What's up with Clark? Dreams of placing the octagonal key into the center of a glyph in the cave have been haunting Clark, calling him to a discovery. Jonathan warns him against taking action for fear of danger from the unexpected.
Later at school, Clark hears a high-pitched sound that no one else detects. It leads him to the octagonal spaceship key, hidden by Jonathan at the farm. Clark is compelled to take it to the cave. It flies from his hand into place in the cave wall glyphs. The wall glyphs change colors, illuminate, and turn. The center opens in the shape of a shield (did you notice the outline that surrounds the Superman "S" logo?) and a ray of energy streaks out, lifting Clark off his feet into the air. With the energy flowing through his body, Clark gains understanding of the cave symbols and glyphs.
Lex is awakened by Lex. The octagonal key is gone. Lex in concerned about Clark, since the guard reported an explosion in the cave.
Later at the farm, Clark again hears the high-pitched sounds. Uncontrollably, heat vision shoots from his eyes, burning a symbol into the side of the barn. Jonathan and Martha witness what happened.
Chloe arrives to give Clark a ride to school and snaps a photo of the burned image after the fire is out. Jonathan boards up the side of the barn, covering the symbol, which Clark says means "HOPE."
What's up with Lex? Lex finds out Dr. Walden, the expert Lex has hired to study the caves, wants to take a part of the cave wall back to his lab for study. The state is threatening to revoke LexCorp's foundation's permission to research in the cave to award it to another foundation. Lex gives the professor three more days for answers.
What's up with Lana and Chloe? While working on the genealogy project at school using Chloe's computer, Lana snoops into Chloe's personal file and sees the photos Chole kept of herself and Clark at the spring formal. Chloe catches Lana snooping and gets upset over the invasion of her privacy. Hurt, Chloe tells Lana that Clark called Lana's name while he was sick and delirious while Chloe confessed her love.
Later at the Talon, Lana tells Clark about her snooping and Chloe being upset. Clark was doodling symbols on his genealogy tree. When Lana notices it, and Clark realizes he was writing using symbols from the cave, Clark crumbles the paper and leaves. Lex arrives as both Clark and Lana leave, and finds the doodled drawings. Lex shows the doodles to Dr. Warner and tells him he should work with Clark on answers to translating the symbols. Lex has also seen Chloe's photo of the barn symbol printed in the Torch.
With too much tension between herself and Chloe, Lana decides to pack up and move out of Chloe's house. Chloe apologizes, showing Lana her family tree from the class genealogy project. Lana is listed as her sister because she is like family.

Christopher Reeve guest-stars as Dr. Swann. This episode marked the first time Reeve has appeared in a Superman-related series since the feature film "Superman IV" in 1987. Paralyzed in a horseback-riding accident, Reeve is continuing to fight to walk again. With his wife Dana, he founded The Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center, the nation’s first facility devoted to teaching paralyzed people to live more independently.

