The fiery, dramatic offices of The Torch. Lana is trying to get some piece of equipment to work by not-acting in front of it. Clark walks in, looking mopey. "I heard about your dad," she says. She's sure it isn't true. Half-heartedly, Clark says thanks and asks how she's doing. Which is great, because Lana is ready to talk about herself and her titanic struggle with the newspaper. Lana feels like she screwed up everything. "Guess that's what you get when you try to be a hero," she says. Lana's line readings are starting to give me hives. Clark agrees. He asks if Lana thinks her life would be easier if Nasty Nell hadn't adopted her. He feels like he just complicated his parents' lives. Lana relays a sob story: once, when she tried to run away to Metropolis, Nell told her that adopting Lana was the greatest thing she ever did. She was probably drunk on Rumple. Clark excuses himself. Lana stops him to tell him not to worry, and that it'll all work out. She obviously doesn't watch Oz.

The Big House. Bo Duke emerges, wearing jail orange. He looks shaken. Anal prison rape will do that to you. He and Clark do the prison-window- phone-conversation thing. Smallville has an awfully nice jail for being such a small town. Clark reveals that he lied to Bo Duke about where he was that other night. Bo looks peeved. And not just about the anal rape. Clark says he was just trying to protect his parents. "You cannot protect your mother and I by lying to us," Bo snarls. I liked it better when he was just a good 'ol boy, never meanin' no harm. Quiet moment. Clark says that after Bo was arrested and MeanCop came around, Clark got so angry, he wanted to kill the guy. And he almost did. Bo looks horrified. "But you didn't, right?" Bo says. Is he gonna cry again? Bo puts a fist against the glass. Clark puts his fist opposite Bo's. Bo does his platitude remix, saying that Clark can't play MeanCop's game. Bo tells Clark that once you kill someone, once you cross that line, you can never go back. It's like prison love.