Remember when it seemed like "secrets and lies" figured into every episode? Possibly more than once per episode? There's been a nice, long break since the phrase reared its ugly head, but it's back in this episode. Things start off with Tess bringing Alexander to the Kent farm (he's been being studied in a lab off-screen) and asking Clark to hang out with him for a while. She tells him that the boy has lost all of his Lex memories. With some hesitation, Tess also tells him that Alexander is only half Lex, because the other half of his DNA comes from Clark. That explains the kid's nascent super powers as well as his affinity for plaid. Lois calls the boy, now known as "Conner," the "lovechild" of Lex and Clark, although Clark prefers to think of himself as Conner's brother. Clark teaches Conner about farm chores and using one's powers responsibly. This includes having to show Conner how to tame his heat vision after it's activated for the first time by the sight of Lois's shapely figure.
Alas, Conner overhears Clark and Lois talking about the Luthor half of him that Clark has decided to keep secret. This sends Conner zipping off in an emo tizzy, right into Lionel Luthor's paternal clutches. Lionel slips a red-K ring onto Conner's finger, telling the gullible young thing that it's his "birthright." This is where the B-plot of the episode intersects: Lois and Tess have been trying to dig up something that will expose Lionel as a fraud, which leads Lois to sneaking around Lionel's office, which leads to Lionel trying to kill her. A smitten Conner not only rescues her, but steals furs and jewels and a car for her. Lionel laughs it off as the "Luthor libido," which is just... ugh. When Lois doesn't return his affections, Conner beats her for what seems like a gratuitously long time. Clark confronts Lionel, all, "I won't let you screw him up like you did my best friend Lex!" and Lionel's like, "It was your secrets and lies that messed him up, jerkface!" Clark eventually rescues Lois and shatters Conner's red-K ring, realizing for the nth time that maybe honesty really is the best policy.
In the end, Tess proves that Lionel's a fake and gets LuthorCorp back. Clark enrolls Conner at Smallville High and gives him the Kent name. Lionel visits Lex's grave and boo-hoos about wanting his son back. That's when Darkseid materializes and fills us with dread as to just how Lex will be returning for the finale.
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The episode opens with a scenic view of Smallville farmland. Everything is sunny and green as Clark's distinctively low-budget blur zips along the perpetually empty roads leading home. He walks in through the kitchen door, wearing his red leather super-jacket, and finds Tess enjoying a cup of coffee at the table. How many times is this guy going to walk into his unprotected home wearing that outfit before some outsider sees him? Tess fumbles with her coffee cup, obviously nervous about something. Clark seems surprised to see her, so she must not be living there after the fall of the House of Luthor. Her loose-fitting, side-tied blouse looks kind of like a dressing gown, so this scene was kind of confusing on first watching. When he asks what she's doing there, she stammers something about not having much time to catch up lately. Makes sense. "So how are you?" Clark asks. "Good, good!" she says brightly. "How are you?" "I'm fine, thanks," he says, narrowing his eyes. He glances around like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. Under his suspicious gaze, Tess stammers some more and moves around to the far side of the table. She haltingly tells him that there's been an incident with their "little project." Clark, unable to hear the light, comical tone of the music in the soundtrack, grows worried. Tess explains: "Ever since Alexander's reboot, he's been totally glitch-free and ready to enter the real world." Man, she's not only working Chloe's old job at Watchtower now, she's also starting to talk like her. She goes on to say that Alexander needs someone to guide him. She wants that person to be Clark, but Clark isn't sold on the idea. He points out that Alexander is Lex's clone. Given their history, maybe Clark isn't the best person for the job.
Tess pours herself another cup of coffee. She stutters so much it's surprising she doesn't spill it. She goes on about how quickly Alexander is learning. "He just needs someone there for him, like family," she says. Clark reminds Tess that she's Alexander's sister, but Tess is insistent that Clark is the one to bring out the best in him. She tells him that Alexander is outside waiting in the car. Clark makes a series of apoplectic faces. He's worried that Alexander will remember something about him, but Tess reassures him that the kid doesn't remember anything. She says he's going through some kind of metamorphosis. "Ever since he's been changing, we've been learning new things about him, like things about his, um, genetic origin." She can barely look Clark in the eye as she says the last. Before she can go on, there's a loud crash from the barn. She and Clark go to investigate and find Alexander holding up a tractor by its front axle. He's all grins. "Hey, Tess, check it out!" His once-ginger hair is black now. Tess turns to Clark and lowers her voice to a whisper. "He doesn't just have Lex's genes; half of his DNA came from you." Clark gapes at her. Clark gapes at Alexander. Somebody save him!
