Episode 3.21: Forsaken

Emily Dinsmore, the clone of Lana's childhood best friend, who we last saw in the Season 2 episode, Accelerate, has been held prisoner by Lionel Luther for the past 11 months. When she escapes she kills the new owner of The Talon and then kidnaps Lana, holding her captive inside a giant glass prison. Clark has decided that the only way to stop Lana leaving Smallville is to tell her his secret. But when she doesn't show up for dinner it leads him to investigate her wareabouts, bringing him into a confrontation with Emily. Lionel finds out that Lex is wearing a wire. He pays off the FBI agent, Frank Loder, that was working with Lex to work for him instead. Part of that work involves attempting to beat Pete Ross into spilling the beans on Clark. He doesn't! Lex eventually comes to his aid and forces Loder to make an arrest on his father, thanks to evidence provided by Chloe of the confession that Lionel thought he had deleted.

I wasn't overly keen on 'Accelerate'. So imagine my surprise when this sequel to that episode actually turns out to be pretty damn good! While I'm still not all that fussed about the character of Emily Dinsmore, I do like Lana's interactions with her here, thanks to the performance of Kristen Kruek. Kruek is on great form throughout actually and I really feel her disappointment and frustration in her final moments when Clark backs out of telling her everything. But Clark does this after Pete decides to leave Smallville with his mother, due to the unbareable pressure of trying to keep his secret. So you can understand the choice Clark has made and kinda feel sorry for him.

There's a scene in this episode where Clark comes to Lex and accuses him of being responsible for making Lana leave for Paris early. This is a way of putting Clark onto the trail of Emily but, even so, it's still a hard scene to watch because scenes between these two men now always seem to be laced with a touch of bitterness as their distrust of each other grows. It's been a subtle shift across the course of the season but these are not the same two men who hugged each other like brothers in Phoenix.

Lex gets to save Pete. It is clear that he is trying to bring down his father and that he had nothing to do with Pete being beaten. Yet Pete still doesn't cut Lex any slack when he tells Clark about what happened. Based on his words to him, Clark could be forgiven for thinking Lex was really up to no good. I like this scene because it highlights how the ways that people frame information about a certain someone can shape the way we view them. It's a good reminder that we should always form our own opinions about people rather than being informed by other people's prejudices.

To be quite honest, I'm happy to see Pete leave Smallville at the end. I don't hate the character, and he has had his moments to shine now and then, but on the whole he's the character from the main cast that I'm least drawn to. There has just been too many times where he has been a liability or just plain whiney about living in Clark's shadow.

I love Lionel's arrest sequence. He refers to Lex as Judas, painting himself as the Jesus figure, which reveals just how monumental his ego truly is.

A highly entertaining episode with a lot going on.

9/10