Smallville TV Show - Supergirl - Smallville Recaps, Smallville Reviews, Smallville Episodes | TWoP

Recapped by Tippi Blevins · Aired 2010-10-08

Oh, thank goodness. No "previously on Smallville" to slog through this week. We open straightaway to the night Clark sent the Kandorians to whatever otherworldly place he sent them to. We once again see the dark smoke that showed up at the end of the season's first episode. It swirls along the ground near the forgotten crystal console and then over to the edge of the rooftop where it condenses enough to show a foggy version of Darkseid's masked face and torso. Darkseid goes "RAWR!" and then explodes into a bunch of crows that disperse across the night sky, blotting out the permanently full moon with their flapping wings.

In a dark radio booth in another part of the city, a man quietly but urgently speaks to his listeners. "I need you to understand that," he says. "I need you get behind that." Granted I don't know much about the radio industry, but everything in his claustrophobic little environs looks like it came from Orson Welles's props closet. He's talking about aliens of the illegal sort (as opposed to the interstellar sort) and how they're taking American jobs. He's upset that they're "thumbing their noses at truth, justice and the American way." His platform seems to be much the same as many a conservative radio personality, but he's not a bombastic Rush Limbaugh. He seems almost meek, really. Then suddenly there comes a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at his chamber door. Except it's his window, but whatever. Lightning flashes and this soft-spoken fellow turns toward the window to see a raven sitting there. He gives it a curious look before turning back to his microphone. He thanks his listeners. "We're small, but we're loud," he says. Only if you turn up the volume on your radio really high, though. He signs off for the night: "This is Gordon Godfrey, saying night, y'all. Stand up for the American dream." He takes off his headset and hears a low rumbling sound, not unlike Lost's smoke monster. He turns back to the window just in time to see a stream of kamikaze crows break through the glass. Birds and black smoke fly at him. He falls back, screaming. Okay, now you're loud. His eyes go black.

We move to the present day. A small crowd gathers in that quiet little street where most of the outside shots of Metropolis seem to be shot. Godfrey stands at a podium, surrounded by red, white and blue bunting. Beside him is a long table filled with hardcover books titled Super-Heroes or Super-Menace? by Godfrey himself. That they were slapped together quickly is made obvious by the terrible typesetting, not to mention the MS Paint graphic of the Blur's "S" inside a circle-backslash symbol. Gordon tells the audience: "You will not be saved! Don't put your faith in this hero menace!" He goes on about why he wrote the book and how terrified he is for the nation and the innocent people who look up to the vigilantes. Clark stands in the audience looking uncomfortable as people around him clap. Lois walks into view behind him. She pauses, looking at him before approaching. Godfrey is still going on about shadows and darkness and lurking, and whatnot. Lois whispers, "Fifty bucks says the crackpot with the Blur in his bonnet is just gunning for a little attention." Clark smiles and turns around to give her a big hug. She apologizes for saying goodbye through a letter. Clark waves it off and says he figured something just happened. Lois teases him: "You mean something like 'Go to Africa, Lois'?" The clown music pipes up, annoying as ever. Clark stammers, admitting he did tell her that, but... "I thought you wanted me to take the job?" Lois asks, not letting him off the hook." He stammers some more as she allows him to flail. Finally, he asks if they're partners again. She gives him a smile and answers in the affirmative. "Unless you're disappointed I'm not blonder?" she asks. Clark suddenly remembers Cat, who was supposed to meet him there to cover the book signing. Lois says Cat was "conveniently volunteered" to cover a dog sled race... in Alaska. Isn't it, like, June for the show? Poor overheated huskies.

