First off, thanks to Cyb for the recaplet assist. You saved a man's sanity this week.
Alt-rock crap (oh, alt-rock crap, how I've missed you; that's how much of a bummer this season has been) plays, loudly, as we're zoomed in on a close-up of the front page of the Smallville High Torch on a computer monitor. The page-one headline reads, "School's out forever!" The freshmen, sophomores, and juniors read it and cry, "hells yes!" The newspaper also reads, "Last edition." It's shutting down forever without Chloe? That would make sense, since she's been its only consistent employee for four years (and was already running the place freshman year). Chloe is signing a very glamorous photo of herself in a high-school yearbook. I can't quite make out what she writes, but it's short enough to be of the "Have a great summer!" sentiment. She hands it to a floppy-haired dude who just had to have an autograph from the Chloe Sullivan. Hey, Chloe, is it true that you once dated Superman? And you let him crush your spirit for a few seasons after that? Because this yearbook's gonna be a collector's item someday! The guy does me a favor by reading what Chloe wrote: "To Brandon, a photographer who could always capture the moment." From Chloe, one-woman media conglomerate. She and Brandon have a Nescafe moment. He says, "Thanks." She says, "Sure." Brandon -- who will later turn out to be a PhotoJerkalist -- stuffs his yearbook into his backpack and says he's gotta run. He'll see her at lunch. Chloe sips on the biggest coffee container I've ever seen that isn't made of advanced plastics and gets back to work. A bell rings as she begins to type. And here's where things get a little weird: her computer makes weird little beeps as Chloe looks up and notices that the clock says 8:30. She looks toward the hall and notices that nobody's walking by.
Cut to Chloe walking into the high-school hallway. We see her from a bird's-eye view. Everything is dim and empty. But enough about the script. Ah ha ha! I kid the script. Seriously, script, I'm sorry. I know you're a scrappy little guy, trying to make it in the world as one of the runts of the late-season litter. Buck up, little partner. Omar's got your back. The camera whooshes down rather nicely as Chloe walks down the hall. It cranes down and pursues her (saaay. Nice, uh, jeans there, Chloe) around a corner. Things look spooky and overlit. "hello?" she calls out. There's a sign on the wall that reads, "Patricia Taylor for Secretary." There are also signs, randomly, opposed to alcohol abuse and in favor of hot dogs. My brain can't quite reconcile the two. Maybe there's a brats and beer epidemic at Smallville High. Chloe dares to walk past the hot dog sign and to another set of lockers, still calling out. The camera does a 720-degree turn around Chloe. We hear a spooky wind sound. There's a shower running. Chloe walks toward it.
Athletic office. Wow, this is where Jason used to work. Chloe walks past some trophies and toward the locker room and the showers. There's major fog-machine action going on down there. Chloe recognizes someone in there. "Haley?" she calls. She's relieved and says she thinks the two of them are the only people in the -- uh oh. Haley is bent over to get water from a fountain. The water is dribbling out of her frozen mouth. Her skin is pudding white. Her eye is glazed over with some kind of pudding-like substance, but the eye beneath moves from side to side. Chloe backs away in horror. She looks around, trying to find the evil tapioca monster that did this.
Hallway again. Chloe bursts out into the hall and goes toward one of the school exits. The doors won't open. She runs in another direction. The camera appears to be shooting her from about kneecap level.
The Torch. Chloe picks up a very cheap prop phone and it's dead. She draws three sets of blinds in a row. We can't see what she sees, but Chloe is horrified. White light spills in as Chloe backs away. "What's going on?" she asks. There appear to be fluorescent bars of light in the windows. Another bell rings. The camera rotates up and out of the room, finding a ceiling panel to escape from as Chloe yells for help. I hope that camera operator took some Dramamine.
Abrupt cut to the exterior of a warehouse. Another jump cut to a run-down industrial area, complete with smokestacks. Huh. I have no idea what the fuck's going on. Let's hope we find out.
Opening credits. Somebody saaaaaave me from recapping week's ninety-minute episode! No, not really. I'm looking forward to about sixty minutes of it.
Commercials. House of Wax. How appropriate.
