DOUBLE FEATURE! 9.15 “Conspiracy;” 9.16 “Escape”

Long time no talk, Smallville viewers! I want to apologize for the delays! Bad timing on my part, what with the recent big news about a Season 10 happening! I got behind on the show when they virtually took the month of March off (not wholly unwelcome by me due to my love of NCAA basketball and a much needed vacation with my wife.) I’ll get you caught up on things with a look at the February 26th episode, “Conspiracy,” and the April 2nd “Escape.” Look for recaps of “Checkmate” and “Upgrade” sooner than you know it!

“I am better, because I was wrong about you.” — Zod (Callum Blue) to Clark (Tom Welling), “Conspiracy”

“Conspiracy” gets things under way with a shot of a Daily Planet front page reading “Tower of Tomorrow Terminated.” Clark meets with the Kandorian Faora, who is upset that the tower was destroyed, not realizing that that man she walks with was responsible for that disaster. But Faora is in better spirits since she’s been reunited with her sister, Vala. As the three of them discuss the current Kandorian situation at the bookstore that Faora’s sister now runs, Vala clearly has the hots for Kal-El, “Clark” being such an unseemly name for a savior. *swoon* Later when Vala is alone and closing up the bookstore, she is knocked out by a man in a mask who looks eerily like a certain late Wesley Dodds. Vala awakens later encased in some sort of chamber in a laboratory and finds to her horror that she’s not alone. Two others familiar to her are in similar chambers of their own at not looking to be in a healthy state.

Later at the Planet, a page Lois Lane receives on her secret Checkmate phone is interrupted when Clark pops in. T’would appear now that Clark’s not the only one keeping a big secret. Apparently they have both been busy on respective assignments and not spending a whole lot of quality time together, something they both realize needs to be rectified. This is underscored, though, when Faora shows up unexpectedly to see Clark because her sister’s missing and she needs help. When Clark goes to the bookstore to search for clues on Vala’s whereabouts, he finds that Zod is already on the case since other Kandorians have vanished of late. The two have one of their patented back-and-forths, this time over the tower’s destruction. Zod contends that his people would not be in a vulnerable position if they had the same abilities as Kal-El, and Clark responds that the lack of the solar tower makes his rival even less powerful than before. While Zod’s certain the son of Jor-El is responsible for his project’s recent demise, Clark doesn’t give him the courtesy of a confession. While this is going on, Vala is still in captivity at the lab, pleading for her life. We get our first look at the kidnapper, and he expounds on how he has no intention of releasing her since she one of the aliens currently on Earth with plans to colonize. The guy actually reminded me of an infinitely more paranoid Dr. House. When he cranks up Vala’s chamber that’s on a chained pulley system, she gets a glimpse of a severed arm with a Kryptonian marking on it. She screams in terror, realizing that it belongs to a fallen comrade and she’s probably next in line on this mad scientist’s butcher block.

Elsewhere Clark meets up with Faora to update her. He asks her what her sister might have to do with the other missing Kandorians, and she explains that they were scientific engineers who experimented on humans as a means of figuring out how to (re)gain their superpowers. This episode gives us some insight on where one John Corben fits into the picture. That Faora says that the specialty was “cybernetics” tells this viewer all he needed to know. Unknown to Clark, Lois is at a bistro across from the Daily Planet hoping that an earlier hint on his part to meet their pans out. No go, as she finds out the hard way when the mad scientist joins her and promises a story that will make her career. He introduces himself as Bernard Chisholm and that he’s sent over a dozen letters to her at the Planet offering her an exclusive on his discoveries, but she rebuffs him saying that all the letters likely made their way to the crazy pile. Bernard then reveals that he actually has aliens kept at his lab that he can show Lois as proof, and she immediately takes a renewed interest in this. She says she needs a moment to call her editor, though it’s only a ruse for her to get away from this creep, only Bernard is wise to it and holds her at gunpoint outside the restaurant to get her to join him. Fast-forward to Lois at the lab, and she’s handcuffed to a desk — Bernard’s keeping her there to write the story. Between the notebooks he’s filled and the microscope slides with blood samples, nothing convinces her that there’s anything to his paranoids ramblings. What does get her attention as to the gravity of the situation is the bodies in chambers, including Vala, that he reveals. The doctor plays his one last card to Lois, taking off his stocking cap to reveal a carved up cranium that makes him look more like Pinhead from the Hellraiser series. He explains that it was what was done to him by these very aliens, killing him only to bring him back to life, using kryptonite needles in the process, and even if he wanted to let the whole “alien invasion” theory rest, he can’t turn his brain off.

