Oh, it feels so good to be back. I’ve missed this, I really have. This is what gets me through me week, honestly, looking forward to my next dose of, frankly, Superman stories. This show really does just keep getting better and better as it becomes more and more confident and there is a lot going on this week as we begin to see the shape of the problems introduced last week and how they’ll come to define this second, seemingly much darker and more personal series.
So, what are we waiting for? Let’s dive into the second episode of Superman & Lois‘s second season, titled “The Ties That Bind.” And spoilers throughout, obviously.
1. The Kent Family, Extended
Like I said, there’s a lot going on in this episode — probably too much for me to realistically break down in just five points, but I’ll do my best — but I want to begin by touching on the episode’s opening. Last week’s episode ended with Natalie and John returning to the fold of Kent farm, realising that there’s not much chance of Natalie finding her place in this new world by stranding her in Metropolis, and this week picks up from that with Lois characteristically overcompensating. I love Bitsie Tulloch’s Lois, I’ve gone on about it often enough. She deftly weaves the crusading warrior for justice with the warm maternity of her time as a mother and one thing I love is that she continually makes small, human mistakes. She spent three months burying her feelings about seeing Natalie and the way it dug up all her guilt surrounding abandonment and now she’s turned around by getting up irrationally early and cooking a ridiculous breakfast.
A nice gesture ruined by the fact that she hasn’t actually talked to Natalie once. They barely know each other and instead of letting that blossom naturally, Lois is trying to bring Natalie into the Kent fold by sheer force of will alone. It’s a scene likely to become a footnote in viewing this episode considering how much is going on between all of the characters, but it once again shows the ways in which Superman & Lois continually pushes the human drama to the fore. All of the problems between Lois and Natalie and the entire, tumultuous situation caused by Natalie’s arrival don’t go away overnight just because we solved last week’s problem. These small moments of human error will keep plaguing them the longer they keep trying to force a connection because of the weight of the expectation they put upon themselves as these multiversal not-quite-mother & daughter. I’ve really enjoyed Natalie’s presence in this season and I’m excited to see the ways in which she ingratiates herself into the cast because these moments are where I enjoy the show the most.
2. Something Wicked This Way Comes
We’re really out here putting our boy through the ringer, huh? I was amazed at the way Superman & Lois, as a show, seemed to almost effortlessly position Superman at the front and centre of the show’s action without feeling embarrassed or shameful about it. Yes, yes, I know, I’m not going to lecture to about how people who think Superman are boring are wrong again, but seeing a show that could exemplify ways of making Superman interesting (by giving him genuine personal drama, by creating stakes where Superman would have to prioritise his actions in order to save the most lives, by creating an overarching narrative about family and sacrifice, etc) felt like I finally had something to point to and say, “See? See? I told you Superman can be fun and interesting!” The thing is, I was a little worried about how long that would last. Last week, I praised the introduction of new problems like the visions and the new squad of SuperKids employed by the D.O.D. and here we see the toll these new problems are beginning to take on Clark.
He’s isolated, scared, dishevelled and can’t rely on his usual skills and powers to take on the situation. The situation being that something is happening to him while an introduction of X-Kryptonite into the criminal underworld is leading to mooks with Kryptonian powers beginning to show up. I like this because we’re seeing a pretty natural progression in stakes. Morgan Edge’s interest in the mines was more of corporate intrigue plot before his identity as Tal-Roh caused the inevitable snowball towards the season’s climax. Here, we’re seeing Clark struggle to pick up the pieces. X-Kryptonite is out in the world and he doesn’t have the backing of the D.O.D. to help address that. He’s stranded, having to rely on himself at a time in which he is fundamentally unreliable. And, as we’ll get to, leads to him looking for help in unlikely places.
Continued below3. The Binding Of Smallville
If last week’s premiere was about picking up with our characters after some time apart, this week’s episode is all about getting to see the directions they’re going in this season. I’ve already mentioned that there’s a lot going on in “The Ties That Bind,” and it’s largely because, as the title suggest, the episode focuses on the things that have brought these people together and, more importantly, whether they can keep them together. In order to touch on the pretty disparate subplots in this episode, I’m going to break them down thusly:
Purpose:
With the early revelation of what’s-his-face dropping out of the mayoral race and the realisation that he was just a patsy to get to this point, Lana and Kyle finding their purpose in their community was really sweet to see. I’ve mentioned this before, but I love that the Cushings still have such a presence in this show. They’re ordinary people living ordinary lives in an extraordinary town with no real knowledge that their good friends, the Kents, are actually a superfamily, but we see the difference it’s made in their lives to be around them. Their marriage is stronger than ever, Kyle is no longer a raging alcoholic, and now Lana is set up to become mayor of Smallville. It’s not only given Lana a purpose as a character within the show, but illustrates the ways in which the actions of entirely ordinary people can be important to these extraordinary stories of aliens and eradicators and capes.
Romance:
I really thought this was going to be Sarah’s coming out episode for a hot second there. There was obviously something going on with her and it’s only in this world of teenage, puppydog romance that I could have tolerated even this much avoidance between characters. Seriously, characters refusing to talk about things is my biggest pet peeve in fiction. Between her shifty behaviour and sudden attention toward Natalie, I was expecting her trip to camp to be an awakening for her, but then the show dropped a bomb on me. We’re getting into teenage infidelity! Joking aside, I actually really liked where this ended up in this episode. I completely got Jordan’s frustrations at being kept out of the loop and the awful anticipation of the inevitable confrontation only for the blissful, conjured perfection of their high school sweetheart romance to be absolutely shattered right before him. I feel for the kid, I really do. It brings a depth to their relationship that I wasn’t expecting and I’m not ruling out an inevitable turn towards the queer for Sarah, but this gives them something to work on over the next few episodes and I’m really invested in seeing how that plays out.
