Superman & Lois S2: Spoilers, Discussion, & Speculation

[Vordan]

Q&A with the show writers

[GreatKungLao]

This show has been such a blast. I'm so happy to have a Superman content for once that is not polluted with something that doesn't belong in Superverse (like Martha coming up with a suit because she saw Batman wearing one in Man of Tomorrow animated movie).

Pure Superverse experience with Superverse lore and characters.

I honestly wish it never had a connection to Arrowverse, it would've made show even more majestic and better. I love all the chemistries, especially between Tyler and Bitsie, they are such an outstanding version of Clark and Lois. I was constantly surprised by quality of this show.

Bizarro is so amazing visual wise, the action might be lacking in CGI at times, but choreography is always cool and epic. That episode where we see Bizarro in a hallway fight like in Oldboy and then Superman later has exact same fight, but mirrored because they are opposites of each other? That's genius! Choreography is literally the same! That's insanely good!

Hiatuses though are really bothersome and kill the excitement over waiting for new episodes, but honestly it's worth it because this is the best pure Superman live action content we have had in years. To my personal delight it is the closest thing spiritually wise to Man of Steel I have seen and it's nice to see the aesthetics of that movie being inherited in another Superman media.

[Frontier]

"All is Lost" Synopsis:

Clark (Tyler Hoechlin) and Lois (Elizabeth Tulloch) disagree on the best way to figure out if Ally Allston (guest star Rya Kihlstedt) went to the Inverse World. Meanwhile, John Henry (Wole Parks) makes a surprising discovery and Lois sets out to track Lucy (guest star Jenna Dewan) down.

[Prime]

So what's with the hiatuses??

[Vordan]

So what's with the hiatuses??

The CW wanted the show to end around the same time as Flash, and also they started filming mid season in the first season because of COVID, which has hampered them in the long run.

[9th.]

Finally caught up, so my first gripe is how weak Jordan looked against Jon-EL. I know he ended up winning but I couldn't help but to dig my face into my palm during their entire fight. All that training and he still gets whooped by some guy who supposedly gets weaker from your sun while you get stronger.

My second gripe, was Jon always that adamant about Clarks secret or was that just put there to push the Lana thing through? He came off as very whiny and obnoxious.

My third gripe, another delay

Also, I'm beyond tired of Jordan x Sara

[The Frog Bros]

Finally caught up, so my first gripe is how weak Jordan looked against Jon-EL. I know he ended up winning but I couldn't help but to dig my face into my palm during their entire fight. All that training and he still gets whooped by some guy who supposedly gets weaker from your sun while you get stronger.

My second gripe, was Jon always that adamant about Clarks secret or was that just put there to push the Lana thing through? He came off as very whiny and obnoxious.

My third gripe, another delay

Also, I'm beyond tired of Jordan x Sara

... and Kyle.

[rpmaluki]

All that secret about Clark secret wasn't really about the family. It was the show's not so subtle way of letting Lana in on the secret because I didn't buy any of the arguments against Clark about why it was important to confess it, to whom even, the whole world or just one person?

[Frontier]

I think Jordan definitely wanted to let Lana in for selfish reasons because he wants to tell Sarah and he thinks it's the only chance of reconciling their relationship.

[Frontier]

Cue Clark and Lana childhood romance montage to fill in the blanks of their relationship and history together in a second to add more emotional weight to Lana realizing Clark was Superman! And Lana...implying she may have left Kyle for Clark if he'd been honest with her and wanted her back? It seemed like, at least at the point where Clark saw her with Kyle, she may have been still pining for him after he abruptly left Smallville.

"Pete?" Wait, is that the first time they've mentioned Pete Ross in the entire show?

Jordan really has a one-track mind when it comes to getting back together with Sarah, huh? Clark tells Lana and he immediately jumps to Sarah. Calm down, boy.

Of course Clark won't leave Bizarroverse to fend for itself without a protector while Sam and John Henry are willing to write it off as not their problem. Luckily he can always throw it in their faces that they were planning to kill him in season 1 and we saw how that turned out.

I guess that's one way for Jon to get out of (somewhat justified) guilt-tripping from his former football teammates by going all "the world is doomed!" Like, jeez Jon.

I can't say I expected Lana to blow up at Lois like that over Clark. How dare Lois naturally become friends with her and provide a reasonable and compassionate emotional sounding board while keeping an important secret about her husband that wasn't always personally relevant to Lana! And then Lois ends up apologizing to Lana and talking about how much they all love her. Is Lois just going to apologize to everybody this season? It seems like all she gets to do other than get yelled at, moody, or be angry. I feel like this might've hit better if the audience cared more about Lana than they do Lois (which is probably not the case).

