on this week's smallville entitled "gone," lois and clark work together to try to figure out if chloe is really still alive and what has become of her. they later uncover that lois's father, sam lane ( played by splinter cell's very own micheal ironside ) and lex luthor worked together to stage chloe's death in order to lead lionel luthor to believe that she was dead all this time and that she could not appear before trail to testify before him. lana returns from paris to smallville because she finds the tattoo that she mysterios received in "crusade" to look very simliar to a depicted cave drawing she finds in the background in a photo of clark in the caves. lionel's freak assassin ( shades of terminator two: judgement day ) fails to kill chloe when she is found at the end of the episode thanks to clark and lois. chloe testify's and lionel is found guilty and lex takes control of luthorcorp.

the good:

i think clark did a great job of acting in this episode. his feelings of seeing lana again and interactions with lex and lois were sincere and definetly not overdone. scenes with clark and lois are fun to watch and "improved slightly" from last week's episodes and the next coming weeks will definelty tell where their friendship is heading. the shower scene might have been a little overdone but was fun to watch and did not effect the quality of the episode. also, i feel that their was a great scene with lionel and lex in lionel's holding cell. lionel tells lex that because he wronged and betrayed him that he will never have another moments peace for as long as he lives when he gets out. very powerful and intimidating scene, i thought. at the beginning of the episode clark's battle with the miliarty special unit was awesome. he threw those guys around like rag dolls. lois actually being able to fight off one of these guys was actually believeable and sincere, way better than lana being able to fight off others in past season episodes. finding chloe alive was obviously one of the more important scenes in the episode and clark's battle with this week's freak of the week ( more commonly known as fotw ) has pretty cool but seemed to similar to terminator two: judgement day. sam lane did a good job as lois's father and wouldn't mind seeing him again in the future. lois and clark's scene in her father's office was good and heartfelt as well.

the bad:

lana. lana return to smallville was put into the episode accordingly and most of the scenes that followed afterword were good and decent but towards the end of the episode lana's scenes seemed kind of weak. i thought the ending with jason coming to smallville to be with lana was a little corny and overdone. a much better ending could have given this episode a much higher deserved push in the right direction or even an improvement of this scene would have done the episode justice. basically the ending could have been better and left you with that kind of feeling like when you have a great dinner but the very last thing you ate was not as good as the entire meal and you are still hunger. ( and have to wait unitl next wednesday eight o' clock, seven central for your next meal. ) alos lana's second scene with clark in the caves was good but i felt that is was only because of clark. lionel's shanking ( yes, lionel was shanked while taking a shower in the middle of the episode ) could have been better. the dramatic classical music was too strong and "almost" annoying. i watched the scene over with no volume and thought it was better. a better, less stronger musical score or maybe if the scene would have happened really fast with little or no musical could have been better. a lot of little oversights. i find a hard time seeing clark's parents siding so easily with lex after all they have been through in the past. lex has done better things to gain their trust and for them and they still discarded it as a hidden motive and/or hidden agenda. where does lois get a tazor rifle in the battle last battle scene with clark and the assassain? could she have really snuck it off her father's base so easily? but then again she is really resourceful. clark could have done a more thorough job of searching chloe's explosion sight. all it would have taken really is a x-ray vision of the ground and he would have seen the tunnels. even if they were made of lead, a ground with a lead cover underneath would have just added to his suspicions. a few other things bothered me but are not worth mentioning and this was a good episode overall.

my overall:

first three seasons, i really liked lana. but with lois in the cast, i kind of wish lana would stay in paris. i like lois way better than lana. lois is so cool. this episode, i feel might give us hints or clues on how shape clark and lex's relationship will shape in the episodes to come. clark's thoughts on lex are very attention grabing. ( i could not thinkg of a better word, sorry. ) clark did a great job in this episode and really shows him looking into the future as far as lex goes and as well as for himself, slightly. also is it just me or did anybody notice that clark seemed more like superman in this episode than any other? the way he stood, acted, fought as well as other aspects of clark's behavior seemed parallel to superman. anybody else notice this?

the ruben lb personal review: a

the ruben lb critic review: b plus