Resolve:
We saw the seeds of this sowing last week, but I think Lois and Chrissie’s working relationship is starting to look pretty rocky. Thing is, Lois as a journalist is your typical loose cannon. She doesn’t take no for an answer, knows exactly how to get what she wants and, more importantly, she knows how to present it in a neat little bow to keep people from looking too hard into how she got what she wanted. Under someone like Perry White, she could be pointed in the right direction and relied upon to deliver something at the end of it that could keep the paper’s integrity going. Chrissie Beppo isn’t Perry White. The Smallville Gazette isn’t the Daily Planet. And 2022 (or whatever year this show actually takes place in) isn’t the bullpens that a character like Lois Lane felt safe in. It’s a world of accountability and now Chrissie is on the line for every measure Lois had to take to get her stories, something that a paper like the Gazette and a career like Chrissie’s isn’t suited to handle. This is exactly the kind of depth I hoped the show would add to Lois’s career now that she’s not doggedly pursuing Morgan Edge and while I’m very worried about how this show will handle a topic like cancel culture, it’s yet another way for the show to dig into the personal, human dramas that drive these storylines.
Continued belowLove:
John Henry hasn’t really had much play in these two episodes, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been up to anything while he’s pottered around in the background of scenes. While the focus on him and Natalie settling in Smallville has been firmly placed on Natalie’s experience, I’m glad to see the show hasn’t forgotten about John Henry. He had a hell of an arc last season and now he’s stuck playing house with the man who destroyed his world and the mother of his child, who he watched die at the hands (or, I guess, eyes) of the former. It’s not an easy situation to be in and it’s not even one that the show draws too much attention to outside of a few, select moments, but Wolé Parks does a fantastic job of showing how John is silently carrying that weight. He knows it’s the right thing to do, and it’s something he must suffer with in silence, and it’s in those few moments where you get to see how much is weighing on him that he really gets to shine.
Strength:
Jonathan, arguably, gets the least to do in this episode and that’s kind of been par for the course for him for a while now. As the boy without steel, he ended up being the scapegoat for Jordan’s progress throughout the first season, and now we’re seeing him trying to get back to a sense of normality in a world that refuses to conform to normal. With the introduction of X-Kryptonite hitting the criminal underworld (and potentially the streets if my suspicions about what Timmy’s juicing on are confirmed), I can see a story forming in which Jonathan turns to that to compensate for his physical normality in the face of a world of ever-escalating power. I certainly hope he gets something, at least, because I hate to see him sidelined like this.
4. The Man In The Box
Boy, am I glad to see Tal-Roh again. I wasn’t sure how long it’d be before he made an appearance again and last episode was certainly bereft of him, but it was just so fun to see him pop back up. He’s the perfect Vegeta for this show. We’ve seen the ultimate frenemy dynamic played out between Superman and Lex Luthor played out a million times over the years (hell, Smaillville banked on that for ten years), so it’s really refreshing to see that played out with Tal-Roh. He allows the writers a blank slate through which to develop Superman’s continuing relationship with his roots on Krypton without retreading familiar elements and now that Jor-El is effectively out of the picture and Clark’s Fortress is destroyed, he must turn to his brother for answers. It’s just so delicious to Adam Rayner’s Tal-Roh eat that shit up in every scene, to be the man defeated by Superman but also to be his only hope in a time of dire crisis.
It also allowed for a pretty shocking appearance in the form of Lara Lor-Van’s preserved consciousness. Her initial elation at seeing her two sons, alive and well, before here before it turned sour and devolved into the usual family strife we’ve seen between Kal and Tal was genuinely sweet. It was a glimpse into what could have been or, indeed, what could be. Clark has always been the last son of Krypton and even in times in which he is the patriarch of a Kryptonian found family on Earth, it has been without an equal. Here, we get to see him reconcile not just with having a brother, but one who seems hellbent on destruction, no matter the cost. Knowing this show, I don’t expect a simple redemption arc for Tal-Roh, so I can’t wait to see where they go with him from here.
5. The Doomsday Cometh
See, this is why I don’t speculate about this show. Sure, the writing on the wall throughout both of these episodes was that the thing in the mines was pretty obviously Doomsday, but what excites me about this show is the ways in which it reveals these beats that get foreshadowed. Last season, the show was really upfront with information about the Stranger with the revelation of his identity being (supposedly) that of a Captain Luthor and a glimpse of his world at war with Superman coming in the episode immediately after his introduction. It was refreshing to see them parse that information out early, giving the audience a clear character and motive to cling to, before ripping that out from under them with the real revelation that he’s actually John Henry Irons being something they built towards from those initial pieces of information.
So, yes, it’s Doomsday. That’s not the exciting part, though. The exciting part, to me, is in how Superman & Lois will use Doomsday. He exists, really, for one purpose: killing Superman. While I felt like something like Batman V. Superman ended up rushing to that conclusion, as if it was something they had to get out of the way, introducing Doomsday here, this early into only the second season of the show, is a pretty big decision to make and one that I am very interested in seeing play out.