By Tippi Blevins

Clark and Lois make googly eyes at each other for a while and then turn their attention back to Godfrey. "We know who our real heroes are," he says, "and they are not these faceless mutants!" As he continues railing against the "secret vigilante agenda," Lois tries to reassure Clark. "I'm sure the Blur knows he's just taking potshots to sell books." Clark, still maintaining the ruse, is sure the Blur doesn't even know about this guy. His fidgety discomfort betrays him, though, which makes Lois smile a little. She stops smiling when Godfrey goes after the Blur specifically, calling him a "pariah so disfigured he doesn't dare show his face." The camera cuts to Clark's supermodel profile. Lois, fed up, stomps off toward the podium. Clark tries (although not very hard) to stop her. But before she can get to him, she's distracted by the billboard that Godfrey is just unveiling. It bears the same symbol as his book, but with the slogan "Stop the Menace!" As the crane pulls off the cover, something goes wrong and the billboard starts to topple. It falls toward the screaming crowd. Clark zips forward, holding up his hand up in a heroic pose, ready for the catch. It doesn't come. Instead, the billboard stops a few meters above, leaving Clark standing there looking like a goof. He makes a "huh?" face. The billboard flips up, revealing Kara hovering in midair, wearing a red and blue costume. The crowd cheers as she holds the errant billboard aloft in one hand. Godfrey looks annoyed. Lois pops up behind Clark. "Isn't that your cousin, Clark?" Clark is speechless. Kara winks and flies away, off-screen, because they've spent most of the episode's SFX money on gas ravens. Somebody save the budget!

By Tippi Blevins

Daily Planet. The sun's just come up, but the staff have been toiling away all night, possibly with plentiful supplies of booze, because the headline they've chosen to sell the day's paper is "MAIDEN OF MIGHT." Lois grabs the paste-up out of some guy's hands (they don't do that on computer?) and snarks on the headline for its overuse of alliteration. That's not its only weakness, but whatever. She hands the copy to Clark. "I need to find Kara," he sighs. Strangely, not a single reporter in this office full of reporters is rushing up to Clark for the inside scoop on his super cousin. Lois busies herself by throwing everything from Cat's desk into the trash. "Bye-bye, Barbie Dream Desk!" Is she counting on those Alaskan dogs to eat Cat? Clark's still thinking about Kara. "Maybe someone figured out where she flew off to," he says, then hears himself. "I can't believe I just said that out loud." Clark types something at his computer. Lois tries to get Clark to talk about his cousin, but he plays like he had no idea she had powers. "She must have had a close encounter with a meteor rock," Lois offers. With shifty eyes, Clark supports that as the most likely explanation. Lois tries to slyly encourage Clark, in her own way, to not follow in his cousin's footsteps and says Kara's "coming out" was a bad move. "You saw those crowds," Lois reminds him. Clark is surprised that people would turn on their heroes so quickly. Clearly he got to work this morning by way of a turnip truck. But then Clark realizes that Kara won the crowd over. "You never know," he says. "Maybe if the Blur was more honest and showed his face like Kara, more people would be able to trust him." He holds up Godfrey's book, saying it wouldn't get so much attention. Lois is aghast. She thinks the Blur is the one who got things right, not Kara. "By not staying in the shadows, she not only puts herself in danger, she puts you in danger, too." Clark is confused, so Lois quickly clarifies that Kara would be putting "everyone around her" in danger. Oh, my God. Just tell him you know, already! Lois goes on to talk about how "Uber Girl" may be popular today, but the public will turn on her. Her advice is for Kara to don a disguise and go undercover before Godfrey focuses on her. Clark looks scared, or maybe he's trying to figure out what "uber" means.