Jon better not take Natalie's suit from her. I know she said he could use it, but that should totally be her suit.

Teenagers trying to prove that they can get stuff done unsupervised...only to end up nearly proving why they shouldn't do stuff unsupervised. Teenagers, amirite?

If only Kyle had seen his wife flirting with Superman.

Admittedly that was a pretty heartfelt and genuine apology by Tal to Lois. It seems like he really has changed for the better, and ultimately he never betrayed his brother and helped them destroy the amulet. And, yeah, he escaped, but he helped them and I doubt he has any villainous intentions at this point. But we might not see him come back until the finale. Lois seems like she's accepted him in her own way. I guess she can relate to a wayward sibling given what happened with Lucy.

Seems like Sarah might have a promising music career in her future. Gotta be weird getting a gig from the girl your dad was cheating on your mom with.

I don't really care for the Kents having a relationship with Lana's family but Clark looked so crushed that Lana basically wanted their families to have nothing to do with each other. I doubt Jordan will take it well.

It's kind of ironic that our Tal ended up free and alive while Bizzaro!Tal ended up imprisoned and killed, poor guy. Did Bizarro!Lana know Ally was going to do that to her husband? Did she even care?

I guess we see the truth about Ally. It seemed like one of the Ally's was actually terrified of the merger, meaning either one was subsumed or it's not the saving grace Ally advertised it as. And now she's a Parasite who can absorb the powers of other and leave them husks in true comic book Parasite fashion, and it seems like she still has a plan for merging the worlds (or maybe finding a way to consume everything).

[Bored at 3:00AM]

The structural problems of this show are really starting to show this season. There's not enough material for both Jon & Jordan. I was initially bullish on the idea of two sons because it allowed them to explore the conflicting approaches towards Clark's adolescence. Unfortunately, that has now been abandoned for Sad Sack Jordan and After School Special Jon. In retrospect, having Natalie there from the get-go would've been better than splitting Jon into two characters, neither of whom are interesting enough on their own.

And the repeated attempts to make us care about Superman's rascally half-brother are coming off as desperate. It was a bad idea, but rather than drop it and move on, they've doubled-down on it to no clear benefit.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be sticking with this show for much longer unless it ends really strong, because this is shaping up to be a much weaker season than the first.

[Agent Z]

I can't say I expected Lana to blow up at Lois like that over Clark. How dare Lois naturally become friends with her and provide a reasonable and compassionate emotional sounding board while keeping an important secret about her husband that wasn't always personally relevant to Lana!

Lana was Clark's childhood friend, their children were dating until recently and she recently got kidnapped by an evil doppelganger of Clark's son from another universe. I'd say the secret pretty damn relevant to her.

[Superlad93]

The structural problems of this show are really starting to show this season. There's not enough material for both Jon & Jordan. I was initially bullish on the idea of two sons because it allowed them to explore the conflicting approaches towards Clark's adolescence. Unfortunately, that has now been abandoned for Sad Sack Jordan and After School Special Jon. In retrospect, having Natalie there from the get-go would've been better than splitting Jon into two characters, neither of whom are interesting enough on their own.

And the repeated attempts to make us care about Superman's rascally half-brother are coming off as desperate. It was a bad idea, but rather than drop it and move on, they've doubled-down on it to no clear benefit.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be sticking with this show for much longer unless it ends really strong, because this is shaping up to be a much weaker season than the first.

Couldn't possibly agree with this any more if I tried.

A friend came the realization that I may have been totally off when I guessed that this version of Jon was a last minute add on and the show's original Jon would've been closer to Jordan.

The reality may very well be that it's the other way around, and Jordan was the last minute add on. The show seems to lend itself more to the idea of Superman and Lois having a powerless son, and it being in question if that son will ever be able to follow in his father's footsteps.

I remember early on apparently the show was being compared to This Is Us and Friday Night Lights. You can see the FNL, but the TIU of it is kind of lost. This makes me think that the structure of the show was supposed to have a LOT more flashbacks to teen Clark.

And this guess is largely because the way they've written Jordan has been such a cordon copy of teen Clark that I'm feeling like they just lifted scrapped plots from him. It was probably supposed to be about how different Jon is from his dad growing up, but also how they have to find common ground.

And I do feel like Nat was supposed to get here sooner and act as Jon's half sister. It would've reinforced the modern family aspect of a now more common blended family. And the contrast between the siblings would've been more distinct.

And I'm also fairly certain that because of Jordan's inclusion they felt the need to parallel it with Clark (because that Jon and Clark parallel feels like what they original idea of the show was built on) to Clark's brother was created.

