Slade's office. An Army officer leaves a classified file on top of Slade's desk and then leaves the room. Clark whooshes into the room and goes right to the file. A moment later, Carter comes in through another door. "So much for going off the grid," he says when he sees Clark. Somehow, this turns into Clark talking about how worried he is that he won't be able to have a relationship with Lois. Oliver sneaks into the room just in time to hear Clark giving voice to his romantic woes. "Don't tell me you're thinking about cancelling the wedding," he says, "because I gotta tell you, I started working on the speech, and it's looking good!" I have to give Justin Hartley props for trying to make the best of the clunky dialog he's given. Carter and Oliver chastise each other for even being there and not being able to follow the rules they set. Oliver brings up Slade's "mega mark of darkness" which Carter impatiently corrects to "omega." Anyway, Oliver thinks the darkness is driving everything: "Because I've seen hatred before and I've never seen anything like this." That seems... unlikely. Carter mentions the Spanish Inquisition and the Third Reich, which makes Clark realize the darkness has been there before. Right now I'm feeling a pretty good level of hatred for tying humanity's awfulness to some otherworldly force. Carter offers a glimmer of hope, saying that a "much brighter" force always arose to fight back the darkness. "And you had something to do with that?" Clark asks. Carter doesn't say anything, so Clark says they need to stop Slade. Carter doesn't think the authorities are going to be any help but Clark says he might have a place to put Slade. Stick him in a department store customer service counter the day after Christmas. That should just about do him in.

Back to Lois's interrogation. "If you think you know the Blur and the other vigilantes," Lois says, "then why aren't their faces all over the news?" Their faces are all over those posters. Trotter chides Lois, a general's daughter, for not knowing anything about strategy. She says public opinion is on their side. Lois guesses that the tide would turn if the VRA targeted civilians without proof. Since when do angry mobs need proof? Lois makes some vague threat to write about the truth, but Trotter isn't scared. She just threatens Lois right back, which seems to basically come down to cooperation or death.