Last night's premiere of Smallville started out with a recap of various scenes from season 8 to help catch up viewers to the big events that concluded last season's storylines.

It has felt like forever since we've seen Clark take down Doomsday, watched Jimmy die and saw Clark walk away from Chloe. So, it was quite a rush to watch the teaser lead into the 9th season of Smallville as we were treated to several details for the upcoming season.

Join us to recap and discuss the premiere of Season 9 of Smallville.

*** SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT***

It's been 3 weeks since the events of last season's finale when Lois (Erica Durance) returns to the present, showing up in a flash of light on a moving train. An unidentified female assassin who is pursuing her also shows up on the train in a similar flash of light.  The train derails just after that and Clark shows up and catches it.

Clark (Tom Welling) has gone from the red-blue blur to just a blur in his new dark outfit. He's also become compelled to burn his chest symbol into things when he makes a save, to leave his mark.

Tom Welling as Clark Kent on Smallville

In these last 3 weeks, Clark has committed himself to training with Jor-El in the fortress of solitude.  I found his conversation with Jor-El about his inability to fly interesting.  Speaking of flying, did I miss it, or did they not show what happened after Clark jumped off the Statue of Liberty?

Meanwhile, it seems that Major Zod (Callum Blue) has been holed up in the Luthor mansion, having taken Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman) hostage, believing she has information he needs.  He also has a number of soldiers from Kandor with him, but none of them have any powers under the yellow sun.

We're also introduced to John Corben, the street reporter.  It's good to see Brian Austin Green on TV again, but John is a critic of "the blur's" methods, questioning why he has to burn symbols at his rescue scenes.  He openly calls him a vigilante.

Even though the female assassin who was pursuing Lois is never identified, she has the same powers as Clark and she brings some power-neutralizing blue kryptonite with her.  It seems she wasn't after Lois at all, but was just using her to lure Clark out since he is her true target. When she and Clark do deck it out, it seems to me that Clark's training with Jor-El pays off as he stands his ground with her surprisingly well.

There were some interesting moments however, like the assassin telling Clark the world will end in a year and that she's here to stop him, Chloe (Allison Mack) getting ticked at Clark for refusing her request to use the time-ring to save Jimmy, and the army of powerless Kryptonians at Zod's command. That's really befuddling me.

Lois hunting down Oliver/Green Arrow (Justin Hartley) and finding him in cage matches was interesting but dang, how quickly he sank to this new lifestyle. Jimmy's death is having quite the impact on everyone, being as how everyone seems to be blaming themselves for it.

Was it me, or was Lois running around in tank tops in this episode more than usual?  That wasn't a complaint at all, just wondering out loud.

We also got to hear a new term for time travel: "Temporal Aperture Continuum" and I thought it was a nice cameo for the Statue of Liberty.

I've got to chime in about Oliver and the similarities between himself and Bruce Wayne / Batman has in his own mythos.  Since we'll never see Bats in Smallville, I find the parallels interesting.  My final "ah-ha" moment pondering Oliver being the replacement Bats came when Oliver Queen's money helped set up Chloe's Watchtower.  "Oliver may be AWOL, but his funds aren't." In the source material for this reimagination, Watchtower was funded by Bruce Wayne.

How'd We Feel About The New Episode?

This episode started out with the momentum from last season and different aspects of the upcoming season were introduced to us.  I came away from the episode pleased but I have to wonder if they will be able to keep this up?  They had a lot to feed us right away so they had material for us.  Though the producers have said that this wasn't going to be a dark season, there are a lot of story threads laced with overshadowing darkness to the characters.

If they can manage this momentum, it will be a good season but I think many of us are gun-shy after last seasons' Doomsday buildup.  Plus, if the show gets another season, will this affect what material they'll deliver to us?

My thought is that if they feel that this is the last season, I presume they'll be wrapping up a lot of things for us. But if they get another season, will the production team pull back and pace themselves, saving some of the plot points and issues for next season?

I have to admit; at the end of the episode when Lois laid down to go to sleep, she sure had one heck of a recall/dream sequence from her alternate time trip... I mean her temporal aperture continuum trip!

Your turn!

Time to chime in Screen Rant readers.  We want to hear your thoughts on what you saw, what you felt while watching the start of the 9th season of Smallville!