Superman and Lois – Girl…You’ll Be a Woman, Soon review S2 E5

The episode title was a bit of a warning that this wasn’t going to be my favorite episode of the season.

We’re starting to get on the wrong side of the ratio of Superman/Lois to the other supporting characters who aren’t as fun. Especially when the alternative is a slugfest between Superman and Bizarro.

Things start off with a flashback in Metropolis 1979 where Ally as a child is hearing her father’s will. She has to take the family pendant to get the inheritance, but her guardian really thinks that’s a terrible idea as it’s destroyed her family for generations. Naturally if she said no, we wouldn’t have our civilian big bad of the season so she does. Enter The Ascension.

Chrissy is still holding her temper tantrum against Lois for “withholding the truth.” And that almost immediately leads to her getting drugged so Ally can place the pendant on her so she can “ascend.” Chrissy saw the Bizzaro-world and Ally was everywhere. The pendant being the gateway to Bizarro World is a fascinating twist although Ally definitely still comes off super shady.

Chrissy’s subplot is legit connected to Bizarro, but this is a scenario where it would have been so much better to have Lois be at the forefront or even using Lucy. Chrissy has already turned into obnoxious co-worker in an office of two people and I’m kinda over her.

Lois spots Dr. Faulkner in one of Ally’s old videos. Only problem is Bizarro spotted her too. Lois heads to the mine site only to find Bizarro is already there. Dr. Faulkner? Her neck is in the wrong direction. Rather than harm Lois, Bizarro flies off. Superman and Lois realize that maybe Bizarro is targeting The Ascencion and speed off to save Ally.

Superman just beats Bizarro from getting Ally and we get another spectacular fight scene. For my gripes about the lackluster subplots, if that’s what it takes for this quality action scenes, I’ll just to endure them. After Bizarro uses his frost vision and heat breathe, Superman realizes he’s his opposite and takes him to an area with orange rock. Orange Kryptonite? That allows Superman to knock out Bizarro and take him to the Fortress.

Jordan immediately tells Jon that their grandfather is training him. Jon gets dismissed during training so he decides to dope up and spar with Jordan. Sigh. I commended the writers for not going this route last week, but it really was too obvious not to do, wasn’t it? Teens are walking awful decision makers so it’s not a shock Jon makes these dumb choices. There’s just better storylines than the jealous brother uses superpowered steroids for Jon.

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Sarah is taking back the family name at her Quinceanera so now she won’t be Sarah Cushing, but Sarah Cortez. With Superman, Lois and two Kent sons’ subplots, the writers are devoting too much time to Lana, Kyle and Sarah. Their subplots are optimal every other episode and trying to give them adequate screen time is more harmful than good now.

On one hand this is the benefit of not having every character deeply linked to the title character (see Flash, Supergirl), but that also requires a certain level of investment in the supporting character.

Time for the Quinceanera. Why is Chrissy at the Quinceanera? Seems like Jon’s girlfriend would have precedence over the random editor. She tells Lois that Ally has taken over everything in the Bizarro World and Lois was right not to trust her. Captain Obvious Chrissy Beppo.

Sarah is struggling wearing high heels and asks Jordan to go outside. Jordan wants to massage Sarah’s feet, which is so weird. This is perfectly timed so they can overhear Tanya telling Kyle she only wanted to be with him and was stupid for thinking he’d ever leave his wife. This is next level soap opera writing here and I’m the opposite of here for it.

At the father/daughter dance, Sarah runs off. It’s high drama now and none of it revolves around the title characters. OK, let’s break this all down. Kyle was basically a fringe radical right supporter at the start of the show. The writers realized they didn’t need to get political and tuned that aspect down significantly to the point Kyle became likable.

Having him cheat on Lana before the show started isn’t useful or necessary. Are we supposed to root for this family to break up all because the mayor might have spilled the beans?

This makes the mayoral campaign subplot immensely silly in hindsight. The show hasn’t had a lot of missteps unlike its CW brethren, but this is a bad one that’s going to require a lot more screen time to salvage for two/three relatively insignificant supporting characters.

Jon tries to apologize to Jordan, but they get into another argument and his eyes flare up. This naturally excites Jordan as he’s not the only Super Son now. Jon wants no part of telling Clark and Lois since he knows he’s just doping up and Jordan gets distracted enough by Sarah calling that he drops it.

Clark bails as his holo-mom reveals Bizarro is awake. Too bad Bizarro can’t speak backwards. He warns Superman that Ally is going to destroy everything in this world unless he kills her first. That’s a solid cliffhanger.

It’s no surprise that the Superman and Lois storylines are excellent, but the supporting character drama is starting to get worrisome and time consuming.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: The CW

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