Hero

• Mar 14, 2008 06:26 AM ET
• by James.Borden

Smallville's return this week brought with it the return of Pete Ross and two classic show staples: over-the-top product placement and a one-on-one game of hoops featuring the egregious misuse of super-powers.

"Hero" opens with a concert held, naturally, in an abandoned Stride gum factory that's seen its overstock contaminated with liquid kryptonite. Jimmy's brought Kara along in an attempt to jog her memory, a date cut tragically short when she's nearly crushed by a hunk of falling debris.

Remy Zero never would have let this happen at one of their concerts.

Lucky for Kara, Pete "Plastic Man" Ross was on-hand to save her. Jimmy happens to catch a shot of the rescue on his cellphone, which is a bit of a...stretch.

Eager to show off his newfound abilities, Pete drops in on Clark, Lana and Lionel at the Kent farm. Even though he disappeared for years, his appearance is greeted with a surprising degree of non-chalance.

After laying down a heavy guilt-trip on Clark; "I had to leave everything behind because of you, but to be honest, it's better than living in your shadow," Pete proves he can compete on Clark's level by Stretch-Armstronging his legs for an easy dunk.

Clark warns him that the meteor powers need to be reversed, that they'll bring nothing but trouble. Even though Pete's been witness to the inevitable self-destruction of countless meteor freaks, he fails to heed Clark's advice and storms off.

After a brief encounter with Chloe at the Daily Planet, Pete is more convinced than ever to reveal his powers to the world and decides to start his path toward becoming a hero by taking down Lex Luthor. With a computer virus.

Elsewhere, Kara is growing suspicious of Clark and Lana, rightly convinced they're hiding something from her. She confronts Lana with pictures of the kryptonian markings that have shown up everywhere from the Kent's barn to the small of Lana's back. It turns out, Lex told Kara these markings also appeared on her missing bracelet, an otherworldly trinket that now holds the key to her true identity. After Lana fails to convince her that Lex is a liar by...lying to her... Kara decides it's time to join Team Lex.

When Pete's caught red-handed sabotaging the Daily Planet's computers, Lex browbeats him into stealing Kara's bracelet from Lionel by threatening to reveal Chloe's secret to the world. Luckily, Jimmy happened to overhear the whole plan, and rushes off to warn to Clark and Chloe.

Clark again fails to convince Pete that he's making a huge mistake and ends up trapped in Lionel's office under a hunk of kryptonite while Pete rushes off to "save Clark" by "taking Lex out of the equation."

Considering he survived a bullet to the head in the last episode, I doubt Lex has much to fear from Plastic Pete.

Inevitably, Pete winds up cuffed, beaten and powerless at the hands of Lex and his hired goon, who was either Smallville's equivalent of the Haitian from Heroes, or a henchman who realized the quickest way to strip Pete of his powers was knocking the gum out of his mouth.

Lucky for Pete, the always-reliable Clark shows up in the nick of time and saves the day. Pete once again renounces his long-harbored jealousy of Clark, and vows to find the true hero inside of himself. Haven't they been over this before?

The episode closes with Lex nearly uncovering the secret of the constellation arrangement found in his family crest, but is interrupted by Kara, who's decided she's better off with Lex than Clark.

Here's hoping that arc doesn't drag on for as long as it did when Lana made that exact same decision a few seasons back.

Overall, I was hoping for more, not just because it was the first new episode in a month, but because I was looking forward to seeing Pete back on the show. He left just when the dynamic between him and Clark started to get interesting, and his reappearance felt almost insignificant.

Plus, when the highlight of the episode, for me at least, was a product-placement inspired Chloe quip - along the lines of: "Maybe next time Stride won't let the flavor last so long" - it's obvious there was something lacking.

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