If you were hoping that they'd pick up with that conversation after the credits, well, too bad. The scene starts at what must be the ruined remains of Cadmus Labs. A beam of light sways through the darkness as a door opens and a man walks inside. His magnificent mane is readily identifiable even in silhouette. Lionel Luthor peers around at his surroundings, then aims his light at the far end of the room. Tess is standing there, unsurprised to see him. "So it's not just the Luthor males who like secrets," Lionel says. Tess says this place can't be much of a secret if he's there. He exposits that one of his LuthorCorp accountants followed a million-dollar trail that led him there. He swings his light around the room, then focuses on Tess. "I applaud your efforts, but you can't hide Alexander from me forever." "I'm saving him from an encore performance of Daddy Dearest," she says. Lionel is not amused. He demands that she give him his son. She reminds him that the Lex in this universe killed his father, but Lionel has a funny way of seeing the positive in every situation. Lex killing his father is just proof, Lionel says, that Lex was a "true Luthor." He lets his guard down -- or at least pretends to -- as he confesses he made a terrible mistake in trusting Clark over his own flesh and blood. Tess isn't swayed. She takes a firm step toward him. She knows from experience that Lionel in any universe will turn his back on his children. "Which is why the Luthor legacy ends with you," she says.
She turns on her heel and walks calmly away. He calls out to her. She makes the mistake of stopping to hear him out. "If I'd been your father," he says, "when Lionel gave you up for adoption, I would have done precisely as he did." She smiles at this, defiant. Then he calls her "inferior," and she blinks and looks down. Lionel, making no secret of his chauvinism, waxes grandiose about what a "boy like Alexander" could accomplish with his guidance. Tess gives in with a defeated nod. She leads him to another room and turns on the light. A yellow plastic and metal cylinder sits on a small, backlit table. It looks like one of those tube things at the bank drive-through. "Your son is in there," Tess says. "We couldn't find a cure to stop the accelerated mitosis." So they're going to deposit him at the big bank in the sky. Lionel doesn't want to believe her, so she challenges him to test the ashes and bone fragments for DNA. As Lionel peers down in shock at the tube, Tess walks up to him with a triumphant smile, content that he'll never be able to hurt Lex again. Lionel picks up the tube. Perhaps he could fill his Etch-a-Sketch with its contents.
Kent Farm. Clark and Alexander move bales of hay from one part of the loft to another part of the loft about two feet away. Farm chores are so mysterious. Clark makes a show of struggling with the weight of the hay, all, "ungh!" and "oof!" so Alexander doesn't catch on to his superness. "Thanks for your help," Clark says. "You're the one hiding a mutant under your roof," Alexander laughs. He looks out the hayloft window and says it's much better than playing lab rat for Tess's doctors. "They think I can't hear what they say about me," he says. Clark makes a mental note that says "boy has super-hearing" and then promptly forgets it. "So your name is Conner?" Clark asks. Oh, good. That's quicker to type out than his old name. The newly minted Conner explains that the name comes from his medical files. "Cognitional neuroplastic replicant -- CNR," he says. That is a horrible basis for a name. Tess thinks she's kept that a secret from him, he tells Clark. He thinks she's embarrassed by him because he's a "walking freak show." Or a moody teenager; take your pick. Clark explains that Tess just wants to protect him. Conner's all down on his weirdness, so Clark tells him that that won't matter to the people who know him. Conner thanks Clark for being so "PC" about the whole thing, but he's got a slightly more cynical view of the world. Clark doesn't understand what it's like not knowing if people are going to hate him for what he is. Clark dips his toe in the water: "Is it true you can't remember anything from before you got your abilities?" Conner confirms that the mutation wiped everything out. It's nice of Clark to take him at his word.
