Boy howdy, was last week’s episode of Superman & Lois a cracker. After the first season of the show explored the arduous journey that the Kent family went on in an attempt to find a new balance in their lives, this season seems determined to break that apart to expose and explore the darker sides of everyone involved. Which goes hand in hand with the new adversaries placed in the paths of our eponymous heroic couple and how they contribute to this theme of dark reflection that proliferates throughout “The Inverse Method.”
We’re getting into pretty serious territory for a superhero show, so let’s dive into the dark corners of Superman & Lois‘s minds below. As always, spoilers will follow.
1. Inversions & Reflections
Last episode, “The Thing In The Mines” really focused on Clark’s current struggles what with all the debilitating visions and how that came to a head in the form of the arrival of a twisted, backwards Superman from… somewhere being unleashed in the aforementioned mines. That still gets its fair share of screentime this week, as we’ll get to below, but the primary focus of “The Inverse Method” is on Lois and her ongoing struggle to save her sister, Lucy, from the machinations of Ally Allston and her Inverse Society, and, most importantly, from herself. There’s a lot going on here to ground the quite lofty themes of the episode — of dark secrets and darker reflections — in a relatable human drama. That’s always been the strength of Superman & Lois; couching the fantastical in the relatable. As we learn, Ally’s “Inverse Society” is not just a self-help seminar, but a full blown cult with a real religious devotion and an obsession with the “missing pieces” of our selves which, through Lucy’s explanation of her “ascension” during the process of overdosing, becomes increasingly suspicious when compared to Clark’s struggle with the mysterious, backwards Superman. (Methinks the two be linked.)
I like Ally as Lois’s villain for the season. She’s formidable, domineering and persuasive; a perfect challenge for Lois to try and undermine and someone capable of undermining and outmanoeuvring Lois in return. Her words drip with subtle menace and Lois always seems cornered and on the back foot. Even when Lois manages to get Chrissy inside a meeting of the Inverse Society while Lois confronts Lucy in her hotel room, Ally always seems to be holding all the cards. She’s a far cry from the nakedly corrupt Morgan Edge, who, before the Tal-Roh reveal, sometimes felt like he was just there to give Lois something to do to feel involved. Here, though, the stuff with Ally and Lucy is a distinct crusade for Lois and one that isn’t going well. While Clark feels battered and bruised and spends most of this episode licking his wounds, Lois is the pro-active hero of the episode who ventures out to save her naive, easily manipulated sister from the nefarious clutches of the wicked cult of Alston and she gets resoundingly trounced at every corner.
Ally not only outplays Lois at every turn, but Lois’s role in the situation is turned on its head when she confronts Lucy. Lois doesn’t come away from this looking like the heroic, crusading journalist; instead, she comes across as just as manipulative as Allston in many ways. By the end of the episode, not only is her credibility as a journalist damaged, but her relationship with her sister is on the verge of complete collapse and even Chrissy is beginning to side with Ally over Lois. In giving Lois her own supervillain to defeat, especially one that uses words of persuasion as her primary method of manipulation, it puts Lois in a world of deceit and confusion. She no longer gets to stand beside the river of truth and proclaim herself to be correct beyond reproach. Instead, she stands revealed as a manipulator in her own right, even if she only manipulated the truth to suit her narrative in order to save her sister from a perceived threat. It’s a pretty dark turn of events, but one that feels appropriate for the direction this season is heading in.
I suppose I should also talk about Lucy, given that this episode is built around the return of Jenna Dewan, but as I noted last week, Lucy Lane wasn’t exactly the most memorable character in the early days of Supergirl and her returning form is a far cry from who she was. Jenna Dewan’s fantastic, mind you, and it’s pretty clear to me now that Superman & Lois is a rising tide that lifts all ships. I was worried that bringing back Dewan would shackle S&L to the other Arrowverse shows in a way that would undermine just how good this show has been, but quite the opposite occurs. Jenna Dewan’s re-appearance as Lucy isn’t played as “Look! Remember her from Supergirl?” (to which the only appropriate answer is, of course, no) as much as it feels like an introduction of a brand new character, albeit one foreshadowed in previous episodes, who just so happens to share an actress with another show. In dropping the hypertextual references to other parts of the wider universe, such as it is, in favour of how Lucy’s appearance can meaningfully inform Lois’s conflict with Ally, it allows S&L to incorporate Lucy as an important part of Lois’s arc in this season instead of a hollow return for a guest star. That’s the way I like it around these parts. You can use elements of the other Arrowverse guff, but you better make it worth watching.
