Welcome to the second half of season eight, dear readers!  Muchas gracias to Dee for stepping in on the previous two episodes and recapping the hell out of 'em for me.

We pick up where we left off back in November, after a few key events: Clark got Jor-El to exorcise Brainiac from Chloe and strategically remove all her knowledge of Clark's secret in the process.  What a mensch.  Then Lana came back to attend Chloe and Jimmy's wedding, which was, uh, doomed by the attack of Davis Bloome's seven-foot porcupiny alter ego.  Prince Charming then carried the new Mrs. Olsen to the "Brainiacked" (TM Dee) Fortress of Solitude, where she woke up with silver eyes and an expression of supreme satisfaction.

That "just married" glow, no doubt.

Feste asked me to step into her recapping shoes again this week, claiming some sort of snafu with her cable company. However, I think she wanted to avoid writing about the dreadful monster that has come to Smallville to take over and destroy what has been, for the most part, a surprisingly strong season.

That's right. I'm talking about... Lana Lang. She is the true portent of capital-D-Doom here, people. Make no mistake.

I'm Dee, and I'll be your guest recapper for Smallville this week. (Feste is in New York with Keira checking out Harry Potter's wand.)

Previously on Smallville, a lot of stuff happened. Chloe used her healing power to weaken Brianiac, but he infected her brain and now she can download information like whoa. Clark frets; Chloe chooses to look at this new power as a gift. Jor-El wasn't happy with Clark's defiance (is he ever?) and warns of consequences. Clark was certain he can cure Chloe if he can retrieve the blue crystal and rebuild the fortress that Lex helped destroy with his glowing purple orb. (Oh Lex. How we pine for you.) Davis woke up naked or covered in other people's blood with no memories. Davis felt as if Chloe were sent to him. Chloe harshly informed Clark that he doesn't get how much Chloe spends her life protecting his secret. Chloe used her white-eyed Brainiac powers to bring back Clark and Kara from the Phantom Zone and push Oliver across the room. Oliver warns Clark to stop Chloe before it's too late for her. (Sadly, this is Ollie's only appearance this week.) Chloe thinks she and Davis should take a break. Faora, Zod's wife and escapee of the Phantom Zone, possessed Lois, informed Davis/Doomsday that he is genetic matter AND her son, and then skewered him with a metal rod to make him stronger. Aw, mommy! You do love me best.

Got all that? Now on to the actual episode!

Lois arrives on Clark's doorstep with boxes of Def Leppard albums and the announcement that she's taking Clark up on his offer to move in again.  The worst thing that can happen is she'll see Clark in his Snoopy boxers.  The way she pauses to consider how unpleasant that image really isn't kind of softens the insult, though.

Lois tosses Clark a package she found on his doorstep, marked "fragile" and with no return address.  Clark opens it to find a box containing the blue shield crystal that he used to create the Fortress, and which most recently summoned Maxima and was subsequently stolen from Tess.  The crystal glows and hums at Clark's touch, and when the room around them begins to shake, he warns Lois to get out of there.  Instead, she reaches for his arm, trying to make him drop it, and there is a burst of light, trapping both of them inside a large flat shard that we know is the Phantom Zone.  It breaks a window on its way out into space.  Not quite the kind of "living together" Lois had in mind.

Kryptonian flux capacitor. Which means Clark must be the 1.21 gigawatts.

You know, sometimes it drives me crazy to be reminded (all too seldomly) how good Smallville can be.  More episodes like this one, please!

Night in the city.  Lois and Jimmy stroll the sidewalks, Jimmy trying to convince Lois that his theory about a stealth crime fighter in Metropolis isn't wack.  The only such hero Lois knows of is more into green leather and, uh, pointed demonstrations, and anyway, lately that person seems to have "hung up his bow."  Jimmy thinks Clark will see it differently, and he plans to ask Clark to write the story, since Lois is being all Doubty McPartypooper.  Good luck with that, Jimbo.

Just then, a mugger darts out of an alley and clobbers Jimmy to the ground, then turns to Lois, who of course fights back, Army brat style.  She shouts at Jimmy to get a shot of the guy's face.  Clark arrives in time to see Lois's struggle with the thug about to send her in front of a moving car, so he flits through the scene to knock the thug aside and Lois to safety.  Unfortunately for him, Jimmy's camera flashes at precisely that moment.

You're on Candid Camera!