Kent Farm. What, no exterior shot? Clark is doop-de-doo'ing down the stairs. As he's rolling up a plaid sleeve for that lesbian trucker look, he overhears his folks talking about him. They must not know about his super-hearing. You could really screw with someone's head when you know he can hear you from across the farm. The Kents are discussing something about Clark and thinking, so you know it must be bad. Clark walks into the kitchen. Bo, wearing his Mighty Brown Vest of Stern Parenting, asks Clark why the hell he's got a financial aid package from Central Kansas, a university I'm going to guess is not exactly Princeton as far as Bo is concerned. "It's where I'm going to college," Clark announces, and quickly averts his eyes because it's a shameful, shameful thing. Bo asks, "What happened to Met U?" Yes, what did happen to Met U? It has lost my respect as a credible university when its scholars couldn't calculate the distance between Smallville and Metropolis. Boo to you, Met U! Bo asks what happened to Ohio and Miami. Ohio? When was Clark considering Ohio? It's a credit to the show's genius that we've gotten so far into Clark's head that we can anticipate these moments that seem to come from out of nowhere. Clark says glumly that it's so he can stay closer to home. Dude, you can sprint across the country in, like, ten seconds. How close to home do you need to be? MamaKent nurtures by saying that starting in a new city with new friends is tough, but that Clark can't let that hold him back. Bo digs into the cookie jar for a particularly stale platitude, saying that this is one of the most important decisions Clark is going to make in his whole life. "You don't think I know that?" Clark says, with a hint of sass. Hit him, Bo! Bo asks if Lana is going to Central Kansas. Clark says he doesn't know, and that this isn't about Lana. That pisses Bo off even more: "Oh, then this is about us. You don't think I can run this farm without your help." Clark says that this is where he's needed. Damn. I was really looking forward to Miamiville. Bo says that Clark's destiny lies beyond those cornfields out there. By the way, have you shucked the corn today, Clark? Bo's not going to let Clark turn his back on that for the family. Clark stares, blankly. He's thinking very hard about cargo pants. "Now I've got a farm to run," Bo says, giving Clark the stink-eye. He exits. MamaKent asks Clark if that's really the reason. Clark visualizes himself in those Old Navy pants. Mmm, pockets.
That weird industrial area from the show intro. The camera returns from its ceiling perch to show Chloe standing in front of her desk, nervously tapping at her computer keyboard. A pop-up window informs her that there's "! NO INTERNET ACCESS!" Noooo! This really is from my nightmares now. Chloe hears two girls chattering and looks up to see them walking past the office door in the hallway. She rushes over, happy to see others in her own personal nightmare. It's "Lisa" and "Dehlia." She asks them if they know what's going on. They ignore her concern and tell Chloe to hurry up or she'll be late for Trig. This nightmare just keeps getting worse and worse! Chloe tells them that there are no classrooms beyond these walls. One of the girls tells her just to play along: "He's watching."
Chloe looks up and notices a security camera that's swiveling to point toward them. A red light on it blinks. A door opens. PhotoJerkalist emerges from a Room 222. Chloe tries to rush over so that he doesn't let the door close. She asks if he's playing along, too. "Playing along?" he asks. Man, his hair looks like it was sculpted by surfers. He tells her he planned it all. "You brought us here?" Chloe asks incredulously. He says that just because it's the last day of school doesn't mean they can't stay there forever, and starts to walk away. Chloe pulls his arm and asks him why he'd want to stay stuck in high school when there's so much else out there. Ugh. The clumsy metaphor episode. This is exactly what I want to spend my weekend watching. PhotoJerkalist tells Chloe that he thought she of all people would understand, since she's editor of The Torch and was Homecoming Queen. That was a sick joke, my friend. He says that Chloe had everything in high school; all that's left for her outside is a lifetime of disappointments. She didn't even have a steady boyfriend, dude. What are you talking about? PhotoJerkalist is pretty pleased that there won't be any disappointment in this space.
Chloe tells PhotoJerkalist that he can't just keep them all there: "You have to move on!" He tells her that some people didn't get into their dream colleges like she did. When you're looking at a stack of rejection letters, "moving on" means working at a video store. That sounds kind of fun. You could be like Randall from Clerks. Chloe asks how PhotoJerkalist can be sure that the rest of them will go along with this. He turns evilly at some dorky kid is taking stuff out of his locker. "Wendell?" PhotoJerkalist purrs. Wendell tries to walk away. PhotoJerkalist yells at Wendell to "come here!" You'd better do it, man. I bet this guy gives a mean wedgie. Wendell swears that he didn't do anything. PhotoJerkalist says that Chloe wants to know what happens when you don't play along. Wendell begs not to be hurt. PhotoJerkalist reaches out his hand and grabs Wendell by the wrist. This guy actually does look like the teenaged version of the Wendell who throws up on the bus on The Simpsons. Wendell's hand turns into that milky putty color. His whole body is covered in yogurt. His blue eye stares out. It's pretty gross. Heh, talk about a milky complexion! He has a certain dairy-aire. I hope Wendell doesn't stay like that too long or he may sour on the experience. Well, I'm officially having too much fun with this. PhotoJerkalist turns back to Chloe and tells her she's better off here. Menacing music plays as he promises to save a seat for her at lunch. Wendell's hand is still sticking out. "Stop! In the name of Yoplait!" Chloe is appropriately frightened.