Continuing their search, Clark and Faora visit Metropolis General Hospital, the venue’s first appearance for the week. They discuss how the engineers went about their procedures, Faora claiming that they stole bodies from the morgue. Of course Clark disapproves and calls out Zod on allowing it, but she insists that he was out of the loop on this, offering a story of the major’s selflessness back when they served on Krypton. When Clark rebuffs saying that that loyalty clearly didn’t carry over to Jor-El, she assures him that Zod considered his father to be his best friend and ally. When they finally talk to some hospital staff they discover that Bernard use to be the head examiner there. Maybe they didn’t always use dead subjects, eh, Faora? Elsewhere, in one of the more interesting sequences of all “Conspiracy,” Zod is on his own search, going to the Daily Planet for leads. He snags a press pass here and a pair of glasses there to act as a reporter, in the process charming the pants off a research assistant to help him dig up alien stories. The research assistant gives him the stack of letters Bernard sent to the Planet, and Zod knows where to go. He gets to the lab and finds Lois, and when she asks what could’ve possibly brought him there he claims to be there on FBI business. As he works the cuffs trying to free Lois, she point to him the one survivor there, Vala, and he’s sidetracked by his fellow Kandorian’s sorry state. Before he can free her, Dr. Chisholm arrives and shoots Zod in the gut. Leaving Zod mortally wounded, laying in his own blood, the doctor orders Lois to get back to work on his story and he goes back to his own somewhere else on the premises. Once he’s gone, Lois gets free and tends to Zod, but he insists that she save herself and Vala. Lois insists on staying since that’s what Clark would do. Chisholm returns shortly after and Lois gets the jump on him. Thinking he’s out, she tries to free Vala who is increasingly freezing up, but the doctor whacks her out cold from behind. When Chisholm gets a better look at the slowly dying Zod, he notices his Kryptonian dogtag and freaks out that he’s in the presence of more aliens. He straps on his gear and fires up his saw to carve up Zod and Clark swoops in at super-speed to knock the least gracious host ever across the room. Chisholm gets back up and ready to attack with his saw he invokes a classic pose seen at the end of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Bad move to make, unfortunately, as he snags a power line hanging above him and he electrocutes himself. This gives Clark the opportunity to free Vala and thaw her out, and he then tends to Zod who is at death’s door. In a desperate move, Clark uses a stray kryptonite needle to pierce the skin of the palm of his hand to drop his own blood on Zod’s wound. Lord knows how it gets this intended result, but Zod heals up in a jiffy, and Clark proves him wrong about never seeing the sun rise on his adopted planet again. Yeah, about that sun…

