So how are you getting Jonathan out of the way? Because the only scenario I can think of that gets both Jonathan and Lionel out of the way is that Jonathan gets arrested for Lionel's murder, and that doesn't seem likely to produce much in the way of Lex bonding with Martha and Clark.

(And also, though I really do love Mionel enough to let me accept things I wouldn't normally in service of that pairing--which is why I haven't been too critical of Martha this season--I'm not very impressed at Martha without Jonathan. If Jonathan's death changes Martha to such an extent that she's no longer really sensitive to *Clark's* feelings, I'm not sure she'd do so well with Lex, either. Martha seems to need Jonathan to be her anchor, regardless of how we feel about him, so I'm not sure getting rid of Jonathan is going to have the effect that you think it will).

I think we both completely agree on Clark needing more time to adjust to his alienness, though.