I just finished watching the episode and at the end I was so pumped for the Arctic. The whole Lex plotline was AMAZING! But there's just one thing that bothered me, there was this point in the episode when Chloe says, "Give me your phone" and Clark gives it to her and then there is a shot of the Sprint logo. A second later she gives it back and says, "Everything you need at your fingertips." I was like WTF, is this a Sprint commercial?

Damn you product placement!! but I thought the episode was ok I just wish that the scar on Clarks chest would have stayed so he would be more superman'y that way....... also the spoilers said we would see the caves but no we didn't so WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well wow. Its hard to say in words what I thought about Quest but it was pretty good. Alot of information which will take time to sink in. Lex was awesome in it...so cool to see everything come together and see him find the orb above the fireplace. I am glad he was in most of it since hes outta there after this season. Rosenbaum is the man. Its rare to have something I wasnt into with an episode but the sacrifice deal was a little not needed. It wasnt like in season one when Clark is hanging in the cornfield which obviously was symbolic. That wasnt over the top. Maybe I am reading too much into it and it was just Teague believing killing the traveler would save the world so no one could control him. I just think it could have been done differently. The guy really got in Clarks face just because he doesnt believe he is a savior. Imagine how you would feel if everyone expects you to be god-like. Clark hasnt killed Lex and Teague really thought Clark should have killed Lex years ago. We all know Clark doesnt kill people. I think I just am a little weary of people wondering why Clark hasnt killed Lex already. If they want him dead so much...they should do it. Shouldnt they? haha. One other thing was I kind of understand why Jor-El would send a device to earth in case Clark was raised wrongly and he used his powers for world domination...but you would think he would trust that his son would turn out ok. And Jimmy...yeah please stop being dumb. Or just go off the show. Thanks.

I think its plausible having jor-el having a device to control clark, he had it hid super well by Swann and not intened obviously for anyone to find it. He also trusted the humans that they would not abuse it, one fatal flaw in the house of El, their trust as we have seen. I loved Jimmy in this. He was curious as he should be, he's a fairly new character being exposed to all this stuff and hes a phot-journalist, his instinct is to wonder so he's been researching and if not for him some of the episode would have been left dry and chloe would be home wondering why clark wasn't back. all in all superb episode 10/10 and the trialer for arctic has me drooling until next week. Brainiac in full form? I thought they were going to use kara against clark by brainiac, chloe in a Lana state??? omg, lex in the fortress of course and kara gone bad. It's gonna be epic, i hate/love these cliffhangers, for the next 4-5 months i am gonna be going crazy and after Arctic i am staying away from any form of spoiler so i won't have websites to hold me over! gonna be awesome

Ok, first off, when did Chloe get super strength? She broke a freakin' slab a concrete, stone, whatever it was with a metal cross, come on! Doc Cottle's...I mean, whatever that guy's name was, Russian accent was horrible. It was nice seeing stuff being tied in yet again, the mansion, Kawatche caves. Clark is still being a BDA, and Chloe has to constantly remind him that he needs to take charge. It' just shouldn't be necessary after all this time.

Once again, things come full circle.

A brilliant episode. I'll post more of my thoughts later. But yeah - one thing that bothered me was that we didn't see the Kawatche caves. But I understand why they didn't - why spend the budget on recreating destroyed sets when you could have 20 seconds of ridiculous CG flying around the inside of a clock.

There was a scene of Jimmy in the caves that was cut. Don't ask me why.

LOL, I was thinking that exact same thing. "Come on, is this really necessary?"

lol me too, just like the ventilation shaft CG in Sleeper.
I too was really bummed about not seeing the caves----why the heck would they cut that? Maybe they felt that it didn't move the story forward enough and because of time constraints, but still....much rather see that than the inside of a clock. Heck i could go break open the one next to me on the wall right now if i wanted that! lol jk----but i was still bummed.
But other than that, I enjoyed this ep more than i thought i would. I loved Lex's storyline in this ep---it was so cool to see all the pieces falling into the puzzle like they did for him. And i loved all the face time that he got....lol MR is the bomb! And he was lookin mighty fine in this ep, even though his shirtless scenes were kinda ruined by that big ugly scar. lol.
I also really liked the mood that pervaded through the whole ep, with the color schemes and the music-----a dark undertone. It also had a very mysterious feel to it (which i loved), which coincided with Lex's story and his searching/journey in the ep to find what he has been looking for his whole life. It just grabbed you and made you pay attention, letting you know on some level that all of this going on is really important and there is more behind it than meets the eye.
I thought the whole Teague sacrificing Clark thing was a little weird, but the rest of the story kinda evened it out for me. All in all, a good episode, and I am so pysched for Artic!!!!

@#$% the editor of this episode then, god our one chance to see the caves since season 5 and nothing ARRRGG!!

That's disappointing. At least we'll have it on the DVDs. By the way, nice signature, Derek.

I liked it. It pushed the story forward and to me that is a good thing. I thought Teague was a little nutty but a good point was made. Jor-El, being the man of science that he was, would have put in safe guards against his son destroying the world when he became full strength. He had no idea what would happen later in Clark's life and so things like this would be needed if worse comes to worse. Later in life Superman would realize the same thing and give a kryptonite ring to Batman in case he went evil. This was a nice nod to that and it showed a little "like father, like son" type thing.
A little thing I liked was that Lex was hurt during the whole thing. Usually they bounce back really quick from all wounds suffered but Lex was in pain and you could see that in his face as he made his way through the episode.
Also, I like a treasure hunt and the one in this episode was nice and reminded me a little of Alias as Lex searched for the clock. The end was sweet as well as Lex discovered the location of the fortress.
The trailer looks awesome and I think next week could be the strongest of the finales yet.

Totally agree (although MR being "hot" in this episode wasn't something that crossed my mind...lol).

Yeah, it kinda sucked not seeing the actual caves; but I think there were plenty of references to make up for it. The "numan/segeeth" (sp?) reference, and the photos of the respective symbol(s), pretty much satisfied me in that aspect. I thought it was a strong episode for maintaining the continuity of the things we've seen before.

This was definitely an episode for the old school Smallville watchers. You didn't really have to know about the caves or the fact that Lex talked about the mansion being brought over from Scotland brick by brick in the pilot, but just knowing that as a serious Smallville fan is very exciting to hear. I nearly jumped out of my seat when the guy told Lex that a rich American bought the mansion from Scotland. I didn't have to hear the rest to catch on that it was the one in Smallville. Also, I liked how the cave paintings were the actual ones of the past. They didn't just throw some new ones in and mention that they were "down the hall" or something. Great links to the past!