By now, they've moved over to Clark's part of the loft. Conner's standing beside a full-length mirror. A visual reminder of his clone origins or staging coincidence? Conner, picking up Clark's old football, muses about his desire to strike out on his own, to find out where he came from and why he has abilities. Clark looks sad. Maybe he doesn't entirely take Conner at his word, because he says Tess will tell him what he needs to know, as soon as he's ready. Conner thinks he's ready now. He spurns the idea of sticking around to milk cows when there's so much out there that doesn't involve bovine teats. He tosses the football to Clark. "I appreciate the hospitality, but..." "You're not leaving," Clark says, surprised. Clark tries to talk him into staying, warning him of the dangers of someone realizing he's "different." "I can't let you take that risk," Clark says. Conner seems to appreciate Clark's concern, but he's made up his mind. "Besides, you can't exactly stop me," he says. He super-zips away. Clark's face goes "aw, man!" and then he cuts Conner off at super-speed. Conner stares at him. "Whoa." "I'm like you," Clark says. Conner takes that in for a few moments. "So... does this mean... oh, my God! Are you... are you, like, my dad?" That ruffles Clark's feathers just a bit. "I prefer 'brother,'" he says. He makes another mental note: "Investigate krypto-botox." Conner is thrilled. Up till now, he thought that only he and the Blur had these powers. As soon as he says it, he realizes that Clark is the Blur. Clark doesn't confirm it, but his pleased smile gives him away. He wonders how Conner even knows about the Blur. Dude, he's been living in a medical lab, not Pluto. Conner gushes about all the lives Clark has saved. He's eager for them to go make some saves together, but Clark puts the brakes on because Conner still has things to learn. Aw, let him get a kitten out of a tree, Super-Mope! Clark tells him that they're going to stay at the farm until Conner can control his abilities. Conner's all, "I am in total control!"
Daily Planet. Lois is photocopying pages from a book on parenting teenagers. Do people still do that? Tess walks into the copy room and shuts the door behind her. "What's with all the cloak and dagger?" Lois asks. What's with all the forgetting that you now work for an evil despot from a parallel universe? You should be paranoid all the time. In fact, Tess wants Lois to talk Clark into "getting rid" of Lionel. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Lois explains that Clark is hoping that this Lionel will come around in the end, like the other Lionel did. Clark is, quite simply, a naïve moron. Fine, don't kill him because of your moral code or whatever, but expecting this new, even-more-evil Lionel to sprout a halo is just dumb. Tess is desperate. She begs Lois to make Clark do something now, but Lois is afraid because Lionel knows Clark's weakness. So does every other villain on this show, but whatever. Tess reminds Lois of what Lionel did with the last super-powered son he had. "I know how dangerous this is for Clark," Tess says. "We don't have a choice." Tess doesn't seem averse to killing people, so why wouldn't she just take out Lionel with a sniper rifle or slip a little cyanide in his mustache wax? Lois gets an idea. She thinks if they dig around, they can find where Lionel slipped up in covering his otherworldly tracks and prove that he's a fake. Tess likes this plan almost as much as the murder one.
Lab. Is this supposed to be Cadmus again? Because there's a lot of blood and plastic everywhere. Lionel looks over a printout that confirms the DNA in the tube belonged to Lex. A man in a bloody lab coat walks into the room and says the DNA came from one of the other clones. Since they're all clones of the same person, how could they tell? Lionel is pleased to learn his son is alive. Dr. Bloody says they "convinced" Dr. Lamell (the credited but unseen Lex Doig) to tell them that he's with Clark in Smallville. "It is time for my prodigal son to return," Lionel says. Then for some reason, he adds, "Yeah." Yeah!
Kent Farm. Conner's trying to tame his raging heat-vision but not even the cold shower of Clark's presence seems to be helping. He blasts right through the barn wall. "This is pointless," he sighs. "Everything we do with our powers is our responsibility," Clark says. "That's why we have to learn how to control them before they control us." Conner pouts. Having your dad teach you how to masturbate with your eyes is such a downer. Clark talks about his parents being there for him. He says his dad believed that all the hard work he made him do would teach him to control his abilities. Plus, it was free labor around the farm. He shows Conner a picture of his teen self with Ma and Pa Kent. "Conner, you may not have parents, but you have me," he says. "I'll always be there for you." Conner smiles up at him. Clark sets up a candle for Conner to practice on some more. He tells him to concentrate. Conner takes a deep breath, steels himself and glares at the candle. Twin flames shoot out of his eyes. When it's over, he blinks and finds the candle still unlit... unlike the front of Clark's T-shirt, which is now peppered with smoldering holes. "You'll get it eventually," Clark says. Conner looks sheepish.
