Clark whooshes in to the basement. (I wonder if he was standing just outside the whole time, waiting for Lois to get knocked out before going in?) "Get away from her!" he shouts. He advances on John, but stops short when he gets near the kryptonite. He takes a few steps back. "It's you, the Blur," John says. Clark says he doesn't want to hurt him, but John says he already has: "My sister is dead because of you." Clark looks confused, so John explains about how a prison bus crashed and Clark saved all the men inside from certain death. "In the confusion, a cold-blooded killer escaped." Clark realizes the escaped con murdered John's sister. John struggles to get out the words: "What gives you... the right... to interfere with our lives and to change our fates!" It's such a meaty and profound question on a show about a hero with godlike powers, but it's sort of wasted like a throw-away. I wish John had stayed around a while as a regular human reporter to challenge Clark/the Blur. But he probably would have ended up in a crap love triangle with jealousy as a motive, so I guess it's better things wound up this way. Clark says he's sorry for John's tragic loss. To his credit, he really does look kind of torn up about it. His voice even cracks a little. He says John needs to get control of himself, because the meteor rock is affecting him. John thinks it's easy for the Blur to have control, watching from the shadows. "You stand apart from the world, but the rest of us live in it. Even when it breaks your heart." Behind his back, Clark activates the EMP grenade. John advances on him and Clark crumples to his knees, weak from the kryptonite. He throws the grenade.

John watches it curiously. Gooey-looking lightning seeps out of it. This cocoon of energy very, very slowly starts to fill the room. John watches it with a frown instead of bolting. The pulse shatters a lightbulb in slo-mo. Then another lightbulb. And eventually another. John raises his arms as the light envelops him. His krypto-implant shorts out and he falls backward with a groan of pain. His eyes are open and glassy. He looks dead. Clark spares him a glance then makes his way over to the still-unconscious Lois. He brushes aside her hair a little and says her name. The sound of a heartbeat and a sinister green glow fill the room. Clark starts twitching and groaning. John, who is not dead after all, grabs Clark and throws him across the room. John says, "Now I'm going to show you what it's like to lose somebody you love." Yes, show, we get it. Clark-n-Lois 4-EVA! Just let it happen without characters announcing it, OK? It would be less forced that way. John turns toward Lois. "Lead," Clark's inner thoughts say out loud for us. He picks up a metal panel with the words "METROPOLIS LEAD CO" stamped on it. Sounds like where Wile E. Coyote would buy his metal goods if ACME was back-ordered. Clark blasts the panel with his heat vision until it glows red-hot. John just... watches this going on. The racing music makes it sound like this is an awesome fight scene, but the ponderously slow action disagrees. Clark slaps the molten plate onto John's chest as he superzips by. There's an audible sizzle of flesh. Hope he didn't need what was left of his nipples. John knocks on the metal and taunts Clark: "A little meteor rock got you down? Who knew the mighty Goliath could be taken down by a simple stone?" Well, anyone who's read the Old Testament, for starters. John peels the metal plate off his chest, and Clark's all "NO!", but John realizes too late that he's also peeled out his artificial heart. John stares down at the gaping, mechanical wound for a few moments before collapsing to the ground. He crawls forward on his hands and knees, then stills.