Previously, on Smallville…well, that convenient recap of Season 6 was sure a lot more exciting than Season 6 itself, huh? A major letdown from an excellent Season 5, Season 6 saw Clark chasing phantoms, Lex chasing Lana, and Chloe chasing any semblance of dignity as the ship sank around her. By season’s end, Lana was dead (hooray!), Chloe was dead (oh no!), Lois was spared (what have I done to offend thee, O Lord?), and Bizarro was unleashed upon an unsuspecting Earth.

Tonight’s premiere picked up precisely at the end of last year’s finale, and in true Smallville fashion, kicked things of quite nicely. With Smallville, you almost always get an excellent premiere episode (last year’s Clark/Zod throwdown was cinema-worthy), an excellent finale, and then a complete crapshoot in the middle. The producers of Smallville really need to learn how to budget their shows better: F/X extravaganzas such as tonight are wonderful to watch, but inevitably drain the show’s budget to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if the next six episodes take place exclusively in Lex’s study, with everyone playing “I Miss Lana More,” since it wouldn’t be Smallville without everyone obsessing over the least interesting character on the show. In fact, I have a theory that Lana went to China since it’s the most populated country on the planet, and therefore the perfect place to have the maximum amount of people doting on her vapid self. But again, that’s just a theory. And I’m digressing.

While last season’s cliffhanger appeared to kill half of the cast off (much like the season finale of Season 3, possibly the series’ finest moment), we learned tonight that everyone important survived (much like Season 4’s first episode). Chloe, thanks to her meteor-based powers, survived her Tears of Healing and lived to see another day. Lana faked her death, which everyone outside of those in the world of Smallville predicted, and now lives in China, where she wears a wig instead of going the extra mile and, I don’t know, cutting and dying her hair. And both Lionel and Lex Luthor are saved by the series’ newest character Kara, aka Supergirl, because it’s hard-coded into the Luthor DNA that they be saved by a Kryptonian if they are ever in danger of drowning.

Clark remains unaware of this newest Kryptonian, since he’s focused on taking care of Bizarro for the majority of the episode. Bizarro, true to the comic form, is in every way opposite to Clark: he draws strength from kryptonite, he can fly, he’s not afraid to hit on women, he remembers to return videos to Blockbuster on time, he’s excellent at “Halo 3″…the list goes on and on. Tom Welling truly excels at playing “anti-Clark,” whether it be the episodes in which he’s infected by red kryptonite, or tonight, playing Bizarro with a reserve of bravado and smugness that was remarkably reserved and consistently playing against the “aha, I am evil, listen to me laugh in my big boy voice, MWAHAHA” stereotype that so often plagues comic book villains in popular media. It’s almost as if Welling hates, hates, hates playing Goody Two Shoes Clark and revels in each opportunity to do something completely opposite. (I also enjoyed the sound mix on his voice: again, subtle, but effective in delineating and differentiating the Bizarro character.)

Thanks to the help of the Martian Manhunter, Clark realizes for the first time the true source of his own power: “the yellow sun,” a phrase I found overly descriptive. I mean, yes, canonically, it’s important to make a difference between Krypton’s red sun and Earth’s yellow sun, but c’mon, Smallville, a little less clunk in your junk is all I’m asking for. Clark punches Bizarro in the one shaft of light in the entire room in which they fight, Kara takes Clark’s assist and flies him into space, and then it’s fifteen minutes of moralizing.

As you probably have noticed, Smallville always, always, always solves the main “crisis” of the episode before the last commercial break (season finales excepted), and so with Bizarro out of the picture, the show got to lay down a few of the major plots it will address this year. Chloe will have to learn to deal with her new-found powers: clearly, she’s suffering a little post-traumatic stress disorder from the whole pesky “dying” thing. Lois, emboldened by her brush with death, will further her path towards the reporter she’s destined to become. Lex, interestingly enough, appears to be on a path of redemption, though since we know how Lex ends up, it will be interesting to see what tempts him back to the dark side (my guess is a sponsorship deal from Rogaine). And Clark: thanks to literally looking into the darkness within him via Bizarro, seems more ready than ever to live amongst humans, as opposed to simply as a human. It’s a subtle distinction, and an arc the show has earned thanks to its longevity. With first his father gone, and now his mother (off in Washington, being all senatorial), Clark’s ever freer to transform from boy to man. Or a super man, as the case may be.

Until then, all the characters are united on one planet, under one moon, as evidenced by the final montage as Lana, Clark, and Kara all look up wordlessly at the moon. Luckily, closed captioning managed to capture their thoughts during this sequence.

Lana: I miss Clark.
Clark: I miss Lana.
Kara: I like ponies!

Did you find tonight’s episode of Smallville satisfactory? Will Supergirl’s presence help or hinder the show? And is anyone besides me praying this is the year Clark finally dates Chloe?