X-Ray - Recap

Lex Luthor enters the Smallville Savings and Loan. The manager emerges from his office and Lex asks to close all his accounts. The manager asks why, and Lex asks if there will be a problem. The manager assures him ‘no’ but wonders at the odd request since the Luthors have been banking there for a dozen years. Lex merely smiles and asks for cash; the manager asks for a signature. Lex’s signature does not match the card on file and he cannot produce a driver’s license to verify his identity. Instead he produces a very large revolver and demands the manager fill a bag!

The alarm blares as Lex races down the street. Weaving through bystanders Lex makes good progress until he runs into Clark Kent. For a second he stares. Then he backhands his friend through the glass window of the optician’s shop! Sprawled in the wreckage, Clark looks up at Lex and a headache suddenly grips him. His vision turns strange; all at once he can see through Lex’s skin to his skeleton which is patched with green blotches!

Inside a small home, Mrs. Greer finds a large amount of money in a satchel that belongs to her daughter Tina. She confronts Tina, asking her to confirm that she did not rob the bank the previous day. Tina morphs into Lex Luthor and tells her mom that she didn’t rob the bank, Lex did. Her mother becomes upset, saying that someone could have gotten hurt. Tina says now they can have the perfect life but her mother wants to return the money. Tina grabs the bag and pulls; the strap tears and Mrs. Greer goes backwards down the stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom. Tina dials 911, then gazes into a cracked mirror at herself and tells the operator the call was a mistake...

At the Kent home Clark wonders why Lex would rob the bank; Jonathan, clearly no fan of Lex, says he’s seen some strange things. Clark doesn’t believe it and Jonathan counters that Clark saw it with his own eyes. Martha believes there must be a reasonable explanation for this. At the back door, Lex pipes up that he hopes so, too – he hopes he doesn’t have an evil twin. He pushes the door open as he asks to come in, promising also that he is not “packing heat.” Lex isn’t in jail because he was hosting two hundred fertilizer distributors in Metropolis at the time of the robbery. The police have no real leads, but Clark’s name on the witness list drew Lex, who asks Clark if he actually saw the person. Clark replies that the person looked exactly like Lex. Lex mentions that the person’s fingerprints and signature do not match his. Lex wants to know if Clark’s eyes could have played tricks on him. Clark asks what Lex will do now and Lex says that hopefully the money will turn up, and in the meantime the tabloids will have a field day and confirm certain people’s opinions. Jonathan goes to work; Lex tells Clark he’s sorry the robber threw Clark through the window.

During physical education class, Clark notices Lana walking towards the locker room. Then the coach calls Pete and Clark to the ropes to climb. Clark falls behind but when he learns he must run laps if Pete finishes first, he closes the gap. Then Clark feels another headache and sees the muscle structure of Pete’s face. This startles Clark and he lets go, falling to the mats below. Clark’s strange new vision improves; now he can see through the wall into the girl’s locker room, a vision that brings a big smile to his face.

Later Clark talks to his parents, telling them about the headaches and new vision. The first time it happened Clark believed he was hallucinating. Jonathan recommends Clark practice focusing his eyes until he learns to control his new gift.

Tina Greer visits Lana in the Potter garage. They speak briefly. Tina suggests that quitting cheerleading will at least give Lana some time for her unpopular friends; Lana tells Tina somewhat sharply that she isn’t unpopular. Then she wonders what happened to the Tina who didn’t care what other people thought; Tina morosely replies high school changed that view. They continue talking about lives and parents; Tina believes Lana has the perfect life, and Lana tells her she can have it. Then Tina says it would be cool if they were sisters, and asks Lana if Nell would adopt her should something happen to her mother. Lana assures her nothing will happen to her mother.

Clark experiences another headache while walking near the antique store. He sees a person with the same green glowing skeleton enter the Greer antique shop. His mother asks if he had another headache; he confirms that he did and then reminds her she needed to visit the antique store. They enter and Mrs. Greer emerges from the back. She tells Martha she has considered closing the store and moving to Metropolis. This surprises Martha, who thought Rose Greer loved her store. Clark asks if Tina is around, certain he saw her enter. Rose tells him she has gone to visit Lana and that the two of them are inseparable. Clark says he’s sure he saw Tina but Rose denies she’s there so Clark leaves. Martha asks about a lamp she left for restoration and Rose goes to the back room to check on it. While she’s gone Martha spots a packet of bills beneath an antique chest.