I feel like Zod was supposed to be used rather than Clark's brother. Remember how they just kind of randomly name dropped Zod as being the one who takes over Clark's body, and then they drop it. That feels like the last embers of a nod to Talk being Zod in the original draft.

And frankly that would've made for a better take in my eyes. They'd have clearly gotten their jab at MOS by having Clark save Zod and eventually try to turn him. But they also wouldn't be beholden to dealing with Clark's actual brother as a concept.

I get what they were going for with splitting things up, but I think the alternative would've made for a tighter and more effective show.

And I'm also now noticing how little Clark tends to have in the way of story each season. I feel like that would've been fixed with the teen Clark flashbacks taking Jordan's place.

[Frontier]

Is Jordan's razor-focus towards his relationship with Sarah meant to be a parallel to how much teen Clark was, presumably, focused on Lana?

The structural problems of this show are really starting to show this season. There's not enough material for both Jon & Jordan. I was initially bullish on the idea of two sons because it allowed them to explore the conflicting approaches towards Clark's adolescence. Unfortunately, that has now been abandoned for Sad Sack Jordan and After School Special Jon. In retrospect, having Natalie there from the get-go would've been better than splitting Jon into two characters, neither of whom are interesting enough on their own.

To be honest I think if anyone's not getting great material it's Lois. I don't think Natalie would have fit at all in the show initially with the way season 1 was structured/set up unless she was a completely different character and more like Natasha Irons.

I like the kids but I'm more annoyed with them at this point.

And the repeated attempts to make us care about Superman's rascally half-brother are coming off as desperate. It was a bad idea, but rather than drop it and move on, they've doubled-down on it to no clear benefit.

I don't think it's desperate if only because I feel like the writing and Adam Rayner's sheer charisma has sold it far better than it had any right being, and they've done a pretty solid job of building up to his redemption. And it gives a different kind of sibling dynamic and "ethically dubious" Kryptonian for Clark to bounce off of and prove that Supermans' belief in the inherent goodness of others can pay off.

Lana was Clark's childhood friend, their children were dating until recently and she recently got kidnapped by an evil doppelganger of Clark's son from another universe. I'd say the secret pretty damn relevant to her.

I think the only time the secret was relevant was the bolded, otherwise it wasn't something that was pertinent to their relationship or to where there was a need for Lois to tell Lana Clark's secret.

[Agent Z]

Couldn't possibly agree with this any more if I tried.

A friend came the realization that I may have been totally off when I guessed that this version of Jon was a last minute add on and the show's original Jon would've been closer to Jordan.

The reality may very well be that it's the other way around, and Jordan was the last minute add on. The show seems to lend itself more to the idea of Superman and Lois having a powerless son, and it being in question if that son will ever be able to follow in his father's footsteps.

I remember early on apparently the show was being compared to This Is Us and Friday Night Lights. You can see the FNL, but the TIU of it is kind of lost. This makes me think that the structure of the show was supposed to have a LOT more flashbacks to teen Clark.

And this guess is largely because the way they've written Jordan has been such a cordon copy of teen Clark that I'm feeling like they just lifted scrapped plots from him. It was probably supposed to be about how different Jon is from his dad growing up, but also how they have to find common ground.

And I do feel like Nat was supposed to get here sooner and act as Jon's half sister. It would've reinforced the modern family aspect of a now more common blended family. And the contrast between the siblings would've been more distinct.

And I'm also fairly certain that because of Jordan's inclusion they felt the need to parallel it with Clark (because that Jon and Clark parallel feels like what they original idea of the show was built on) to Clark's brother was created.

I feel like Zod was supposed to be used rather than Clark's brother. Remember how they just kind of randomly name dropped Zod as being the one who takes over Clark's body, and then they drop it. That feels like the last embers of a nod to Talk being Zod in the original draft.

And frankly that would've made for a better take in my eyes. They'd have clearly gotten their jab at MOS by having Clark save Zod and eventually try to turn him. But they also wouldn't be beholden to dealing with Clark's actual brother as a concept.

I get what they were going for with splitting things up, but I think the alternative would've made for a tighter and more effective show.

And I'm also now noticing how little Clark tends to have in the way of story each season. I feel like that would've been fixed with the teen Clark flashbacks taking Jordan's place.

Zod was mentioned as being killed by Superman in the Supergirl show. It would be rather odd to make a jab at a decision they'd already done themselves. And frankly, making your storytelling choices on spiting another adaptation is generally not a key to a well written storyline. They already dealt with Zod in the episode where Tal tries to implant Zod's consciousness into Clark and he expels him.