----------

Jody Melville is working in her greenhouse -- she's an overweight teenager. The plant soil is interspersed with green meteorite rocks. Her father enters, concerned because Jody has apparently skipped dinner. Jody tells him that she doesn't want to eat; she wants to look good for Lana's birthday party. She's pretty down on herself about her weight, and her plan is to eat vegetables from the greenhouse (and grown from those pretty rocks, of course).

At school, Jody's creating a scrapbook using the bodies of models from magazines, pasting her own head on top of them. Chloe and Pete approach her, asking for help with algebra. Jody seems well-liked by them. The trio are next to Jody's locker she pours green liquid out from a thermos into a cup. Chloe and Pete are disgusted.

JODY: Losing weight is never pretty.

Dustin walks by intending to ask Pete to play basketball, but takes the opportunity to diss Jody and make fun of her weight (this guy should REALLY not be throwing stones). He throws the basketball at her, which causes the green liquid to slosh all over her. Pete gets pissed off, and tosses the basketball back at Dustin's head. Go Pete!

Jody is in her kitchen, mixing up some more of the green concoction. Her father comes in to express his concern and disapproval of the whole thing, saying that she is beautiful already. Jody, of course, will hear none of it and drinks down a glass of the stuff. She walks into her bathroom and weighs herself on the scale. As we watch, her stomach gurgles and she magically slims down right before our eyes. The scale goes from 168 to 139.

***

Lex is in the middle of a physical, running on a treadmill. Supervising is Dr. Vargas. It appears that Lex is in top form, except for one thing. Dr. Vargas says that Lex has an unusually elevated white cell count, and asks him if Lex had any childhood illnesses. He did -- asthma, but it "cleared up" the day Lex lost his hair.

DR. VARGAS: If this were anywhere else, I'd order a battery of tests, but I do see a lot of this in Smallville.
LEX: Why should Smallville be any different?
DR. VARGAS: Well, some say it's because the LuthorCorp plant has contaminated the environment.

Lex says he doubts this, and orders tests.

***

At Lana's house, Nell is going all-out on the birthday thing while Lana is ... less enthused. One wonders where Nell is getting the money to pay for all this. Clark has been helping Lana study, and he's not sure why she's so disinterested in all the birthday stuff. We learn that Lana is having the party at Lex's mansion (gee, how nice of him!), but really not by choice. She wants a low-key affair with pizza, loud music and her friends, but feels she owes it to Nell to let Nell do this if it makes her happy.

Lana and Clark exit her house, only to be accosted by Whitney. He imparts the news that he has gotten a tryout with Kansas State, but it's going to happen the day of Lana's party. She, of course, is far more supportive of his big chance than she is about the party she's not even thrilled about. They kiss, and Clark makes a hasty exit. Poor guy. This is definitely one of the more annoying Lana/Whitney scenes of the season.

Later ...

PETE: Clark, I'm telling you -- this is good news for you.
CLARK: Kansas State gives Whitney a full scholarship, and Lana gives him a tongue bath. How is that good news?
CHLOE: Even I'm having a hard time following the skewed Ross logic.
PETE: Lana's gonna be dateless for her own party.

Just then Jody interrupts the trio, and they all gawk at her new appearance. Jody works up the nerve to ask Pete to Lana's party, but Pete is speechless. Clark ends up answering for him -- quite an amusing scene.

Chloe is puzzled, saying it was like Jody lost all that weight overnight. Can't get anything past her!

***

Lana stops by the Kent house to drop off a produce order for the party, saying she wanted any excuse to get out of the house. Clark walks in, carrying three bushels of apples, not noticing Lana. He's blabbering on about how he jammed through some granite, and then turns and sees Lana. She says that that's very impressive; he quickly covers by saying he had a sledgehammer.

Clark and Lana walk a few feet away, but Martha is listening, pretending to be busy. Clark, in a not-so-suave manner, asks if he can escort her to her birthday party so he can "fend off the throngs of adoring fans." Lana was hesitant at first, but then accepts the offer. Interestingly enough, it seems that the hesitation is not due to not wanting to go with him or because it might be awkward, but because she's remembering the last time they went on a quasi-date, he kinda ditched her.

LANA: Clark ... promise me you'll make it this time.
CLARK: I promise.

After she leaves, Martha teases him a bit, then asks what he's going to get Lana for a gift. He doesn't know, and she says that old cliched thing about the best gifts coming from the heart. (Because him handing Lana his heart on a platter is evidently not good enough.)

***

Back in Jody's kitchen, she's mixing up yet another batch of green stuff. Mmm-mmm. You know what mom used to say: Green stuff. It does a body good. Her father comes in to do the same song and dance he's been doing the whole episode, only this time, Jody says that he's right. She's done counting calories.

