Lois tries to get a confession out of Peia while Kyle continues his investigation into the person with superpowers.
Tropes:
- Apologetic Attacker: Before breaking down the security door with her powers, Peia tells Lois that they could've been great friends in a different life.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Not only is Peia healed, she also breaks out and reunites with her family.
- Beneath Suspicion: Matteo is able to sneak Bruno's cure in using a pair of cuff-links because he's unassuming enough not to be thoroughly searched.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: For most of the season, Peia's cancer was eating away at her, giving her the appearance of a sympathetic, long-suffering woman in pain who was genuinely friendly with Lois, loved her family, and was seriously starting to regret her criminal past enough to do the right thing and confess to Lois her wrongdoings. But the minute Peia gets her cure, she wastes no time in taking Lois captive, attacking DOD personnel, and unlawfully escaping the facility she was kept as a prisoner. While she tells Lois they could've been friends during her jailbreak, it's clear she's chosen her life with Mannheim over any genuine Heel–Face Turn.
- Call-Back: After completing her chemotherapy, Lois rings the "screw cancer" bell like Peia did before.
- Calling the Old Man Out: A downplayed example, but Jon tells Clark that he can't expect the twins not to make plans without him given how often he bails on them (especially Jon) because of his Superman duties.
- Cardboard Prison: Peia's cell is supposed to neutralize her powers, but once her health is restored, she blasts through it effortlessly.
- Deathbed Confession: What Lois is trying to get Peia to agree to (in regards to framing Luthor), also bringing up her son. Peia eventually agrees, under the condition of speaking to Matteo one last time and telling him herself. Unfortunately, Peia then changes her mind, as she receives a cure from Matteo.
- Deer in the Headlights: Literal example, subverted though, as the deer jumps out of the way in the last second.
- Double-Meaning Title: As well as the literal crash that Sarah and Junior get into, various characters are on figurative collision courses in this episode, such as Kyle getting closer to the Kents' secret and Peia escaping from the DOD.
- The Dreaded: Peia isn't willing to admit directly to framing Lex Luthor because she is completely terrified of him, describing him as having an "aura" of evil, and assumes his time in prison will have only made him even worse. She argues that a frame job would be completely justified in his case because of numerous even worse crimes she knows he's committed and covered up, and that having him set free would be the worst mistake of Lois's life.
- Drunk Driver:
- When the cops are called to the party, Sarah impulsively flees with Junior in her car. While not so drunk as to be physically impaired, nor is it necessarily responsible for the crash, the officer at the crash site tells Kyle that they will have to charge her with a DUI because she's still above the legal limit.
- Played with regarding Jordan and Jon. Clark accurately notes than Jordan has been drinking, which he thinks might have attributed to his carelessness when he saved Sarah and Junior (drunk superheroing, in essence), though Jordan denies one beer having any effect on his judgement. When Clark accuses Jon of driving home drunk, Jon explains that he was responsible enough to only drink water precisely because past screw-ups have made him more cautious.
- Entertainingly Wrong:
- By the end of the episode, Kyle comes to the conclusion that it's Jon who has superpowers, since he's the only person he knows was present at both the fire and the kegger, and the weirdness in Smallville started when the Kents moved there.
- Governor Wexler assumes that Lana's situation as a single mom is an exact parallel of her own, but in Lana's case the cheating ended years before she and Kyle divorced, the younger woman Kyle is with now isn't someone he cheated on Lana with, and their relationship is much less acrimonious than the governor's with her ex-husband.
- Also, when Chrissy tries to tell Lana about Kyle being onto Jon/Jordan, Lana mistakenly thinks she is trying to get relationship advice from her and brushes her off because it's a bad time.
- Face–Heel Turn: Even though he seems reluctant, Matteo helps his mother escape and thus is now an accomplice to his parent's crimes, as Lois correctly points out to Peia.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Having heard Peia relate her backstory to Lois at the DOD, Sam describes her as "feelin' all sorry for herself".
- Gaslighting: Chrissy, Sarah and Lana all do this with Kyle in regards to there being a person with secret powers in Smallville. Their strange dismissiveness makes him upset with all of them. Sarah also does this with Junior when he insists he saw someone with powers who saved them from the crash.
- Generation Xerox: Yet again with Jordan. He saves Sarah and Junior from being killed in a car wreck. Clark did exactly the same with Lana and their friend when he was a teenager.
- Glamorous Single Mother: Governor Wexler firmly believes in this trope, believing a government full of people like herself and Lana would be much more effective.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Jordan is once again upset that Jon and Sarah communicated without him, and later very jealous of her talking with Junior at the party, describing him as a "dick" without any real reason. Sarah tells him she's getting really tired of his inability to get over her.
- Innocently Insensitive: Discussing Lana's divorce, Governor Wexler assumes that her husband "traded her in for a young floozy" like her own did, while Chrissy is standing next to them.
- Internal Reveal: Clark is forced to reveal to Kyle that he's Superman when Kyle independently figures out that one of his sons (the wrong one, but still) has powers and won't let the issue go, at the same time that Peia makes her escape from the DOD.
- Never My Fault: Downplayed. Jordan accuses Clark of only grounding him for drinking at the kegger because he's upset the twins didn't want to spend time with him, despite the fact that drinking is a legitimate reason to ground him (even though Jordan is likely immune to the effects of alcohol just like Clark himself is). He also acts to Sarah as if Sarah and Junior were the ones at fault because they weren't thrilled he inserted himself into their conversation (he later saves their lives regardless).
- "No More Holding Back" Speech: Lois at the start of the episode, after finishing her chemo.
- No One Could Survive That!: Sarah and Junior are driving away from the party when she swerves to avoid hitting a deer and loses control of the car, flipping it and causing it to pancake against a tree. Jordan speeds them both out moments before impact, but sticks around long enough for Junior to see him. That plus the obviously unsurvivable nature of the crash convinces Kyle that he was right about there being someone with powers in Smallville.
- Out of Focus:
- Once again, Sophie gets a couple of non-plot-relevant lines before disappearing from the episode. Lana says she'll be staying with her abuela for the day.
- John Henry and Nat don't appear in the episode at all.
- Parental Abandonment: Candice tells Jon that her dad called a couple times but otherwise has been out of contact and she isn't even sure where he is. It's also not the first time he's disappeared.
- Parental Neglect: On the phone with Lois, Clark is furious about Jordan drinking and lying but doesn't even think about how if Jon was at the kegger too and may also have been drinking, or even driving under the influence, it might be a good idea to find out where he is now and if he's okay until Lois asks about Jon and tells him to find him.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Governor Wexler is not too thrilled to hear that Chrissy is working for the Smallville Gazette, the newspaper that disagreed with her school tax bill.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Jordan is very uncomfortable around the various couples at the party (Candice and Jon included), due to his lingering feelings for Sarah.
- Sore Loser: Jordan appears to be a bad sport at video games.
- Spotting the Thread:
- Governor Wexler notices how Chrissy gets up first when seeing Lana's ex-husband.
- Kyle points out to Clark that strange things have been starting to happen in Smallville ever since he and his family moved there.
- You Are Grounded!: What Clark does to Jordan after finding out that he has been drinking. He first wants to do it for a month, but Lois manages to talk him into shortening it to two weeks.
