By Tippi Blevins | Season 9 | Episode 4
Dear God. What a slow episode this was. It was downright ponderous. It was like frozen molasses. I've seen people in a coma move faster. I bet the shooting script was only about five pages long and most of that was just direction like, "Clark and Lois stare at each other for five minutes," or, "Clark takes ten minutes to cross a room."
Anyway, Clark temporarily finds himself able to read people's thoughts after some "seeds" that Jor-El "planted" in him are activated because of an error in judgment. The error in this case turns out to be, I think, that Clark mistakes a hostage victim for a bomber. Jor-El wants him to learn to forsake his human instincts and rely on his Kryptonian instincts instead. It takes Clark forever to figure out that he can read minds, and an equally long time to figure out that Toyman is behind the bomb incident. In the meantime, Clark uses his newfound ability to woo Lois with donuts and promises of a monster truck rally she's been wanting to go to. Chloe finds out about it and lectures Clark even though he should already know how ooky that shit is. Clark ends up standing up Lois for their date, in the name of protecting her from Toyman's machinations, but she thinks he was just ditching her so he could grab a headline story for himself. Does she write him off? Of course not. They end up flirting like two glaciers passing in a frozen valley, promising to try again someday.
As to why Toyman is back: He wants revenge against Oliver for framing him for Lex's murder. He tries to get Oliver to confess in a fake bomb plot, but a suicidal Oliver doesn't give in. Clark eventually figures out the plan even though his mind-reading ability inconveniently disappears on him. The Toyman is locked up. Bad-ass Tess has him committed solitary confinement so that he'll have plenty of time to work on a new "toy" -- John Corben's kryptonite heart. That, and an earlier scene of Tess kicking ass in a bar to rescue a drunken Oliver, were the only bright spots in the episode.