Superman & Lois 1×15 Review: “Last Sons of Krypton”

“Last Sons of Krypton” closes out the first season of Superman & Lois in perhaps the best way possible. The bad guy is defeated, the people are saved, and the episode ends on a cliffhanger that most likely won’t leave the entire audience frustrated as all get out that they now have to wait months to find out what happens.

We’ll begin with the end, because why not? “Last Sons of Krypton” ends with John Henry’s daughter Natalie crash-landing on the Kent farm, and the last frame is her seeing Lois and going, “Mom?” In previous weeks, this “twist” would have surprised me, but after John Henry’s suit ran out of power and he began falling to Earth and remembering his daughter, I totally expected Natalie to be the one who saved him.

But then they went with the obvious choice of having Clark save him, and I thought, Oh, right, that makes sense. Still, when the AI alerted John Henry that an anonymous vessel had locked onto his, I knew it had to be Natalie. Who else could it be?

I really love this as an ending, not only because it’s the perfect kind of cliffhanger (it ends the season on an “OMG WHAT??!?!?!” note but it’s not one of those frustrating ones where you’re wondering for months if your favorite character is going to survive) but also because it opens up Superman & Lois to a lot of potential crossover. Both John Henry and Natalie have now crossed universes and ended up on Earth-Prime (or whatever they’re calling it after “Crisis”). Who else could come over? Could evil!Superman make an appearance in the future? (They do keep playing Injustice, which is about evil!Superman…)

Also, yes, please give me more badass ladies on this show. You can never have too many.

However, this does have the potential to get messy. When Lois’s miscarriage was brought up earlier this season, I thought it was handled well. But the daughter Lois could have had showing up out of the blue seems like something that would happen on a soap opera (or a normal CW show). This could put a lot of stress on Lois’s marriage as well as her mental health. I hope the writers can handle this respectfully.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s take a look at the rest of the episode.

I know Zeta-Rho’s consciousness inside of Jordan was supposed to be dramatic, but that voice coming out of Jordan’s mouth was hilarious and it was hard to take that whole thing seriously. However, I do appreciate that it was essentially the same tactic to save Jordan that was used on Clark, in that it was the power of love and family. Yes, it seems a little lazy to use the same method as before, but Superman & Lois is a show about family, and I believe it will always come down to family in the end.

I will admit, though, that when it looked like Lois had initially failed and Zeta-Rho went after Jon, that it might have made more sense to have Jon be the one to go into his memories. In the end, it doesn’t matter if it was Lois’s impassioned plea for Jordan to fight or Jon using what may have been his last breath to tell his brother he loved him, but Jordan breaking free from Zeta-Rho’s control was such a spectacular moment.

I had wondered, while Zeta-Rho was fighting Clark, if those brief moments of Jordan breaking free were actually Jordan or if they were just Zeta-Rho messing with Clark. Happily, it was the former.

I really appreciated how they handled Lois trying to reach Jordan. The scene she found him in is the one we saw in the montage in the pilot, where the family finally realized that Jordan had anxiety. Lois’s insistence that he was the strongest one in the family – when his father is literally Superman – may seem a little ridiculous, but as someone who often struggles to accomplish even simple tasks because of my stupid brain, that scene really resonated. There are different kinds of strengths, and when you have mental health issues, it’s important to acknowledge that what strength is for you may not seem like strength for other people, but it absolutely is.

Also, not going to lie, I got a big kick out of Clark and Lois’s exchange where they both said their children took after the other. “They’re both strong, like their father.” “Strong like their mother.” Hell yeah, supportive families.

Edge seemed almost shockingly easy to take down, after everything. It was a terrifying moment when he showed up in Smallville and Eradicated those soldiers, apparently raising the Kryptonian defense council. (I’m sure that’s relevant somehow, but I don’t know how?) But when it came down to it, the defense council didn’t amount to much. Clark was able to take most of them out with one punch. Their existence mostly just seemed to be a way to delay the final confrontation with Edge.

I did enjoy Superman’s repeated team-ups with Steel. (THE HAMMER, THOUGH.) Despite their rocky (to say the least) beginning, the two of them work well together, and I know that Clark trusts John Henry to see it through if Clark is unable to. I know John Henry doesn’t want to stick around Smallville because Lois isn’t his Lois, but with Natalie in the picture, I imagine we’ll get to see more of them in action in the next season.

After last week’s brush-off, in “Last Sons of Krypton” John Henry handed an olive branch to Jon, asking him to help in getting all of their solar weapons ready to take on Edge. The look on John Henry’s face when Jon dumped a pile of weapons at his feet and went, “Here’s all the weapons I borrowed,” made me genuinely laugh out loud. I’m glad that Jon was given something to do, but on the whole, this season, I felt he was vastly underutilized.

I really don’t like that his resolution for this season was Tegan. One, she is a person, not a prize, and two, they did not even give him a scene with Jordan to clear the air after Jordan almost killed him while possessed.

This first season was obviously meant to focus on Jordan – him getting powers and learning how to control them – as well as the boys in general dealing with their newfound knowledge that their dad is Superman. Jon, I feel, was mostly used to prop up other people’s stories. He helps Jordan test his powers, he helps John Henry with his weapons, he helps Sarah with her relationship. In season 2, I hope the writers give Jon his own arc. It doesn’t need to be abilities (in fact, I think it shouldn’t be – Jon learning he has a different kind of strength would fit in nicely with the theme of “Last Sons of Krypton”), but it needs to be something.

I liked that they had a funeral for Jor-El, even though Jon had never met him and I’m sure that was awkward. There were several moments during “Last Sons of Krypton” where I teared up, but that scene finally made me cry.

They’ve created a very interesting familial dynamic in season 1, which I hope will continue into season 2. But I also hope it shifts a bit. How will having Sam around more often affect everything? (I’m still surprised he didn’t die. I was so sure that was coming, particularly after he kept refusing medical assistance.) How long will Natalie and John Henry be in town? (Tayler Buck aka Natalie was upped to a series regular, so probably a while.) Will Clark and Jon have a meaningful scene together ever?

I’ll admit that I was tired of the Cushing family drama, especially since I knew that there was no way they would be moving, but Kyle and Lana’s “redemption” was handled nicely in “Last Sons of Krypton”. Obviously, they would show up at the scene of the accident because of Sarah, but doing everything they could to help out even though the town had effectively banished them is exactly how I would expect someone who had spent their whole lives in a small town to act. Kyle risking his life to run into a burning building and save someone (with no protective gear!) was a great moment. I wish we had gotten more of this Kyle during the rest of the season.

Closing out the season with a Cushing barbecue was a nice callback to the pilot episode, which also featured a Cushing barbecue, but now the relationships are completely different, and I love it. Character development, you love to see it. I’m still not a fan of Clark referring to Lana as his best friend for all the reasons I was last week, but I really loved how Lana admitted that she and Emily made up over a box of wine.

All in all, season 1 was a spectacular season, and “Last Sons of Krypton” was a great way to end it. It’s always refreshing to see a plan actually work (even if Jon thought it was ridiculous), and I think this episode really emphasized everything that makes this show great. Superman & Lois is about home and family and hope. In the end, with Smallville facing its greatest crisis yet, the town could have completely fallen apart, but it didn’t. And with the world in chaos right now, that’s a great message to put out into the universe.

Now… bets on whether or not Sarah figured out Clark was Superman?

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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