The lead storyline wraps with Lois returning to the Planet after having been treated following her ordeal. She did manage to grab some of the blood samples with the intention of getting them checked out. When she sees Clark, she vents about all the others involved at the lab disappearing on her with Vala refusing treatment or to cooperate and Zod totally gone, though Clark covers for his rival saying that the FBI won’t claim knowledge of him because he’s in deep, DEEP cover. They reach a stalemate of their own, him only promising to come clean on whatever he’s hiding if she does the same. One wonders how this will turn out by season’s end. But more worrisome at the moment is that when Clark leaves her, she receives a text from Agent Waller, thanking her for the samples. Wait, they’re in her drawer, right? Wrong, they’re already gone, and in their place in her desk drawer is a white chess piece. Checkmate. Later, Clark meets Zod on their favorite rooftop to reflect on recent events. Zod says he feels like a new man and when he asks how he knew the blood would do the trick Clark replied that he didn’t. Lucky guess, but he chalks up its success to their shared Kryptonian DNA. Grateful for his second chance, he embraces Clark as a friend now and everyone has warm fuzzies. When Clark leaves him, the major continues with the good feelings as he basks in the glow of the sun. Feeling revitalized after pretending that he was still feeling the effects of the gunshot wound, he leans over the building’s edge to take a dive. Spiraling downward at blazing speed, Zod waits until the last moment to change direction upward, having full control of his inherent ability to fly. Guess who has embraced the full benefits of a yellow sun.

The second story is mostly setup for future episodes while also recalling things we’ve seen in the last few previous. It kicks off with Oliver Queen at his lavish abode just hopping out of the shower. This gives us the prerequisite glimpse of Justin Hartley shirtless, naturally. He has an unexpected visitor in Tess Mercer, though she’s not there to scrub his back, much to his disappointment. She delivers a one-two punch assault of accusing him in being involved in the destruction of the RAO Inc. Tower and revealing that financial records show that someone is embezzling funds from their corporation. He takes a look at her findings and clearly he has a painful awareness of who may in fact be stealing money. Fast-forward later to Chloe Sullivan at the Talon apartment in Smallville minding her own on her laptop (maybe she needed a break from the Watchtower?). An unexpected visitor arrives in Oliver and judging by her enthusiasm it would appear that something between the two DID in fact happen stemming from the last scene of the recent “Warrior” episode. Not saying a word when he arrives, Chloe mistakes Oliver turning up the music in the apartment as a romantic gesture, but when he slips in close as if to kiss her he confides that he’s sure Tess has the place bugged so he’s masking their conversation. Oliver says he knows she’s been stealing from her, just like all the other the other ladies past (how many, now?). She swears there’s a reason and one that’s for everyone’s protection, but he’s understandably skeptical. Later, the two are at a remote railroad yard, and she reveals to him in a nondescript train car a vast array of kryptonite-infused weaponry. the recent “Warrior” episode. All of this hearkens back to “Pandora” when the two led a team of rebels against Zod’s forces who enslaved Earth. Turns out that it’s not specifically in case Clark goes rogue, but she rationalizes that Clark has favored his kinfolk much more lately with blinders on. Chloe’s also got tracers on the IDs she’s provided for certain Kandorians, always prepared, this young lady is. All the while that Chloe gives Oliver the rundown, the two are being spied on and photographed from afar. The tables are turned later when said photographer takes Tess back to the train car only to find it totally empty. He assures her that he saw a car full of goodies, but she’s pissed off and desperate to know who’s stealing all the company money. As they take off, Chloe steps out of hiding, and even she wants to know what happened to her stash. Oliver sneaks up behind her and assures her that the armory is safe and sound under his watch. The back and forth with each other about their evident trust issues and they essentially agree to disagree. When Chloe asks if they should share this secret with Clark, he says yes, but only when the time is right.

***************

“Oh, c’mon, Ollie. Throw up the white flag, it’s Lois. She makes Susan B. Antony look like a quitter.” — Chloe (Allison Mack), “Escape”

