in love with" is perilously close to "goddess-worshipping stalker," but I can learn to live with Clark and Lana if it means I'll see something new.

Far more interesting, and not just for the bunnies, is the Luthor aspect of Emily's story.

Back in the first season, I was a lot more adamant about seeing LuthorCorp as an actively villainous influence on the town of Smallville; they've stepped up to the plate with that this year, but not so much in relation to the meteor rocks. Father and son just seem to have an unhealthy obsession with them, but it's nice to be reminded that there have been several unhealthy underwritten experiments.

When Lex, in a bold stroke of continuity, confronts his father about reopening the secretive Level 3 labs, Lionel immediately snaps back with news about the caves. The governor, having heard of accidents and deaths under LexCorp's watch, has revoked the contract and handed it to Lionel himself. Lex is down, but not out.

And then Lionel, calculating, cold, evil and somehow endearing all at once, takes custody of the Emily clone, as she is official property of LuthorCorp, and slowly gains her trust, by giving her a bunny. Her father watches, tearfully, in another room, clearly sad to let even the reproduction go, and frightened for what she may become.

What indeed. Should this show live so long, I'd like to find out myself.

Oh, who am I kidding? She's an accelerated clone; she can be a hottie temptress in less than a season. If that happens, you all owe me a dollar.

Sarah Stanek