I would LOVE Martha to be senator. I am hoping for it. I found it really difficult to discuss this week's episode because we're at the start of a new cycle and much of it seemed to be establishing... something... but I'm not sure what yet. I suck at speculation! So yes, I'm interested to see what the Lionel plot machinations turn out to be.

I'm really glad you mentioned the watch parallels. This really got to me, because Martha getting mugged seemed such an obvious Lexmas parallel. And yet I couldn't make out the *point* of it. Certainly the missing parent working as moral compass thing is at the heart of it, and you made the leap that I didn't in pointing out that Clark's functions without the need of an actual physical memento. Whereas Lex has rejected his mother's moral function after losing the physical memento.

So here's my crazy speculation(!): Lionel could be behind Lex's mugging/shooting too. I know really that this is just the nurofen and my Lex-fixation combining with weird consequences (I really can't bear the fact he lost that watch and Clark got his back even though he didn't really want it!) but my mind kept going there...