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I wonder if anyone who was flipping channels thought they were catching a new season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles with an incredible plot twist?

After flirting with Lois again, new reporter John Corben is hit by a truck and wakes up in a makeshift lab with bionic parts, including a Kryptonite heart. Dr. Hamilton tried to help him at the hospital, but Corben freaks out and smashes the place up due to the bionic matrix overloading his system and making him ultra-aggressive. Meanwhile, Lois is trying to figure out what’s going on with Clark being gone so long, and Chloe is even more upset when she learns that Clark has been confiding in Lois as “The Blur.”

Corben decides to hunt down “The Blur” because he blames him for his sister’s death, and kidnaps Lois after he overhears her talking to him on the phone. Clark tries to save Lois, but has to stay away from the Kryptonite, so he uses an EM pulse to disable Corben’s electronics. This doesn’t last long enough, and Clark has to melt a door made from lead around Corben’s chest to protect himself. When “Metallo” pulls of the lead, the heart comes with it, which disables him. Clark decides to go back to his job as a reporter in order to find out what happened to Lois during the three weeks she was missing.

As I watch an episode of Smallville, I make notes to myself on things I might want to put into my review, and during this episode I thought I’d make a reference to how ironic it was that Brian Austin Green was playing a cyborg killer after his last job was playing Derek Reese, a soldier from the future who was sent back to protect John Connor from being killed by cyborgs in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Then the show actually went and made its own Terminator reference and blew mine out of the water. As I’ve said before, I love when shows get “meta” that way, so I had to make sure I mentioned it. 

I was not a Green fan in the past, having sat through a few episodes of the old 90210 show against my will, but he won me over in T:TSCC, and he did a good job here as well. I also liked the way they worked in a lot of references to the comic book version, including the name John Corben, the fact that he worked as a journalist at the Planet, and that he tried to romance Lois. It’s also interesting the way they’re tying Kandor and the Kryptonians into the Metallo storyline, since he’s been connected with them in the comics as well. 

Speaking of the Kryptonians, Tess seems to have lost track of them. I’m glad they gave a reasonable explanation for Tess allowing Lois to continue working at the paper, since it was pretty ridiculous that she still had a job there after all that’s come between them. It looks like Clark is finally going to try and romance Lois after all this time, which will pretty much officially turn the show into a rebooted version of Lois & Clark.

This was a solid, straightforward episode, and turned out better than I expected. I really liked the way “The Blur’s” costume looked in the shadows, with the chest symbol reflecting the light. But I have to admit, the coolest thing was Corben’s mistaken belief that the El family crest was supposed to be an “S.” One more step toward Superman.

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