Smallville Review: "Homecoming" (Airdate 10/15/10)

The 200th episode of Smallville was a look back at the past 9+ seasons and a look forward to the hero Clark is destined to become.  I loved it.  Lois and Clark return to Smallville for their 5-year High School reunion, we get some flashback memories about Lana, Chloe, and the "Wall of Weird," a great shot of Clark's utter mortification at being crowned the Homecoming Alumni King (HA!), and then we get the return of Brainiac (James Marsters) who (now a good guy with the Legion in the 31st century) guides Clark via time-traveling Legion ring through the pivotal moments of his past and (!) future.  Brainiac's goal is to help Clark get over the mistakes of the past, both his own and those of others in order to become the hero he needs to be in the present. 

There were a couple really awesome moments in an episode that was just great overall: 

1. Clark travels seven years into the future, meets both Lois and his future self (“How did I become so uptight… and nerdy?”), and is blown away by the awesomeness of it all.  So was I.  
2. The final scene was all sorts of romantic and cool in a way that this show rarely gets right.  They nailed it right on the head this time.  My darlin' was all snuggling up with me as a result, so I might be biased.

Seriously, this ep. did everything right in my book.  Sure, there were no super-villains to punch out, no kryptonite, no Lex (maybe they coulda thrown some Lex in there in a flashback or something), but the writers didn't just give us what we wanted to see; they surprised us in the process.  Awesome.