Later, Clark goes inside to change his shirt and finds Tess in the kitchen again. "You know, we have a doorbell," he says. She's family now, Clark! She gets to barge in just like the rest of you. She tells him she just came by to see how things were going with Conner. She looks at his holey shirt. "Looks like I should have brought marshmallows." Just put them on really, really long sticks. "He's getting things faster than I did," Clark says. That's because he's only half-Kryptonian. The tremendous drag on his intellect is somewhat mitigated by the Luthor DNA. Tess is momentarily happy with how proud Clark seems, but she has bad news. Her "inside man" just told her that Lionel knows about Conner. Clark says he'll call Oliver and Chloe in Star City and send Conner there. Tess wonders if it's time to tell Conner the truth about his Luthor half. Conner, of course, is in the barn listening to every word with his super-hearing. He overhears Clark: "Considering everything that happened, I don't think it's a good idea that he knows half his DNA came from Lex. We can never let him know that half of him is Luthor." Conner glares and zips out of the barn.
LuthorCorp. Lois is doing some funky poaching. The sun's only just starting to set, so it seems like bad timing on her part. She snaps pictures of documents in Lionel's office. Tess calls and asks her what she's found. So far, everything looks pretty iron-clad, according to Lois. She says that Lionel had all-new official documents issued with his own signature. She's having some government contacts look into it. She hangs up with Tess and runs right into the business end of a handgun. The scene cuts away before revealing the would-be shooter, but it's not really a mystery.
Luthor Mansion. Conner explores what was once the library. Parts of the roof have caved in. Rubble is strewn across the floor and most of the windows are broken. It's quite a depressing sight. Even the sky is a particularly grouchy shade of orange. Conner picks up a framed photo that shows Lex and Lionel side by side, although Lex's face is obscured by a bit of soot. No sense paying Michael Rosenbaum until they absolutely have to. Conner hears footsteps behind him and whooshes away to hide. Lionel picks his way through the ruins. "Alexander?" he calls out. "I know you're here; I've had people tracking you since you left the Kent farm." Kid needs to work on his super-speed. Conner remains in the shadows, but asks, "Who are you?" "I'm your father," Lionel tells him. He sounds convincingly concerned as he offers to answer all of the boy's questions. Conner takes a few steps towards him. Lionel gets a look at him and seems distraught at what he sees. "Oh, Alexander, what have they done to you?" He reaches out to Conner, but Conner zips around behind him. Lionel waxes nauseated about how a part of Conner is Clark Kent, making it sound like a bad case of space herpes. Conner says he knows that Lex is a part of him, too, even though Clark lied to him about it. Lionel sees the crack he can wedge open and goes on about how Clark lied because he's afraid, and how he hates the Luthors. "Lex Luthor created an empire," Lionel says. "Clark Kent wants to keep it away from you." Conner seems reluctant to believe this, but he's not exactly running away, either. Lionel gives him a small box. Conner, having inherited Clark's naivety, opens it. Inside is a ring with a gaudy red gem. "Put the ring on; it's your birthright," Lionel says. It's also ever so fugly. But Conner puts it on and his veins turn snaky and his eyes flash red. "Now the journey begins," Lionel says. Conner smiles.
Lab. All right, this can't be Cadmus Labs. It looks sort of like Cadmus, but there are sides of beef hanging up everywhere and blood all over the walls. It's like a one-stop slaughterhouse and DNA testing lab. Lionel brings Conner inside. Conner can see Lois tied up in another room. "What is she doing here?" he asks. He seems worried. "You wanted to know what it means to be a Luthor," Lionel says. "Lesson one: never let anyone stand in your way." He goes to have a chat with Lois while Conner hangs behind, unseen. Lois asks why he brought her there, and Lionel quite amiably says it's so no one will hear her scream. He's so friendly. He's like if your grandpa were Satan. Lionel says Lois is noble to risk her life for Clark, but stupid, too. He seems rather disappointed in her, having expected more based on what he's read of her. Lionel pulls out a gun and aims it at her, saying he'll kill to protect his son. "You don't scare me," Lois says, trembling so hard she can barely say the words. "The Lionel I knew never got blood on his hands." "I'm not the Lionel you knew," he says with a slight smile. He pulls the trigger. Conner super-zips into the room and whooshes back out with Lois. Lionel looks around at the empty room.
