Smallville Season 9 Episode 4: Echo

It’s Halloween so it must be Saw!  No, actually, it must mean an episode of Smallville featuring the Toyman.  It sure looks like the latest installment of Saw, however, with a group of people bound and gagged in a warehouse with a life-size marionette eyeing up the captives. Clark-as-The-Blur comes to the rescue, releasing the hostages and absorbing the blast from the sticks of dynamite wired to the doll. 

Just as Clark is changing in a nearby telephone booth, Lois Lane pulls up to the scene of the crime in search of a scoop. Apparently, as a result of the explosion, Clark can now hear everyone’s thoughts.  Particularly Lois’s libidinous lustings aimed in Clark’s general direction. Back at the Daily Planet, Clark is still hearing Lois’s thoughts, which lean towards the “I should have worn panties” variety before the two step into the elevator.  (I was half expecting a cheap, “going down” joke to crop up here, but Smallville kept it relatively classy. I was impressed.)

After confiding in Chloe about his newly acquired superpower, Clark visits the Fortress of Solitude to ask Big Daddy Jor-El what’s going on.  As it turns out, Clark’s new ability to hear the innermost thoughts of others was something Jor-El had planted within him to be triggered at a time when Clark would most need it. Although it’s only temporary, Jor-El expounds that this new power will help Clark to focus on what he has to and to help him overcome his recent string of errors in judgment.