By Tippi Blevins

Kara's definitely not hiding out: She's posing on the ledge of ten-foot wall in a blue belly shirt and red mini, her long blond hair and makeup done perfectly. An American flag flaps in the breeze behind her. A photographer stands on the street below, snapping pictures as she tries out different poses. The upskirt shots will be all over the net shortly. He shouts encouraging clichés at her, like how she's "the woman of tomorrow -- today!" Clark wanders onto the set. Kara sees him and suggests taking a break. She walks down the stairs toward him instead of, like, flying over. "It's been a long time, Kal-El," she says within earshot of at least one person. They hug warmly. Clark expresses his surprise at seeing her earlier. "How long have you been in town?" he asks, but the tone is all "What are you doing here?" She doesn't say anything, so he prompts her: "You didn't come to Earth to be the first super-powered pinup girl." Kara says she needs to get her image out and around the city, ASAP. Clark looks at her like he's not buying it, so she tells him he needs to trust her. "I'm doing this for you," she says. He glances at the racks and racks of various blue-and-red outfits and notes that it doesn't feel like much of a favor. Kara, I think he's trying to tell you that he wanted to be the first super-powered pinup girl. She says she spent a lot of time looking for her mother without finding her and then decided to come back to the only place she has any family. He doesn't entirely buy it. "What you're doing right now flies in the face of how I've chosen to live on this planet my whole life," he says. If she cares about family, she'll tell him why she's really there. Kara sighs and says she didn't want to hurt him, but she's on a mission from Jor-El. Making pretty all over the city is a part of that. Kara apologizes, but Jor-El has moved on from ol' Kal. "He says you're no longer his son," she tells him. Clark uses his super-frowning powers.

By Tippi Blevins

We move to a cathedral with an imposing facade. Once inside, the camera pans over a painting of the Pietà to drive home the point of lost sons. Gordon Godfrey walks in front of the painting, Bible in hand, and takes a seat in a pew. Beside him, Lois is sitting with a Bible in front of her face. She snaps it shut and remarks, "Not a bad read." She asks him to comment on his super-save earlier. "Bless my soul," he says, recognizing her. He tells her to get in line if she wants a quote. She tells him to save the holier-than-thou stuff. "I have enough of you blindly taking potshots at Metropolis's heroes." He calls her a blind follower of the vigilantes. Lois points out that one of them just saved his life. Godfrey disagrees: "She risked people's lives in a ploy to undermine the message of my book." He calls Kara a "blonde bimbo" and his people will dig up something on her and all the super-powered mutants. Lois quietly threatens to poke around in his life, too. Godfrey has nothing to hide. "But I do know one vigilante who does," he says. "Green Arrow? A connection of mine -- who has toyed with him -- has given me evidence that the archer is really a certain depraved playboy. Your ex-boyfriend, I believe." Godfrey plans to reveal the secret identity in a special online chapter of his book. [Unless Lois decides to reveal it first, torpedoing his scoop, because how does he know what she'll do with that top secret, headline-grabbing info? - Zach] "Even his true believers' faith will be shaken," Godfrey says. His tone is very quiet and almost genial, but the evil still comes through. Kudos to the actor. Lois sits stony-faced in the pew as Godfrey gets up and leaves.

LuthorCorp. Oliver's in his office, doing some kind of... naked Tai Chi or something. Whatever it is, it involves him being sweaty and shirtless and moving around in slow yet precise ways. He stretches out his arm in a way that makes him remember the time he gave Chloe an archery lesson. Where the scene ended before with Chloe letting go of the arrow (and more), this time we see the arrow hit the bullseye. Chloe, smiling turns to look up at him, and finds him giving her a very serious and searching look. Pretty guitar music plays. Chloe raises up on her toes, puts her hands behind his neck, and kisses him. He wraps his arms around her and just when things start getting hot and heavy, we flash back to the present. Oliver punches through a plank of wood. Lois walks in, having just witnessed this act of cellulose abuse, and gives him a round of applause. Then she makes a joke about Mortal Kombat and a wood chipper. "I'm glad to see Africa managed to survive the whole Lois Lane invasion," he greets her. "Tell me what brings little Miss Cut-and-Run back to town." It's friendly banter and the towel she hurls at him is equally amiable. She says destiny brought her back. He still has that folding screen with the green arrows all over it. His identity is going to come as a shock to absolutely no one when Godfrey publishes that chapter. Also, there's a giant vase full of lemons and limes that is almost more distracting than Oliver's glistening torso. He says he knows Lois was trying to make a "preemptive strike" by leaving, hoping to hurt Clark before she could let him down later down the road. Now she's back because she regrets it. "Easy with the dress-down, buddy," she says. "I just ran for the hills because I thought I was going to mess things up for Clark." That's... sort of what Oliver just said. She says something about Clark's chocolate mixing with her peanut butter that gives me a horrible, horrible mental image. Oliver regards her thoughtfully. "I've never known you to surrender to anyone, or anything." She changes the subject to why she's really there: Gordon Godfrey's threat. Oliver thinks they should just ignore him, but Lois is insistent that Godfrey will expose him. "Well, maybe people deserve to know the truth," Oliver says. "People deserve to be saved," Lois says. The heroes can't do that if they come out of the shadows. But Oliver thinks the cost of keeping his secret has been too high. Lois, incensed, says she'll do something about Godfrey if Oliver won't. Oliver just looks sweaty in response.

