For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.
Plot
John Henry makes a surprising discovery, as Lois sets about tracking down her missing sister, Lucy, while Clark takes some time to bond with his boys.
Influences
The Superman: Lois and Clark comic (Clark and Jordan's training resembles the training regiment Clark ran Jonathan Kent through in the comics) and Star Wars (Clark calls his favorite flying obstacle course The Kessel Run)
Performances
The moment where Clark and Jordan get excited about Jordan's first controlled flight is a great moment for ,Tyler Hoechlin and Alex Garfin.
Artistry
The effects on the sequence where Clark teaches Jordan how to fly are great.
Super Trivia
Clark makes reference to a flying course he dubbed the Kessel run. This is a reference to a particularly difficult smuggling run from the Star Wars universe, which Han Solo apparently broke the record on running.
Technobabble
John Henry determines that, for some reason, his armor protected him from Ally Allston's energy draining powers. He also believes that she absorbs life energy as well as the superpowers of metahumans and aliens she encounters.
Natalie created a special lacquer made from X-Kryptonite, which she applied to her suit. This makes it stronger than John Henry's armor, despite being made of the same base metal.
Dialogue Triumphs
(John Henry has ordered Natalie to destroy her suit.)
Natalie: I've been helping you with your suit from day one. I'm the reason it withstood Ally, and now I'm too young to wear one?
John Henry: You can die in that suit.
Natalie: I almost died in jeans and a jacket two days ago when Mrs. Cushing's killer clone tried to murder us. And I saved your life, by the way.
John Henry: That is not fair.
Natalie: I am qualified to do more than sit on the sidelines. You need me.
John Henry: I need you alive.
(There is a log pause as Natalie scowls at John Henry.)
John Henry: You gonna take this thing apart, or am I?
Natalie: (bitter) I build things. I don't destroy them.
Clark: Think there's anything I can do to make things better?
Jonathan: You really want my advice? I mean, I'm the lying son that let everyone down, remember?
Clark: That's not who you are, Jon.
Jonathan: Really? Look at the other Jon. I messed up on two worlds.
Clark: No, you're just kids dealing with circumstances the best you can. And it's not too late for either of you to make things right.
Jonathan: You really believe that?
Clark: (sighs) Anyone can make a bad decision. The true measure of someone's character is what you do afterwards. And you've been putting in the work to make amends.
Jonathan: So does that mean... does that mean you're not mad at me anymore?
Clark: I was never mad, Jonathan. It's just... look, as a parent, you care so much about your kids. And I wanna protect you from everything, but I have to learn to let you make your own mistakes. Just like everyone else. And that's really hard. But I promise you, I will always be here for you when you do.
Continuity
The episode opens with a flashback set "Five Years Ago" showing how Ally Allston met Lucy Lane at one of her book signings.
Ally guessed immediately that Lucy was Lois Lane's sister and began building on Lucy's resentment of her more successful sister from their first meeting.
Ally's followers have been revealed to have been waiting for her to return for the past month, but most of them are abandoning the cult's compound. Lucy stays behind with the ones who remain loyal.
Clark wants to return to Bizarro World to see if Ally returned there, but Lois refuses to let him go due to the time difference that already caused him to lose a month with his family.
Lois suggests he might spend some time with Jonathan and Jordan, unless there's some disaster that really needs his attention. She also says they need to talk to them about Lana's decision to keep their families separated.
John Henry discovers Natalie's secret suit after he asks her AI, Hedy, for the latest file regarding "the suit" and she asks him to specify which one he means.
Lana overhears Sarah as she's watching a video Kyle shot of her performance in 212. She compares her to Alanis Morrissette. (Sarah has no idea who that is.)
Lana becomes angry when she realizes where Sarah was playing, though Sarah tells her that Tonya was not there and made a point to not be there while they were there.
Clark tells Jordan and Jonathan about Lana's decision to keep Sarah in the dark about their family. Unsurprisingly, they both think Sarah has a right to know the the truth about Jordan.
Clark has a full day of farm chores planned for them. The boys are less than thrilled..
Chrissy Beppo reads Lois the riot act because Lana Lang apparently asked her about the month-long assignment Clark was working on and Chrissy had no idea that Clark was apparently working for her now.
Lois lies and says that Clark wants to get back into newspaper writing again, but he wanted to have a big story to come to Chrissy with so he could prove himself and not just be hired as Lois' husband.
Lois and Sam get a lead on former First Sergeant Erin Wu - a former member of Lt. General Anderson's staff who is part of Ally's cult.
Chrissy demands to come along as Lois and Sam go to talk to Lucy, saying she has a stake in this after nearly getting killed by Ally and her cult. Lois agrees and Sam eventually lets her come along as an extra set of eyes.
On Bizarro World, the Bizarro Lois Lane and Bizarro Sam Lane watch Ally give a speech in Paris, telling her followers that they are going to merge their world with Earth-Prime rather than merge individuals a few at a time.
On Bizarro World, The Eiffel Tower is made up of two towers, joined at the top, resembling a giant hour glass.
John Henry tells Natalie to disassemble her suit and threatens to do it if she won't, despite her protests that she can do more to help him than sit on the sidelines fixing his tech.
