Superman and Lois premiered finally after months of wait. And I have been following the actors on my social media of course. Mostly Emmannuelle Chriqui.
I have been curious about the show ever since it was announced and wanted to see it even more after it was announced that Supergirl was heading into its’ final season. I will miss Supergirl but I am over the moon that my favorite DC character, Superman, is finally back on the small screen.
And this Superman is different of all the Superman TV shows that we have seen in the history of the character. This Superman is out of a job, has two kids who happen to be twins named Jordan and Jonathan and a wife, Lois Lane. He lost his father when he was a high school student and at the start of the show, he also lost his mother. Which is the reason that draws Clark and Lois back to Smallville.
Superman and Lois Smallville is dark and grim
Smallville is not the same Smallville as we saw in the flashback at the start of the show. That Smallville depicted the good times that Clark had with his parents until his father died of a heart attack.
The Smallville of now is actually very grim. Times are tough and we find out that Martha Kent had gotten a new mortgage. Even though the farm had been paid off for ages. But it turns out that Martha closed off another mortgage to help the other farmers in the area to prevent them from closing down. So she is a real life Superwoman and you can see who instilled the norms and values in Clark Kent that makes Superman so amazingly great.
During the memorial we see Lana Lang and her family to pay their respects to Martha Kent. It was an emotional although a bit awkward reunion. Apparently Lana’s husband did not like the fact that Lana added Clark to her social media accounts and it was reason for tension in the Lang household as told by her daughter. Everyone at the table felt a bit awkward at the direction of the conversation and so the subject was changed quickly.
The big bads reveal themselves
So it turns out that Lana works at the local Smallville bank and gave Lois and Clark the details of the mortgage that was signed off by Martha. It had a lot of unfavorable conditions and it turns out that the bank was secretly purchased by crime boss Morgan Edge who was also responsible for buying the Daily Planet. Will Morgan Edge be the big bad this first season by manipulating everything around Superman and Lois’ lives? We can only hope!
But then a series of events that includes a nuclear facility and more that carried the fingerprint of a certain Captain Luthor. Which interesting because the Arrowverse already has three Luthors in the Arrowverse: Lillian, Lex and Lena. Since the Superman and Lois show is connected to the Arrowverse it raises the question: Which Luthor are we talking? The only Luthor I can think of is Alexander Luthor jr. Alexander Luthor Jr. is born on Earth-Three, the son of that world’s Lex Luthor (known as Alexander Luthor) and Lois Lane-Luthor.
So this gives us not one big bad but two big bads. And then we also have Lana Lang’s husband who is a great supporter of anything Morgan Edge. Even if it puts others at a great disadvantage and I think that Lana’s husband is representative for a civil movement that feels entitled to things. That’s just my take after watching this first episode.
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Superman and Lois are not perfect
What distincts Superman and Lois from the other Arrowverse shows is the fact that we get to see how Clark and Lois are raising the now teenage twins. For instance we see Clark fail as a parent when he doesn’t show for an appoint for an appointment with Jordan and his therapist. Yes, saving the world from one disaster after the other doesn’t mean that you get a free pass when it comes to family obligations.
We all know Lois Lane as the best journalist ever and winner of several Pullitzer prizes but she is challenged when it comes to dealing with the social anxieties of Jordan. And it gets even worse when we see her worry about the possible powers of the twins. The twins have never displayed any of their Kryptonian heritage. But Lois questions the fact that Jonathan Kent made the Varsity Football team of his high school, which is regarded as one of the best teams in the country, as a freshman. I would wave a red flag as well. Despite Clark’s telling that the boys have been tested to see if there are any anomalies in their blood e.g. Kryptonian DNA and such, nothing was found. That all by itself doesn’t mean anything since the tests are made for humans and not half Kryptonians. Nobody searches for that I would think.
And if you think that everyone was happy when Superman and Lois got married, you are dead wrong. Sam Lane, Lois’ father, told her that before she got married that Clark isn’t meant to have a normal life with kids. That people like him belong to the world and don’t get to have it all. Whether he is right or not , that’s something I hope the writers will delve deeper into over the course of the show. And I am hoping that it will span more than a single season. Especially if the show keeps this kind of quality up.
The fact that Superman and Lois have kids bring the maturity to th Arrowverse that was very much needed. I mean we got Barry and Iris but they don’t think of kids yet. Then we had Oliver who had a child with Samantha but that storyline felt very forced and the writers tried to get rid of the kid as soon as possible. But with Superman and Lois the writers actually manage to make it feel natural.
Another point that the writers do really well is making sure that none of the characters are perfect. Lois isn’t the perfect wife / journalist. Clark isn’t the perfect Superman, one of the twins is suffering from social anxiety disorder and the other will have trouble getting used to his powers. This is what great TV is all about.
What to expect from season one
What we expect from season one is that the show will continue to focus on the human relations aspect rather than the actionpacked stuff that Superman depictions usually are. We have seen that more than often. It’d be nice if the emphasis isn’t on Superman’s powers this time.
I hope to see a fleshed out Morgan Edge, two dimensional as a character instead of just the same one dimensional characters. Hopefully Morgan Edge story arc will take more than one season. Much like how Slade Wilson’s Deathstroke ended up being the best seasons on Arrow.
The twins got their powers apparently triggered when they inhalen Kryptionian dust by accident when they were trying to fix the WiFi in the barn. Whoever wrote the scene WiFi in a barn should resign from writing. This is beyond lazy.
That’s going to be the most interesting part of the show: how will the twins each deal with their newfound powers as well as the fact that their dad is Superman. On top of that , how will Clark and Lois deal with the fact that their kids are superpowered now.
Despite Lana Lang’s ambivalent introduction, I am hoping that Lana is one of the good guys and help Lois take down the bank she works for. I don’t have high hopes that she and her husband will stick together for long.
The identity of Captain Luthor will be revealed at some point. I am hoping that we get to find out about his background. Meaning, where does he get his Kryptonite from? What is that armor made of? What Luthor is he exactly? And how come he has a spaceport all to himself?
I hope the writers keep this quality writing up and if they do, we are in for a great first season of a great new Arrowverse 2.0 TV show.