Damn this episode’s title for putting this song in my head the whole time I hammered out this recap! Speaking of romantic getaways, that was the order for the day in what may have been the most fun, sexy episode of the season. “Escape” gets going with an SUV driving down a rural road. Chloe’s riding shotgun and we never get a glimpse of who’s driving. Equipped with her trusty laptop and Bluetooth, Chloe is on the line with Clark, helping him via remote to navigate through Metropolis to handle a multitude of distress calls. Successfully wrapping up their night’s work, Clark says that he’s got a weekend with Lois planned and that Det. John Jones is going to fill in for him during his absence. Apparently Chloe’s got similar plans, but she doesn’t confide as much, declining Clark’s offer to see Bart Allen (Impulse) who is visiting Metropolis then. The two say their goodbyes and go off on their separate ways… or so they think. Clark meets Lois at the Daily Planet and she wraps up her work, ready to go wherever it is he’s lined up. Lois being Lois, she has several bags packed, one for each possibility since Clark’s kept it a surprise: snow, surf, etc. Fortunately she’s got one for the option he’s laid out, a country bed and breakfast, the McDougal Inn. Cut to that very location, and it’s a nice sized place in a remote wooded area. At the counter to check in, we see a lady’s hand signing the guestbook for “Mr. & Mrs. Green.” The hostess asks what size bed they want and Chloe’s voice replies to “make it a queen.” And the lead-in to the credits shows us what I think we were all expecting, kind of. Chloe’s with Oliver as they anxiously grab their room key for their stay. How refreshing that someone’s death and dismemberment isn’t what brought the show to the introduction.

Much later that night, Clark and Lois arrive at the McDougal Inn, hungry and soaked as a storm’s hit. They shouldn’t have taken her 40-mile detour to see the world’s biggest ball of yarn. When they check in, the innkeeper regretfully informs them that their room has a badly leaking ceiling and that the last of the rooms are taken by others. Lois is ready to boot Mr. and Mrs. Green for grabbing the last spot, but Clark offers to take a look to see if he can fix the leak. He takes care of business thanks to his heat vision, but the room hardly look ready to accommodate a weekend of romance. Lois, meanwhile, is in the lobby tending to all their luggage and the weight of all her stuff (it was only two nights, Miss Lane!) causes her to run into the wall, her bag scratching a vintage painting of a Scotsman in a kilt. With her back turned she fails to notice that the scratch illuminates for a moment, and she apologizes for the damage to the young lady running the inn. She gives Lois the rundown of why the damage wasn’t too big of a deal, explaining that this great-to-the-seventh-power uncle, Bevan McDougal, took what was the royal birthright of his sister and killed her in the process. The wronged Siobhan McDougal was supposedly granted the ability to return to the living, but only if she killed any man who crossed her path. With that, apparently the ill-fated sister was kept under wraps in the underworld. Distracted by a cute couple canoodling on a couch in the lobby, Lois changes the subject to getting set up in their room. The innkeeper leads Lois away and they miss some strange goings on. The scratch on the portrait lights up again, and mystical-looking vapor seeps out from it. The energy quickly engulfs the female guest, lighting up her face and eyes with a ghoulish pallor ever so briefly. With a new sense of purpose, the girl leads her eager boyfriend out of the inn for someplace else to continue things. Lois gets up to their room just in time to find an immaculately inviting suite waiting for her, Clark dismissing the leak as no big deal. In her words, “Clark Kent, my hero.” Settled in shortly after, Lois preps herself for a cozy night with her travel buddy, occasionally peeking into the bedroom to see Clark clearly trying hard to make everything just so. Clark doesn’t need x-ray vision to see that she’s got a fetching ensemble lined up, and she doesn’t prove any of us wrong when she does step out. They get ready for bed, and it’s cute and awkward the way they try to figure each other out, like 17-year-olds. They get into bed and make with the sexy time, but they’re immediately interrupted by a piercing shriek from outside. Unseen by anyone a distance away from the inn, the young lady from the lobby is clearly not herself, dragging behind her the body of her dead lover.

