Ugh. What an awful episode. After a total letdown of a two-part season opener that wasn’t anywhere NEAR the payoff set up by the season 3 cliffhanger, we now have a tired episode that reverts back to the Meteor Freak of the Week/Lana in Jeopardy shtick.

Pass.

And can someone explain to me why Lois is being added to this series? We already have Chloe as the “detective girl” role, and a love triangle (or square, if you count Jason). Isn’t Lois redundant? And I don’t even perceive Lois as Clark’s future wife. She just comes across as someone who just plain doesn’t belong in Smallville to me, and a ruination of the mythos.

I believe this episode is the first to flat-out state that an external year/season equals an internal year’s worth of time, and that Clark, Chloe, and Lana were freshmen in 2001, and are now in their senior year. So in other words, we’re supposed to understand that Clark, Abby, and Brett were fourteen years old in the teaser? Geez, now THOSE are some people who look so old for their age that THEY could use plastic surgery!

Chloe deduces that when Abigail kisses people, that it boosts their seratonin levels. But seratonin makes you feel good. Why would it make them go crazy? And what does elevated seratonin have to do with seeing hallucinations of yourself with a deteriorated face in mirrors?

The one nicely executed moment in the episode—the shots of Chloe looking at Clark and then Lois smiling at each other, and detecting the chemistry between them.

The flashback scene featured Whitney, but surprisingly, Pete was nowhere to be seen. Wonder why HE didn't come back.

In the first season's "Obscura," Chloe is on her way to Metropolis to interview for an internship at the Planet. She tells Clark that she will be crashing in her cousin's college dorm. Since we learned that Lois and Chloe were cousins, I assumed that she was the cousin in question. But she must not have been. As of this episode, Lois ain't even out of high school yet.

This really belongs under the "Crusade" thread but I'll say it here. Lana's birthday seems to have changed. In "Crusade," which takes place before the school year, Jason surprises Lana by celebrating her birthday. In the first season episode "Craving," which took place well into the school year, Lex and Aunt Nell throw Lana a birthday party at the mansion.

No Lionel. No fun. Oh, well.

The flashback scene featured Whitney, but surprisingly, Pete was nowhere to be seen. Wonder why HE didn't come back. - Brian
Pete? Pete who? Last I saw, Pete had beamed down with Kirk and Spock. And he was wearing a red shirt...

Good scene with General Lane to start this ep. But the excuse that Lois was accepted by Met-U, then rejected due to failing high school, is silly. What college fails to verify academic records or a GED before accepting a student?

If Lois is just 5 credits shy of graduating, why not go back to the same high school she attended previously?

Why are we still subjected to the angst-ridden conversations between Jonathan and Martha whenever Martha wants to work? Hasn't she established about 100 times that she wants to DO something with her life? She doesn't drive a tractor, or bale hay, or do any farm chores. I will say that the need for extra cash, in light of the stack of medical bills Jonathan accrued, was a nice touch, and a strong plot point.

I really enjoyed Jonathan's comments to Clark upon learning that Clark made the football team. I can relate. When your team is down by 3 with time running out in the 4th quarter, and you've all worked so hard to stay in the game, you'd do anything to pull out a win. You don't want to let your teammates down. I hope they follow this up in later episodes.

To pick up on the question of the date of Lana's birthday, if they celebrate her birthday before the start of the school year, is she 17 or 18? I would tend to think she'd be 17, as most students turn 18 during their senior year. So is Jason committing a statutory crime in having an intimate relationship with a minor? Unless Nell signed parental/guardian consent for Lana to be recognized as an adult by the State.

Speaking of the relationship, they go out of their way to portray Lana as having maturity beyond of her age. How does she think that she can continue to have this romance with someone who took a job as a teacher at her high school? And how amazingly stupid do they have to be to carry on romantic liasons in the school building??

Isn't it an incredible stroke of luck that Smallville High School needed a football coach at exactly the same time that an ex-pro football prospect dropped into town? OK, I guess we can say that Jason asked that he be given a position at Smallville High based on his collegiate football experience. I assume that this is a paying job for him. But I don't recall my high school having head coaches that weren't full-time teachers, much less assistant coaches. Does Jason have a degree in education and a teaching license in Kansas?

I guess Abby got a morals-ectomy to go along with her new looks. The first guy to show her some attention gets her topless on the first day of school. I wasn't clear on this, did Abby know what would happen to the jock kid? It didn't look like she anticipated the effect her kiss would have.

The whole my-mom-is-a-psycho-plastic-surgeon angle was beyond stupid. This ep might show up on a future ep of MST3K, it's that bad.

Dr Mom tells Lana that the mark on her back isn't ink, but appears to be branded into her skin. A brand causes skin cells to die and inflame, and causes permanent scarring. It's obvious that the mark on Lana's back is perfectly smooth.

Lana tells Jason that she doesn't know where he's taking her for their nighttime rendezvous at the school, and he has to tell her that they're in the "old drama room". By my senior year of high school I knew where every room in that building was, I didn't need some brand-new teacher to tell me where I was.

Past eps have established that Chloe works late at the school. In this ep Lois and Lana are both in the school at night. My high school was locked up after dark. And I'm surprised that Lois takes her job at the Torch seriously enough to work on her research after hours in the school, given that she can't wait to get out of Smallville High.

Lois is strapped to the "Table of Makeover Horrors" wearing a sexy little jog bra and shorts outfit. Clark smashes through the door glass to rescue Lois, then falls down because the cold creme is laced with Kryptonite. Lois gives Dr Nip-Tuck a pair of barefoot kicks in the head before leading Clark to safety. So how did Lois walk over the broken glass with her bare feet?

