The Talon. Crap. Lana. Clark is reading a serious book titled Handbook of Assessment and Treatment Planning for Psychological Disorders. Yeah, nice "reading" there, Clark. I'm sorry there aren't funny drawings in the margins. Is that Dido playing in the background? Lana says that looks like heavy reading for Psych 101. She's right. Psych! Clark says he's trying to get a handle on his dad's surgery. By reading about mental illness. Lana says that when she was in the hospital, she was told depression is pretty common after surgery. I think the doctor meant everybody was depressed that Lana was going to be around them for an extended period of time. Clark mopes. Lana says it's all right, and that there isn't anything Clark can't recover from. Clark asks what happens if you screw up something so badly you can never get it back. Well, where I come from, they call that the Bush Administration. Lana says that depends on how determined you are. Lana wanders off. Clark makes a goofy face suggesting gastrointestinal distress.

Over at the fed van down by the river, Lex is meeting with his law-enforcement buddies. They ask what's up with Papa Luthor's cave obsession. You know, it doesn't really work for your undercover super-secret van operation if you're walking around in plain view with Lex Luthor outside of it and his car parked nearby. Lex says it's just one of his father's eccentricities. "Along with Clark Kent?" one of the feds asks. Hey, that's asking below the belt! Lex says that Clark Kent has nothing to do with his father. The fed who looks like Chris Isaak gone to seed says it didn't sound like that to him. To him it sounds like Papa Luthor has a crush and he wants to be k-i-s-s-i-n-g, oooooh! Craggy Chris Isaak complains that Lex offered them full disclosure but isn't being forthcoming enough. They'd like at least a fifth or sixth-coming. In the van. With some Zepplin playing. Lex says that before he helped them, all they had on Papa Luthor was creative bookkeeping. Lex is giving them illegal cellular research (it WAS the Sprint PCS guy he was talking to!), cloning, and crimes against humanity. "So leave Clark out of this," Lex demands. "Hmm," the agent says. "Hmm" indeed. The fed brings up Lex's own unhealthy fascination with Clark. The guy says that sounds like more than your average kid from "Podunk." Podunk, Vancouver, incidentally. Lex says, sexily, that maybe if he speaks into the microphone, Seedy Chris Isaak will hear it clearer. He leans in. "Clark Kent is nobody," Lex says. The other agent, who has strange platinum-frame glasses, says that Clark is friends with Dr. Virgil Swann. Oops. Lex didn't know that. The feds walk away from Lex's stench of ignorance.