Conner sets Lois down on that same street corner where everything in the city seems to happen. He apologizes for being too fast, but Lois is just glad to be alive. She wants to call Clark to warn him about Lionel. Conner volunteers to protect her. Who needs that big moper, anyway? Lois starts to complain about the cold, and Conner zips away and back again with a fur-lined coat. She gives him a quizzical look, but puts on the coat. Conner whooshes away and returns with a diamond necklace from the shop across the street. The shop's alarm sounds. Lois realizes something is wrong: "I get it now -- your neon is flashing red-hot and I didn't see the sign." Uh... what? An angry guy in a suit comes running out of the shop, sees Lois with the necklace and calls her a thief. He sics a cop on her. At this point, Conner zooms up in a sporty blue car, pushes open the passenger door and waggles his eyebrows at her. "Get in," he says. "I'll save you." Lois, faced with two undesirable options, tosses the necklace to the cop with an apology and gets into the car. Conner drives pretty well for a guy who's been living in a lab his whole life.
LuthorCorp. Lionel is on the phone with someone. "His first crush," he says with a lascivious laugh. "It's good to know the Luthor libido is still intact." Shudder. He laughs some more and adds, "Great men, great passion!" He tells whoever is on the other end to let Conner "have his fun," as long as Lois doesn't lead him to Clark. He exposits that the ring has a tracking device. He hangs up when Clark walks into the office. He's seething. He's been searching every LuthorCorp facility and came up with the ring box. Why an empty box would mean anything is a mystery. He tosses it at Lionel, who doesn't bother denying its significance. "Well, it doesn't compare to the value of rubies, but personally, I prefer the red of kryptonite." Clark flares his nostrils dramatically, accuses Lionel of using the red-K on Conner, then grabs him by the lapels. Clark gives him a shake. "You're trying to turn him into something he's not!" Lionel paws uselessly at Clark's hands and protests that he was just trying to find out what his son is really made of. Lionel educates any new viewers who might have accidentally wandered into the show: "Red kryptonite, if worn, brings out the primal, uncensored core of self." Lionel says Clark is afraid of it because he doesn't want to know what might be inside him. Clark releases him with a little shove. "I won't let you hurt him like you did Lex," Clark says, his voice suddenly deeper than it usually is. "He was my closest friend, and Lionel Luthor's influence destroyed him." "You destroyed Lex with your secrets and lies," Lionel retorts. If you thought Secrets and Lies died when Lana left, well, you were wrong. They were just lying dormant, waiting for someone to chew away enough scenery to let them claw their way back onto the screen. Lionel snits that Conner overheard Clark talking to Tess about keeping the truth from him and that's why he ran away. Clark looks devastated. Why are so many scenes shot from two feet under Tom Welling's chin? Is the cameraman a hobbit? You can see all the way up his nasal passages. Clark tries to bring the blame back around to the red kryptonite. "The longer he's exposed to it, the more unstable he becomes. He's a danger to himself and to everyone around him!" Lionel disagrees and mentions that Conner has taken Lois, which he really should have kept quiet about, because now Clark will know to rescue her. Silly villains and their wordy gloating.
Luthor Mansion. Conner brings Lois into the library shambles. He says no one will find them there. That's the Clark genes talking, because it seems like the first place someone would look. Lois tries to let Conner down easy, saying she's already spoken for, but Conner isn't quite getting the message. He offers to take her to Paris. She tries a harder line: "OK, let me make this perfectly clear. You and I? Not happening." She stomps away from him and he grabs her arm. "I will not let you go back to him," Conner says. He throws her across the room. She crashes into what's left of the wall and rolls to the ground, unconscious. It's surprising anyone can even form sentences anymore, what with all the brain damage they've suffered. Conner lifts Lois into his arms and just stands there staring at her for a while. Creepy.
