The Daily Planet is giving its Citizen of the Year award to Dan Grayson (played by Hugh Beaumont in a pre-Leave It to Beaver role), a worker at a furrier who participates in many community groups (and founded one to help young people) while raising a young son with his wife. Embarrassingly, he accidentally locks himself in his employer's vault when Lois and Clark come to visit, resulting in Superman ripping the door off. Grayson's boss forgives him, but this creates an opportunity for a character from Grayson's past, Luke Maynard, a criminal who threatens to reveal Grayson's previously hidden rap sheet if he doesn't help rob the fur company.
Grayson's son, Tim, overhears part of this conversation, and goes to Clark Kent to beg him not to expose his father, leading Clark to visit Grayson himself and get the whole story. Superman arrives too late to foil the robbery, and suspicion naturally falls on Grayson, giving Superman all the more incentive to catch the real criminals.
This episode contains examples of:
- Blackmail: A very straightforward case, though it turns out the blackmailer wants help instead of money.
- Broken Pedestal: Tim feels this way after learning of his father's jail time, and to some extent, so do the Daily Planet employees.
- Character Tic: Maynard's habit of cracking and munching on walnuts. This gives him away eventually, when Superman hears him inside his lead-lined hideout.
- Dark Secret: Grayson's conviction, which even his wife doesn't know about.
- Deadly Gas: A gas for killing moths will be automatically released in the storage vault where Grayson traps himself, potentially killing him too.
- Defensive Failure: Desperate, Grayson follows Maynard and corners him in his hideout with a gun. Maynard, however, knows that You Wouldn't Shoot Me and walks up and knocks the gun out of his hand.
- He Will Come for Me: Grayson gets a lot more relaxed when he learns that Jimmy Olsen has followed them to Maynard's hideout, knowing that the information will work its way to Superman.
