Lex and Lana on each other
"I told you I don't have anything to hide." Giving Lana the password to Project Scion's details is meant to prove Lex's transparency and she's upset when she discovers he's tracking aliens. To me, she seems more upset about him lying about it (while they were still married I suppose) than about him tracking aliens. He says, "There's a reason why everything's happened. Don't you see? My miraculous rescue from the river, the spacecrafts, those cruisers that landed with the meteors . . . ." Similar to what he tells Kara in Fierce about his salvation from the water, he tells Lana he doesn't believe these incidents are coincidences. But Lana deflects, blaming his power trip for the messes he gets into. (Strange argument premise.)

"There's a reason why you came to me and not Clark. You trusted me. . . ." To this, Lana claims it's all over. But Lex continues: "Is it? Then why have you been trailing me, spying on me, stalking every move that I make?" After their meeting about her divorce settlement in Fierece, Lex has done what he's promised he would do in Kara -- let her live her life the way she wants. But she has surreptitiously continued her interest in his life, which proves to him that he still matters to her even if she's using punishment and leverage as her reasons. Strikingly, although he knows about her activities, he does not immediately cut off her surveillance feed.

"I'm trying to save people. We started this together." Lex is earnest, even honest, here! The majority of extraterrestrial sojourners Lex has met haven't been friendly. He wishes those he suspects (Clark and Kara) would trust him enough to explain their purpose on earth. Since they've continued to be evasive, he expects the worst and he wants to be the one to save the world (a.k.a. Lex's hero complex). He reminds Lana of the research partnership that instigated their romantic relationship (Splinter, Lockdown, Oracle, Vessel, Arrow, Static). She now distances herself from that and mocks his self-placement as the "prophet of the alien invasion." Ironically, she shared his belief that aliens and "meteor freaks" were dangerous until she suspected Clark was one (ref. Static, Freak). I still think her quick acceptance of Clark's alien status is out-of-character. Lex likens his epiphany to Paul's dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus. He seems to be very well-behaved lately, but Lana disbelieves him and promises earlier to dig up every track he's hidden.

"From guilt? I think I'll get over it." Ah, this is where Lana says it and it's in response to Lex's efforts to stall his electrocution. He tries to help her realize she'll be the only one to suffer if she kills him. I doubt she'll "get over it" as she claims. Because she has a dependent personality, killing him will launch her into a different psychosis or maybe depression. If she really believes killing Lex would save the world, then why didn't she take her shot in Kara? He gave her the perfect opportunity and she didn't do it. Superpowers give her a feeling of invincibility, yes, but the point of her anger with Lex is no different now than it was then. I stand by what I wrote in my Cure/Action review at Unbound -- I don't believe Lana hates Lex as much as some think, but I do think she hates the things he's done to her. If she hated him, then shooting him in Kara would have been easy and she wouldn't have dilly-dallied in Wrath. Hate would likely have desensitized her, causing her to dispatch her decision quickly. But her delay in Kara and her torture approach in Wrath seems to imply she cared deeply for him and, ironically, may still care for him.

"From knowing Clark will never look at you the same way again. Clark isn't like us, Lana. You may not want to admit it, but we understand each other. We understand doing whatever it takes to survive." Lex continues to lobby for his freedom, but he again speaks truth. He repeats two key things that he has been telling her since Kara and Fierce: (1.) despite being the recipient of her anger, he admires her machinations because he understands the survivalist instinct that motivates her cruelty, and (2.) Clark will be unable to appreciate her deviousness the way he does. Truly, they are alike. Their rages, skepticism/paranoia, fear of external threats and fear of a loss of control help to make their relationship both workable and toxic.

The kiss. Lex comments on their mutual survivalist instinct just before kissing Lana, so the kiss can either be read as a distraction ploy to buy himself time or as confirmation of his continued attracted to her. Maybe it's a lot of both. Lana wipes the kiss off afterwards, possibly because she doesn't want to indulge in whatever she feels in that moment. But she dropped the livewire and made no immediate effort to push him away during the kiss. To me, her response to the kiss itself speaks far more than what she says/does before and after it.
"You can't kill me Lana, you'd lose Clark forever." Again, he uses Clark as a means of stalling her. But Lana remains unfazed during his warnings. Maybe she's so involved in her attack that her love for Clark is secondary in the moment. Or maybe she already decided that she'll spin her agenda with Clark later.

Clark and Lana on each other
"I have to take care of your unfinished business." Lana tells Clark this when he interrupts her second attempt to kill Lex. Their disagreement about vigilantism is only an example of their intrinsic moral divide. She repeats what other friends and opponents have told Clark, "You can do anything, but all you do is hide out in a barn." (You'd think Clark would get the message by now!) Lex is named because he's their immediate subject of argument, but I take her reference quite generally and what she basically tells Clark is that he's a coward to leave guilty persons unpunished.

