Previous on Smallville: Clark discovered that Lionel was lying to him, and somehow Clark was shocked by this. Amnesiac Kara decided to move in with Lex.

On tonight's episode of Smallville, the FBi chases down two college students suspected of blowing up a museum while their friend Will mysteriously disappears. Wait, that's a different “Traveler.” Too bad, I was really hoping to see Logan Marshall-Green (Ryan Atwood's brother and Secretary of Defense James Heller's gay son).

Lionel Luthor (John Glover) is enjoying some opera in his office, and he receives a mysterious letter. He is none too pleased with its contents. Meanwhile, in the Kent barn, Clark (Tom Welling) is checking out a diary when he gets Krypto-Tazered (tazer guns that shoot barbed prongs coated with glowing green Kryptonite) by an entire SWAT team. Pierce, the leader of the SWAT team, is played by Aaron Douglas, better known as Chief Tyrol from Battlestar Galactica. This is awesome.

Lana (Kristin Kreuk) and Chloe (Allison Mack) investigate the barn, and they suspect something isn't right, probably because it's destroyed. They check the diary and see that it still has the key to the Fortress of Solitude. Lana is worried when she finds a Krypto-Barb. I love that I'm allowed to add “Krypto-“ as a prefix to anything on this show.

Clark wakes up in a Krypto-Cell (see!), a prison with bars made of Kryptonite. Pierce has a lever that can increase the potency of the green stuff, thus making Clark writhe in pain. Lionel stops it because he's not such a fan of torture.

Lionel meets up with Patricia Swann, Dr. Swann's daughter. She exposits that her dad (who was, of course, played by the only true Superman, Christopher Reeve) was seeking a Traveler who came to Earth during a meteor shower. Now she is, because she's a part of Veritas, an alliance of four families: the Queens, the Teagues, the Swanns and the Luthors. She suspects Lionel killed all those families to get his hands on the Traveler all to himself, and she threatens to expose him unless she takes her to the Traveler. That's a lot of exposition for one scene.

At Lex Manor, Kara (Laura Vandervoort) is settling into her new room. Lex (Michael Rosenbaum) is still pushing the memory retrieval procedure. She has doubts, but can't resist that sexy bald man. He goes off to prep the lab.

Lana and Chloe rush off to Lionel to ask for help in finding Clark. He pretends to help, but they reveal the Krypto-Barb and suspect him because he's the only other person who knows of Clark's weakness. Lionel deflects, saying Kara could have done it, and the girls buy it. The next day at the Daily Planet, Chloe does some research and discovers the likely Krypto-Cell, which was built by Lionel the minute he found out about Clark's secret. They need to get help busting in, so they decide to kidnap Kara and take her to the Fortress of Solitude to fix her amnesia.

Patricia Swann pays a visit to Lex. She gives him a painting he drew when they were kids and she tells him about Veritas, but suggests Lex asks his dad to learn what it was all about. All this talk of Queens and Teagues is just making me wish Justin Hartley and Jensen Ackles were still around. Lex talks to his dad about Veritas, but he asks his son to drop it. When Lex leaves, Lionel calls up Patricia and agrees to her deal.

Chloe cuts the power to Lex Manor as they convince Kara to follow them out through a secret tunnel Lana learned about during her marriage to Lex. They get to the Fortress and Chloe calls out for Jor-El, asking him to restore Kara's memory and powers. He finally accepts, sending a pillar of white light through Kara, fully restoring her memory.

Back in the Krypto-Cell, Pierce informs Clark he was security at 33.1, then he tortures Clark some more for fun. Patricia arrives and gets a glimpse of Clark the Traveler. She wants a face-to-face, but Pierce knocks her out. Lionel takes the incriminating documents then asks Pierce to put her on a plane and return Clark to his farm. So it was all a plan to get Patricia's evidence? But Pierce double-crosses Lionel and pulls a gun, vowing to terminate this particular meteor freak.

Pierce also knocks out Lionel, then he pushes up the Krypto-Cell's juice to maximum voltage. Too bad for him Kara busts through the wall and uses her heat vision to disable the Krypto-Cell, then she picks it up and flings it at Pierce in the cheesiest special effects shot ever. Pierce pulls out a gun, but is knocked off the ledge and gets impaled. Clark is a bit shocked to see Lionel is the man who did it.

Wrapping things up at Kent farm, Clark tends to Patricia. She gives him Dr. Swann's final journal. He reads aloud: “The Traveler will bring great change to the Earth.” He has doubts about whether he can live up to the prophecies, but Patricia says he can. She also warns that Lionel killed the other members of Veritas, which was supposed to protect him. Clark vows to deal with Lionel himself, and Patricia decides to get an apartment in Metropolis to help out.

Lionel gets drunk in his office when Clark arrives. He tries to apologize and talk his way out of it, saying Patricia and others and Clark's true enemies. Clark doesn't buy it, so he leaves to rebuild his barn. He gives Kara back her bracelet and the cousins bond over how often they've been duped by the Luthors.

Finally, Patricia's car stops on a bridge, the driver gets out, and he shoots her. Lex fondles her necklace, which leads us to believe he's taken over his father's duties of killing off members of Veritas.

Next week on Smallville: It's the pre-strike finale, and to celebrate the occasion, Brainiac is back. Between Aaron Douglas and James Marsters (not to mention Jane Seymour, Christopher Reeve and Jensen Ackles), the caliber of guest stars on Smallville is far better than the show deserves.


-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of the CW)