When Lois wakes up, she finds herself lying on the sofa in front of a roaring fire. Her ill-gotten coat is gone, but thankfully Conner left the rest of her clothes alone. There are dozens of lit candles. Lois sits up and sees Conner gazing at himself in a mirror fragment. She also sees the ring on his finger. "I'm sorry that I lost my temper," he says when he notices her looking at him with fear. He sits beside her and strokes her hair. "I promise we'll live here happily ever after." You say that now, but the lack of indoor plumbing is going to wear on you. He cups her face in his hands and makes creepy noises about their destiny. She smiles and blinks away tears. "We should toast our future together," she says. She asks him to get them some champagne. He gets up and walks a few steps away before realizing something isn't right. "There's a reason Lois Lane is known for telling the truth," he says. He zips back over to her and grabs her from behind. "Because you're a terrible liar." She tries to reason with him, tells him it's the ring. He says he feels great and gives Clark the credit. He shoves her up against a wall. "You're nothing like Clark," she says. "I've seen him on red kryptonite, and it may bring out his inner angst a little, but it doesn't turn him into this." She doesn't remember the time that he, too, kidnapped another man's fiancee. Lois says it's the Lex part of Conner that's making him act this way, because the show just can't decide what side of the nature/nurture fence it's on. Conner throws her through some boards then grabs her, caveman-style, by the hair. "I'll open up a world Clark Kent can't even imagine for you," he whispers in her ear. This is just so, so gross. He rolls her onto her back and straddlers her hips. Ugh. When Lois mentions Clark, Conner starts to choke her. If he can't have her, he says, then neither can Clark.
Clark's voice reaches him from some distance. He zips away, leaving Lois coughing for air. She skedaddles to some hiding spot just as Clark walks into the room. He sees the sofa, the candles. He looks like he's going to vomit. He picks up the fur-lined coat. "You're not welcome here," Conner says behind him. They establish that Conner's not going to just hand Lois over, and Clark makes the obligatory effort to talk him into taking off the ring. They charge at each other. Conner throws Clark through a wall. Clark gets up, none the worse for the wear, and tries talking again. He just wants to help and keep Conner safe. "This isn't who you really are," Clark tells him. "You're wrong," Conner says and fondles his ring. "I'm nothing like you." He backhands Clark and sends him crashing through the exposed support beams. Clark gets up again. Conner says he's a Luthor. "This is where I belong!" he emos. "No, it's not, and you're coming home with me," Clark says, channeling Pa Kent. He grabs Conner by the front of his jacket. There's a struggle that the jacket miraculously survives. Clark shoves Conner into a wall, grabs the kid's fist and smashes it against the stone. The kryptonite shatters. Conner's eyes flash red and he looks almost immediately regretful. "Clark," he says, all sad puppy eyes. Clark lets go of him and takes a step back.
Suddenly, Conner gets all pukey in the face. "Oof! What's happening ?" He drops to the floor. A second later, Clark follows suit, revealing that Lionel has walked up behind him with a big chunk of green kryptonite. He whacks Clark in the face with it, then places the chunk to his head. For some reason, instead of killing Clark, Lionel grabs Conner and starts dragging him away. "Let him go!" Clark burbles. Conner jerks away from Lionel even as Lionel promises to help him become a god. Conner looks back at Clark, then at Lionel again. He gets a steely look on his boyish little face. "I know who I am," he says with what defiance he can muster. His eyes glow with fire. Lionel starts shaking his head, possibly protesting what he assumes is about to become his toasty fate, but Conner turns his heat vision towards the kryptonite. He blasts the rock until it explodes into a multitude of shards and poisonous green gas. Clark gasps and writhes in pain, his skin melting away, his eyes boiling out of their sockets, and his lungs turning to goo in his chest. Or maybe he just gets up like he hasn't been pelted with poisonous kryptonite at all. Lionel scampers away as Conner goes to stand beside his real papa. "Let's go home," Clark says, giving the boy the patented Kent-clap-on-the-shoulder.