The real Smallville High. Clark is picking up his graduation gown; it's not exactly the way I pictured Clark getting into the world of cross-dressing, but that's fine. We'll take what we can get. Lana, wearing a maroon cap and orange tassel, appears (this is way scarier than Chloe's scenes) and asks Clark what he thinks. Clark thinks "khakis." Clark says it's really starting to hit him: "It's really over, isn't it?" Only in my fucking dreams, Clark. Clark remembers walking in his first day of freshman year. "Actually," says Lana, bathed in annoyingly beatific light, "I think you tripped." Clark says that Lana made him nervous. Even in this little moment, Clark has to lie. "It was cute," Lana says. It was Kryptonite! Lana says that Clark then went on to become a big football star. "Former," Clark reminds her. He reminisces about seeing Lana every morning at their lockers. She looks like she seriously wants to get it on, right here. This isn't the Lana I know. Clark says that things'll change since she's going off to college. Lana says she's not sure she's going to go. Clark's going to community college and Lana's staying here? Four years and they're not going to change one bit, huh? Set your TiVos, people. season is going to be awesome! Clark asks what Lana means. She makes an awful expression that looks gastric-based. Clark says she's dreamed of leaving town since she was a little girl. Lana says she feels like, if she goes, it's because it's what everyone expects. She wants to leave town for the right reasons. That's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. My brain can't even process through it. It's just white noise up there. I think Lana's pathetic state of being has finally short-circuited me. Well played, Lang. Clark is amazed to hear that she's staying in Smallville. The white noise in my head has become a funeral dirge. Lana says it's going to be tough with everybody leaving. Clark says that maybe they won't all be gone. He says he's thinking of commuting to Central Kansas. Dude, you could commute to NYU! Come on! Lana smiles and says she can stop trying to figure out how to say goodbye. My heart. She is breaking. The woman down the hall distributing gowns calls out some names including "Wendell Johnson" (heh, "Johnson"), Chloe, and Haley. Clark says he figured Chloe would be the first in line. Lana's mouth convulses at the sound of Chloe's name.
Lair of Lex. No exterior shot here, either. Guess we're getting tight on those second unit budgets. The camera is positioned below the little balcony in Lex's library, looking up at the sexy bald man. He's huge! He's also talking on the phone, telling someone that they can excavate whatever they want down in the caves. Guess he's going to try to get rid of that pesky wall he just found out about. Unannounced, Jason walks right in. Nice security, ass. Lex gets off the phone and tells Jason he thought they'd finished their business together. Monkey business? Jason pulls out a gun. Guess not. He fires something and it gets Lex's neck. It's a tranquilizer dart of some sort. Hey, asshole, tranqs a lot! Lex pulls the dart out of his neck and collapses. "Almost," Jason says.
Commercials. Jet Li is Unleashed. But then, isn't he always?
Kent Barn. Bo is handling some wood. No, it's not a euphemism. He's chopping it, actually. MamaKent walks in, concerned, and says that Clark was going to take care of that later. In that case, it would have been a euphemism. MamaKent emasculates Bo by telling him that he can't take Clark's place on the farm. For one thing, the cows would get lonely. MamaKent says that every farm in the county has at least five hands helping out. They're all cursed with a third helper with a missing arm. Bo grouses that they ran the farm for generations without help from extraterrestrials. He chops a block of wood. Mighty Bo! MamaKent wonders aloud which one of her boys is more stubborn. "Why don't I give you a clue?" Bo says stubbornly, and sweatily chops another block. Manly! MamaKent winces. She wants Bo to admit that they can't run the farm alone. He asks what she wants him to do, and what kind of parents it would make them to tell Clark they can't survive without him. "Honest ones," she says. MamaKent says that Clark's decision took a lot of maturity. "Or guilt," Bo says. Yeah, there's that. Bo says that Clark feels responsible for Bo's heart problems. He doesn't want Clark staying out of pity. No pity here, my friend. MamaKent says Clark knows that if he leaves, he can only come back a few times a year. Which is completely untrue. "He doesn't want one of those times to be your funeral," she says. Ouch. Bo sniffs loudly. Death: The great big platitude in the sky.
Smallville High. We finally get an exterior shot. And it's from a strange sideways angle. Thanks, guys. Either we just came from the last Clark scene or Clark's been carrying around his gown all day. I vote the latter. Clark and Lana enter the offices of The Torch looking for Chloe. There are boxes everywhere. Lana says she's not sure if Met U is ready for the Wall of Weird. Clark is just now noticing that Chloe didn't put out today's issue of The Torch. Lana asks if the printer's down. Clark says that the paper isn't in its final format, and that it's unlike Chloe to not get in her final word. They find her unfinished coffee and her cell phone. How exactly did PhotoJerkalist get those students from the real school to his fake warehouse version?
