Smallville 8x02 Plastique kicks off with Clark Kent doing the reporter by day and Superman also by day thing as he holds down a desk at the Daily Planet after a quick more formal wardrobe makeover by Lois Lane and rescues injured people from a bus explosion. Along with those civilians is one Tess Mercer who also happens to to be running the Daily Planet and keeping her eye on Clark, which is about the only explanation for why a College dropout whose only work experience was on a wacky High School newspaper could have a job at the Daily Planet at all, that and his mother being a United States Senator, though oddly enough no one mentions that Clark Kent is a US Senator’s son.

In any case as it turns out Tess was on the bus chasing an escaped girl from the Montana facility who has the power to make things to boom. So naturally Lois and Clark go off and investigate the whole thing, Chloe even more naturally adopts the girl while filling Lana’s annoying do gooder shoes in between possibly being engaged to Jimmy Olson and meeting and flirting with a medic who may have some major issues. Of course the story ends the same way just about every meteor freak story on Smallville ends, with the girl on the way to Belle Reeve until she’s bailed out by Lex or in this case Tess trying to assemble a League of Injustice.

Meanwhile much of the cast, particularly Green Arrow remain absent, suggesting that the cast list is heavily padded out in the first place. Clark does get his first story, an orbit, and Chloe gets a new career as social worker to meteor freaks, which naturally jettisons 90 percent of what was interesting about her in the first place. Otherwise even relocated to Metropolis, aside from one obligatory visit to the Talon which is still not a coffee shop for some reason despite the death of Lex Luthor, Smallville ticks on much as always.