Who is Dr. Swann? Clark is bombarded with e-mail from VSwann. The message includes the photo of the barn symbol, with a text message that says "HOPE" "I have something for you." Clark replies, using Pete's laptop. The message back from VSwann contains three symbols, with text that says "If you can read this I have the answers you're looking for." Clark tells Pete the symbols say "I'm a friend."
What's up with Dr. Walden? Back at the cave, Dr. Walden finds the octagonal key wedged into a wall. He removes it, realizing it is the same shape as the center of a large cave glyph, and puts it in place. Again the glyphs are illuminated, the center opens, and a ray of energy shoots out, slamming Dr. Walden into a far wall. Just then Clark finds him and the octagonal key.
The messages: Lex meets Clark at the hospital with Dr. Walden. Lex tries to get information from Clark about what happened. Lex says he thinks the language is from another planet. Clark plays him off convincingly with a laugh. The doctor tells Lex that Dr. Walden suffered from a massive seizure and information overload, leaving him catatonic.
Clark receives a courier message at the hospital. He waits for a private moment to read it...an invitation from V. Swann. Chloe tells Clark that Dr. Virgil Swann is a brilliant legendary physicist who earned billions of dollars from his satellite communications company. Swann is now a reclusive researcher searching for life in space. The address he's given is the planetarium in New York City.
Trying to protect Clark, Martha and Jonathan try to prevent Clark from meeting Swann. Finally they agree and offer to accompany him. Clark explains that he must go alone.
Clark meets Swann in the back room of the planetarium in New York. Swann activates a screen displaying a message from the stars that he received at a communications station 13 years ago (the day of the meteor shower that brought Clark to Earth). Swann has translated the message after years of study. The message says "This is Kal el of Krypton, our infant son, our last hope. Please protect him and deliver him from evil." Swann has always wondered what happened to that infant child, then traced the adopted Clark to Smallville via the photograph of the burned symbol on the barn. Clark denies the connection, trying to keep his secret. Swann tells him if he leaves, he will never learn the second part of the message. Clark asks Swann why he is doing this. Swann declares that he has to know if his translation is correct. Swann promises his knowledge will never the room. He shows Clark the second screen, displaying the end of the message. Clark reads it to say "We will be with you Kal el, all the days of your life." Swann doesn't know the meaning, but encourages patience. Clark looks at a marked star map on the wall, asking if that is where Krypton is. Dr. Swann tells Clark that the planet no longer exists and he doesn't know what happened to it. Clark realizes he may be the only survivor, and questions why he was sent to Earth. Swann tells him he'll have to discover that by writing his own destiny, not by looking to the stars.
How it ends: Back at home, Jonathan finds Clark in the storm cellar with the spaceship. He gently welcomes a dialogue. Clark tells him there are no others like him, "I'm totally alone." Jonathan tells him, "You are never alone son. This is your home and we love you very much." Together, Clark and Jonathan activate the ship. Clark inserts the ship's "heart." A circular message of symbols is revealed. The message is from Clark's biological father, "On this third planet from the star 'Sol' you will be god among men. Their flawed race rule them with strength, my son, that is where your greatness lies." Clark's not sure he's read the message correctly but he fears he was sent to Earth to conquer. Jonathan tells Clark he is the only one who can decide how to lead his life. Jonathan assures Clark that he is convinced Clark is on Earth to be a force for good, not evil. Jonathan knows this as Clark's father who raised him, and knows him better than anyone.
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Clouds! The very fluffy landscapes from which all good marshmallow angels come. We are flying through them on what looks to be a beautiful blue-sky day. I much prefer starting an episode this way than being in some dank cave or in somebody's esophagus like last week. As ethereal music plays, we fly beneath the clouds to the remarkably computer-animated cornfields of [cough cough] Kansas. We fly over some fields, near some trees, and then into...dammit! A dank cave again! More flying, more caves. We see lights strung up and metal platforms from Professor Snideface's cave-drawing-deciphering team. We settle on a view of a big circular hieroglyphics wall of the cave. We shift view and, hey! It's Clark! And he's...floating! And his shirt is sticking up in the back as if some magical invisible wire is holding it up! Clark is staring intently at the wall, with one hand in a fist and sticking forward a bit. He's a little wobbly. Clark eyes the center of that big circular thing, which has an octagonal hole in the middle. I can't think of another show I could be recapping where I'd be writing the world "octagonal" every week. Maybe The Real World Las Vegas, in reference to all the sex partners and their octagonal positionings. Clark floats forward a bit in a swinging motion. He fingers the octagonal hole (new thought after my last rumination: Ewwww!) as foreboding music plays. Clark opens his hand, and he's holding the octagonal piece of his spaceship. He neatly straightens up and lands with his feet on the ground. He takes a tiny step forward. Rubs the piece in his hand. Then he reaches forward and puts the piece in the hole on the wall. Nothing happens. Clark looks confused. He leans forward again and points a finger toward the wall-embedded piece. Clark phone home! As soon as he touches it, what looks like a blinding fireball flies out and everything goes white.

Clark, who was wearing a red flannel shirt, now has on a blue t-shirt, and he's lying with his arms splayed out like they were in the pilot when he was strung up in that cornfield. He's lying in the middle of a highway. The camera cranes back to show Clark looking down at himself. He sits up; a car is approaching behind him, fast. The car is nearly on him before it starts braking, and judging from what the defensive driving class I took recently had to say, there's no way it could have stopped before hitting Clark. But stop it does, right in front of his face. The car is a sporty import, so it must belong to Lex. The man whose head we love to fetishize gets out of the car and stands over Clark. He's wearing a suit. "Clark?" he says. Clark looks around, unsure of what the hell is going on up in hea-ah. Opening credits.

Let me see if this makes any sense: I hated Dreamcatcher, the book. I think it was maybe the worst book Stephen King has ever written. But I think it's going to make a great movie. Hope I'm right about that.