By Tippi Blevins

A youngish woman in business attire opens the door to a limo and greets Godfrey inside. She compliments him on his latest interview and takes a seat beside him. She wants to see his final chapter before he posts it online. He holds up a flash drive and says, "I kept the only copy close to me for safe keeping." As his publicist, she thinks she should have a look, but he just pockets the drive and says the secret stays with him. She doesn't push the issue. She remarks with wonder how just three weeks ago, he was a "small-time radio host" and now everyone in the city knows this creepy weirdo! Or words to that effect. [Also, he wrote and published a book on his new cause. - Z] He has ambitions beyond Metropolis. "I want to touch every soul," he says. How does he plan to do that? "If I can plant an idea... a seed of doubt within people... it will grow until it devours their faith in each other and in these heroes." The faithless will then be ready for a new leader. The publicist practically has dollar signs in her eyes. Then Godfrey starts talking about "humans" being their own undoing and she suggests he needs to take a little break. She gets out of the limo. He fishes in his coat pocket for an invitation to a "Maxwell's Club DeSaad." The card heralds it as "Metropolis [sic] Premium Fetish Party" and promises performances from such ill-named luminaries as XX-Kitten and Poss Sinstress. His voice going all evil and gravelly, he instructs his driver to take him there. "Yes, Sir," Lois says from the driver's seat, not noticing the change in his voice. He returns the favor by not noticing his chauffeur is Lois Lane, even though she looks right at him.

By Tippi Blevins

Kent Farm. Clark is up in his loft, fetching the book where he usually hides the key that opens the Fortress portal. The cover and most of the pages beneath have been burnt away in a octagonal shape. He holds up the book, looking sad. Kara whooshes up behind him, saying, "I know about your little shortcut to the Fortress." He turns around to see her holding the key. She's changed into a little blue leather jacket, red jeans and yellow tee. Clark wants the key back so he can go talk to Jor-El. Can't you just run up there in about two minutes? I thought the key was mostly for people who didn't have super powers. Kara thinks there's no point in confronting Jor-El, but Clark wants to know why he's been disowned. She starts to leave, but he snags her wrist and plucks the keys from her fingers. "This is bigger than just Jor-El," she says. She tells him about how she's been trying to stop the darkness that's come to Earth. Clark gets territorial. "I was the one sent to Earth to protect it," he says. He's pissed that Jor-El didn't come to him. Kara tells him his space papa thinks he's not ready. Dude, it's the tenth season. Sink or swim time, buddy. Clark says sort of the same thing, although in a less meta way. Then he says Jor-El's the one who's confused: "Because I know my own destiny!" Do the writers get a bonus every time they work the word "destiny" or "fate" into the script? Kara patiently explains that this new evil is like nothing he's ever seen before, unless he's watched Supernatural. "It takes advantage of people's doubts," she says. "There's nothing out there I can't handle," Clark pouts. So Kara reminds him he can't even fly yet and won't be able to fight this thing without all of his abilities. Clark questions whether or not Kara can fight it alone, and then dickishly asks her, "You'd rather put the world at risk and trust Jor-El than believe in me?" She looks stung. Kick him in his super-nads, woman! Clark, realizing what he's said, takes a breath and softens his approach. He says Kara is his only family and asks for her help. She takes a commercial break to think about it.

