Thanks to all for the kind words.
I'm glad that everyone liked the plummet and faceplant. It's funny--that was one of the first scenes that I knew had to be in there.
Okay, she was distracted by his love the first time, and then later, when she told him to lie, she actually thought he was lying, despite him telling her that he had these abilities.
She asked him to tell her something outlandish, genuinely believing that Lex had burned the tie out. After all, Dr. Klein never really defined what a "short lifespan" was. I figured that Clark started telling fun, outlandish stories like she was expecting and she got distracted because she was having a good time. On the other side, Clark could have told her the tie still worked from the start but saw the humor in doing it this way.
What confused me was why Clark still told Lois that he was Superman despite the tie being in the next room (after she took the tie off him and brought him into the conference room). Did it have a delayed reaction? Maybe they weren't exaggerating when they said being near the lasso compelled someone to speak the truth.
As I understand it, the Lasso can't ordinarily be removed by a person under it's influence and it compels an immediate response. I thought Clark should have a little leeway in how he reacted. He was able to remove the tie when a normal person couldn't have. He was also able to delay, slightly, his answer to Lois. (BTW, if this is wrong, please bear with me, I'm a Marvel transplant. Please note the Loki quote.)
One of the hardest parts was figuring out how to get the tie on Luthor after the story insisted that there would be a revelation. Clark's limited resistance helped with that. The next hardest part was trying to write the first part of Luthor's speech so that it was potentially complementary to Superman but still ambiguous.