Rose emerges from the back to advise Martha the lamp isn’t ready and asks her to return for it next week. Martha hands Rose the cash and Rose thanks her, commenting that she’d been looking for that packet all day. Martha starts to leave; Rose calls out and hands Martha the purse she almost forgot. Unbeknownst to Martha, Rose palmed her keys before returning the purse. After Martha leaves Rosa morphs into Tina.

Martha stands before a paper box examining a headline about Lex and the robbery. As she does, her truck, with Clark at the wheel, hops the curb and barrels directly for her. She barely evades it. Clark appears seconds later as the truck goes around the corner.

At the Kent farm, Jonathan reports that the police found the truck by the Stewart Farm. Martha tells Clark she could have sworn he was the driver. Clark wonders how the person got the keys and Martha remembers losing them at the antique store – the same store where she found five thousand dollars in a packet wrapped by a Smallville Saving and Loan band. And Rose Greer was acting rather strangely, as well.

When she raises the theory that Rose somehow took the keys and then turned into Clark and tried to kill her, she dismisses it as crazy. Clark disagrees; the skeleton he saw, with glowing green patches, did not look human. Jonathan and Martha remember that when Tina was very young she had a soft bone disease that nearly killed her. Experimental drugs saved her life; she got better around her third birthday. Clark makes the connection; Tina’s recovery occurred after the meteor shower.

Clark wonders what Tina is doing. He saw the skeleton after the robbery and believes he could identify it again, but wishes he could control his new sight better. Jonathan advises him to focus like a telescope, starting small. He suggests Clark identify what’s in his hand and Clark correctly names a pocketknife – but not because he saw it, because that’s what Jonathan always carries in that hand.

Lana blows the dust from another box and opens it, sorting through a snow globe and some dried flowers until she finds her mother’s diary. She opens the book and begins to read.

In the kitchen, Nell ices a cake when Lana bursts angrily in. Lana accuses her aunt of lying to her about her mother and storms out of the kitchen.

Lex returns from shopping to discover a man leaning against the fender of his new car. The man is Roger Nixon of the Metropolis Inquisitor. Lex scornfully dismisses Nixon’s paper, saying he has read comic books with less fiction. Nixon proffers a folder. It seems he did some digging and discovered Lex’s juvenile record. He shows it to Lex, commenting that it must have taken a Brinks truck full of his father’s money to keep all those people quiet. Lex angrily replies that juvenile records are sealed and wants to know how Nixon got his; Nixon says only that he is a resourceful guy. Then he suggests a follow-up story about Lex’s wild youth in Metropolis and Lex tells him if he prints a single word Lex will sue. Nixon calmly replies that suits take years and in the meanwhile everyone will learn that the Lex they know is a façade disguising the real man. Lex smells a shakedown and tells Nixon that he’d already have printed the follow-up if that was his plan. Nixon admits he’s looking for a payoff and prices the juvenile records at one hundred thousand dollars. He gives Lex twenty-four hours.

Lana returns home late at night. Her aunt waits for her on the porch and quickly tells her she didn’t lie. She told Lana her mother would have been proud of her and she would have because she loved her daughter. Lana counters that Nell told her a fairy tale about a woman who led a perfect life. She told Lana her mother loved cheerleading when in fact she hated it but was afraid to quit. Lana also learned that her mother wanted to leave Smallville and see the world. Nell wants to know what Lana thinks she should have said. Lana replies that the truth would have been a good start and Nell tells her she told a small child what she felt that child could handle. Lana feels like she tried to live up to a life that didn’t exist. Nell reminds her niece that she is reading the diary of a seventeen year old, and further that the diary is a snapshot representing only a slice of Laura Potter’s life.

Nell tells Lana her mother was the brightest and most beautiful girl in class, and gave a memorable graduation speech that contained eighteen years of feelings. It described how she felt suffocated in Smallville and how she felt she never made a difference there, but hoped her children could.

