Yes, quibbles can be fun. The website won't let me post my response all in one because it's too long. (I can be talkative when I'm in the mood!) So this is one of two (or three, or whatever):
Lex may or may not have intended, at some point, to call in the authorities once he had A.C. in custody. (One could argue that Lex was better equipped to contain a metahuman criminal than the average prison facility, and thus was behaving in a reasonable and pragmatic way by imprisoning A.C. himself. And, as far as Lex tending to imprison metahumans, the only ones I can specifically recall him holding in custody were individuals who were clearly a danger to others -- or, in Victor's case, to himself -- so you could make a case for Lex simply doing what the authorities had so far failed to do in order to protect the public.) In any case, naturally Lex was going to get all the information he could out of A.C. while he had him; Lex's insatiable curiosity is one of his most notable traits (and not necessarily a bad one), and he had more than ample reason to be curious in this case. As for withholding water to the point of causing A.C. pain and suffering, it was my impression (and probably Lex's) that A.C. was greatly exaggerating his discomfort in order to trick Lex into doing something that would enable A.C. to escape, so I still have trouble seeing Lex's actions there as torture rather than as simple and reasonable precaution.
Yes, Lex and his people were covertly experimenting on Victor, but it was only that experimentation that saved Victor's life, and -- since, by the end of the episode, Victor had clearly decided that he wanted to live -- I don't think you can really blame Lex for that. Saving lives is not necessarily evil. Lex, or his scientist, did keep Victor contained, for a time, against his will, but that was apparently necessary to keep Victor from ending his life while still highly emotional due to the trauma of his family's deaths; certainly, he kept protesting that he did not want to live. And while I would probably have respected Victor's decision and allowed him to end his own life, the authorities certainly would not have, so you can't entirely fault Lex for not allowing it, either.
Re: quibbles are fun :-)
Lex may or may not have intended, at some point, to call in the authorities once he had A.C. in custody. (One could argue that Lex was better equipped to contain a metahuman criminal than the average prison facility, and thus was behaving in a reasonable and pragmatic way by imprisoning A.C. himself. And, as far as Lex tending to imprison metahumans, the only ones I can specifically recall him holding in custody were individuals who were clearly a danger to others -- or, in Victor's case, to himself -- so you could make a case for Lex simply doing what the authorities had so far failed to do in order to protect the public.) In any case, naturally Lex was going to get all the information he could out of A.C. while he had him; Lex's insatiable curiosity is one of his most notable traits (and not necessarily a bad one), and he had more than ample reason to be curious in this case. As for withholding water to the point of causing A.C. pain and suffering, it was my impression (and probably Lex's) that A.C. was greatly exaggerating his discomfort in order to trick Lex into doing something that would enable A.C. to escape, so I still have trouble seeing Lex's actions there as torture rather than as simple and reasonable precaution.
Yes, Lex and his people were covertly experimenting on Victor, but it was only that experimentation that saved Victor's life, and -- since, by the end of the episode, Victor had clearly decided that he wanted to live -- I don't think you can really blame Lex for that. Saving lives is not necessarily evil. Lex, or his scientist, did keep Victor contained, for a time, against his will, but that was apparently necessary to keep Victor from ending his life while still highly emotional due to the trauma of his family's deaths; certainly, he kept protesting that he did not want to live. And while I would probably have respected Victor's decision and allowed him to end his own life, the authorities certainly would not have, so you can't entirely fault Lex for not allowing it, either.