By Tippi Blevins

After the break, they're standing at the top of a windmill tower. Clark paces around one side of the platform. "I think I liked it better when I was showing you the ropes," he says. He stands as close to the edge as he can bear and clenches his eyes shut. He thinks flying must be easy for Kara. "It's not easy or hard," she says. "It just is." She just aims for the sky and lives for the moment. Clark thinks about this for a moment, but he keeps hearing the distant sounds of life in the city. "The more I try to clear my mind, the more I hear." Kara suggests he focus on a little butterfly that has stopped by to mock Clark with its natural flying abilities. "Look at me flapping my beautiful wings! I can fly, and I'm a mere insect! Envy me, foolish earthbound alien! HAHAHA!" Clark looks doubtful, but gives it a try. He hears the soft whoosh of the butterfly's wings, focuses on it, then with a heavenward look launches himself off the platform. Heroic music plays as he vaults into the sky. A few hundred feet up, he suddenly makes an "oh shit!" face and stops gaining altitude. He falls like a 200-pound sack of potatoes, right through the roof of the barn. Up in Heaven, Jonathan Kent is like, "Damn it! Now I got to go fix that, too!" Clark throws bits of wood off himself as Kara zips up to him. She tries to be encouraging, but Clark isn't having it. "It's not flying if it's mostly falling." At least you didn't land on a cow. Think about how much worse you'd feel, and how messy it would be. Kara thinks she shouldn't have gone against Jor-El's wishes by helping him. She turns to go but Clark calls her back. He wants another try. "You're doubting your powers!" she says. He refuses to stand by like a big, flightless emu. She lays it out for him: "That darkness? It came through a rip in the universe three weeks ago. You think it's just gonna wait around until you're ready?" I bet you it'll wait around until May 2011. Something about that three-week timeline sounds familiar to Clark.

By Tippi Blevins

He super-zips out of the barn, and Kara follows him. Even though it was sunny when they left Smallville, it's now pitch dark in Metropolis. Maybe they stopped off for dinner and a movie. They wind up on top of the building where Clark sent the Kandorians to their new home. He pulls a big stone block off the crystal console (at least he thought to cover it at some point) and shows it to Kara. He tells her about how he opened a portal using the Book of Rao. "If the darkness came through a gateway, maybe it can leave through one," he says. Kara takes off her bracelet, remembering that she used it once before to open a portal. But... "This dark force is like a disease," she says. "It can see your thoughts and feelings. It can find the one morsel of doubt that even the purest person doesn't realize they have inside of them." She says it can possess someone, unless that person is "pure of spirit" and has a "true clarity of purpose." Clark realizes that Jor-El thinks that the darkness will find some weakness inside him. Kara tells her cousin: "If this dark force possesses someone with abilities like yours, it could be the greatest weapon this planet has ever seen." Clark looks vaguely worried.

Back to that cathedral. Oliver walks into the empty, dimly lit church and kneels in front of a bank of lit votive candles. The Pietà is visible in the shadows behind him. He places a photo in front of the candles. It shows Oliver as a little boy with his smiling parents. "I've been really trying to live my life in a way that would make you proud of me," he says, pausing now and then to find the words. He's afraid he's let them down, remembering how they taught him to take care of other people. Sad piano music plays. He says he's failed. "The woman that I love, she sacrificed everything to protect me," he says, and now he's trying to figure out how to live with it. He thinks for a long time and then there's a subtle shift in his expression. "I can't have other people risking their lives for me." He nods once, almost imperceptibly. "This has to stop." He apologizes to his parents, kisses the tips of his fingers and then presses them to the photo. He gets up and walks away, looking no happier for having come to his decision.

Club DeSaad. Lois, still in her chauffeur's uniform, walks through an apparently unmanned entryway and into a den of debauchery. It's relatively mild as debauchery goes, but it's The CW, not HBO. Men and women in vinyl and leather costumes make out and dance while some low bass music goes thumpity-thump. Lois looks around, uncomfortable at first, then smiles as what will surely turn out to be a bad idea comes to her. The camera turns to Godfrey, sitting at a table as he takes in the sweaty tableau before him. Lois walks down the stairs, now outfitted in a black patent bustier, mile-high heels and platinum wig. A lacy sort of mask covers her eyes. She leans over Godfrey's table and whispers: "You look like a man who could use a little corrupting." He's quite pleased by the sudden appearance of this blonde Amazon. "I'm on the hunt for a little distraction," he says. She whacks his face lightly with a riding crop. "I think the hunter has become the hunted," she says. He looks like he just had a mini O.

