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A serial killer is on the loose in Metropolis and the new mystery man/good Samaritan can’t catch him. But the real mystery is whether Chloe’s friend Davis is the murderer…

Chloe has started a support group for the meteor-infected and Clark, who now listen to police scanners and goes around the city trying to save everyone, suspects that one of them is the serial killer who breaks the bones of his victims. That is, until Davis the ambulance dude informs Chloe he thinks he is the killer. In the end, Clark and Jimmy discover one of Chloe’s people trying to kill someone, and the guy ends up confessing to all the murders. What a relief! But wait…it turns out the guy was a copycat and the killer really was—DAVIS!

Okay, anyone who didn’t see that twist coming from a light-year away, go to the back of the room. While I admit the new showrunners seem to be able to get away with freak-of-the-week stories without making them feel like rehashes of the first few seasons, there’s still something lacking in the writing that I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s just that Al Gough and Miles Millar were really good and were more hands-on with the scripts than I thought they were, or maybe there’s something else going wrong with the system over at the show.
The writers do get kudos for keeping it interesting until the end, and for writing a Lois-less episode without me even noticing until it was over. Here I thought that with so many of the original cast members gone the show would seem empty, and instead they’ve brought in so many new characters that they can’t fit everyone in an episode any more. I also appreciate the fact that they seem to be at least attempting to ramp up the conflict in every relationship in the series.

But the complaints are still many. How is it that Clark can usually hear a pin drop from halfway across the world but he can’t find a rampaging killer who leaves a swath of destruction in his wake? And he supposedly can’t get there in time once he hears something is going down? Puh-lease.

The show still isn’t close to its former glory, but it’s not as bad as last season either. I’m still willing to give the new guys time to find their sea legs, but it they don’t catch on fast, it’s going to be too late very soon.

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