When this show premiered, it didn't seem at all surprising that the producers chose to include the character of Pete Ross, Clark's childhood best friend, in the series. After all, Lana was there, and he's just as much a staple in the comics continuity as she is.

But it stopped making sense, right around when Lex Luthor became Clark's best friend instead of his nemesis. Why had they included Pete, if all he was going to do was seethe?

Oh, well, of course. Pete had to learn Clark's secret. Best friend or not, he would never tell Lex; he's too smart to trust someone so shrewd. But Pete, good solid Pete, is trustworthy and well, he has no other purpose on this show but to be Clark's confidante and co-conspirator.

It happened last night, a little earlier than I'd imagined, but it was about time. After Pete found and rescued Clark's long-abandoned spaceship, it was too hard to keep it all under wraps, consequences be damned.

The episode would have been nice enough without the extenuating circumstances, but the conceit that brought Pete to the cornfield where the spaceship lay was a car accident, caused by a twitchy Dr. Hamilton. Pete rescues the injured driver, but waits until the next day to rescue the ship, which Clark and his father promptly try to rescue back.

But Hamilton, pissed at being fired from Cadmus Labs and suffering from a glowy-green illness, found out about the spaceship too, just before killing the injured driver in his hospital bed. He steals it from Pete's garage before Clark can.

The source of the illness is meteor poisoning, FINALLY, which has made Hamilton behave in much the same way as Candyman in Jitters. I will simply be pleased that they've brought it up at last, and not wonder if all of the krypto-freaks will eventually die of the same thing, or if it has more to do with the radiation. But then how can the krypto-freaks be, if there's no initial radiation… oh, never mind.

Lionel, on vacation from Metropolis, stops by to spend quality time with his son, but he's really ditched his physical therapy appointments, calling them degrading. Lex isn't precisely pleased that Dad came back for a little "Oedipal mano-a-mano" to make himself feel better.

Dr. Hamilton is able to pique his interest in the spaceship idea, though the blind man isn't entirely convinced even after feeling up the actual ship. "For all I know, it could be some kind of postmodern coffee table," he says, making me laugh very hard and wish for a spaceship table.

And Lex isn't the only one with troubles at home; Lana is less than enthralled with Nell's new boyfriend Dean, who is her fiancé by the end of the episode. No real specifics are listed, other than he's kind of loud and bossy, but I admit I was surprised not to see him as a villain… this week. They're actually setting up a bad guy prior to the episode in which he will figure prominently. Amazing.

(How do I know he's a bad guy? Oh, come on. You saw him. He might as well have been played by Christopher MacDonald, aka Shooter McGavin and the charter member of the Asshole Actors Guild. Also, I've watched television before.)

Once Pete knows the truth, it's not easy to accept that Clark has been lying to him for so many years. He immediately starts looking at his old friend like a freak, which is exactly what Clark said he didn't want. It's a hard pill to swallow, and Pete doesn't do real well with it at first. He gives Clark the silent treatment, and tries to out him to Chloe, who has naturally developed an interest in the possibility of a spaceship in Smallville.

Rather than realize what a serious responsibility he's been handed, Pete can think only of the ways he's been wronged. Until he's kidnapped by crazy Dr. Hamilton, looking for the owner of the ship or at the very least, the missing-again octagonal key piece.

Oh, yes, then it's good to have a friend with superpowers. Clark manages to save him but is quickly felled by Hamilton's collection of glowy-green meteor liquid extract. (Radiation. Right. That's the key.) Pete knocks the good doctor away, spilling enough meteor juice on him to set off a massive twitchy spell. They escape with the ship.

Pete claims Hamilton's dead, but when Lionel brings Lex over to prove the existence of the spaceship, the body is gone. Is there a real villain in Clark's future?

Though Pete's overreacting to the news rang a bit false to me, the ending rang even falser. He's moved to simple, happy acceptance, which is nice and shiny and happy, but too easy. It's not going to make their friendship any easier, and it's not going to make the secret any easier to keep. And it's also not going to make Lex go away, which as you recall was a major source of tension between them.

But now someone knows, and we've got a few more possible plots to choose from, which in no way excuses next week's return to the id episode, no matter how much some of you might want to see Tom Welling in a leather jacket.

Sarah Stanek