Continued below2. No Superman Is An Island
On the other side of the titular ampersand, meanwhile, Clark is continuing have A Bad Time™ of it lately. Well, everyone seems to be this season, but Clark is really going through it. Since the arrival of the backwards Superman (who I’m just going to give up pretence and call Bizarro from now on), Clark’s visions have only gotten worse as he sees through the eyes of this inverse interloper. It brought up an interesting thought for me, early on in the episode, when Clark recovers from a vision while at the dinner table with Jonathan and Jordan: have the boys seen their dad this… compromised? This human? Even in the darkest moments of the first season, Superman was still Superman and both the audience and the characters of the show felt assured that, somehow, despite all odds, Superman would find a way to save them. Yet seeing Clark laid low by this new foe in a way that stems beyond the physical and into the emotional, well, it makes him seem just a little frail.
Which is then expanded upon by having Bizarro show up to beat Clark’s ass on his own front lawn. That was, I’ll admit, a pleasant surprise, even if it was rather brief. Having two Supermen, even if one of them is backwards, running around for a bunch of episodes without either of them encountering the other would have been a stretch, so getting their inevitable rematch out of the way quickly was a nice touch. It not only shows that their connection to one another means there’s no real way of hiding from the other, but also that their duality means that Superman cannot hope to face his doppelgänger alone. It becomes starkly clear quite quickly that Clark sees this as a problem that he must face alone, but is in no position to. Yet John Henry’s only as a strong as his suit and that got busted up the last time he and Clark faced down Bizarro and Anderson’s Superkids Division are so far out of their depth that you’d be better sending in Jordan.
So we’re left with a Superman unable to take on Bizarro alone, but unwilling and largely unable to accept help without compromising the situation. A situation that compromises itself when Anderson, the bastard, goes behind Superman’s back and sends in the Superkids anyway. Naturally, things go horribly wrong and two of them end up dead — a disarmingly morbid touch, even if they were kids without much identity or purpose otherwise — before Superman can involve himself. It creates an interesting weakness that Superman stories rarely manage to touch upon; who can Superman rely on when he can’t rely on himself? Well, turns out when he has to rely on human help, they’re susceptible to human damage.
3. Brotherhood Of Steel
I haven’t had much of a chance to talk about John Henry this season, because he’s been largely relegated to a background role. He’s only really shown up either to suit up and fight alongside Superman or to be the put-upon dad just trying to do right by his universe-displaced daughter. Yet, I can’t help but love what Wolé Parks is bringing to the character. There’s a quiet melancholy in seeing him workshop upgrades and repairs to his warsuit with Natalie, knowing how poorly that all went the last time. It’s nice to see them bond, but there’s a bittersweet quality to knowing how much pain got them here. They’re both lost and stranded and trying to find a meaningful connection to this new world. While Natalie is managing to find it in her new life in Smallville, John Henry seems to have little left except his ability to help Superman. Going from the guy who was seconds away from stabbing Superman in the heart to Superman’s best friend was always going to be a rocky transition (one that similarly affected Affleck’s Batman) and I think last season handled it pretty well, all things considered, but it does leave the lingering question of what John Henry’s role in the story is now. Is he just here to live in the barn and help Superman out when he needs it? Well, Superman needs a lot of help and John is, after all, only human.
Continued belowIt’s an interestingly asymmetric dynamic and ends in an appropriately dark place with John Henry going off half-cocked in a barely functioning warsuit to help a compromised Superman fight off his darker half and ending up in hospital. Seeing Natalie lash out at Superman for being unable to keep her father from harm was both heartbreaking and a little cathartic. This is Superman, we’re talking about. He’s supposed to be perfect and do everything correctly and save the day and keep everyone from harm, right? Right? Well, the real world doesn’t work like that and Superman & Lois has always been aware of the limits of Superman as a character and how to effectively dramatise his weaknesses. If the first season was, fundamentally, about the strength Superman finds in those around him, this season seems to be highlighting what a danger he is to those around him in the same measure. Not just because there’s a dark, twisted version of him out there, but because being in the proximity of Superman will always put you at risk. And if Superman can’t save you from himself, who can?
