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Superman & Lois returned with more bathtub pill cult antics, infidelity, a head getting twisted around, X-Kryptonite doping and a quinceanera. Yet I was struck by a parallel between the narratives of season one and season two.
A Bit Early To Have a Retread
A person from an alternate universe comes to Earth Prime to kill the person that ravaged their home planet and with dire warnings of the fate that could befall everyone. No, I’m not talking about John Henry Irons trying to kill Clark multiple times last season. I’m talking about Bizarro who has the same basic story thus far. Bizarro is there to kill Ally Allston, leader of the Inverse Society, whose counterpart has taken over everything in Bizarro World. The only real difference is John Henry was more focused on killing Superman and Bizarro will kill anyone who looks at him wrong.
It feels lazy to have the same “I’ve lost everything on my home planet!” backstory twice for such a young show. The show could be doing this intentionally with plans to play up the parallels between Bizarro and John Henry. Or it could be a huge whoopsie on Todd Helbing’s part. Though I doubt no one noticed they were doing two alternate universe characters married to Lois who are bent on murder. Is Lois going to meet an alternate universe husband every season? If so, I’m just going to assume it is a tribute to the Silver Age of comics when Lois was getting married every five minutes.
Even if Bizarro’s story for the rest of the season ends up being wildly different from John Henry’s arc, it still doesn’t excuse the show for being repetitive in season two. All shows repeat themselves in one way or another. I’d give them more leeway if this was season five. Season one ended in August. It is February. The story for season two should not be this similar.
Bathtub Pill Cult Antics
Chrissy didn’t trust Lois anymore, so she went to Ally to get answers and ended up getting drugged via hotel lobby tea. It is common sense to not drink anything offered to you by a cult leader who has people overdosing in bathtubs, but I guess good manners overpowered survival instincts. She ended up seeing the alternate universe where Ally is ruling everything.
The most interesting thing about this story to me is the conflict between Lois and Chrissy. She’s withheld information from Chrissy multiple times so it is understandable that she’d be fed up with it. Lois has secrets she can’t tell Chrissy like her husband being Superman and an alternate universe daughter living in her house. When you get in the habit of being secretive, it is natural for you to put up walls between you and other people. Chrissy can sense the walls.
The other problem is Lois has been doing this for 20 years and is world famous and Chrissy is a young reporter who has only worked in Smallville. Lois would naturally feel like she’s the superior one given her stature. This is a big problem given that they are supposed to be 50/50 partners. For this partnership to work, Lois has to stop treating Chrissy like a subordinate and Chrissy has to trust Lois and not just run into a situation to get drugged. Respect is paramount to a working relationship
After School Special Jonathan
Jonathan has continued using X-Kryptonite to give himself powers and he joins Jordan in Grandpa Sam’s training session. The X-Kryptonite seems to be fueling Jonathan’s jealousy and resentment of Jordan. For years, Jonathan was the special one. He was the athlete destroying a tire swing as a child. Jordan was the floppy haired weirdo. I don’t care how much you love your sibling. If they got superpowers inherited from your father and you didn’t, you’d feel some kind of way about it.
Jordan notices something is off with Jonathan and even talks about it with Sarah. She brings up her depression two years ago and how it felt like she was a totally different person which is the clear theme of the season. Later, Jordan saw Jonathan with glowing red eyes and assumed his powers naturally came in. Jonathan made him promise not to tell their parents.
I hope this story addresses the blatant favoritism in how Lois and Clark treat Jonathan compared to Jordan. I do think not feeling special was a factor in his decision to take X-Kryptonite. Maybe it would have been different if Clark had done things like take him to the Fortress of Solitude and not acted like he only had one half-Kryptonian son.
Sorry, Sarah, Your Dad Is a Slut
Sarah couldn’t even enjoy her princess moment at her quinceanera without learning that Kyle was cheating on Lana. Emmanuelle Chriqui and Inde Navarrette did beautiful work as Lana comforted her daughter about Kyle being a massive disappointment again. Lana wasn’t shocked about her husband being a hoe or worrying about what the mayor will do with the information. She was focused on Sarah.
I never thought we’d get a quinceanera on a Superman show, but I’m glad they did it. It was a good cultural moment and it gave us messy drama with the Cushing, excuse me, I mean Cortez family. If this leads to a Kyle and Lana divorce, I wouldn’t mind if she met a certain widower from an alternate universe. John Henry could use some love in his life. Kyle could use some therapy and pettinance for his hoeish ways.
Random thoughts about “Girl… You’ll Be A Woman, Soon”:
- I bet Clark misses the days when his father-in-law was leading the DOD. Now he has to deal with Mitch holding onto that necklace like he’s an ex who was given a family heirloom and is being petty.
- I love that they got Bizarro’s powers right. I never thought I’d be seeing heat breath and ice vision in live action, but they did it.
- Dr. Faulkner is now dead, but what about her counterpart in the other universe? In the comics, Kitty Faulkner AKA Rampage was John Bryne’s ripoff of She-Hulk. It would be a shame if Superman & Lois didn’t use Rampage.