Cut to Lex, kidnapped for the umpteenth time. He's tied to a chair. He wakes up, groggy. He struggles against the ropes. He sees Papa Luthor sitting across from him. Lex says he should have trusted his instincts. He thinks that Papa is working with Jason. Papa Luthor, to a flaming fireplace, says that his hands recently went to sleep, and that Lex has a funny definition of the word "collaboration." Lex sees that Papa Luthor is bloodied up and also tied to a chair. Just then, Jane Seymour and her son Jason walk in. She's wearing an extravagant white mink coat. Papa makes a crack about the flourishing of their Oedipal bond. Lex smiles at that. Heh. It's pretty funny. Jane slaps Papa Luthor across the mouth. Don't Oedipal me! She warns that this search for the Gay Stones of Knowledge might be a hobby for Papa, but that she didn't come all this way to reach a stalemate. Lex warns Jason that he's making a mistake, and that Jane won't hesitate to turn on him. Papa gives Lex a sly look. "Trust me on this one," Lex says. Jason snarks that Lex doesn't understand family loyalty, given where he's from. Jason says that Papa Luthor stole a stone from them. Jane says he still has it. Everyone stares at Lex. Lex asks what they want from him. Jane says that Papa Luthor won't talk, so that's where Lex comes in. Lex isn't convinced that Papa Luthor would give a damn if he's tortured or killed. "I hope for your sake you're wrong," says Jane Seymour.
The Talon. Oh. Lois. She's at the coffee counter, where the bean business is booming. She's struggling to catch up with orders doing that weird thing where she talks under her breath with every order. Clark comes to the counter, which magically clears for him. Lois says she didn't expect to see Clark skipping school. "I'm on lunch break," he says. Totally convincing, given we've only seen him in a classroom once in four years. Lois snarks that it's the last day of school, and that Clark's abnormal for not skipping. She says that even her best employee, Haley, skipped her morning shift. Clark asks if Lois has seen Chloe. Lois says she delivered a coffee to Chloe the night before for her deadline, so she thinks Chloe's crashed out somewhere. It's tough to be a one-person staff. Clark thinks something's going on. A blonde girl comes up and asks Clark to sign her yearbook. Lois rolls her eyes. Clark's picture says he's "Most Likely to Be Drafted to the NFL." Clark points to the girl in one of the other photos. "Most Likely to be a Sharks Cheerleader." He asks if that's the girl who missed her shift. Clark has figured out that several people on that two-page spread of photos are missing. Clark asks whether Lois noticed anything weird the night before. Lois says that Chloe was digging through photos the photographer gave her. Even for Smallville, these leaps of logic are a huge stretch. Clark looks thoughtful. It's not easy.
Lan'sa in the school parking lot. She gets into her unlocked SUV with the driver's-side window rolled all the way down. Nice one, Lana. She digs through her purse and finds what she's looking for: her own personal Gay Stone of Knowledge, wrapped in red silk. It's the one with the "8" on it. She sticks it back in her purse. She's surprised when PhotoJerkalist appears at her car window asking her to sign his yearbook. She laughs nervously and signs. "Most Likely to be a Cover Girl," she reads, pretending to laugh at the folly of it. She says that the photographer had more to do with it than anything. PhotoJerkalist says that a photo can't take the place of the real thing. He reaches out his hand to touch Lana. The hand she's using to sign the yearbook turns the color of hand lotion. Dramatic!
Commercials. Taco Bell. Think outside the bun. While you're vomiting.
The Warehouse of High School Terror. Chloe is walking down the hallway, and we see from the sly camera angle that she's holding a shiv. Ooh, prison bitch! The girl from the yearbook, Haley, warns Chloe that she needs to get to class and shouldn't be late. Chloe says she'll be right there. They both look up at the menacing security camera. PhotoJerkalist suddenly appears. He asks what they're doing. Chloe hides her shiv and says they were planning a study session for a quiz. Haley makes herself scarce. PhotoJerkalist sneers and says he has a surprise for Chloe. They walk past poor Wendell's cream statue.
