As a little Thanksgiving treat (and an homage to the likely superior timeslot rival 24) I thought I'd let you all in on the thought processes that lead to a review of Smallville. Also, I've made no secret that I'm majorly tired of this show, and this is a cheap way to get the review out of the way so I can get on with making pies. (Four of them.)

9:01 A construction site on Indian lands. A recipe for disaster if ever I've seen one. Do these people not watch the same movies we do?

9:03 A wolf attack, a flare gun misfires into a pool of gasoline. The construction foreman dies.

Credits and commercials - in what universe is Old Navy even a little naughty?

9:07 Clark and Pete on dirtbikes, which rings rurally true, but is a first for this show.

9:08 Clark falls into a hole in the ground. A hole in the plot, more like. A flimsy excuse for a girl to rip Clark's shirt open. Her name is Kyla.

9:10 The cave paintings tell the legend of N'Mon - our plot device for the week. Kyla's grandfather has been searching for this all his life and it took Clark's ass to find it? She was, like, 10 feet away.

9:11 An octagonal hole! Pa Kent: "I know how important it is for you to know where you came from" - except that it's NOT AT ALL important that we've seen.

9:12 N'Mon came from the sky, and promised he would send another.

9:14 "Just because something's a myth doesn't make it not true." Except that that's exactly what a myth is.

9:15 Will Lana ask Henry Small to help save the caves?

9:16 Whoo John Glover!

9:18 Kyla in these Lara Croft shorts, showing Clark the cave paintings. What freaking time of year IS IT?!?!? Some brotherly balance between good and evil, another transparent parallel between Clark and Lex.

9:19 Clark rescues Kyla, and she figures out his secret because she's NOT A MORON like everyone else on this show.

9:20 She knows what it's like to be different. And wow. Some real kissing. Amazing. No tricks, no crap, no fake personalities.

Commercials.

9:24 Henry Small is Lana's father, according to the DNA test.

9:25 A cease and desist order, also arrest of Joseph for the murder of the foreman, because actual forward plot motion before the second half of the episode would be unthinkable.

9:27 "What happened to Lana?" Shut yo' mouth, Lex, lest you summon the succubus…

9:28 Oop, here she is. She's been writing to Whitney, even though they're broken up, but he hasn't responded lately.

9:29 Lex calls the caves more impressive than Lascaux. My ass. For one thing, they're only 500 years old, numbnuts, and for another, they're not nearly as expansive or detailed.

9:31 Obligatory and completely unnecessary Wall of Weird explanation: Kyra's tribe may be skinwalkers.

9:32 Animal vision. The quality of the episode is sinking fast. Or possibly it's a Mike's Hard Lemonade commercial.

Speaking of commercials.

9:39 The shoe is on the other foot now; is Kyla being honest with Clark? Does she know about the foreman's death?

9:42-44 Two whole glorious minutes of John Glover, acting silently. Ahhh. And being threatened by the wolf.

Commercials.

This hasn't been that bad, all things considered. It's not good, but it's not aggressively bad. My problem is that, like so many other faux-consequential episodes, it's not going to have any lasting impact. We know Clark isn't N'Mon or his successor or the Messiah or anything more than Kal-El. (If he is the successor to a previous Kryptonian visitor, then we've just stepped into a whole religious parable thing that I am not going to touch.) And he has still not exhibited any real interest in his heritage, unless it's wrapped up with a pretty girl. So I still don't care what happens in the next fifteen minutes, because it can't matter in the end.

9:50 Clark saves Lionel from the wolf.

9:51 The injured wolf morphs into Kyla. Duh. "Stay with me, Clark" like somehow him taking her to the hospital would involve leaving her? People on TV are stupid.

9:53 Mother and son in a rural sit-in.

9:54 State buys the land as historical, LexCorp will be doing the preservation, and LuthorCorp is the big loser.

9:55 And what's so freakin' valuable about the caves that made Lex want to save it? The octagon, of course, which Lex recognizes from his meteoric paperweight. Maybe it's foreshadowing a big debut in UFC.

9:56 Clark relates the story Kyla told about the star that disappeared (though the connection to N'Mon was tenuous at best). Yes, yes, astrophysics would technically allow for this, but lightyears and time and the uncertainties of this continuity's destruction of Krypton and subsequent evacuation of baby Kal-El make me crabby.

9:57 Whitney is missing in action.

So it will have some impact in later episodes (much later, if I'm lucky, c'mon early Christmas present). Relying on a character we haven't seen all year, and haven't even heard about in months, for dramatic action and rerun-spanning tension is pretty cheap.

Happy Turkey Day, happy free Tuesdays until further notice, happy holidays!

Sarah Stanek