Jody gets back on the scale and her weight has dropped to 112. Her stomach is rumbling, and she goes to the kitchen and basically eats everything in sight. There are wrappers and pieces of food all over the place. She spies the blender with the green stuff inside, and in a fit of frustration, throws it against the wall, smashing it.

Later, she's driving in a car with a pile of fast food next to her in the passenger seat. She's eating, still ravenous. A deer appears on the road in front of her, but it's too late to stop -- Jody plows right into it. She stops the car and gets out, making her way over to the deer carcass. She drops down to her knees in front of it, clutching her stomach, which is rumbling. She's really upset, but it doesn't stop her from opening her mouth, stretching hugely wide, and she lowers her head and begins to eat.

***

Clark's in his fortress of solitude, spying on Lana again. We see that she and Whitney are sitting on her porch, and he has apprarently given her her birthday gift -- a book of some kind. Clark is, of course, depressed.

CHLOE: Getting your morning Lana fix?
CLARK: Chloe, don't you ever knock?
CHLOE: It's a barn, Clark.

Bwahahahaha. Chloe tells Clark about the deer, and shows him a news article that says the deer died of causes unknown. Chloe's there to get Clark to get her into the animal control facilities -- as payment, she'll help him find a gift for Lana. (Somehow, entrusting Chloe with THAT particular job doesn't strike a chord of confidence in me.)

At the animal control facilities, Chloe and Clark skulk around "looking for road kill." Chloe spots the room where the deer is -- they can see it through the not-quite-closed blinds -- but the door is locked. When she's not looking Clark uses his strength to break the lock and get them in.

They lift the sheet covering the deer, and Clark notes that it looks "like jerky." Chloe reads from the lab reports, which says that the deer lost about 80 percent of its body fat. She starts taking pictures.

***

Lex, drinking orange juice, is studying his computer screen. It's a Smallville Torch article entitled, "America's Strangest Town."

***

Mr. Melville is talking to a closed bathroom door. He's worried about Jody, but she calls out that she's fine. He tells her that he has to go away to Metropolis for a few days, missing her big date. On the walls of the bathroom and on the mirror are photos of Jody and her father. Jody assures him that she's fine, but when the camera pans the whole room we can see that that's not true: there are food wrappings all over the place. Clearly, Jody has been out of control with her eating.

***

Lex is in The Torch offices. He's come by to see Chloe, whom he only knows about through Gabe, Lex's plant manager who is always talking about his daughter, a reporter at The Torch. Lex is studying the Wall of Weird when Clark walks in.

CLARK: That's Chloe's hobby. She thinks she can trace all the freak things in Smallville to the meteor shower.
LEX: Interesting theory.

Lex asks Clark if Clark remembers where he was when the meteor shower occurred ("Not really. My parents hadn't adopted me yet."), and Lex shares the story of how he'd been in Smallville with his dad on a business trip. The shower happened, and he found himself waking up in a hospital, completely bald. Clark is upset by this news, realizing that it was "his" fault that Lex should have this condition.

LEX: When I was younger, I thought it was a curse. Kids figured I was a freak or on chemo. Then I began to see it as my gift, the thing that defined me, that gave me strength.
CLARK: Do you ever wonder what you'd be like, you know, if you hadn't come that day?
LEX: It doesn't matter, Clark. It happened. Personally, I think my future's gonna be brighter than that spoiled, rich brat who walked into that cornfield.

Given all this, doesn't it seem unlikely that Lex would be upset with Clark when/if he ever finds out the truth? If anything, shouldn't he THANK Clark? <g> Okay, maybe not that far, but it does seem less and less likely that they would become mortal enemies over Lex's lost hair.

Chloe walks in, surprised to see Lex and calling him "Mr. Luthor." He tells her "It's Lex" and saying that he liked her "meteor theory." He wants to know if she's the only one who blames the meteors instead of him for all the stuff that goes on in Smallville. She says yup, pretty much -- except for Dr. Hamilton.

Before he leaves, he tells Chloe to look him up if she wants a summer job -- he has friends at The Inquisitor -- and congratulates Clark on being the one to escort Lana for her birthday party.

***

Jody is getting some things out of her locker. Pete comes up to her, concerned that he hadn't seen her in class. She says that she has the stomach flu, can't keep anything down. He tries to give her an out for the party, but she responds that she wouldn't miss it for the world.

She's walking down the stairwell when she bumps into Dustin. He gives her a few back-handed compliments, and she's hostile towards him. She gets a stomach cramp, and he asks if she's okay. She catches him watching her lustfully, and she uses a bit of coyness to lead him away after saying she's just a little hungry.

