Notice anything different this time?

[That'llShowEm]

Summer rewatch of Smallville and I've stumbled across a plot aspect that has me needing to rant... it needs some explanation... because to me, this just looks like an excuse to have Clark depowered to get him and Lana together in bed... or at best, just to establish the countdown clock to give some urgency to the pacing of the episode.

Anyways... S4's Commencement established that Cave AI Jor-El knew a threat was coming due to the blood staining on one of the crystals of power/knowledge making up the Fortress Crystal - Zod's disciples were coming to Earth, and Clark would have to be prepared to stop them...

So, come Arrival, was Fortress AI Jor-El planning to keep Clark there for training while Zod's disciples wiped Smallville off the face of the planet, and then likely would have released Zod from the Phantom Zone - leading to the destruction of this world? "Gee, thanks Dad, though Chloe was my excuse for leaving & Lana was my excuse for not coming back right away, the fact that I stopped these new arrivals from causing the end of another world means nothing? That's enough of a defiance to you for you to take away my powers?" I can't quite figure out why Jor-El would give Clark such a small window of time to take care of that mess - did he really think it would only take one day for that? especially with Brainiac arriving as well? - but I guess it does ultimately show that at that time, Clark wasn't emotionally ready to give up his life with those he loved and focus on his training.

I understand that Clark's depowering was important to the overall arc for this season - resulting in the sacrifice of Jonathan's death - to restore Clark's powers and have him struggle with that loss and the importance of him having his powers and being sent to Earth... but really? One day?

[/end rant]

[RightWingConspirator]

When Lana told Clark about the ship, I couldn't beleive what I was hearing. I know Smallville's infamous for continuity errors, but they've really be doing a better job this year. Is he suppose to have forgotten by the time Splinter rolled around? That just blew me away.

In the episode "Lockdown" which aired a few weeks later, we learn that all the police--save one--were killed in the encounter with the Kryptonians. That officer, a black man named Flynn, tried (in "Lockdown") to force Lex to tell him the location of the ship. Since he shot Lex and kidnapped Lana in that episode, anything he had to say would be seen as the ravings of a lunatic (for the record, the ship disinegrated in a previous episode, when Braniac was destroyed in the Fortress).