LuthorCorp. Lionel sits at his desk, enjoying some booze and Italian opera. Suddenly, the blinds open, bathing him in bright light. Tess stands behind him, remote control in her hand. "Enjoy the view one last time. Security's on the way up to escort you out of the building." Lionel scoffs, but Tess managed to dig up the one document he didn't know about. She shows him a tablet PC with a scan of her adoption papers. It seems odd that Lionel would put his name on the papers. Wouldn't he have distanced himself from her completely? He also left his fingerprints on the documents, Tess says. The fingerprints are a mirror image of the otherworldly Lionel's. "It proves that you are a fake," she says. That... seems pretty flimsy. She says her lawyers are drawing up papers that give her back control of LuthorCorp. When Lionel is less than scared, she tells him that the scotch he just drank was "laced with nano-trackers." "From now on, I will know your every move," she says. "And if you try to retaliate against me or my friends, I will crush you." Stuff that in your chauvinist pipe and smoke it, buddy. Lionel studies her for a while, then moves uncomfortably close to her. Somehow, she manages not to recoil. When he wonders why she doesn't just have him killed, she says, "Because that's not who I am." Two guards come to take Lionel away. Before he goes, Lionel says she's really a Luthor, no matter how much she pretends to change for Clark. It's too late to bet on that filly, mister.
Kent Farm. Conner is replacing the barn wall he fried, pushing in the nails with his fingers. At least pretend to use a hammer when you're out in the open, would you? Like a true Kent man, he's wearing a plaid shirt. Clark walks up and compliments his work. Conner feels bad about all the trouble he's caused, but Clark doesn't blame him. He even apologizes for lying to him. Our Clarky is growing up. Still, Conner realizes it was pretty dumb of him to trust Lionel. Clark tells him not to beat himself up. He didn't know Lionel was a bad daddy and he didn't know the deal with the red kryptonite. "It's one of the drawbacks of being like us," Clark says. "But I'm not like you, Clark," Conner mopes. "Maybe on the outside, with all that I can do, but what that ring brought out in me? That was all Lex." Clark explains that there's a "shadow" inside everybody, but that doesn't mean he has to embrace it. "You decide who you really are," he says. He does another clap on the shoulder. "And I know you'll make the right choice and become the hero you're destined to be." But... that's not a choice. I wish this show weren't so wedded to half-assed ideas of destiny and fate. Nonetheless, Conner is pleased. He thinks he should start dressing the part. He tears open his plaid shirt to reveal a black and red Superboy shirt. Clark makes a skeptical face, so Conner hurries to explain himself. "I know I have a lot to learn, but when you feel I'm ready to join the team... I'd like to." Clark hands him a folder with an application (say what?) to Smallville High. Conner is tickled pink when he sees the name on the first page: "Conner Kent!" Clark welcomes him home. Conner grins and zips away to work on the fence. Clark watches proudly as the generation of free farm labor takes shape.
Lois walks up behind Clark. She commends him on his nature and nurturing winning out in the end. Clark still regrets not telling Conner the truth. Lois has her own apologies: "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you I was investigating Lionel." Man, everyone's acting so mature, taking responsibility for their stupidness. What show is this? Clark understands. She was trying to protect him. He thinks about what a hard job his parents had raising him. The diaper changes alone were a Herculean task. "If they hadn't been such amazing parents, this world could have been a much darker place." Lois thinks Clark will be a great dad to their own kids someday. They smile at each other and kiss.
Cemetery, night. Lionel walks up to the black obelisk of Lex's tombstone. Oddly enough, there are multiple rows of similar obelisks. Was there a sale? Lionel places a single flower in a vase. "Together, we could have ruled this world," he says. "I would give anything, my son, just to have you by my side." The wind begins to whisper. Black smoke crawls along the ground towards Lionel. It towers over him, then solidifies into Darkseid.
And that's how we begin our hiatus. Is Lionel going to strike some kind of deal with Darkseid to resurrect Lex? Does Darkseid just hang out in cemeteries, waiting for once-powerful billionaires to drop by? Will Conner magically disappear, even though he now lives at the farm? Hopefully we'll get an answer to at least one of these questions month.
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Tippi Blevins also recaps Nikita. You can reach her at b_tippi@yahoo.com or http://twitter.com/tippib.