Metropolis. Three months later. Vinnie Barbarino is robbing a bank and buying a Ferrari. Oh, no, wait, that's "Kal" - the big city alter ego of Clark Kent, Smallville farm boy.

In his three months away from home, "Kal" has gathered a handful of motorcycles, a bad-ass reputation and an even nastier disposition. Part of this is no doubt self-inflicted, but not all of it. Daddy evidently doesn't care for Red K any more than I do, and Clark's ugly S-shield scar burns painfully throughout the episode, giving ample excuse for Tom Welling to rip his shirt open.

A lot.

To writhe in relative privacy early in the episode, he heads for the nearest phone booth - de rigeur for Superman, of course, except for not being the slightest bit de rigeur in the last 25 years.

Kal robs a lot of banks and exhibits such erratic behavior I have to wonder if the red kryptonite is making him retarded. Supercop Maggie Sawyer makes a brief appearance after a robbery to collect this Super-villain's ski mask, presumably to test it for DNA, which could be fun. His bulletproof antics attract the attention of crime boss Morgan Edge, who extends an offer to join the big-time world of villainy.

Rutger Hauer plays Edge with a jaw clenched so tightly it might as well be wired shut. Rutger Hauer! He's very old, very over-the-top, and my brain recoils at the crush I once harbored on him, back in those LadyHawke days.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Back in Smallville, Lana is still inexplicably pining over the obstreporously unavailable Clark, Pete is still less-than tertiary and Chloe is still the voice of reason with cute hair, but she is still on Lionel's payroll.

The big problem with season premieres, especially those taking place some time after the events of the season finale, is the amount of necessary catch-up and exposition that must be imparted unto the audience members. But when you stop to think about it, unless the characters have also not seen one another for the same amount of time, the exposition dialogue turns clunky and awkward.

Exhibit #1: Lex, stranded on a badly-lit, blue-screened desert island with a lunatic named Lewis. Obsessively recounting the duplicitous events that brought him there to a man who clearly has heard them all before. (Really, clearly, as upon Lex's inevitable rescue, Lewis is ultimately revealed to be a figment of Lex's own lunatic imagination.)

Exhibit #2: Newspaper headline reading "Search called off for Lex Luthor: Funeral tomorrow" followed by the labored recap of events by the widow Helen Luthor, who claims Lex offered her the last parachute and bravely went down with the ship. Which is, naturally, a complete load, and doesn't get us any closer to the real truth.

Exhibit #3: The Kents are losing their farm, and must of course talk obsessively between each other about it, because otherwise, how would we (and the eavesdropping Clark) even learn of it?

Yes, obviously, we've all got to get on the same page, but you can do it subtly or you can do it with a big red anvil. Most shows choose the latter, and while it works, it's lazy and annoying. I firmly believe audiences are capable of picking up on the little cues.

Speaking of little cues: Last season I did neglect to mention that Terence Stamp, General Zod himself, is giving voice to Jor-El, mostly because it seemed more like a clever casting coup than any meaningful hint. Some people have suggested, using hints from the "Rosetta" episode as well, that he is not in fact the patriarch of the House of El but rather the Eradicator. That's my lack of history speaking, but conversely to my previous point, that's giving this show an awful lot of credit for a double-cross more subtle than anything we've ever seen from it before.

There's no real reason, yet, for me to suspect Jor-El is less than genuine; who knows which parts of the established Superman mythos they've chosen to ignore, which to honor and which to rewrite completely? Clark's Two Dads have a pater-a-pater in the caves, thanks to the rescued octagon, and instead of exploding his brain like it did to the linguist, the Kryptonian collective consciousness grants Jonathan the super-powers to retrieve their wayward boy.

Super-Pa meets Bad Clark in the LuthorCorp offices, as the latter is stealing what will unquestionably end up being real kryptonite from Lionel's vault. They plummet through a window to the street below and... To Be Continued.

What does this portend, now? Jonathan made a deal with the devil, so to speak, offering to give up "anything" to save Clark. Lana has now been unambiguously brushed off; will it finally give her the spine she needs to move the hell on? And will Lex's return herald his descent into madness and evil? Probably not, but tune in anyway for the next exciting season of Smallville!

Sarah Stanek