In the fake Torch office, they find Lana, the color of pudding, sitting on a desk. PhotoJerkalist goes over and unfreezes her by putting two fingers on her cheek. She gasps, loudly. She backs away from him toward Chloe, and asks what's going on. PhotoJerkalist asks Chloe to tell Lana the rules. So nobody noticed him carting all these milk statues across town? Lana asks how she ended up back in school. Chloe, smiling, tells her they're not in school. Lana asks why she's acting weird. "He's watching," Chloe warns. Shot of the security cam. Chloe opens the blinds to show one of the windows with fluorescent light bars and explains that "Mr. Medusa" recreated the school and turned it into a cage. She says it gives new meaning to the phrase "capturing the moment." Or, "gag." Lana only remembers signing PhotoJerkalist's yearbook. Chloe's smile turns to a frown. Chloe goes to get her yearbook and asks Lana to sign it. As Lana does, Chloe asks her to look at the names. She's figured out that all the people being taken are from the "Most Likely To" page. "We're being collected," she says. Like really boring baseball cards! Haley walks in and tells Chloe that, as Chloe asked, Haley told PhotoJerkalist that Chloe has a crush on him. Lana asks what's going on. "He wants high school," Chloe says, "we'll give him high school." Methinks Haley's not long for this show.
Whoa! Look, show, you can't just throw the HoYay at me like that in a weak moment, right after showing Lana's confused face. You gotta ease into it! Buy me a drink first, goddammit! That said, here it is. Jason has a hot poker, its tip glowing fiery orange, and he's thrusting it in Lex's face. I am absolutely not making this up. He bends down so that we see the poker framed in between his and Lex's face. Lex leans back, all, "I've seen bigger." There's a moment of tension that is the Gayest Look of the Episode. Jane Seymour and Papa Luthor watch curiously, as if they're seeing a cockfight. Which, I guess, they are. Jason pokes Lex with the hot iron, right in the pec. Lex grits his teeth and growls. Jane asks Papa where the stone is. His nostrils flare. Jason continues with the poking. Lex continues with the grunting. Jane tells Papa Luthor that she knows he doesn't want Lex to die. Dirty looks all around. Ma Seymour takes the poker from "Jason darling" and points it at Lex's face. Hey, you'll take somebody's eye out with that! Oh. That's intentional. Jason holds Lex's face as she thrusts it toward Lex's right eye. He struggles. Papa Luthor lets his nostrils go wild. It's all very tense.
"Stop! Stop it!" Papa Luthor finally yells when it's too much for him. Jane asks where he put the stone. "I gave it to Lana!" he yells. Uh. Huh. That's pretty stupid, Dad. Lex lies (or is he just ignorant?) that Lana knows nothing about this. Jane Seymour says that Papa would never trust something so valuable with Lana. That's true. I wouldn't even trust my Schlitterbahn season pass with her. Papa Luthor says something that makes my blood go cold: that she's the Chosen One, and that they all know it. Chosen whooooo? Lana whaaaa? Everyone freezes at that, and then Jason grabs his keys and starts to leave the room. Ma Seymour stops him and says that she'll take care of Lana. You know. "Take care." Like in the Mafia. Jason tells his mom that she promised not to hurt Lana. His mom asks if Lana's ever shown any gratitude. Or intelligence, or drive, or level-headedness? I made up those last three, but for once, I'm in Jane's corner. She mentions Clark, which is definitely a sore spot with Jason. Jason does seem pretty dumb here. Jane touches Jason's hand where he's holding the keys. It's, um, not very motherly. She says she'd never betray Jason the way Lana has. You mean with Clark? Dark music broods over the scene. Jane takes the keys from Jason's hand. Papa Luthor tells Jane Seymour not to underestimate Lana. He reminds her that Lana's ancestor (used correctly this time) swore to revenge her family. The "revenge your family" part sounds weird, though. Jane tells Papa Luthor to leave folklore in the past. She says her ancestors burned traitors at the stake: "Let's hope you're not one of them." But...you just said...to leave the folklore in the past...and...THIS SUCKS! Jane Seymour leaves the room in a huff, slamming the door on a writer listening in from outside, if there's any justice.
High school entrance. Shouldn't people be leaving the school instead of rushing in? Clark and Lois enter a darkroom. Clark is looking for PhotoJerkalist. He says that this room is like his second home. Lois says this whole Ten Little Indians thing is starting to give her the creeps. Lois sees some photos hung up and admires how many popular people the guy photographed. Clark says that PhotoJerkalist knows everyone. Lois finds a not-at-all-incriminating display in plain view showing cut-outs of all the kidnapped seniors with big Xs showing the ones who are gone. Lazy, lazy, lazy. I'm so glad that we now have the technology where a writer can literally punch numbers on a telephone and send in his script that way. Lois calls it "a little Norman Bates," because her cultural references can't date beyond the 1960s. Lois asks if they might be...she trails off, implying death. Clark says no, for no really good reason, except he somehow thinks they're being collected. Clark finds some weird map-looking transparencies and uses it with an overhead projector. "Thanks, Clark," Lois says, annoyed, when he shines the light in her face. Clark overlays the transparency on the clipped-out photos on the wall and it looks as if it's some sort of map. Lois says it's like paper dolls. Clark says the blueprint is of the school. He guesses that PhotoJerkalist rebuilt part of the school somewhere. I love how these things are so easy to figure out on this show. Part of the blueprint reads, "Nash Construction. Call on us for all your plot point questions." A clue!