4. Skeletons In Closets
Meanwhile, the politics of Smallville are heating up and, in keeping with this episode’s themes, dark secrets are the name of the game. I’m glad that the Lana subplot took the direction it did this week because I had visions of the show was positioning her kitchen livestream as a saccharine fix to all of her problems, that suddenly the race would be won on the back of her simple hospitality. Not so, thankfully, because this episode only briefly brings it up before Emily informs Lana that Mayor Dean is responding in a most underhanded fashion. Going after the skeletons in the Cushings’ closets is a hell of a scumbag move, but that seems to be par for the course for Dean, and I have to commend the journey this subplot took me on. By focusing Lana and Kyle’s attention on Dean potentially exposing and exploiting Sarah’s suicide attempt, it not only leads to a really lovely scene that exemplifies just how far Sarah has come as a character, but it obfuscates Dean’s true target until it’s too late.
Kyle went from the least likeable guy on the face of the Earth in the beginning of the show to Most Improved Dad In Smallville by the end of the season, so it being his skeletons in his closet that reeks of sweat, tequila and regret that Dean is targeting was a nice bait and switch for the episode. I wasn’t sure how willing the show would be in running back Kyle’s reformation, but this show has always been about consequences and just because Kyle is sober now doesn’t mean his past is wiped clean. Things had gotten just a little too hunky dory for the Cushings as a couple and with Kyle’s (potential) infidelity ready to be exposed, I think the race for mayor of Smallville is about to get a lot messier.
5. 21 Jonathan Street / Getting Caught In 4K
Oh, boys. What am I gonna do with you both? In keeping with my wondering about how the show might explore Jonathan and Jordan’s reactions to witnessing their dad lose his composure, they only go and start acting the prick. Jonathan is the bigger concern currently what with the drugs and all, but Jordan’s resolve to train with Sam in order to help Clark (without Clark’s knowledge) is a decision that I can’t see resolving neatly or nicely. Wait, let me back up a bit.
Jonathan has been rather left out of loop of the wider goings on thus far and so his slide into Bad Boy Roidy McGoo has been interesting if only to see what kind of terrible decisions he makes when left to his own devices. With Clark’s ever watchful eye as parent and coach a-wandering on account of, y’know, everything else going on in his life, Jonathan has slipped through the cracks and started acting out in the most selfish and insecure manner possible: by picking up an X-Kryptonite habit from his dealer girlfriend in order to outshine Timmy on the football field. It’s an interesting journey to take him on, though, as he started off the show as the clean cut, sports loving Jock Child who could do no wrong. Since those early episodes, all he had which allowed him to define himself has been stripped from him. He can no longer define himself simply by being good at sports or popular with girls or even simply by having friends now that Jordan is no longer the wallflower he used to be. Everything that he had that made him feel special has fallen by the wayside and in a world where even Timmy is getting a superpowered edge, it only makes sense for him to want to catch up, right? Well, I can only hold my breath and hope that this doesn’t hurt him too much before it gets resolved.
Meanwhile, Jordan has found himself following in his father’s footsteps by foiling a grocery store shoplifting attempt in full view of the security cameras. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, that one, but I still love him for it. Much like with Jonathan’s XK habit, this doesn’t exactly take up much of a presence in the episode and feels more like a showcase of the terrible decisions these boys make without present adult supervision and with both Lois and Clark run ragged by their own dark reflections, there’s not much chance of them noticing or even being able to do something about their boys and their misdeeds. At least Jordan has Sam to fall back on, pulling him away from his more than warranted retirement of golfing and fishing, but Sam is still Sam and would rather compartmentalise information than tell on his own grandkid. Sam taking Jordan under his wing is going to be an interesting one, and something I want to keep an eye on because it has equal chance to turn the tide of the problems facing the Kent family this season or to blow up horribly and make everything worse. Hell, it has every chance to do both and that makes it even more juicy.