Lois tosses the football at the dunk tank target left-handed with a really sissy-girl throwing style. A bit odd for a girl with hand-to-hand combat training.

Obi-Juan: To pick up on the question of the date of Lana's birthday, if they celebrate her birthday before the start of the school year, is she 17 or 18? I would tend to think she'd be 17, as most students turn 18 during their senior year. So is Jason committing a statutory crime in having an intimate relationship with a minor? Unless Nell signed parental/guardian consent for Lana to be recognized as an adult by the State.
Luigi Novi: Age of consent in Kansas is 16. And we don’t know if they’ve even had sex yet.

Obi-Juan: Dr Mom tells Lana that the mark on her back isn't ink, but appears to be branded into her skin.
Luigi Novi: Actually, she said, “It’s almost as if the symbol were branded under the skin.”, a turn of phrase that makes it a bit more vauge.

Obi-Juan: It's obvious that the mark on Lana's back is perfectly smooth.
Luigi Novi: You know this from firsthand experience? You lucky bastard.

I could tell this was gonan be subpar, just from the subtitle, kryp/tuck.

Ugh, I don't even like NIP/tuck!

Do you think General Lane will ever get back-up from his close associate, General Lee?

Well,
as most of you I too see this episode as a huge step back.

The first 2min I actually thought they pulled out an old Episode they didn't air yet from a previous season.

Another thing:

This was the info tvtome.com
gave on this episode:

"Clark faces a surprising new foe in the form of a shy high school girl who turns to plastic surgery to enhance her looks and boost her popularity. However, things go awry when she discovers that her kryptonite-enhanced beauty causes harm to anyone she kisses - and she decides her next victim will be Lana. Meanwhile, Jason and Lana continue to hide their relationship from Clark."

Havng recalled this after watching...
Clark didnt' Face Abigail at all, did he?

Next week's doesn't sound that much better. Cheerleaders spike the water with kryptonite, turning their jock boyfriends into the Stepford Husbands. Lovely.

"General Lee". Too funny. Thanks, Brian, I needed a good laugh!!

This episode seemed kind of plotless. Just one big filler. Nice to see Chloe all back and perky though.

Kiss nit: When Jason and Lana kiss in his office, they start going right. The camera shot tightens and suddenly they're kissing the other way.

Obi-Juan: Good scene with General Lane to start this ep. But the excuse that Lois was accepted by Met-U, then rejected due to failing high school, is silly. What college fails to verify academic records or a GED before accepting a student?
Usually, applications are sent in and accepted well before the end of the schoolyear and graduation. However, the university can cancel the acceptance if the student fails to meet conditions required by the university at the end of the year.

Obi-Juan: To pick up on the question of the date of Lana's birthday, if they celebrate her birthday before the start of the school year, is she 17 or 18?
I don't see why she couldn't be 18. Many students turn 18 in the months before/early in their senior year. She's either one of the oldest students in her class or one of the very youngest since otherwise she'll turn 18 a few months after she graduates.

Obi-Juan: I guess Abby got a morals-ectomy to go along with her new looks. The first guy to show her some attention gets her topless on the first day of school. I wasn't clear on this, did Abby know what would happen to the jock kid? It didn't look like she anticipated the effect her kiss would have.

She wasn't aware of what was going to happen since she later had to ask her mom what she had done to her.

Obi-Juan: Good scene with General Lane to start this ep. But the excuse that Lois was accepted by Met-U, then rejected due to failing high school, is silly. What college fails to verify academic records or a GED before accepting a student?
Usually, applications are sent in and accepted well before the end of the schoolyear and graduation. However, the university can cancel the acceptance if the student fails to meet conditions required by the university at the end of the year. - Josh M

You are correct Josh. I didn't get my point across very well, my issue with this is the timing of the issue. In Kansas the school year ends in late May/early June and starts in August. Even if Lois attended high school in another state, the university would know that Lois had not graduated by July, and would have cancelled her enrollment at that time.

The teaser scene with General Lane takes place the day before the start of the school year at Smallville High School. This topic was not brough up in either of the previous episodes this season, so I'm assuming that General Lane was only recently notified that Lois' enrollment at the university was cancelled. The fact that he enrolled Lois in Smallville High, and not at her old school or elsewhere, indicates that he was only notified of the rejection from the university in the period of time that Lois was in Smallville. I doubt that the general is a hard guy to contact. So what prevented the university from notifying General Lane or Lois much earlier in the summer?

Lois is strapped to the "Table of Makeover Horrors" wearing a sexy little jog bra and shorts outfit. Clark smashes through the door glass to rescue Lois, then falls down because the cold creme is laced with Kryptonite. Lois gives Dr Nip-Tuck a pair of barefoot kicks in the head before leading Clark to safety. So how did Lois walk over the broken glass with her bare feet? -Obi-Juan

Maybe the glass beads, like a car windshield (or maybe, sensing that the odds that a sheet of glass around here WOULDN'T get smashed were pretty low, the good Doc furnished her lab in candy glass?)

Was it explained how Lois figured out that Abby's mother was involved in the Brett incident? Looks like she made another incredible intuitive leap as she did last week.

There's a sign over the locker room that says "Boy's locker room", shouldn't that be "Boys' locker room" (plural) pick, pick, pick

In the locker room before tryouts, Clark tells Jason that he's never been on a team before. Technically, he was a sub on the team back in the first season episode "Hothead."