At school the next day, Clark concentrates his gaze on Tina. Chloe and Pete interrupt him and he asks if they notice anything strange about Tina. They say no, except maybe the amount of time she spends idolizing Lana. Clark tries to focus again and this time Tina notices, forcing Clark to break off his gaze. Lana and Whitney appear and Tina spots Lana right away, prompting Whitney to speculate that Tina has his girlfriend “lojacked.” Tina has obtained a sweater and a necklace like those Lana wears. She tells Lana that her mother is moving to Metropolis but doesn’t want to pull her out of school and asks whether she can move in with Lana and Nell for a few months. She offers payment and tells Lana money will not be a problem. She could even get a horse and they could go riding. Lana asks for time to think about it. Sensing resistance, Tina begins to get irked. She tells Lana they could be sisters. Lana remains unsure and Tina gets angry, wondering if Lana was merely pretending to like her. She ends the conversation telling Lana that she should have said yes because it would have been perfect...

Tina visits her locker where she removes her look-alike necklace and stashes it inside, then leaves. Clark approaches from around a corner and focuses. He sees cash inside a bag that is inside the locker. Tina reappears and confronts Clark, demanding to know why he keeps staring. Clark walks away as Tina gazes speculatively after him.

Clark returns home early; his parents ask about his vision. He tells his mother that he controlled his new visual powers sufficiently to spot the money in Tina’s locker.

At the shop, Tina practices Lana’s signature on a scratch pad. When she hears a knock she morphs into her mother. Sheriff Miller and a deputy are there looking for Tina. They say they found money stolen from Smallville Savings and Loan in Tina’s locker and they want to see Tina at the station to ask her about it. “Rose” asks how they found the money and they report that a kid phoned in an anonymous tip.

Clark continues to focus, trying to refine control over his vision, when Lana appears and reports that the sheriff recovered the holdup money from Tina’s locker. She also reports that Tina cornered her asking to move in and says she has problems enough with Nell, without adding more. Clark says he always thought Nell and Lana got along and Lana tells him she feels Nell wants her to be something she isn’t. Lana tells him she thinks he’s the only person who sees her as she truly is, and thanks him. Then she kisses him. He asks about Whitney and she tells him to forget Whitney and that she has her eye on him, just like she knows he has had his eye on her. As she says that, she morphs into Tina and throws Clark through the loft door and out of the barn, telling him she doesn’t know how he found out about the money, but that he should have stayed out of her life.

Later Jonathan finds no sign of Tina. Clark believes the meteor shower did something to her bones, permitting her to change her appearance at will and granting her great strength.

Lana enters The Torch office and Chloe at first dismisses her. But Lana befriends Chloe by complementing her work on the Torch. Chloe replies that Lana is a minority of one, but Lana continues, saying she admires Chloe for knowing who she is and pursuing her goals. Then Lana gets around to her business: she knows The Torch prints the graduation speech and wants the one from 1977. Chloe tells Lana she’ll have to check the hardcopy files. In short order Chloe finds the issue. It reports on the “Saturday Night Fever” themed dance and it contains a short notice that The Torch will not publish that year’s address due to its controversial nature. Chloe says she might track something down and asks Lana who gave the speech; Lana replies that her mother spoke.

Lex sits with a glass of wine and a pile of cash. Roger Nixon enters, and Lex offers him a drink. Roger wants to collect his money and get out; Lex tosses him a satchel. Roger hands Lex the original records and tells him to have a nice life; Lex interrupts his departure with a chilling comment: if Roger walks out the door, Lex will make him disappear. At first Roger believes this a death threat but Lex tells Roger he’ll be very much alive. He just won’t exist in the common terms of society: his identity will be gone. Roger believes Lex is bluffing and Lex invites him to call his bank and see if his accounts still exist – if his cell phone still works. Roger attempts the call but his phone does not work. Lex then says he’ll give Roger a new identity – something less upstanding, like ‘murderer’ or ‘drug dealer.’ Either way Roger loses his job, his house and his family. Roger offers to give back the money and call it even but Lex isn’t through. He knows Roger’s brother works for the juvenile court and surmised how Roger got the records. That breach of duty could send Roger’s brother to prison; Roger implores Lex to leave his brother out of it and Lex points out that he didn’t get the man involved, Roger did. Lex has Roger and knows it, so he tells Roger what he wants. The Inquisitor, Roger’s trashy paper, has a wide following. Lex will feed Roger stories to print; Roger will kill negative stories about Lex and remain at Lex’s constant disposal.