The next morning, Clark walks in through the front door, barefoot and with his hair a little mussed. It was the middle of the night when Lex picked him up. And now it's morning. Methinks they spent a little time wearing out the shocks on that European automobile. Clark tries to come in sneakily, but MamaKent and Bo are right there waiting for him. Bo asks where he's been. MamaKent says they've been looking all over for him. "I've been out," Clark says. No, Clark. Coming out is a long, involved process. You can't expect them just to guess. Bo asks what's going on. He says that Clark's been acting weird all week, like his mind is somewhere else. It's The Crack Rock, Bo. The Crack Rock is not kind. It destroys. Clark reluctantly turns. He tells them he woke up in the middle of Route 8. "How did you get there?" MamaKent asks. Well, you have to take the first exit after the pond. Then you pass by where the creamed corn factory used to be. Then you do a little CGI flying over some cornfields, bypass LuthorCorp, and you can't miss it. Clark says Lex gave him a ride home. "Lex," Bo says flatly. I thought he and Lex were Kool & The Gang now after Lex's little farmboy stint. Clark says he told Lex he was sleepwalking, but he's not sure how much "walking" was involved. MamaKent purses her lips. Bo squints a question at Clark. Clark says he's been dreaming all week of flying over Smallville. In the dreams, he always ends up in the cave. "Like it's calling out to me," he says. He thinks it's trying to give him answers, but he's not sure to what. He says that in the dream, he takes the key and puts it in the slot in the cave wall. Does this remind anybody else about a really dirty joke involving a farmer's daughter? Clark says then there's a bright light. "And?" MamaKent asks. That's when he wakes up. "Dreaming about putting that key in a rock wall is one thing," Bo begins, "but making a porno of it and distributing it all over the internet is something else." Fine, I made the last part up. But you were thinking it too, I'm sure. Bo says that Clark doesn't know what would happen if he actually did the key thing. Clark says that the dreams are getting more intense. He wonders where he might wake up the next morning. Well, Lex's bed. Duh! Bo says it's too dangerous. Clark gets pissy. He asks why Bo is so afraid of him finding the truth about himself. Bo has no answer to that, so Clark goes to get dressed for school. Bo looks at MamaKent sadly. (more...)
-- Omar G (TWoP)

Determined to find out where he came from, Clark travels to New York to meet Dr. Swann, a brilliant scientist who holds a message for Clark from his home planet. Meanwhile Lana decides to move out of Chloe's house after the two girls get into another argument about Clark. Sam Jones III, John Glover, Annette O'Toole and John Schneider also star.

Chloe: For us, the nuclear family was nuked years ago.

Pete: {The family tree assignment} is gonna be a piece of cake.
Chloe: Only because your family has been in Smallville since the Jurassic.

Clark: It was probably just a prank
Chloe: Or maybe aliens thought crop circles were passe, so they moved to barn burning.

Walden: Lex, I may decipher ancient languages, but cryptic phone calls don't amuse me.

Chloe: Why is this guy so interested in you, Clark?
Clark: He's not interested in me - he's interested in my...umm, barn.

Clark: Why are you doing this to me?
Swann: We all have our windmills, Clark - I need to know I'm right.

Swann: (to Clark) You won't find your answers by looking to the stars. It's a journey you'll have to take by looking inside yourself. You must write your destiny, Kal-El.

Clark: I told him I was sleepwalking, but I don't think I was walking...

Lana: You're a lifesaver.
Chloe: Of course.

Clark: How's Mom feeling?
Jonathan: Pregnant.

Lex: Looks like we've been abandoned.
Lana: Story of my life.

Clark: You can't protect me all your life!
Jonathan: I'm not ready to give that up yet!

Swann: You're probably wondering why a billionaire scientist lives in the back office of a planetarium.
Clark: It had crossed my mind.
Swann: I find it peaceful. Besides, I own the building.

Swann: The one thing I've learned about science is the value of faith.

“The naming of Reeve's character ‘Swann’ is a tribute in itself to the late-great Curt Swan, one of the most beloved Superman comic book artists,” Steve Younis, editor-in-chief of www.supermanhomepage.com, says in an e-mail interview. In his book, Superman the Complete History, Les Daniels describes Swan as “the key Superman artist for a generation,” starting in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. “By his own reckoning, Curt Swan drew more Superman comics than any other artist,” says Daniels.

However, what forced me to my feet cheering in front of the television set, was when Reeve comes into frame and simply says to Clark, “You are Kal-El from Krypton.” It just gets better when John Williams ‘Fortress of Solitude’ score (from the original “Superman” soundtrack) swells behind them. That same haunting melody plays in 1978 when a young Clark Kent leaves his mother and travels to the frozen North, where he learns of his origin from the holographic head of his father Jor-El (played by Marlon Brando). Now in 2003, the score echoes across as a new Clark Kent learns of his origin, not from Brando but from Reeve, the man who still defines and re-defines Superman.

But the episode broke new ground as well as honoring old. I was shaken by the ending and the challenge that Clarke/Kal-El is faced. Knowing where he comes from, it seems isn't going to make where he decides to go any simpler.

As the ‘Rosetta’ episode of Smallville proves, Reeve and Superman are still a hot property. This year it being the 25th anniversary of Superman – the Movie, It would be great for Warner Bros. should consider re-releasing it and maybe donate a portion of the proceeds to Christopher Reeve’s Paralysis Fund, certainly having Reeve's on the show has been a step in the right direction. According to Reeve’s website the ‘Rosetta” episode apparently has had a positive affect. (more...)
By Don Smith