Superman and Lois – The Inverse Method review S2 E4
The strength and also the weakness of Superman and Lois is the writers have made sure to give everyone something to do. All of the main characters and key supporting characters have vital roles and some degree of subplots.
This naturally takes away from what — going on a limb here — the majority of the viewers wants to see: Superman doing his thing. Maybe the expanded spotlight is necessary to allow for big, impressive scale fights like this episode, but some of these subplots are beginning to become frustrating.
Not Lois’ of course. She’s the co-lead and its essential that she has her own storyline. This episode finds Lois matching wits with Ally Allston, who’s been a few steps ahead of Lois in manipulating both her and her sister, Lucy (Jenna Dewan). While S&L barely acts like the Arrowverse is a thing anymore, it was nice for some cohesion between Lucy on Supergirl and Superman & Lois.
Lois is suspicious of Ally, especially after one of her congregants died on her watch. Ally blows it off, but it’s made Lois more protective of her little sister. Lucy is angry at Lois for writing their mother off after she abandoned them and it’s hard to fault Lois here.
Chrissy has found a way to help Lois find Lucy via an invite to a conference. While Chrissy goes undercover wearing a bad blonde wig, Lois spots Lucy who says they can talk in room 452. This seems like a setup…
Sure enough, Ally calls out Chrissy and cues up a screen that shows Lois and Lucy chatting. And Lucy is happy to share her spy cam with Lois after a text from Ally saying that’s all she needed.
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The one area where this subplot is problematic is journalists use their talents to take down bad behaving folks all the time (see: Ronan Farrow). It’s nothing new and Ally is clearly shady, yet Chrissy gets all worked up and judgmental yet again.
It’s one of the writers’ rare missteps. I’m NEVER siding with Chrissy over Lois, even if the show was titled Superman & Chrissy. Chrissy’s low-rent paper would be out of business if it weren’t for Lois so her high and mighty attitude to the Pulitzer Prize winner always seems tacky. And Chrissy calls Ally later wanting to know the truth about Lois. Why in the world would Ally tell the truth and why would Chrissy believe her?
And as much as I like Lana and her family, her whole mayoral campaign subplot is taking up too much time. Lana gets a heads up the mayor is trying to dig up dirt on Lana and Sarah to derail her candidacy. Not surprisingly, Kyle is ticked and goes after the mayor, who coyly references Kyle’s drinking issues.
That sends Kyle back to his old bar and presumably tell his old side chick that it’s over. Or is remaining over. This feels like the last cliche needed for Kyle as he’d actually become a likable character. Slapping on the “oh, he cheated on virtuous Lana too” feels unnecessary.
Jon did get some of the special mist from his girlfriend and uses it to show off on the field by throwing with keener accuracy. This is the one storyline that feels silly. On one hand it’s great the more obvious Jon is jealous of Jordan and takes power steroids isn’t being used, but this is a worse option. It’s one of those subplots I wish I could just fast forward to the end since I already feel like I know how it’s gonna play out.
Jordan stops some teens from stealing alcohol with a little freeze breath, but he didn’t consider that there’d be surveillance cameras. This is a dumb teen mistake that makes sense. Gen. Lane was able to scramble the footage in time to avoid any questions.
Meanwhile at the Artic, Bizarro is using his heat breath (!) to form a gem and go after Clark on the farm. John Henry nearly breaks his hand summoning his hammer to stop him. That’s a nice detail to show the hammer’s power and the consequences of Steel not being fully armored up.
John suggests Clark seek out Lt. Anderson’s help, but Anderson plays fast and loose with this partnership and doesn’t tell Superman when his scanners pick up Bizarro.
For whatever reason, Bizarro is in Bolivia now and Anderson’s squad comes after him. This ends badly with two getting killed quickly and Tag being the last one left in minutes. Superman battles Bizarro, but once again needs Steel’s help again even though his armor is severely compromised.
Bizarro takes him out, but Superman gets payback. While this backdrop wasn’t the most elaborate, watching Superman go off in using his powers more than made up for it.
John Henry does have to spend some time hospital time and is in bad shape. Natalie is upset and blames Superman for it somehow, which brings up that pesky teen logic once again.
Jordan at least sees a need and has a constructive means of doing something. He wants Gen. Lane to help train him and his grandad agrees, provided this stays between us. That won’t be problematic at all. Course, if Lane is gonna give Jordan the same training Anderson gave his super squad, Jordan might as well not bother.
The show could ditch the Jon and Lana storyline for a few weeks and I wouldn’t miss them. Hopefully next week reveals a bit more of the Bizarro mystery as Superman tries to find some answers…and allies.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Photo Credit: The CW
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