At an engagement party for Jimmy and Chloe, Jimmy cuts into a cake with their faces on it.  So, you know, we start with that bit of creepiness.

Across the room at the bar, Clark joins a tipsy Lois just as she is ordering another glass of champagne, so she adds "a Shirley Temple for the lady" to her order.  Heh.  She excuses her inebriation by claiming that she's actually way more obnoxious when she's sober.  Fair point.  Grimacing at the happy couple over the crowd, Lois worries that Chloe is too young to get married, much less to the first guy to show her some attention.  Clark wishes Lois would show some support.  She sneers at him and stands up on her stool to make a toast.  She tells a story of her and Chloe as little girls, promising each other they wouldn't get married until they found their soulmate.  The crowd awws, and Lois adds, "Just goes to show you can't take a ten-year-old on their word."  Damn.  Well, Lois, maybe you're more obnoxious when you're sober, but I guess you save the mean streak for public drunkenness.

...aaaand you're cut off, Ms. Lane.

Sorry for the tardiness, folks, but Brainiac took my computer hostage for the better part of a week.  More proof that Marsters is a bit of a bitch?  You decide.

We find a snappily dressed Clark and Chloe at a rainforest preservation benefit thrown by Oliver Queen.  Scantily clad wait staff work the event, and Chloe snarks that global warming is just an excuse to take our clothes off.  Sadly, the two of them have never followed the crowd.  Chloe teases Clark a bit about Lois's usual presence in his life these days, but he complains that Lois spends most of her time pointing out his typos.  Ugh, we've been over this.  Lois is the canonically bad speller, not Clark!  It's not as if the writers don't know this, because they poked fun at her for it themselves back when Lois was writing for the Inquisitor.  The discontinuity, it burns us, precious.

Nothing like a Save The Rainforests campaign to distract us from piddly concerns like the national budget, the global economy, and an upcoming election.

Still in Kansas, but not in first grade anymore, Toto.

It's a historic day in Superman canon: Clark Kent's first day at the Daily Planet.  And what does our hero wear to commemorate the event?  A "nice" red plaid shirt and blue jeans, carrying a red knapsack. *eyeroll* Sometimes the writers take Clark's farmboy sensibilities a bit far.  He's dressed up often enough, and what's more, he's been to the Planet hundreds of times and knows perfectly well that the dress code is businesslike.  Sigh.

Welcome back, Smallvillians!  Not to be confused with small villains, which are in abundance in this eighth season premiere.  Sorry, Miss Tessmacher Tess Mercer, Lex has big villain shoes to fill.

We begin as a helicopter swoops over the the arctic tundra, four weeks after the events of last season's finale.  It lets off a young woman in a sassy snowsuit and serious-business eye shadow, who struts into the temporary headquarters of a Search and Lexcue team and demands to know what Regan (Lex's head of security) has been up to all this time.  The woman is Tess Mercer, acting CEO of LuthorCorp, and she insists that there's no way Lex met his maker in Santa's back yard.

Unless the elves were there.

In the grand tradition of Smallville, we end the previous episode on a dramatic and puzzling note, only to ignore it completely in the current episode. Kara doesn't even rate a mention this week, much less an appearance. Golly, I can't imagine what part she could have played in the events of this episode, can you? No reason our heroes might have thought to call on her.

We begin at Luthor mansion, where a wizened old man fresh from sick bay on the Galactica examines the device Lex retrieved from the safety deposit box in Zürich. Doc Cottle is fascinated by the intricate gears in the "cryptograph," but cannot discern what it does. He wants to take it back to his workshop, and Lex instructs his security head -- a nameless, attractive guy we've seen a few times now -- to put Cottle under constant surveillance.

As soon as he is alone, however, Lex is attacked by none other than Robot Bank Employee -- the dude who tried to garrot him in Zürich -- who engages Lex in a few bouts of fire poker fencing before stabbing him in the side with a knife. Lex hits the floor, and rather than making sure he's good and dead, RBE takes this opportunity to practice his carving. He splits at the sound of people coming, and security finds Lex bleeding on the floor with krypto-symbols carved into his chest.

Later, Lex wakes up shirtless in the hospital, his wounds stitched but not bandaged. Bandages would defeat the purpose of the shirtlessness, you see.

I think this extends out of the realm in which scars are sexy and into the realm of keeping a plastic surgeon on retainer.