Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Clark escapes the Phantom Zone with help from Raya, but several other prisoners reach Earth with him. He returns to a Smallville thrown into disorder by Zod, who has taken over Lex’s body and is using the alien ship to remake the planet. Clark defeats Zod and sends him back to the Zone, then tracks the escaped phantoms while trying to rebuild his relationship with Lana. The pursuit brings him into conflict with Lex’s secret project 33.1, where meteor-affected people are held and studied. Oliver Queen arrives as the Green Arrow and draws Clark into a small alliance with other young heroes. Meanwhile, Lex and Lana’s engagement becomes a marriage, shaped by Lex’s lies and by Lionel’s threat that Lana must marry him to protect Clark.
Lana’s supposed pregnancy and miscarriage deepen the deception until she learns in the hospital that she was never pregnant: Lex had used synthetic hormones to make her believe she was carrying his child. She conceals what she knows while planning to leave him. The last phantom is captured while inhabiting a young boy, and Lex takes it to his lab to harvest its DNA for his experiments. The phantom breaks free. Lana’s car explodes, and Lionel tells Clark she is dead, though the scene leaves her fate uncertain. At Reeves Dam, Lois is stabbed while investigating Lex’s operation, and Chloe’s previously unknown ability revives her. Clark confronts the phantom, which bursts from the boy, takes Clark’s likeness and flies as Clark is thrown from the dam, bringing the season to a cliffhanger with Bizarro revealed as his new opponent.