Superman and Lois – Always My Hero review S4 E3

Always My Hero manages to do something that’s rare for comic books or movies/TV shows featuring comic book characters. It made a character death and resurrection fresh and meaningful. In this case all in the same episode.

The episode kicks off with Lois doing a eulogy and long monologue though it’s felt like the family has already had their closure with Clark’s death.

Gen. Lane is back in action at the DOD and trying to come up with some form of a response to Luthor and Doomsday. Maybe he’s found one in the serum Bruno Manheim cultivated that allowed Luthor to create Doomsday?

While Sam’s wheels are turning, Always My Hero kicks off with the first of several flashbacks. This first one features Clark and Lois telling Sam that he’s Superman. Tyler Hoechlin makes his Superman more focused and less of an aww shucks persona compared to his Clark Kent, but it was still funny watching Sam put it all together when Clark stood up straight and simply removed his glasses.

Later on, Clark asks for Sam’s permission to marry Lois. Sam thinks it’s a terrible idea not because he thinks that Superman/Clark would willingly hurt her. It’s more that Sam rightfully figures that at some point some evil will come and take him down. And he doesn’t want Lois to face that kind of loss. Maybe the general knew a lot more than either Clark or Lois thought?

While still not onboard with any of this, Sam does come to the wedding arriving a few minutes before the ceremony starts. He overhears Clark talking to Martha — nice of the showrunners to work in another appearance from Michele Scarabelli in this final season. Sam clearly gets how much Clark loves Lois and after one last plea to Lois, he does offer his blessing and walks Lois down the aisle stating, “I’ll always be brave for you pumpkin. Always.”

Back in Metropolis, John Henry and Nat are watching the footage of Superman getting tossed away by Doomsday. In a world without Superman, all hands on deck are needed including Steel and Starlight. As far as names for Nat goes, this is a lot better than Steel II though it would have been nice if her armor had some star to play up the nickname.

Naturally, they’re down to help and do whatever it takes to stop Doomsday even if it means the cost of their lives. It sure feels like the shadow of death is hanging over Always My Hero to the point that it was a given not everyone was surviving.

Jon finally goes off on Jordan for his rash actions helping to lead to their dad’s death. This spazz out apparently triggers his powers. For a show in its final season, the writers are commendably staying committed to paying off some subplots even if they can’t develop them at the same pace they otherwise would if more seasons were on the horizon.

Sam is excited about the news as he thinks Jon is more than capable of leading a team. This was noticeably different than his response about Jordan getting powers. Always My Hero does attempt to address that to some degree by having Jordan be a little bratty about Jon having the full slate of powers and far less of a learning curve than he had when his started developing. In an extended season this certainly would have been given three to four episodes to unravel. But on the bright side, there’s no conferences with Sarah about everything either.

Lex comes to Jordan with the recording of which son Lois chose to save. Lex raises the question of what else she’s been lying about. Always My Hero had some really strong moments, but the fact that Jordan would even bother entertaining anything the dude who set his father up to get killed had to say felt like a real stretch.

Still, that did prompt Jordan to confront Lois about it. While hearing that Lois chose Jon probably stung, it’s not like Jon had powers…or was dumb enough to go after Luthor a second time when Lois told him not to face him.

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Sam introduces Jon to his team, including Lt. Jones. Jones was the guy on the inside that Luthor was able to coerce into helping him after kidnapping his daughter. Jones has a gun aimed at Sam with Lex on FaceTime. Lex is pretty desperate to try this attempt to make Sam tell him the location of his daughter especially since he has to know Sam would never give that information up.

There’s a brief skirmish and Jones ends up shooting Sam. It’s not looking good, but Sam reaches for the serum and injects himself. There was a clever red herring about Sam trying to use the serum to fight Doomsday, but in this context, him using it actually makes sense. Lex sent Doomsday after Sam and the DOD, which does not seem very wise in terms of Lex getting much useful information outside of carnage and destruction.

Steel and Nat prove to only be a minor obstacle for Doomsday in the big budget blowing action sequence of the episode. Sam comes out to face Doomsday and says as he promised he’d always be brave for Lois. This doesn’t last long as Doomsday snaps Sam’s neck. This was a really boneheaded play by Lex. Sam was the only one who knew where his daughter was so he has his muscle snap his neck? Why not grab Lois and threaten to break her neck if Sam doesn’t trade his daughter for Lex’s daughter?

Immediately after Doomsday leaves, Steel zooms in and takes Sam’s body to the Fortress. Sam actually had a plan. He knew Lex would kill him, but with the serum in his bloodstream he would have a heart that could be transplanted into Superman’s body replacing the one Luthor squashed. That is actually really clever and a great workaround the whole Superman has no heart storytelling obstacle.

Sam left a video message for Lois, which further sold the magnitude of this very well-executed scene. Dylan Walsh has been a low-key MVP of the supporting cast and Always My Hero featured some of his strongest performances.

Back to the gravesite as Lois tells Sam she couldn’t have asked for a better father and that he was always her hero. It’s too bad the show couldn’t get Jenna Dewan to come back for this episode too since Lucy Lane really should have been present for her father’s funeral.

The episode has a great ending with a shot of the Fortress zooming in to Superman in the chamber suddenly waking up as the screen fades to black as a heartbeat kicks in.

Always My Hero showed once again that maybe the CW and the Warner Bros. team is probably making a mistake in cancelling this series. It has been the most consistent live action TV version of Superman and this was another fantastic installment.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: The CW

For the comic book inspiration of A World Without, check out the Superman: Funeral for a Friend trade paperback on Amazon.

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