"I wish you didn't look at me as if you hadn't seen before." Lana is contemplative when she and Clark meet later in the loft. Earlier, she receives a powerful reminder of her metamorphosis when she sees herself in a broken mirror, knowing she's no longer the girl in the picture Clark had of her. Everything is distorted and she sees the look of disappointment she feared, the look Lex and Lionel predicted (ref. Fierce, Action, Wrath).

"I guess I'm just trying to find a part of you I recognize" AND "Even before you had the powers, Lana, you kidnapped Lionel." Clark tried to see the good in Lex during S1 and he's done the same for others sometimes, so it's in-character for him to mention that her actions led them to discover Lex tracking Kryptonians. Nevertheless, he points out her powers cannot be blamed when she kidnapped Lionel. She uses protecting Clark as a justification for doing things she knows isn't right, which means she knows what acceptable moral behavior is. She simply chooses not to follow this code probably because she feels restrained by normal methods of punishment for Lex and Lionel.

"You sound like Lex." Clark has had enough conversations with Lex about similar subjects to recognize Lex's voice, and she does sound like Lex in her effort to justify her motives and lack of remorse. Her line of reasoning is similar to Lex in that they both tell themselves the desired end (self-protection/community protection) justifies the means. Clark may also be referencing his first view of her "Lair of Lex", which I'm sure he immediately found disturbingly reminiscent of Lex's room dedicated to researching him. This room was Clark's deal-breaker in Season 3 and he ended his friendship with Lex over it.

"I sound like you. You can't tell me that you haven't crossed the moral line in order to save somebody." Her attempt to align Clark's behavior with hers shows how distorted her moral lens has become because, for her, the only thing that mattered is salvation. But lines like this cannot be so rigidly drawn if she's using Clark as a model. Clark has indeed crossed moral lines within a crisis and he's wanted to pummel people in anger, but I don't recall him premeditatedly or maliciously planning to hurt or kill in the name of protecting her or anyone else. Lana's deliberateness again places her far from Clark's approach and closer to Lex's.

"But I guess that's my fault. I didn't trust you years ago and now, for some reason, you can't trust me." AND "Lana, I can live with you changing. I just need to accept the fact that I'm responsible for it." Clark was doing well until here. Can he really live with her changing? The moment he decided Lex had betrayed him, he quickly gave up on him. Would Lana be different? Taking responsibility for Lana's inability to trust him means he'll give her another chance to climb up from this moral precipice. However, will he truly be able to ignore his own moral code in order to keep her in his life?

"I have to live with the decisions that I've made. I just need to know that you love me, no matter what." Lana's ownership of her behavior is something I've waited for and I'm glad she does it, albeit with preliminary excuses. For her, Clark is a stark contrast to Lex. Yet, she's been always been more emotionally transparent with Lex and I think that scares her senseless. The things Lex does and makes her feel -- good and bad -- releases a mixture of coping skills she's recognized since S2's Precipice. There's a schism between the person she is and the person she wishes to be; she knows she's not the girl Clark's put up on a pedestal (ref. Accelerate, Fierce). She tries to convince him he isn't to blame for her inability to live up to his illusions, but I dare say she's wanted and still wants to live on that pedestal. She wants the safety and importance his love promises. But her scenes with Lex and Clark are admissions that her fascination and conflict with Lex consume her to the point she fears she cannot redeem herself. Similar to Lex who believed Clark's friendship was a healthy influence on his destructive moral view, she wants Clark to give her hope that she can be better, that he won't vilify her in spite of their moral differences. (Yes, we get it -- Lana is the girly version of Lex.)

What will happen?
I'm an L/Ler who wants Clark and Lana as friends, and the EPs should have launched them into a friendship during S6 instead of resurrecting their romance. There would have been far more potential for Lana's maturation if she could have loved Clark as a friend, loved Lex as a boyfriend/husband, and be torn by their moral antagonism. But here we are in storytelling hell. Regardless, I think the L/L in Wrath was really good. Some think Lana is redeemable. Although the Isis references imply otherwise, maybe that's what the EPs want for her. While I think Clark's silence makes a difference in the long-term, he'll keep trying to believe in Lana during the short-term and give her the chance he didn't give Lex. Right now he'll slowly process the shattering of his illusions until they both realize they are just too emotionally and morally distant to make their relationship work. I'm done for now. Call me when Lex and Lana get to kissing again (if they're ever allowed to kiss again).