A lot of people laughed when I posited that perhaps Lex was actually thinking he was the one with superpowers. What on earth gave me that idea? Well, maybe it was Michael Rosenbaum's consistently nuanced performance, maybe I read too much into a few casual moments, or maybe I was just straight-up krytpo-psychic. Because now, that's exactly what Lex has on his mind.

The weekly krypto-freak structure returns, as do the krypto-freaks, but not the way I expected, and for that I'd like to heartily thank the producers and writers. It wasn't greatness, but it was interesting, it had continuity, and it laid a good foundation for the coming season.

Because let's face it: the meteor rocks are downright weird, and someone other than our main characters should have noticed that by now. The National Enquirer ought to have a Smallville branch office. The aforementioned krypto-freak is a boy named Jake, with an unoriginal crush on Lana, an ill-defined sense of boundaries, and gills.

But he's dispatched before the credits, so he's not really our story. (Never mind why Lana was swimming alone at night in a dark indoor pool, or how Jake hoped to accomplish anything to a romantic end by pulling her underwater since presumably we'd have noticed if she had gills of her own.) And to dig out the real deal, I'm happy to say that Chloe reinstates Clark's position on The Torch, at his request.

The story is the dispatcher, Van, an anti-meteor vigilante who has evidently been paying REAL attention to the weird goings-on in town in the past few months. His father was the marine recruiter killed by shapeshifty Tina while impersonating Whitney, so he's got some misplaced anger issues to get out with his sniper rifle and military bearing.

Van acts as a catalyst for the first self-aware moments this show has demonstrated in as long as I can remember, and I mean that in the best way. Chloe and Lana realize that they've both got an unusual amount of freak magnetism as they remember the krypto-freaks of days past - a fact that, however true, bothers me a bit. There is no real impetus for every damsel in distress to be one of these two girls, not if Clark is going to start learning how to save other people. The dependence on those two as obligatory rescuees needs to stop now.

More interestingly, though, is Lex's presence on Van's hit list - drawn directly from Chloe's digital Wall of Weird database. Though Lex at first suspects his father for trying to drive home a point about corporate life insurance, he soon comes to realize that he too has been in an unusual number of freak accidents, and come out of each relatively unscathed.

Will, as I predicted so long ago, the realization that he is indeed an ordinary human be what drives Lex over the edge for good? And how long until we get there? Because I really want to see Lex trying out his superpowers.

Clark, of course, is the king of the freaks, a fact that does not escape Van. After quickly divining his weakness to the meteor rocks, he constructs those kryptonite bullets and goes out to the farm, where Clark, relying too much on his invulnerability, tries to catch the bullet rather than outrun it, or maybe explode it with the heat vision.

Jonathan is able to dig the bullet out, and Clark heals up almost immediately. (Which we've seen before, and so I guess I must accept it as part of this Superman's canon as much as I don't want to.)

In the end, a lead bulletproof vest saves Clark, who saves Lana, who still hasn't stopped acting like a love-struck dork when she's around Clark. Amazingly, the irony that Clark is willing to "walk into bullets" for her but won't "share what's inside" is not actually lost on Lana, who remains as fixated on him as he was on her for the first two seasons. The tide, she has turned, and well, why not? Let's see where it goes.

Chloe, however, is not having so much luck turning her own tide. Tired of living a double life, she tries to escape from Lionel's grasp, but he threatens to fire her father. She'll still be living a double life, but not the one she expected; now she'll be agent of good who still has to pretend to be evil. Which is not nearly as interesting as it is the other way 'round, but it's something, at least.

And, because I haven't said it in a while, WHOO John Glover! He had some magnificent moments in the episode, especially in his scenes with Allison Mack. Locking down her computer files and controlling Torch content? "It's called philanthropy, my dear." Aw yeah.

So yes, I liked it. It moved along well through the hour, it acknowledged past plot points and set up plot points that (hopefully) won't be discarded next week. Obviously not every episode can do that, but those that don't should at least be fun to watch and consistent with the established characters. If this one set the bar for the season, then fine by me.

In fact, if this set the bar for the season, I'll even go ahead and look forward to next week's special Smallville event featuring Clark and Lana skinny dipping in a pond to the music of REM.

Sarah Stanek