By Tippi Blevins

Lois grabs him by the front of his shirt and leads him into a secluded room where about a hundred candles have been lit. That just seems like such a fire hazard, man. She pushes him down onto a red velvet sofa and whacks him across the chest with her riding crop. Did she just happen to have this outfit on hand? Or did she "borrow" it from some clubber who had temporarily removed it? Because if so: ew. "What's your favorite tool?" he asks. Lois is momentarily taken aback, then says, "I'm pretty good with a torque wrench." Gordon is titillated: "I'm a torque wrench virgin!" He grabs Lois's thigh. She pushes his hand away then leans over him to grab a candle. She pours melted wax over his bare chest. He gasps with pleasure. Lois makes a funny "you freak!" face while his eyes are closed. When he tries to grab her again, she cuffs his hands to some chains over his head. Two women wander in, arms around each other, on their way to another private room. Lois calls out for them to help her out. They oblige her request to climb all over Godfrey. Lois takes out her camera and surreptitiously snaps a few shots. Godfrey wonders what she'll do to him now that she has him under her control. Lois dismisses the helpful ladies and then proceeds to lean over Godfrey in a most suggestive manner. His eyes widen in anticipation. "Gotcha," she says, taking off her mask. She shows him her camera. He's impressed. "You're seething with ambition," he says. "With you, it's all about the byline." He thinks she'll sacrifice anyone or anything to get what she wants. He offers to give her the scoop on Oliver Queen as Green Arrow. She turns him down and uploads the pics to the Planet's editor. "I don't care about the photos, Lois," he says, his voice going all distorted at the end like he has a throat full of avian smog. He breaks out of the cuffs and grabs Lois by the wrist. He gives her an appreciative ogling. "I can see that you're pure of heart," he says. She looks at him like he's crazy, because... yeah. He regrets he can't take over her body, so he settles for knocking her out.

By Tippi Blevins

Watchtower. Clark shows an impressed Kara inside. "I thought the Fortress was your only hideaway," she breathes. He explains the nature of Watchtower, since she hasn't been watching the show. Kara thinks maybe Jor-El underestimated him. Clark tappity-taps at a computer, checking the news feeds. Kara tells him to cast a wide net: "The host is probably in a leader with influence." I... think she got a preposition wrong there. Godfrey pops up in the news, catching Clark's attention. He plays a clip of Godfrey talking about the vigilantes. With their super-hearing, Clark and Kara pick up on the distorted sound of Godfrey's voice, which sounds exactly like the aliens on the War of the Worlds TV series. Clark frowns because he thought sound effects had improved since 1989. Kara taps at another computer, instantly skilled at using Watchtower's systems, and finds some security camera footage that shows Godfrey's limo downtown a few hours earlier. Clark sees Lois in the driver's seat and super-zips away. Kara follows.

Lois wakes up to the sound of muffled club music, her vision momentarily blurry. She's been tied up with strips of red cloth and suspended horizontally from the ceiling in what normally must be some sort of S&M contraption. Sometimes I feel really bad for Erica Durance. Lois is gagged. Another length of cloth is twisted around her neck. "Congratulations, Lois," Godfrey says, not bothering to disguise his voice anymore. "You've proven yourself to be a true believer of these vigilantes." He strokes her hair and says her "saintly suffering" will lure the Blur. He activates some sort of device that pulls the rope tighter around her neck. She struggles as he continues petting her hair. "Fight all you want," he says. "You won't be able to escape your fate."

