Smallville Season 4 - Episode 20: Ageless
Synopsis
Checking out a crater in a cornfield, Clark and Lana discover a baby with no parents and take him back to the Kent farm. However, when the baby, Evan, ages from a newborn to a 7-year-old in less than a day, it becomes clear he is aging at a rapid rate and they turn to Lex for help. Meanwhile, Genevieve suspects Lex has the Chinese Kryptonian artifact and orders Lionel to either recover it...or risk putting Lex in danger of his life.
Full Recap
An imminently pregnant woman and her husband are driving through the night and unable to get help rom 911 on the phone. The woman starts glowing and the car goes off the road – the guy goes running off as the car is enveloped in a light explosion. Lana and Clark are driving nearby and spot the light show – they investigate and find a crater . . . with a crying baby in it.
At the hospital, Clark and Jonathan get the news from Sheriff Adams and after she leaves, Clark wonders if the incident might be related to his own arrival on Earth. Clark manages to get the crying baby to calm down. Child Services doesn't have room for the baby so Clark offers to keep him. The next day Clark and Lana compare notes with Chloe, who tracks the 911 call and determines the mother is probably dead. Meanwhile, Genevieve Teague summons Lionel to meet with her and she asks him to repay his debt for getting him out of prison. Genevieve believes Lex has the stone but Lionel is skeptical and thinks Jason has it. In return Genevieve makes a veiled threat against Lex which Lionel doesn't take well.
At the Kent farm, Lana and Clark decide to name the baby "Evan" but Clark is leery of getting too attached to him. They are interrupted when the power flickers, Evan starts glowing, and he instantly ages to 7.
Lionel meets with Lex to talk about Genevieve and her suspicions – Lionel reveals that Genevieve had Dr. Crosby killed and warns him to be careful. Clark wants to keep the baby out of the hands of outsiders while Evans displays advanced learning capability. They have no choice but to turn to Lex for help. Scientists conduct experiments on the boy and the results show that Evan is storing energy like a battery which it uses to accelerate his growth. They think bone marrow might slow the growth and need an exact match with a biological parent. They're interrupted by another growth spurt and Lex wants to isolate him, but Clark and Lana insist he go with them.
Back at the farm, Evan is concerned that he will soon be dead and Lana stays with him while Clark goes looking for the father. He meets with Chloe who identifies the mother as a krypto-mutant named Karen Gallagher who was a senior at Smallville High . . . and she wasn't pregnant at a party a week earlier. They track down the boyfriend, Tanner Sutherland, from the invitations and Clark confronts Sutherland.
Sutherland reveals that he tried to help Karen after she told him she was pregnant before he got scared of the "monster." He refuses to donate his bone marrow and Clark ends up telling Evan who his father is. An angry Evan leaves and Clark goes to Lex, who reveals that Evan's cell division and energy release is increasing exponentially – the next time he ages he'll die and kill anyone nearby. Evan goes to the garage where Tanner works and in the struggle, Tanner is impaled on a tool and killed.
Lex and Clark find the dead Tanner – with him dead, there's no bone marrow donor. Lex proposes they need to find Evan and put him in a containment chamber to minimize the damage. A guilty-stricken Evan returns to the Kent farm and confronts Lana, but he begins to drain energy again as he's wracked with pain. Evan wants to see the windmill that Lana described to him earlier while Chloe tracks the power losses to the windmill. Clark super-speeds there and gets Lana clear, then stays with him and confines the blast with his body as Evan rapidly ages and dies and the windmill is destroyed.
Clark and Lana share a moment over dead Evan and what he brought into their lives. In Metropolis, Lionel meets with Genevieve again and poisons her wine, then offers the antidote in return for Crosby's stone and her assurances she won't go after Lex. Jonathan and Martha talk with Clark about the problems of parenthood and how Clark may not have children. Clark meets with Lex who reveals that his team can use the information from Evan to deal with aging and cancer treatments and they have a discussion about the legacy they will leave their children. As Clark leaves, Lex ponders that he will release the findings . . . eventually.
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