Is Clark supposed to be unable to read facial expressions/tone of voice?[]
Because both in this episode and in the previous one, he says things to Chloe regarding Lana that, first, common sense and basic kindness should have prevented him from saying to her - but then both times she clearly almost starts crying/is hurt, her voices quavers a little, before she goes on and does the really heroic thing of being a good friend and giving good advice.
I know he's got the "Big Dumb Alien" nickname, and there's a reason for that, but these two conversations are really pushing it. If you can't read facial expressions well enough to know that someone is about to start crying because of something you said, you have a neurological disorder. That's besides his complete lack of comprehension of why those conversations are inappropriate.
The odd thing is, I don't think the writers of these couple of episodes could explain it if they wanted to. Mack's reactions (because Mack is more intelligent than the writers) were presumably not scripted, but she plays the scenes correctly. Welling plays them as scripted, with no added business of his own to show he understands he's asking anything inappropriate or that he's hurt Chloe - but contrasted with her reactions, he looks like a horrible, stupid person while she looks like a saint. I consider this a really careless and thoughtless error on the part of the writers of these episodes, and I appreciate Mack at least being a professional who takes her character and this series seriously, and reacts appropriately. Apparently the writers would have us just believe the characters are automatons and that Chloe is perfectly fine (or at most playfully offended rather than truly hurt - see the Krypto hag comment) w/ this guy doing this to her.