A death in the family

(Warning: If you taped “Smallville” last night and haven’t seen it yet, read no further.)
Last night was the 100th episode of “Smallville” and the promised death of a major character. As I figured, Jonathan Kent (John Schneider) was the victim. After all, Clark Kent’s dad died in the first Superman movie at about this stage in Clark’s life, too.
But there was another death on the show: Clark’s love, Lana Lang, who died in a car accident after Clark finally revealed his alien origins to Lana and proposed to her. That’d be big news, except that after Lana dies, Clark gets a chance to do the whole day over. (Think Bill Murray’s “Groundhog Day.”) So everything the viewer saw in the first half-hour of the show is wiped clean. No revelation, no proposal. In the end, Lana lives; Jonathan Kent dies.
That also, in a way, goes back to the Superman movie, when a grieving Superman turns the clock back to bring Lois Lane back to life. But it still seemed like a cheat.