***

Lana's sitting outside on the bleachers, and Clark joins her. She's got in her hand the book that Whitney gave her for her birthday -- a first edition of "Confederacy of Dunces." She says that sometimes she thinks he's a million miles away, and then he'll surprise her with something like that.

Clark asks how the party preparations are going, and she says that she's told Nell to make the final decisions without her. Clark expresses his disbelief at how anti-birthday she is, and asks if she's ever had a happy one. Lana launches into a story about how, when she was a little girl, her parents took her to a drive-in where she got to sit up front with them. Bugs Bunny cartoons played before the movie began and she fell asleep before the movie even started, between her mom and dad.

LANA: That's the last time I can remember feeling completely safe.

It seems quite clear where all this is going to lead, but anyhoo, moving on ...

Dustin and Jody go into a room that's just beyond the bleachers where Clark and Lana are sitting. The room is dark and Jody allows Dustin to put his arms around her. He begins to say some BS lines about how he never really meant it when he called her fat, etc. Jody is playing sweet, but the words she says are much darker. Eventually, she attacks him.

Clark is walking by the door outside when he hears something. He uses his X-ray vision to see inside, and he can see two skeletons fighting. He rushes down, and Jody tries to stop him by releases hot steam at him through a pipe. But he bends it upward like it's nothing. A hand clamps over his shoulder, and he whirls around prepared to defend himself ... only to find a desiccated Dustin.

***

Lex pulls up to a barn "hidden" in the country somehwere. The mailbox reads "Hamilton" and there's a sign selling meteor rocks. Lex enters the barn, which is filled with lab equipment and, naturally, meteor rocks.

Hamilton is an abrasive, dismissive sort of fellow, and while Lex's identity deters him somewhat, he's not impressed enough to suddenly become ingratiating. Apparently, Hamilton used to be a "respectable scientist" who handled the first Apollo moon rocks. He and Lex have something in common -- they were both kicked out of Metropolis University.

LEX: Ever since I found out about a medical condition I have, I've become very interested in your work, Dr. Hamilton.
DR. HAMILTON: And you think it has something to do with the meteors.
LEX: Isn't that your theory? That meteors somehow alter cellular makeup? That sounds to me like research worth funding.

Hamilton is still not impressed. He hands Lex a meteor rock and says he has nothing else for sale. Lex tells him that if he changes his mind, he knows where to find him.

***

Chloe and Clark are in the cafeteria with their lunch trays, discussing Dustin, who is in a coma. (Yum, great lunchtime topic.) They can't figure out why anyone would want to "steal" body fat (yes, how did Jody do that anyway, without making things bloody?). They sit down at a table that Jody occupies.

Jody, as usual, is eating like there's no tomorrow. She's forgotten about their study group, and Clark asks her if she's okay. She chalks it up to being nervous for the coming night's party. She continues to eat like a starving person, and finally notices the looks that Clark and Chloe are giving her. She finishes up and leaves quickly.

Clark leaves, saying he's still working on Lana's birthday present. Chloe wants to know what it is (hello, wasn't her end of the bargain that she'd be helping him with that??), but he's mysterious and leaves her with a bag of cookies for company.

***

At the Luthor mansion, preparations are being made for Lana's party. Lana is looking on without much interest. Lex appears.

LEX: What do you think?
LANA: It's really ...
LEX: Not you at all. I heard the quarterback couldn't make it. Too bad.
LANA: I knew you'd be devastated.

Now, is it just me or is there a level of familiarity there that's a bit disconcerting? They banter like two people who have known each other well for years ... or like two people who are flirting. <g> The other thing that strikes me is that they both show a "knowledge" of one another that's really rather intimate: Lex knows that the party isn't her; Lana knows he's being facetious with his "too bad" about Whitney's absence -- that he couldn't be more pleased.

Lana goes on to explain to Lex that Whitney didn't think he made the cut for tryouts at Kansas State, but someone fell out. Lex says he knows, and Lana (as do we all) suspects that he might have had something to do with it. He covers cleverly, saying that Nell told him.

LEX: I like your new escort better. Have fun tonight.

***

Martha is ironing a blue shirt for Clark, who seems very anxious to get going. He's figured out what to get for Lana, with some help from Lex (who is apparently everyone's Santa Claus). Chloe shows up along with a piece of paper -- what sounds like a work order from a mechanic. She's pieced together that it was Jody's car that hit the deer. And -- surprise surprise, her house is built next to "one of the big meteor hits." Clark then follows Chloe's train of thought to the green juice Jody's been drinking.

CHLOE: It must have done something to her metabolism. She's losing weight too fast to keep up with regular food.

Clark arrives at the brilliant conclusion that they need to find Jody; Chloe says that nothing would keep Jody from the party.

Which leads us, of course, to Pete.