God, this episode is exhausting. I wonder how the actors got through it. Cut to the warehouse. Inside, Chloe is typing on her computer keyboard, sans internet access. There's a knock at the door. It's PhotoJerkalist. Chloe gushes to him that they have tons of material for the day's issue of The Torch. PhotoJerkalist was happy to provide lots of photos for her to work with. He says he had no idea Chloe and Haley were such good friends. "Why?" Chloe says, feigning disappointment. "What did she tell you?" He says it was nothing he didn't suspect. Chloe continues to try charming him by acting impressed that he built a replica of the school for them. PhotoJerkalist mopily says that after he got those rejection letters, he realized that all his work in high school didn't matter on the outside. Chloe gets very close and asks, smiling, how he did it. He did it by threatening his construction-company dad that he'd make his "stepmonster" into his own personal mannequin. Maybe she would have been On The Move! He laughs at the memory of terrorizing his dad. Then he's suddenly struck in the back of the head with a cabinet drawer. The wielder of the drawer? Lana Lang. Chloe reaches into the passed-out dude's pockets and gets his keys. "Let's go," she tells Lana.
Chloe and Lana run down the hallway. Haley is waiting, and begs Chloe to get them out of there. Chloe uses a keycard to get them past one door. They pass through a scary-looking boiler-room area. Lana trips and falls. Haley rushes ahead, without Chloe and Lana, to the top of some stairs. The camera follows her with a gratuitous ass shot as she does. She reaches the top, but before she can do anything, PhotoJerkalist is already there, throwing open the double doors. He looks pissed. He tells Haley she shouldn't have tried to get away. She turns. He grabs her. Frozen yogurt, anyone? Chloe and Lana reach the stairs. They look up in horror as PhotoJerkalist waits there for them. Nobody thought to restrain him when he was unconscious? "I thought you felt the same way I did about our future," he says mildly. Chloe and Lana both urge him to let them go. He says he knows they'll like it here. He says that if they don't, they'll end up like their friend Haley. He holds up her frozen mannequin head. Ew! He tosses it toward Chloe and Lana. It smashes on the stairs. The inside is all red and jelly-looking. Daaaaaamn! That's cold. PhotoJerkalist smiles a bit as war drums play. Close-ups on Chloe and Lana. Commercials.
We return to a trio of bad-asses. (Well, two and a half, maybe.) Lex and Papa Luthor are still bound in their little torture room, while Jason sits between them. Why on Earth would Jane Seymour leave Jason behind with these two bastards? Papa Luthor tells Jason he can understand why it's so difficult to deal with his mother. He says that she's ,"ooh, a difficult person to resist." Dirty! Papa recaps the part where Jason was supposed to get close to Lana, but then he got too involved. Jason picks up a gun. He tells Papa that Lana is nothing but his mother's pawn. Lex sits with his shirt hanging open. "A pawn?" Papa says playfully. "Well, that's true, but a pawn you fell in love with." Oops! Papa says it must be killing Jason that he traded his love for Lana for "some maternal warmth..." He spits this last part out as if describing highly illegal porn maneuvers. Jason cocks his gun and levels it at Papa Luthor. Papa concludes, "...it seems you can't do without?" Jason's hand quivers. Jason sneers and uncocks the gun. He leaves the room. Nice one, Papa. "Makes us look like The Waltons, doesn't it?" Lex jokes. Papa chuckles. He apologizes for getting Lex involved in all this. He says he's sure Lex won't believe it, but that he wishes he were there alone. Lex glances at the fireplace. He says that, to be honest, he's glad Papa Luthor is there with him: "Now, knock that iron out of the fire and get it as close to my chair as you can." Hot damn! Papa takes a moment to chuckle again at his son's derring-do, and then does as asked. He scoots to the fireplace and uses a hand to knock over a rack of pokers, making the poker in the fire flip over. Neat. Lex, still half-shirtless, rocks his chair back and forth until he falls over on the side. He lands right near the poker and lays the back of his wrist against it. The poker starts to burn through the ropes, but judging from Lex's grunts, it's also burning his arm. Impressive considering Lex can't see what he's doing. He manages to break free.