After break, Lois and Clark are among several other guests who heard the creepy noise and are on the porch trying to figure out what it is. The innkeepers tells everyone that she’s certain it was a wolf, considering how deep into the forest their location is. Everyone including Lois and Clark resign themselves back to their rooms, but in a “twist,” the two run into the couple they least expected to see, Chloe and Oliver in adorable matching robes. Everyone say “awkward” in their best falsetto. So Clark and Lois presumably didn’t get too much sleep for all the wrong reasons, because it’s clear the following morning that the only thing or her mind was her cousin hooking up with her friend and former boyfriend. The next morning they have breakfast at the inn’s restaurant, and she’s in full chatterbox mode about the whole situation. Clark’s all about giving the other two space, but Lois has to dig deeper. When Chloe and Oliver see them from the second floor, they don’t even get a chance make a break before Lois flags them down to sit at their table. From there it’s nothing but awkward conversation among the four of them, and I’ve never seen Chloe as low-key as she is in all of this. Knowing that Oliver is a magnet for the tabloids as an eligible bachelor, they opted for a place free of paparazzi, hence a less extravagant trip. Ultimately Lois and Clark are the ones pushing suggestions on Chloe and Oliver. Lois is actually psyched for Chloe, thinking she’s got a double-date partner now, but Chloe dismisses their situation as casual and uncomplicated. Clark wants Oliver to be good to Chloe and to make sure he doesn’t take her for granted. What’s also revealed is that the whole coincidence of them ending up at the same place happened because Clark saw a brochure at Lois’ apartment thinking it was hers and it actually belonged to Chloe making her own plans. Oops.

That evening, Chloe and Oliver return to the inn after a day of wine-tasting. They’re having a blast and feeling frisky moving things into their room. After some kissing Chloe notices a little gift package sitting on the bed. Oliver plays slightly dumb and she’s curious what he’s gotten her. Clearly having taken Clark’s advice to heart, Oliver says he doesn’t want to take her for granted, even though she’s not worried about that possibility. Since nothing gets past Chloe, she realizes that the gift had to have been bought that day from the inn because it has the company seal on it. She picks up on the idea that the gesture came from him talking to Clark, and she panics that this is going in a direction she didn’t want: a *gasp* relationship! She bails to go on a walk with the intention of starting over when she gets back, and Oliver stands there looking like a kid whose bike was stolen on his birthday. As is the case in any horror movie in the last, say, one hundred years, Chloe’s solitary walk in the woods doesn’t go as planned. Making her way a distance with a candlelit lantern, she eventually sees a woman in the distance, and calling out to her does no good. When she backtracks, she literally stumbles on the remains of the unfortunate boyfriend from earlier. Before she can make a break for it back to the McDougal Inn, she runs into the mystery woman. She touches Chloe and an instant transfer of spirit happens, illustrated between the two by the glowing skullface they both get for a moment here and there. Chloe lights up for a moment and takes on the same shock of white hair as her predecessor, while the other woman passes out, a devilish look is now in Miss Sullivan’s eyes. She takes this look back to the inn as Lois makes Clark disappear for a few minutes while she preps for a second go at a sexy evening. Clark finds another bathroom to shower in (God, it would’ve been awesome if the song he was singing behind the curtain was the “Pina Colada” song!) and he’s interrupted not by Lois, but Chloe, who fully disrobes on him as he finishes his shower. If they didn’t play “show me” as kids in Smallville, they have now! He’s understandably freaked, and when she pounces on him Lois of course walks in at the worst moment possible. In a smokin’ hot Scottish outfit (think “slutty bagpipe player” for Halloween), she assumes the worst and storms out, but not before spitefully giving Chloe the bottle she had on her for the planned evening that she won’t be needing anymore. This hand-off gives us another transfer, now Lois is possessed by the wicked spirit. As she leaves the two, Lois misses Chloe passing out in Clark’s arms, and when she comes to of course she has no idea how and why she got there, turning tail as if it was somehow Clark’s doing. Turnabout in this case being foul play, Lois runs into Oliver elsewhere at the inn and despite her flirty disposition he doesn’t recognize that she’s not quite herself. She offers to take Oliver to where Chloe is, and the fact that it’s outside doesn’t bode well for our emerald archer.