***

Jody's studying herself in the mirror, dressed in a flattering red dress. The doorbell rings -- it's Pete, who has no idea that he's about to turn into a large cartoon ham in a few moments. They greet each other sweetly, and make their way to Pete's car. On the way, Jody's stomach starts making the ominous growling sounds that we've become so familiar with, and we know poor Pete is in trouble.

She stumbles back into the house, knowing what's happening and wanting to keep Pete safe. She begs him to go away.

Of course, being that he's a decent guy, he does not go away. Instead he makes his way into the house (she has conveniently not locked the door, which some might say was a subconscious desire for him to follow her so that she can SUCK HIS FAT) to look for her. He finds her crying on the kitchen floor. She tries again to make him leave (and at this point we think it would probably be better if he left and called the authorities), but he won't, so finally she attacks him (really, she had no choice at this point). Her big scary mouth appears.

Luckily, Clark has arrived at this point and is cautiously making his way through the house, calling their names. He gets to the kitchen, catching Jody in the almost-act, and startled, she runs away. Clark checks on Pete then runs after Jody.

He enters the greenhouse, and naturally all the meteor rocks around makes him sick immediately. Jody is behind him and brains him with a shovel. Clark goes down. Jody is ranting now about how all she wanted was to be thin, and keeps hitting Clark, whose defenses are down. She's about to bring the shovel down one more time when she catches herself in some glass, looking crazy. It seems to calm her down, but not in a good way -- now she's convinced that the only way to stop what's happening is to blow up the greenhouse along with herself.

She hits some gas pipes and then hits the lamps, making them spark. It's enough to ignite the explosion, and the greenhouse goes up in a giant fireball. Wooo!

Pete has regained consciousness and is out looking for Jody. He sees the inferno and runs over -- but is distracted by Clark calling out to him. He has, of course, saved Jody. He tells Pete that they need to get her to a hospital.

***

Lana is at her birthday party, solitary on a balcony. She's dressed nicely, but looks a bit chilled. She does NOT look happy. The door opens and Lex appears. (YAY!!) He teases her a bit for "sneaking out" and empathizes with how she feels ("I spent 18 years of Luthor Christmas parties in the coatroom").

LANA: I'm still waiting for my reinforcements.
LEX: I know Clark. He'll be here. If he can.
LANA: It's just a birthday.

But of course, it isn't, is it? It's the second time Clark has let her down -- and what's worse, this time he promised to be there. Ahh, that's what happens when you depend on a superhero -- everyone else is depending on him, too. And unlike everyone else, he has an obligation.

***

Clark goes home -- we don't know how much time as passed. We're giving him the benefit of the doubt that it's really late, or else it would be pretty lameass for him to go home instead of to the party. Clark gives his parents the lowdown on Pete and Jody's conditions. He's totally bummed out, poor guy, about how he let Lana down.

JONATHAN: Well, when you do the things you do, son -- helping people -- then sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

But Clark realizes that he doesn't have to sacrifice everything, and exits.

***

Lex is in his office holding a letter from Dr. Vargas. He reads the contents, a thoughtful look on his face.

Lex goes back to Hamilton's lab. Hamilton is just as abrasive as before, and Lex tells Hamilton that he has a clean bill of health. Lex then launches into a rather underhanded way of getting Hamilton's cooperation; apparently, Hamilton wasn't kicked out of Metropolis University for his meteor theories, but rather because of his "student/teacher relations." Hamilton is incensed by this, and tells Lex to get out.

Of course, Lex isn't one to lose his cool. He takes out an envelope and hands it to Hamilton, saying that he believes in the power to reinvent oneself. The check is for $100,000. Hamilton reconsiders, but plays it straight with Lex. He says that what Lex is looking for could take years (what exactly IS Lex looking for?).

HAMILTON: Tell me -- why does a billionaire's son care so much about a bunch of rocks that fell out of the sky 12 years ago?
LEX: I save that story for the people I trust.

Call me dim like Clark, but is this the story he told Clark earlier, implying to us that he trusts Clark, or is there a story yet to be told, a reason that we're not privy to yet?

***

Clark is throwing pebbles at Lana's window. I really hope he hasn't woken her, because then it would just be crime on top of crime. <g> She opens the window dressed in her jammies. She looks upset with him.

LANA: You kind of missed cocktail hour.
CLARK: I'm sorry.
LANA: I told you I stopped believing in happy birthdays a long time ago.
CLARK: Well, maybe I can change that. Look, I know I blew it tonight, but at least let me give you your present.

This softens her up, and she leaves to get dressed.

Later, they're sitting in presumably Clark's truck, watching cartoons being projected onto the side of a barn. Lana's drinking soda and Clark has popcorn. She looks truly happy for the first time in the episode, and asks him to pass the popcorn. Clark wishes her a happy birthday.

The End