Greetings! Time to recap Smallville again, but I have to ask: are you with me or against me? Should I trust you? You're all out to get me, aren't you? Goddammit, answer me! (Removes Microsoft mouse splinter from hand.) Oh, I feel much better now. Moving on...
We start at Metropolis University. Home to great minds; no, it's true -- Clark Kent didn't get in. On a laptop screen, someone is fiddling with a computerized map of Kansas featuring the town of Smallville. As alterna-crap music plays, we pan back from the computer as the map shifts and flattens, showing some sort of formation in space pointing toward the town. At the helm of the computer is freshman college student Lana Lang, who is apparently doing some independent astronomy research. Now, you'll have to excuse me -- I always get astronomy and astrology confused. One is with stars and the other is with bullshit, right? Lana stares at the screen using her Determined Possum face. The coordinates in space are triangulated with Smallville on the screen. Huh, let's see. If a meteor comes down at a gajillion miles per hour toward Lana's parents, who weigh an average of 140 pounds...yep...that would flatten them.
Lana, who looks a bit like she needs a nap, reacts in surprise when someone knocks on her dorm-room door, and then enters without waiting for acknowledgment. But I'm getting dress-- oh, never mind. Big, Dumb Clark enters. I do love Chloe's Attack of the 50' Woman poster. Lana hastily closes her laptop lest Clark see her astronoporn. Lana asks what Clark is doing in Metropolis. Not calling ahead, for one thing. Clark says that he was in town to pick up tractor parts for his dad. Yeah, you won't find tractor parts in rural Kansas. You've got to go to the ultra-modern city to get spark plugs and giant wheels. The tractor parts are apparently in a little box, which Clark brought up to the dorm for who knows what reason. Maybe he thought he and Lana were going to get kinky and have a rancher's afternoon delight. Clark says that, while he was there, he picked up something for Lana. He tells Lana that he got her text message, so he brought her some brain food. Lana says she doesn't remember "texting" him. Fucking, yes. Breaking up and getting back together a hundred times? Check. Going to China to track down space artifacts? Did it. But "texting?" That's just crazy. Lana's confusion about the text message quickly turns to a sly grin when she asks, "Is that Chow Mein?" The chowiest. Clark is her Mein man.
Clark asks what Lana's working on. "Oh, just some astronomy," she says, trying to play off whatever suspicious thing she was just doing. She lies that it's just numbers and equations and other things she doesn't understand. Oh, lookit me, I'm just a wittle dumb girl who doesn't understand math. Woe is me with these crazy equations! Lana is engaged in some theriouth thecreths and lieth. She kisses Clark. "Chow Mein," she reiterates. Clark says that the box was at Lana's door, so I guess it doesn't really contain tractor parts, although that would have been a lot more fun. Lana opens a plain white envelope attached to the box. "'Given your new major,'" Lana reads, "'I thought you might find this interesting. Lex.'" Lex in a box would be interesting. "Lex is sending you gifts?" Clark asks, suspiciously. Just then, Clark hurts his finger on whatever was in the box. He drops it, and we see a plastic-looking silver and black piece of rock fall out, along with some crinkled shredded paper. Lana asks if Clark is all right. His finger! It's bleeding a little. "Just a scratch," Clark says, scared, as if discovering a lump in his testes. Lana picks up the offending object. "It's a meteor rock," she says. Oh, she's majoring in Astronomy and Geology? Lana says she hasn't seen a meteor rock like this one. Shiny. Clark hastily says that he has to go, and that his dad's probably waiting for the tractor parts. What kind of man would Bo be with a broken tractor? Clark doesn't give Lana a hug or kiss her goodbye. As Clark opens the door, Chloe is there, saying hi. He walks right past her. "...and bye," Chloe finishes for him. She asks if her deodorant went south. To her hips? Lana says she has no idea what's up with Clark: "I guess he's not into Geology." Yes, that's exactly why Clark left so abruptly. You know him so well, like Whitney Houston's mom. Close-up on the black and silver rock. Mmm, dark chocolate.