Outside, Jason is collecting some firewood. He looks over and sees Papa Luthor and Lex jumping out from the house, not at all sneakily. This moment is so stupid it's somehow protected by an irony shield that I can't penetrate with mere snark. Jason drops wood. Heh. Lex and Papa Luthor run. Jason draws and cocks his gun. Excitement! Papa and Lex run through the misty evergreen forests of Kansas. Jason follows, firing badly. Lex and Papa leap over a log. More bad Jason firing. Run, run, run! Shoot, shoot, shoot! Lex and Papa stop behind a big tree. Lex suggests that they split up. "Go!" he says. Papa Luthor, breathing heavily, tries, running pretty ineffectually.
Jason finds Papa Luthor scampering up a hill. He points his gun to fire, but bad shot that he is, he hits the log instead of Papa. Still, Papa falls back down the hill, rolling painfully over some logs in a serious Homer Simpson moment. From way up on the hill where he'll surely miss, Jason aims again. Giving him ample warning, Lex goes, "Gah!" and swings a stick at Jason's chest. He whacks Jason on the face. Jason falls. Jason throws dirt in Lex's eye, which in fighting circles is actually called "The Old Dirt-in-the-Eyes Trick." Jason runs. This must have been a great day at the table reading. "What? We just run around for like ten minutes of the show, back and forth, shooting and jumping over logs and shit in the cold Canadian forest? I can't fucking wait."
Jason runs up a nature trail. Lex, stick in hand, follows. Why not try the gun, Lex? Oh, wait, I know why. Jason stops just short of falling off a cliff into icy water. Yikes! Lex makes it there and pulls back his stick to swing it. (Yes, I know: dirty!) Jason tries to reason with Lex, telling him they're not that different. "Don't do this! Look at me!" Jason begs, saying it wasn't about them, it was about their parents. Lex says he always knew he'd have to protect Lana from Jason. "Not as much as you've been protecting your best friend," Jason says. Ooh, busted, Lex. "Huh? Clark?" Lex says that Clark has nothing to do with this. Jason tells Lex that Clark is more connected to this than any of them. He reminds Lex about how weird Clark is. Lex says Jason is just shifting blame. Jason asks Lex to see what's right in front of his face. Farmboy balls. "It's Clark," Jason says. "He's --" Gunshot! Jason's shoulder! I think he was going to finish with, "-- Monty Python's Flying Cir-cusss!" Lex turns. Papa Luthor is holding the smoking gun. Jason loses his footing and falls off the cliff. "I always knew I wouldn't last past Season Fooooooooooouuuuur!" Lex, still gripping his stick, looks down at the water where Jason has splashed. He drops it. Papa puts a hand on Lex's neck and says that Jason was about to kill him. Uh, yeah, dude. "Or divulge something you didn't want me to know," Lex says, flatly. Papa says that Lex saved his life back there, and Papa was returning the favor. Lex says he knows Papa has the stone. He says that if anything happens to Lana, Papa will be begging for an end like Jason's. He's pretty angry. Lex walks away. Papa sighs and looks down from the cliff.
The warehouse of high-school memories. Clark and Lois arrive outside. "How cliché," she says. "An abandoned warehouse." You know, writers, acknowledging that something is a cliché doesn't make it all right to use. They find doors with a chain and lock. Clark tries to be slick, and asks Lois to go look around the building for another entrance while he looks for a key. Lana makes a crack about it not being under the welcome mat, but still does what he asks. Clark pries open the sliding doors.
Lois climbs up some pallets and finds an open window with a simple screen on it. She uses a piece of metal to pry it open. This stuff's easy!
Clark, inside the building, reaches the highschool replica hallway. He sees Frozen Wendell. Mmm, that reminds me: frozen waffles. Clark glances over toward The Torch and sees a statue of Chloe. Yep. Pudding. "Chloe?" Clark asks.