Lex next takes Roger into a room where the sports car Lex was driving when he hit Clark stands on display. When he describes the accident Roger wonders how he survived and Lex tells him that’s a question he wants answered.

Clark practices focusing when Lana appears. She asks if this is a bad time and he tells her no; she was out jogging and didn’t want to go home so she ended up at Clark’s house. Then she tells him how she found her mother’s diary and how the things her mother wrote about are the same things Lana feels. Lana tells him when she reads the diary it feels to her like her mother is talking to her. She asks Clark if he has ever tried to find his biological parents and Clark tells her no, and that they are probably a million years away from his life.

Whitney discovers Lana and that surprises him since he thought she was working on a project. She tells him she finished early so she decided to spend some time with the best boyfriend in the world. He tells her he would love to but that he must study for a trigonometry test and she says that’s okay because they have the rest of their lives. Lana’s behavior seems uncharacteristic and it puzzles Whitney. She tells him this she has turned over a new leaf and asks if he likes it; he allows that he could get used to it. He asks if she needs a ride and she tells him she’s got that covered, but does ask to borrow his jacket because she is cold. Whitney hands Lana the jacket and says he’ll see her tomorrow before he leaves... and seconds later, she turns into Tina.

Clark tells Pete that Tina can bend her bones and become other people; Peter suggests this is usually Chloe territory, with “Tales of the Unexplained” viewpoint. Clark replies that Chloe is busy and that’s why he asked Pete to help him.

The antique store is closed. Clark controls his new x-ray vision sufficiently to scan the store and sees a skeleton inside a cabinet. He and Pete force their way in and quickly look around, with Clark opening the cabinet. The real Rose Greer falls out.. Pete asks what she died of and Clark confidently replies ‘broken neck’ and then covers himself by adding that it’s a guess. Clark realizes Tina is dangerous, and obsessed with Lana, that she wants to become Lana.

At the graveyard Lana speaks to her mother, telling her about the diary. She explains that she tried to find her mother’s speech but could not, and that every time she gets closer it seems that something pulls her away. Then Whitney approaches and rather harshly tells Lana that her parents are dead and not coming back. Then he tells her she doesn’t deserve her life and morphs into Tina. They fight briefly before Tina chokes Lana unconscious and takes her necklace.

Lana awakens moments later sealed inside a crypt. She begins to cry for help but no one is near enough to hear her.

Clark arrives at the graveyard and sees Whitney. He asks about Lana and Whitney replies that Nell told him she was here, but that he has not found her. Lana’s kryptonite necklace weakens Clark; when he hits Clark with a large iron bar Clark flies backwards. Realizing the truth Clark asks Tina where Lana is and “Whitney” replies that Tina no longer exists and then knocks Clark into a headstone, pulverizing it. Clark tells Tina he knows what happened to her mom and she replies that he need not worry about Lana since he’ll join her soon. Then she removes and tosses away the jacket, and with it the kryptonite necklace. Clark regains his strength and easily evades Tina’s punches, continuing to ask about Lana. Finally Tina says Lana is dead and Clark responds with a blow that slams her against a tree. Unconscious, she reverts to her own form.

Clark employs X-Ray vision to discover a struggling skeleton in a nearby crypt. Bursting in, he shatters the lid and removes Lana seconds after she loses consciousness.

Chloe stops by Lana’s home to see if she is okay. She dug around and found a tape of the address Lana’s mother delivered. Lana thanks her.

Martha notices Clark noticing Whitney and Lana and realizes her son really likes Lana. Clark watches them briefly with his new vision and asks his mother if she could see anything, what she would do. Martha tells her son she would learn to close her eyes.

Later, sitting in her truck as rain falls, Lana slides the cassette into the dashboard and listens as her mother’s voice fills the cab, speaking from 1977. Lana clutches her necklace as she listens to her mother talk to her.

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