Later, Clark and Chloe are back fully dressed and coming to terms with the whole seeing each other’s bits thing. As they embark on a search for Oliver and Lois, in what’s been a fantastic episode of uncomfortable conversations, the best one yet finally happens. Chloe decides to ask Clark how he planned to handle the “bed” part of their getaway when he’s always expressed legitimate concern over intimacy with non-powered ladies. It’s hilarious how Chloe coaxes the details out of him, but Clark assures him that in his training with Jor-El he was taught how to have, let’s just say, mastery over his domain. What I wouldn’t have given to bear witness to that particular session at the Fortress of Solitude! Getting back to the task at hand, she retraces her steps, giving Clark the business about his unsolicited advice earlier to Oliver, and they come upon the dead body from before. Chloe pieces it together that she did see someone else, a phantom of sorts, and it had to have been responsible for he being possessed. They know what they’re now facing, and they better act fast. At that same time somewhere else in the forest, the possessed Lois is leading Oliver on a wild goose chase and she launches into an assault on him to lead into a commercial break. When “Escape” returns, Clark and Chloe are consulting the innkeeper for all the details they can get over this spirit since the girl from earlier doesn’t know what’s going on and they’ve found what’s left of her date. The innkeeper recalls that Siobhan McDougal supposedly possessed super-strength and a wail that could kill any man. The villagers from centuries earlier called her the Silver Banshee. Since they’ve determined that they’re now dealing with Siobhan who’s been released from the underworld, they’re told that Banshee’s brother sealed the portal that kept her there in a portrait of herself infused with her own blood. Clark uses his x-ray eyes to see that this portrait is there, a layer underneath the Bevan McDougal painting that Lois scratched, releasing Siobhan. Clark assigns the task of finding how to close the portal (piece of cake!) to Chloe while he goes looking for Lois and Oliver. Chloe takes a letter opener to the painting to reveal Siobhan’s image, the glowing skull face popping up again. Just then, as Oliver’s getting thrashed around by the possessed Lois, the Silver Banshee comes out in full bloom, a black and white ghoul with serious 80s Jersey girl hair. She unleashes her wail on Oliver and before it can do him in for good Clark shows up to confront her. He tries diplomacy at first, but she’s enjoying herself too much to stop now. She wails at him and he charges the killer force head on firing off heat vision against it along the way. No good, the wail sends him flying backward a hundred feet.

Back at the inn, Chloe looks for answers in a couple McDougal family books provided to her by the innkeeper, and they find that the portal must be sealed in flame. Going on a hunch, she carves out the portrait of Siobhan to about poster size and tosses into the fireplace. A reeling Clark is about to take another round of piercing sound at that time when the torching of the picture gets its desired effect. Silver Banshee screams, this time in agony, as she bursts into flames in a brief instance before disappearing leaving some smoldering embers on the ground. My question through this sequence was what happened to Lois? It’s not immediately answered when they fast-forward to the next morning and Chloe’s at the inn on the front porch, bags packed, anxiously debating with herself whether or not to open Oliver’s gift. Oliver waits a minute before showing himself, watching her internal struggle to see what she does. When she’s about to stash it unopened in her bag, he comes out to tell her that it’s simply a collectible spoon from the inn, what he opted for over decorative soaps. She professes to be more of a spork girl, and he apologizes for second-guessing himself while she says that‘s what comes from taking advice from Clark Kent. Mutually reconciling themselves over the two elsewhere at the inn who got away, they agree to get things back to how they were, easy breezy. Still not really showing what happened to Lois when Silver Banshee essentially came out of her (did I miss something?), Clark and Lois return to her apartment at the Talon that night. Looking back at their weekend they realize how something in particular didn’t get addressed when they were interrupted by demon possession, murder and unexpected travel companions. In an uncharacteristic fit of assertiveness, Clark props up Lois on the kitchen counter to start making out. The long overdue nooky time is cut short, natch, thanks to a cell phone call to Lois. Clark lets her take it because it might be important, and it turns out it is because it’s none other than the Blur! Actually it’s gotta be someone else besides the Blur, because Clark’s right there! High atop a Metropolis skyscraper, it’s Zod using a voice disguiser to act as his rival. She’s thrilled to be hearing from who she assumes is the city’s savior, and he hits her up for a favor. He asks Lois to dig up everything she can on Tess, a task she gladly accepts, and it’s too bad Clark opts not to listen in on this conversation, because it’s definitely worthy of his attention.