Back in the club proper, Clark and Kara are just arriving. They get a look at all the corsets and dog collars. "What is this place?" Kara asks. "It's kind of hard to explain," Clark says. "Just try to... blend in." Even he sounds like he knows what an impossible task that is. Clark should be the one to wear a sexy disguise time. Make him parade around in fishnets and heels for once. Or something. Kara used Watchtower's computers to track Lois's cellphone here, she says when Clark questions whether or not Lois is really there. He suggests splitting up to cover more ground. Kara looks annoyed but lets him go without an argument.

By Tippi Blevins

Clark walks into a dark storage room, from the looks of it. There's a large metal horse hanging from the ceiling whose purpose in this milieu I don't want to fathom. Godfrey walks in front of a window just as lightning flashes, silhouetting him. (This is the shot they used in the previews that made it seem like another Lex impersonator.) Clark calls out to him: "I'm here for Lois!" Just in case Godfrey might think he was there to get his groove on. "That's too bad," Godfrey says in his smog bird voice. "Lois's blind faith in the vigilantes has gotten her in way over head." Thanks for not making the obvious and painful "she's all tied up" joke, Mr. Darkseid. Clark wants Lois released. Godfrey says she's served her purpose, which was to bring one of the vigilantes to him. He advances on Clark. "Are you sure you can win against me?" Godfrey asks. Clark just stands there as the lightning flashes. So Godfrey goes on: "You know what I am. You know the doubt in your heart." Clark's eyebrows wiggle in confusion. Godfrey calls the heroes "false gods" and prophesies that people will stop believing in them one day. Clark finally takes a step forward. "Just tell me: where is she?" Godfrey starts psychoanalyzing Clark: "Underneath all that bravado, you're afraid you'll never be the hero you want to be." Clark looks scared. "You wish you could kill me," Godfrey says. He sees that it's not the first time, either. Godfrey's looking a little turned-on thinking about Clark's racing heart and inner turmoil. Clark asks once more for Lois. Godfrey ignores him because he's too busy noticing the "darkness" in Clark. He's hot for Clark's power. "I think we'll go far together, you and I," he says. "I will never help you," Clark replies. Godfrey says he doesn't have a choice. A flock of smoke birds burst out of his chest and flap all around Clark in a mini tornado of feathers and cawing. Clark sort of just looks at them. Kara appears out of nowhere to stand between him and Darkseid's fine feathered friends. Light flashes out of her bracelet and the birds disappear. Godfrey slumps to the floor. Kara turns to Clark and asks if he's all right. Clark is shaken: "It's like he could see inside me." They frown at each other for a while, then hear Lois gasping.

They super-zip to the torture dungeon where Lois is still hanging around. As Clark whooshes toward her, a red blanket flaps up, obscuring our view because, again, the gas ravens took up the effects budget. So instead of seeing Clark zooming around and untying Lois at super-speed, we hear the vroom-vroom. When the blanket settles into place, Clark has hidden himself from view and left Kara to take the credit for the rescue.

By Tippi Blevins

Later, Kara and Lois leave the club together. Lois has donned her chauffeur's jacket over her dominatrix outfit. She remarks that Godfrey should be the one in restraints. "Who knew Mr. Family Values had such a dark side?" she asks. Kara says that everyone has two sides, even heroes. Lois asks Kara what it's like to have powers. Kara says she feels free and not "beholden" to anyone. "That's too bad," Lois says, then before Kara can catch on that she's talking about her and Clark, adds something about Kara getting lonely. But... "Maybe it's easier to be a hero when you don't have somebody tying you down," Lois says. And yet somehow Darkseid couldn't find any "doubt" in her to take advantage of. She thinks Kara must think differently of people without powers. Kara says it's easy for people to see just the powers. "I guess even heroes need someone to come home to," she says, then walks away, leaving Lois to think on that for a while.

