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This one had pimps, hoes and morning talk shows—plus Lois and Clark take it to the next level.

While Clark gets roped into doing a morning talk show with Lois, Ollie is out trying to help a young prostitute turn her life around. But—surprise!—her pimp isn’t very happy about it, even when she’s able to pay him back more than what she “owes” him. Ollie decides to tell Lois he’s still in love with her by taking the place of her blind date set up for the show, but instead it only makes Clark jealous and sets both Ollie and Lois up to get jumped by Mia’s pimp. Just when it looks like they’re about to get shot, the Blur shows up and knocks the guy out. Ollie goes back to collect Mia and put her back on track, while Clark takes a chance and kisses Lois at the Planet.

Meanwhile, Zod is back and bothering Tess again, this time at the unveiling of a new tower that will collect enough solar energy to power all of Metropolis. But, as you might guess, Zod has other plans for the harnessed energy and Tess doesn’t like not being in on the deal. When the Kandorian major has one of his soldiers threaten her, the minion ends up dead instead.

Okay, I know they’re going for some kind of psychological thing here, but seriously—Mia kicked some ass at the fight club earlier on, so why was she such a wuss when it came to standing up to her pimp?

Otherwise, this was a decent intro for Green Arrow’s sidekick, Speedy (which he even called her at one point), and they stuck pretty close to the source material. However, they’ve decided to completely forego the original Roy Harper version and skip straight to the newer version from the comics, in much the same way that the Smallville version of Flash is Bart Allen rather than Barry Allen or Wally West. She could be a good addition to the show as long as she isn’t overused, especially if they bring in the major comic book subplot that I’m not going to mention so I don’t spoil it for those who don’t know.

Is it just me, or is Chloe really uneven this season? It seems like one minute she’s all dark and deceitful, and the next she’s best buds with Clark again, giving him relationship advice like they were teenagers again. I hope this is the way it’s supposed to be and it’s leading up to something, and not just an accidental oversight by the writers.

The longer this show goes on, the more it reminds me of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, which is a good thing as long as it only reminds me of the first couple of seasons before it went downhill. The kiss at the end of the episode was totally unexpected, and I hope it doesn’t mean their “will they or won’t they” stage is coming to an end, since that’s always the kiss of death when it comes to those types of relationships (as it was on Lois & Clark).

Kudos to the FX team for its best scene of the season when Clark stops most of the submachine gun bullets, but has to grab the last one out of the air just as it’s about to enter Ollie’s eye. I realize it was a knock-off of the rooftop scene in Superman Returns, but this show’s budget is microscopic compared to that movie, and it looked just as good (on the small screen at least).

I like the Zod storyline more and more all the time, and Callum Blue is great in the part. I can’t wait for him to stop the standoff with Tess and actually start confronting Clark. I hope the reveal lives up to the buildup.

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