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Lex will do anything to keep Clark and Lana apart, including forcing Lana to absorb so much Kryptonite she probably craps green now.

Oliver shows up at a Lexcorp board meeting to tell them he’s bought a controlling interest in the company, but a huge explosion interrupts the meeting and kills everyone else and puts him in the hospital. Oliver realizes the killer is a former employee, Winslow Schott, whom he had to fire after he became obsessed with building bombs out of toys. Clark finds out, and he, Chloe, and the newly-superpowered Lana track down Schott’s place and discover he’s going to blow up the Daily Planet.

Meanwhile, Schott goes to Oliver’s hospital room and tries to blow him up with a toy monkey, but Oliver stops him and ties him up. Clark and Lana find the bomb on the roof of the Planet, and there are a camera and speakers hooked up so Lex can see what’s going on and talk to them.  But Clark can’t go near it because it’s filled with Kryptonite, and if Lana goes near it, her suit will absorb all the Kryptonite and Clark will never be able to go near her again. After they kiss, Lana absorbs the Kryptonite and that defuses the bomb, and Clark tracks Lex’s signal to a truck parked on a nearby street. Lana shows up and stops Clark from trying to kill Lex, but the truck blows up and supposedly kills him anyway. Later, Chloe confronts Oliver about the monkey bomb that blew up Lex’s truck, but admits that she thinks it was the right thing to do in the end.

I’m always in favor of them bringing in characters from the comics, especially if they can do a good (and realistic) take on it. They did an excellent job with Toyman, played perfectly by Chris Gauthier from Eureka. The character was eccentric without getting way over the top, and they didn’t have to go the freak of the week route with him.

Did Ollie cross the line by killing Lex? That’s a good question, and I like the conflict they’re setting up not only between Clark and Oliver, but between Clark and Chloe, over this issue. You know there’s no way he won’t find out eventually, and they seem to be headed for the traditional Superman vs. Green Arrow conflict that’s existed for so long in the comics, which eventually led to Superman ripping of one of Green Arrow’s arms in the alternate future of The Dark Knight Returns.

By the way, I don’t actually believe for a second that Lex is dead, whether they claimed to have identified the remains or not. There are so many ways he could have escaped, and so many ways it could have been someone else (I’m sure he still has some clones lying around somewhere), and the possibilities of his minions messing with the investigation are numerous as well.

It’s difficult to feel anything for Clark and Lana breaking up (again) at this point, after watching their roller coaster relationship all those years and knowing that he’s going to end up with Lois anyway. The only thing I really didn’t like about this episode was the lame excuse they created for keeping Clark and Lana apart. I would’ve preferred to see an actual breakup rather than one forced on them by circumstances. They’ve stretched the whole thing as far as it can possibly go now, and if the show comes back for another season, I can only hope Lana isn’t involved.

At least the idea of a ninth season itself doesn’t seem so bad any more.

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