Hallway, again. Lois drops down from an overhead grate. How appropriate, in that Lois herself grates. She reaches the room where Clark is trying to talk to Chloe, and as she watches that, she sees someone creeping up behind her in the reflection of the window. It's PhotoJerkalist. She spins and tries to kick him. He catches her foot and freezes her. This one, I don't mind so much. PhotoJerkalist pulls a bat off a display on the wall. He moves to swing it at Lois. Clark superzips into the scene and takes the bat on the head. It shatters, of course. PhotoJerkalist, hair suddenly tousled, is amazed. He runs up some stairs. Clark superzips to the top to meet him there. Dude turns around. Clark is there, too. Clark tells him he has to release everyone. PhotoJerkalist says he wanted Clark to be a part of this. That's why you kidnapped one nerdy dude and all girls, right? PhotoJerkalist yells that they had no right coming here. That makes no sense, dude, even if you are crazy. Clark summons the powers of platitude, saying that things have to change even if you don't want them to, and that you can't live in high school forever. Lana's statue is at the top of the stairs. PhotoJerkalist uses her as a visual aid to try to tempt Clark into having a girlfriend who would never leave or move on or go outside and stuff. How is that much different than the real Lana? Clark says he's not afraid of that. "You should be," the villain says. "She'll leave you, Clark." Clark says to let her go. He reaches out and they lock arms. Something weird happens to PhotoJerkalist: he starts to become frozen himself. As he sees it happening slowly, he warns Clark that he'll get to find out what it's like to lose someone forever. He pushes Frozen Lana back so that she'll shatter on the floor. "No!" Clark cries, whooshing over. He catches her before she breaks. PhotoJerkalist, on the other hand, ain't so lucky. He gets completely frozen and falls down the stairs. Clark is like, "Eh, let this one go." His leg breaks off and he tumbles off the side of the stairs. His head shatters on a shelf and the rest of his body crashes on the floor. Disturbing. Lana unfreezes in Clark's arms. She gasps. Clark smiles at her. "Clark?" she whispers. Aw, yay! Wendell unfreezes! So does Chloe. Lois hugs her. Lana looks down at PhotoJerkalist's remains. We zoom in creepily on part of his milky head. His eye closes. Ew, ew, ew! Don't creep me out like that, Smallville! We go to commercials.
The Barnness of Epilogueitude. Clark is looking through his telescope. This time, it's aimed up at the sky. Hey, Clark. I can see Uranus. Ha! I love that joke. Bo enters the room. "Hey, Clark! I can see Ur-- oh, did Omar already use that one? My bad." Bo says he hasn't seen Clark use the telescope in a while. He thought Clark might have outgrown it. Clark starts to talk, but Bo shuts him up: he says that everyone discovers some day that their parents aren't always going to be around and he doesn't want Clark sacrificing his happiness for Bo. Clark says it's not a sacrifice; it's a choice. Dammit, Bo, Clark's getting an abortion whether you like it or not! Bo says it's a fine line. Clark whines that Bo's never going to understand it. Oh, but he does. Clark asks Bo just to trust him on this. Bo reveals that he was in the same boat as Clark. He had a full ride at Met U waiting when he graduated. But he was needed on the farm, and he stayed. Clark says that's a big footnote to leave out: "Why didn't you tell me?" Bo says he didn't want it to weigh Clark down. Bo says that, as much as he loved his dad, part of him still resents being needed that much. Bo's pretty damned in touch with his feelings here. Bo says, "I don't want you to feel that. That's not the kind of father I ever wanted to be." It's quite sweet, really. Bo walks past Clark. Clark stops him: "Dad. This isn't about the kind of father you are. It's about the kind of son I want to be." Yeah, we give the show a lot of shit, but this is a genuinely well-done scene. Bo smiles heartily and they hug, tightly. Aww.
Smallville High. I guess they extended school another day. Chloe is taking down the last clippings from the Wall of Weird as schmaltzy alt-crap plays. The room is bare because no one will ever publish a newspaper here again. Chloe takes her papers in a box and takes one final look around the room. She stands at the doorway and looks sad. She waits there a few minutes as her eyes get even sadder. She turns off the light and closes the door. She looks into the room again, through the window in the door. Then she walks away.
Outside, people are flinging papers through the windows. Chloe emerges from the school's front doors with her box of stuff. She meets Lana and Clark. Clark takes the box from her. "Congratulations Smallville Seniors!" the outside banner reads. Clark says it's not like they won't see each other. Oh, please don't bust into "We Go Together," all right? Lana says that Chloe will have summers and holidays to come to town. This shithole? Are you kidding? Chloe, sad, says, "This sucks!" Dude, I know. "Big-time," Lana whisper-slurs. Clark says that the teachers and tests that we never saw don't seem as scary as that big question mark out there. Lana and Chloe both look at Clark like, "Dumb-ass." Lana says that after everything that happened to PhotoJerkalist, it should be easier to say goodbye to all this. "There's a lot here to say goodbye to," Clark says, woodenly. Chloe sympathizes a bit with the psycho for trying to keep everyone together. She says that after all this, though, she can't imagine anything scarier than being stuck in the past and not being able to move on. Try recapping it. Chloe has suddenly figured out from Lana's remark about Chloe having summers and holidays that Lana's not going to college. Lana says she's staying in town. She's sure now, apparently. Chloe asks if Lana doesn't want to see the world. Lana says that's why she went to Paris, but that there was a reason she was drawn back home. Chloe looks at Clark. Lana says she's not sure she's explored all the possibilities in town. Clark and Lana walk on without Chloe. She looks sad again. "Maybe things won't change that much after all," she says. She goofily follows after them and takes Clark's arm. Sorry, Chloe, but it looks more pathetic than anything else.