Daily Planet. Lois shows Clark the day's Metropolis Inquisitor, the front page bearing the story Godfrey's kinky romp. "How's that for tying up loose ends?" she quips. They just couldn't resist. Also, is Godfrey-the-human going to get all the blame for the actions of Godfrey-the-possessed? Seems like it: Lois tells Clark that a buddy of hers at the Inquisitor ran the story since it didn't fit in with the Planet. Lois is pleased as punch, but Clark thinks she went too far. She could have been hurt or killed, and then she wouldn't be around anymore to wear sexy costumes. But she wasn't about to stand by and let someone destroy the city's faith in its heroes. She admits she was scared, but she was more afraid of being in a world without heroes. Clark makes a worried puppy face. Lois tries out a list of monikers for Kara: "Thank God Uber Girl -- Power Girl -- Mega Girl? -- was there to save me from the gallows." Clark is worried that people put Kara and the Blur on too high a pedestal. Lois says the Blur is different: "He's my hero," she says, giving Clark a pointed look. "No matter what he's afraid of, I know he will always be there for me." Clark's puppy face increases in intensity. As the camera pans around him, a figure of Atlas holding aloft the globe comes into view. That's the second time they've made an Atlas reference and we're only three episodes into the season.

By Tippi Blevins

Clark heads outside. He's so deep in thought that he bumps into a dark-haired young lady on the sidewalk. He apologizes, then recognizes his cousin. She adjusts her dark-rimmed glasses. "What do you think of my new look?" He thinks she looks completely different. She looks awesome with dark hair. Not that she looked bad with the blond, or anything. Clark wonders why the cover-up. "You can't save people when you're the center of attention," she says. She promises not to leave until she knows Earth is safe from the darkness. I bet we never hear from her again, unless V gets canceled. Clark pulls her aside to quietly ask about her bracelet and why it only repelled the darkness. She doesn't think it will work as a portal... unless the darkness is in a host. Clark wonders why the darkness didn't possess Kara? She looks uncomfortable. "It's because you're pure of spirit," Clark realizes. He also realizes it would have possessed him if Kara hadn't stepped in. "People of this planet would be doomed," Kara says, if a creature like that had Clark's powers. Time to outfit all your buddies with Kryptonite, dude. Clark mopes about being destined to fail, so Kara tells him what matters is how he overcomes failure. "I know this isn't easy for you," she says. "But I need you to leave the darkness to me." She tells him it's not his fight, then walks off, leaving him face to face with one of those anti-Blur symbols spray-painted on a nearby wall. A guy walking by says, "Kinda makes you wonder if we put too much faith in this vigilante." "Maybe the Blur isn't the hero he thinks he is," Clark says.

LuthorCorp. Lois plunks Godfrey's flash drive onto Oliver's desk and asks, "Who's your mama?" Ew. Oliver: "Is that a trick question?" I hope so. Lois explains about the drive and Godfrey's plan. Oliver's secret is safe. Lois couldn't be more pleased, but Oliver just gives her a "hm" and looks pensive. She teases him. He thanks her, but doesn't want the people he loves fighting his battles anymore. "What is this?" she asks. "Does this have anything to do with why Chloe took an extended vacation?" Oliver confesses that Chloe's not on vacation like he told Lois. Dumbass, you told her Chloe was on vacation? Isn't the whole point of faking one's death to make people think you're dead and not just sipping margaritas somewhere? Lordy, that's dumb. "The truth is she left," Oliver says. "And I don't think she's coming back." He says Chloe gave up everything to protect him. Lois tries to convince him that Chloe will be back. He hopes so, but... "This has gone on long enough." Lois senses something serious is going on. "What are you doing, Oliver?" "I'm doing what I have to," he tells her. He buzzes his assistant on the intercom: "Send them in, please." The doors open and a handful of media types file in. Oliver thanks them for coming, then gets on with his big announcement: "People have these so-called vigilantes all wrong. There's only one way for me to set the record straight: I am Green Arrow." Cameras flash. Reporters rush toward him, microphones upheld. They flood him with questions, but he doesn't look any happier for having unloaded his burden. Lois watches, stunned, from across the room.

By Tippi Blevins

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Tippi Blevins had a darkness inside her, so she swallowed a night light. You can reach her at b_tippi@yahoo.com or http://twitter.com/tippib.