Bringing things full circle, in the second story, we follow the new adventures of an empowered Major Zod, looking a little more like his rival, Kal-El, but a whole lot more leathery. They like the bulky garb over streamlined, aerodynamic gear, I guess. Unbeknownst to all, he flies the Metropolis skies at night now, all Kryptonian-based superpowers at his disposal. He mounts the Planet’s rooftop and takes in all the sounds of the city that he can now pick up and he’s astounded. His enthusiasm is tempered, though, with all the comments he catches from the citizens about their savior, the Blur (man, I wished the producers could’ve come up with a better alias, maybe something from Superman’s history – thoughts, viewers?). Just as he starts to get visibly agitated, he gets a text from someone who says they need to meet. Surprisingly we’re taken the next day to the vacant Kent farm’s barn in Smallville (gotta make the show’s brand name count!) where Zod arrives to find Tess Mercer waiting for him. He accuses her of having too much Kal-El on the brain, but she’s says he could say the same thing for himself, insisting that she chose a place symbolic of the common ground they share. They slyly go back and forth about their motivations and whether or not they have the same goals for a better world. They start to feel each other out/up, literally and figuratively, and Zod says he’s a changed man and offers her a romantic getaway as well, clearly the theme of this episode. After pulling a move usually reserved for the guys, going up the shirt, Tess steps away and continues their conversation. Switching gears, to say the least, she pulls a gun on the major and doesn’t hesitate to fire off a shot. Proving what she may have already suspected, Zod has the power to snag the bullet in his gloved hand. The fact that Zod was ready to stray from his cause is what tipped her off to his more significant change, plus the fact that he was shot last episode and she didn’t feel so much as a blemish on him. With this he plays the aggressor and effortlessly hoists her up in the air by her hair with one hand, determining now that she knows too much. Before he can strike a fatal blow she opens a container in her back pocket filled with kryptonite. It has an immediate effect on Zod, though she never displays what she’s got that brings him to his knees. When she seals her green K shut, Zod feels better, and what was a mutual case of attempted murder transforms into sexual tension that reaches a fever pitch and they totally go at it on the floor. Later back at the Luthor mansion, we find Zod and Tess in post-coital bliss in her bed, and it does beg the question how the more aggressive Zod managed to control his Kryptonian libido. Worth noting too that his back is adorned with a huge Kandorian tattoo. He admires Tess for holding her own against him, almost Kryptonian she is. He asks how he was weakened before at the barn, but she holds this Ace card close to her currently naked chest. He goes on about how Clark, with the help of Lois and the Daily Planet, has been heralded as the new messiah and he wonders how he can tap into that kind of admiration. Tess plays coy with him the whole time, knowing full well and saying as much that knowledge/information is power. If she’s going to help the major it’s not going to be on this day.

This was probably one of my favorite episodes of the season, I have to say. When the characters get to play more free and loose, good things happen. The cringe-worthy moments were keepers in a way usually seen in The Office. These are the episodes that make this show work. So who has a better chance of going the distance (on this show, at least), Chloe and Oliver, or Lois and Clark? Without the whole Scottish curse, wailing banshee thing, have you ever fancied a bed & breakfast romantic getaway? And Odessa Rae, the actress who simultaneously played the innkeeper and Silver Banshee? What was her character’s name anyway?? As Season 9 reaches the home stretch, how do you envision things playing out?

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