Superman and Lois – Break the Cycle review – S4 E5

Break the Cycle is a decent enough episode hamstrung by the insistence on somewhat making Lex Luthor a sympathetic character.

This has been a problem Marvel Studios has been dealing with for years now after Loki’s immensely positive reaction in The Avengers. True villains don’t need some understandable reason for being cruel, malicious or even murderous. Luthor has been on the series for about seven episodes and there’s nothing that suggests he should be portrayed even remotely sympathetic. He’s a bad guy. And when a bad guy is written properly, that’s all they need.

Break the Cycle kicks off with a flashback from 17 years ago with Lex’s wife, Erica (Natalie Moon, a regular on the CW superhero circuit after appearances on The Flash and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow), serving him divorce papers. It’s all because he’s emotionally unavailable. That’s been shown pretty effectively already. The only new insight is Lex didn’t care about any of his possessions, he just wanted his daughter, Elizabeth, to stay with him in Metropolis.

While Erica is definitely against that, Elizabeth ultimately decides she wants to stay with Lex and not go to England with her mum. Lex actually does make an effort at being a good dad, but that whole he’s a mega-criminal eventually gets in the way like when Lois gets the evidence to get him arrested.

It’s Superman who comes to Elizabeth’s school to take Luthor in. Rushing Luthor in for the last season hurt the series as it didn’t give the writers enough time to develop a meaningful adversarial relationship with Superman and Luthor. He’s effectively more of a nuisance to Superman and not the menace as some other villains he’s already faced.

Another big mistake for the series has been Lex going to prison for the one crime he didn’t commit. The dude was a criminal and should’ve been in jail already but he’s holding this crazy vendetta despite already doing a number of things — including killing Gen. Lane — that should warrant him being back in prison anyway.

Now that Lex knows that Superman is still alive, he’s all set to go back on the warpath specifically siccing Doomsday back after him.

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Clark proposes talking to Luthor, which doesn’t seem productive. He confronts Lex as Superman and that goes about as well as expected. Lex sneers and suggests Superman enjoy the time he has left as it’s running out. Good thing Lois has more luck, and she finds Elizabeth’s location after pulling out the first folder in Sam’s stuff. It sure seems like the kind of information Luthor’s spies in the army would have immediately found if it was that easy.

Jon and Jordan are prepping for the return of Jon’s girlfriend, Candice. While they’re hanging with their crew, their pal Denise (Kelcey Mawem), waits for the others to leave before telling them that she was there the night Doomsday killed Superman. She knows he’s their dad but of course won’t say anything. She’s just happy he’s back. That feels very much like how a small town would handle that kind of major incident. It’s not like it was a small alley when Doomsday battled Superman. A ton of people saw it and the Kents didn’t exactly act like Superman was just a good family friend.

Lois doesn’t want Clark fighting Doomsday so he goes to the Fortress to get some possible advice from his mother’s hologram. That doesn’t lead to any encouraging results, but at least Lois has Jon to take her to Elizabeth (Elizabeth Henstridge, Agents of SHIELD, who also directs the episode).  It does feel kinda unfair though that throughout Break the Cycle that Lois is acting like Jon is her personal chauffer regardless of his personal life as he has to keep blowing off Candice, but Lois is just squaring up all those football practices she had to take Jon to over the years.

Elizabeth is six months pregnant and just fine with not keeping in touch with her pops, but eventually she decides she can face her father again. Luthor is fuming mad after learning that Lois was in contact with Elizabeth. It also seemed bizarre that Lex happened to have some people spotting Lois with Elizabeth and then not knowing where she went. This whole subplot in Break the Cycle was about Lex not knowing Elizabeth’s location, which was just a phone pic away from one of his goons?

While she’s willing to listen, Lex won’t accept any responsibility for his prison stint or why his marriage fell apart. It’s always someone else’s fault. Clark pleads with Elizabeth to take advantage of the time she has left with Lex, which is crazy advice considering her dad is a murderer, but she listens and goes back to the diner for more Daddy and Me time. Lex’s backstory on his parents is unnecessary. He’s still a cruel, manipulative psychopath. Just because his mother beat on him after his father beat him doesn’t excuse all the murders he’s ordered and other insidious deeds.

It all works out in the end though. Break the Cycle has some puzzling moments, but its best finally showed instead of telling us why Lex won’t ever win. Elizabeth says that if he wants to be in her or his grandson’s life, he has to walk away. He can’t try to collect some price if he actually does want to break the cycle.

Lex is so obsessed with making Lois pay that he can’t agree to it even if it costs him the only person he ever truly loved. Saddened by his answer, Elizabeth tells him to stay out of her life forever this time. Lex’s choice didn’t make a ton of sense considering his do whatever it costs to get any news of Elizabeth’s whereabouts. He had Gen. Lane killed and kidnapped another officer’s family. Is he really fine throwing all that effort away for some payback?

Lois thinks she knows how to get through to Doomsday and uses the summoning device. Jon hears it and heads out even though he knows Candice won’t forgive him for constantly lying. Thankfully, Jordan just told Candice the truth. It’s not like everyone in Smallville doesn’t already know Clark’s identity. What possible harm could it do for Jon’s legit girlfriend to know too? She reminds Doomsday that he was married to a Lois on his Earth with a family of his own. Lois pleads with Doomsday not to hurt her family, which triggers something in him to fly away.

Lex is already pissed off with Elizabeth leaving him for good and he reaches another level of annoyance when Amanda tells him that Doomsday is gone once someone called for it.

Break the Cycle spent too much time explaining Lex’s mindset, which felt repetitive as it had been well established that revenge was all that was driving him.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Photo Credit: CW

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