Chrissy acts as the look-out while Lois and Sam go inside the cabin Ally's followers are using as a hideout.
Sam and Lois tell Ally's followers that Superman destroyed Ally's pendant, so now she can't merge anyone else.
Lucy refuses to believe Lois and Sam.
Sam handcuffs himself to Lucy.
Jordan refuses to come out of his room, while Clark and Jonathan fix the tractor.
Clark asks Jonathan for his advice on getting to Jordan. This surprises Jonathan, who thought Clark was still mad at him about covering for Candice. Clark says he was never mad at Jonathan and says he has a hard time not trying to protect his children from their own mistakes.
Jonathan feels like everyone hates him and he's afraid he'll never play sports again and that he doesn't have a future.
Jordan confronts Lana at her office and asks her permission, directly, to tell Sarah the truth about his powers and try to explain why he was so distance.
Lana refuses and tells Jordan that he's endangering Sarah by being around her. She specifically makes reference to Tag Harris kidnapping Sarah in 106 to try and get to Jordan.
At some point in the past, Ally helped Lucy move into her own apartment. She spoke to Lucy about trying to win Lois over to her philosophy, but Lucy believes Lois will try and destroy her instead because she can't accept being wrong about anyone.
Sam Lane is searched and he doesn't have the key to his handcuffs. All he has in his pockets are the device he uses to call Superman and his car keys.
Lucy complains that Lois has viewed her as a problem to be fixed ever since their mother left and that Ally is the only person who has ever shown her any real love or respect.
Clark finds Jordan in downtown Smallville. Jordan says he's come to accept that telling the truth to Sarah may be what is best for him but not for her.
Clark takes Jordan off to train his powers.
Sarah finds Kyle as he's grocery shopping with the other firemen.
Kyle says he will talk to Lana about Sarah singing in the bar and explain that she should be mad at him and not her and that he is not seeing Tonya again.
Lois didn't join any clubs or do any teams in school because she was trying to raise Lucy - a child raising a child.
San blames himself for that, because he didn't trust a sitter to raise his girls so he thought it best they raise themselves.
Lois tells Lucy that the reason she threw herself into mothering her wasn't because she wanted to control her life but because it helped her feel like she had control of her own life after their mother left them.
Sam releases the cuffs after Lucy and Lois reconcile, the cuffs apparently having an electronic release.
Ally Allston returns
Clark starts teaching Jordan how to fly by having him jump into a chasm. It works, but Jordan has a little trouble slowing himself to land properly.
Clark runs Jordan through a flying obstacle course he calls the Kessel Run, after a difficult path from the Star Wars movies.
Ally tells her followers that she can merge the two worlds with enough power, but she needs Superman's strength to start the process.
John Henry is not able to cut through Natalie's suit.
Natalie says that after having lost one world, she can't sit idly and risk losing another one. John Henry reluctantly agrees but asks her to walk him through every upgrade on her costume.
Lana's leg twitches when she is worried.
Kyle talks with Lana and she tells him, without going into detail, that she feels like a bad person because of a number of secrets she's been asked to keep. Kyle says she's the best person he knows and a good mom and he's sure she has good reasons for whatever she's done. He then offers to take her and the girls out to dinner.
Lana is suspicious of his motives, but Kyle assures her it is just about them spending time with their kids - not an effort to win her back.
Lana says they are still going to talk about Sarah singing in a bar.
Lucy uses Sam's ELT pager to call Superman.
Jonathan finished Clark's list of chores by himself.
Ally starts draining Sam.
Chrissy discovers that Clark listed himself as a reporter for the Smallville Sentinel on his social media.
Ally starts draining Superman as soon as he gets closer to her and seems to take all his power.
Chrissy calls the DOD emergency number Sam gave her in case there was trouble. The message also goes to John Henry.
John Henry and Natalie go to the scene in their respective armored suits.
John Henry tries to fight Ally, but she is able to catch his hammer telekinetically and throw it back at him.
Ally flees once Superman is drained.
Natalie is able to restart Superman's heart with a maximum force electrical blast acting as an improvised defibrillator.
In another flashback, we see Lucy's reaction to her first attempt to bring Lois into Ally's cult.
Sam is in the hospital, being held for observation.
Superman is still unconscious and is in such a bad state the doctors at the Department of Defense were actually able to take a blood sample from him.
Kyle says that Sarah got a standing ovation at her show. Sarah says that all of the crowd were drunk and there were only 10 people.
Lana demands to be at the next show.
Lois tells Jordan and Jonathan that the DoD Doctors say that Clark's cells look normal, but from what little they know about his physiology they shouldn't. She's afraid he may never recover to where he once was.
Back on Bizarro World, Ally tells Lana-Rho to go to Earth-Prime and finish Superman off.
Location
One of Ally Allston's book signings, sometime in 2017.
Lucy's new apartment, sometime in the last five years.
Paris, France in Bizarro World
Somewhere in the Arctic Circle, near the former Fortress of Solitude.
A cabin in Burnham Woods
The Fridge Factor
Lana and Lois are both oddly passive facing down Ally as she's killing their father and then Superman.
The Bottom Line
Another fantastic episode with one heck of a cliffhanger.
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