Greg Beeman directed the episode. He's one of the jewels in the series' directing pool crown, and he really showed his talents in this one. That funeral scene was amazing.
The Clark-flying-with-Lana harkens back to Jor-El and Louise in Relic (also written by Brian Peterson & Kelly Souders). What's interesting though is that Jor-El/Louise moment is actually an homage to a Clark/Lana moment in Jeph Loeb's graphic novel A Superman For All Seasons. In ASFAS, when Clark decides to leave Smallville for Metropolis, he decides to tell Lana the truth about himself as the means of explaining why he's leaving -- because he has a greater role to play. He takes her flying and tells her about Krypton, and at the end, she says something to him like "you've shown me more of the universe than I ever thought possible, and now, you're taking it all away". It's a very bittersweet moment in their history together (Loeb's Lana has never fully gotten over Clark). So, Peterson & Souders actually kind of took it old school when they had Clark fly with Lana in the Fortress in Reckoning.
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The Clark-flying-with-Lana harkens back to Jor-El and Louise in Relic (also written by Brian Peterson & Kelly Souders). What's interesting though is that Jor-El/Louise moment is actually an homage to a Clark/Lana moment in Jeph Loeb's graphic novel A Superman For All Seasons. In ASFAS, when Clark decides to leave Smallville for Metropolis, he decides to tell Lana the truth about himself as the means of explaining why he's leaving -- because he has a greater role to play. He takes her flying and tells her about Krypton, and at the end, she says something to him like "you've shown me more of the universe than I ever thought possible, and now, you're taking it all away". It's a very bittersweet moment in their history together (Loeb's Lana has never fully gotten over Clark). So, Peterson & Souders actually kind of took it old school when they had Clark fly with Lana in the Fortress in Reckoning.