Superman & Lois S2: Spoilers, Discussion, & Speculation

[SuperX]

I like how General Lane specifically said that their world only has Superman. It means S&L is basically the purest Superman content we've had in years that won't be tainted by non Superverse characters. Thank God.

until later seasons add more

[manofsteel1979]

I think they honestly wrote out Superman of Earth-Prime. I don't think they even mentioned him in the final season of Supergirl.

He apparently still existed on Earth Prime. He appeared at the end of CRISIS alongside Kara, Barry, Bat woman and Black Lightning when they paid tribute to Oliver.


As for the revelations of the finale....all the signs and hints were there ( a radically different Fortress, no mention of Kara, one newborn kid becoming two teens) but we all sort of brushed it off.

Honestly I don't know how I feel. I get why they did it and it makes sense in the grand scheme of things, but part of me hoped that Kara would pop up for a cameo eventually or we'd get Cryer as Lex, which this revelation may put a pin in that for good. If we see Lex at all on this show it will probably be another actor. Hopefully it'll be as good as Cryer mostly turned out to be on Supergirl.

One thing I do hope happens..with it being clear this is a separate continuity and earth, that Jimmy Olsen shows up. I don't care if its a black actor or white actor, but if he does show up Hopefully he's more of the nerdy young "supermans pal" type and not a guy bigger and buffer than Clark. Nothing against Mechad Brooks and what he did, and in retrospect it worked for what they were going for on Supergirl, but a more traditional Jimmy would be appreciated IF they use him...which they probably won't. Wishful thinking on my part.

The good news though is there is always a possibility of a Superman and Superman of Earth Prime team up at some point. Perhaps if and when Evil Superman of John Henry's Earth shows up. It may take more than one Superman to stop him.

[superduperman]

The Earth Prime comic kind of hinted at this. A future version of the Earth Prime Superman shows up in the last issue and references events that couldn't have happened to the S&L Superman. He referenced having fought Luthor as a teenager and hinted at a much more silver age type history. Which Supergirl always hinted at him having.

[The Frog Bros]

All the Bizarro world merging stuff def has a Twilight Zone feel, especially this episode where people were popping in and out of realities. They did that stuff pretty well.

Sam Lane’s and Tal’s Superman speeches were both equally hokey, but both equally kinda good.

And yeah, the Sun scene was pretty great. This season overall has not been as good as S1, but I feel like that scene will be one of the more memorable ones of the run of the show.

Sam Lane comedy hour:
“These people are whack-a-doodles!”
“Lick some toads and trip out.”

Tal got in to the comedy act as well when he called the Bizarro people weirdos. And buying off his nephews, ha.

Cool Steel fam stuff as always.

Thought Lois telling Chrissy wasn’t really necessary but I did get a laugh out of her staring at Clark and Lois when they were dancing.

Glad Lana finally wised up and acknowledged that Clark has been saving lives all this time and him not telling her was forgiven.

Really liked the final scene where the new Fortress was built.

I didn’t expect to like the episode as much as I did after the last few. Overall, this season really seemed like you gotta sit through a lot of mediocre stuff in order to get to the good stuff. The ending did leave me kind of excited for what comes next, but next season is def make or break. Gotta end when it’s ready to end and not drag on. Especially when the quality is already starting to dip.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Does anyone think this season wasn't a disappointment?

I'm deeply skeptical that the next season will be worth watching unless some significant retooling happens.

[Vordan]

Does anyone think this season wasn't a disappointment?

I'm deeply skeptical that the next season will be worth watching unless some significant retooling happens.

I don’t think S2 was as good as S1 but I also think some people had delusions about what this show was going to be. It’s still a CW show at the end of the day, there was always going to be dumb, boring drama, bizarre plot choices, and baffling creative decisions. When it comes to these shows you’re sitting through 90% of the scenes to get to the 10% you’re actually there to see and ultimately you have to decide if that 10% is worth it or not. For now I still enjoy some of the cast enough to keep watching for them, and I think the foe they’ve selected for S3 is one that could potentially allow for them to do better in terms of uniting all of the cast and plot threads together in a way they failed to do this season. But this show isn’t going to radically change and we’ve probably seen both the best and worst of what it has to offer by now, so you should definitely tap out if the pros don’t outweigh the cons for you at this point.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Does anyone think this season wasn't a disappointment?

I'm deeply skeptical that the next season will be worth watching unless some significant retooling happens.

I was fine with it. I had fun watching it. It's not as good as the first season but I don't think it dropped drastically in quality. It's a B that went to a B-.

But I'm more a casual DC fan that lost interest in the DCU's shenanigans years ago. So I'm probably an outlier to this board's mindset.

I'm not a diehard following the in and outs, I'm just watching to watch.

[Matt Rat]

Does anyone think this season wasn't a disappointment?

I'm deeply skeptical that the next season will be worth watching unless some significant retooling happens.

Most CW Cape shows start sucking after the second season. I don't hold much hope for this show now.

The Smallville setting has gotten real old and there's not much more they can do with it. They need to move back to Metropolis.

[Yoda]

This season was definitely disappointing overall. I don't know who convinced these writers and showrunners that the Lang/Cushing's are driving any interest, because like 99% of the comment on the amount of time devoted to Lana, Kyle, Sarah, etc. is negative. They have to see that so hopefully make some corrections next season. No one is watching this show for the Cushings. I'm curious if there were some Covid-related issues with the delays that forced them to focus on Lana and all that nonsense more than Lois and Clark in the back half.

But there is no question they need to get more focused on Lois & Clark and the kids. Which I hope they do next season. Bringing Clark into the paper will hopefully work towards that end. But who knows. The new fortress and acknowledgement that its for all of them hopefully also indicates that they are going to address some of the Clark/Jon issues as well. While I think it was a little overblown, there is definitely more that should be done there.

I think the Arrowverse separation is for the best as well. It functioned separately for all practical purposes and now they can more easily move it over to HBO Max when CW likely gets sold. I suspect that is the driving force behind the retcon to it being a different Earth this season. There was definitely the intention of it being on "Earth Prime" when it started with the crossover plans, the inclusion (and subsequent cutting of the photo of Kara) and the mention of Oliver and Crisis.

[Mistah K88]

I will say that this season did kind of coast on by where it started to get to the point that I was watching out of obligation than actual interest. While I'm curious what ended up on John's original world from Season 1, I'm in no hurry to jump back into evil Superman. That said, the ending set up did intrigue me more due to the mention of Bruno and Intergang. Being a criminal organization I would assume that there would be multiple players involved, which is enough to get more people involved also, it helps that alien technology would give Superman something to fight other than himself thanks to the endless possibilities. We already got something set up when it came to this planet's John Irons with the next round of baddies so I do feel that he will play a bigger part. I do hope that this series gives us more small instances with random supervillains like it did with Killgrave. The advantage of starting so late in Superman's career (he has had to have been around for at LEAST 20 years) is that they don't have to go over the origin of every villain that Superman and Lois will encounter. I don't know about you guys, but I will not question if someone like Toyman says "Hello Lois" in the first interaction we ever see of them together in the present.

[manduck37]

I enjoyed season 2. It wasn't as good as season 1 but I still looked forward to it every week. I like the mention of Bruno Manheim and Intergang. I hope we're dealing with them in season 3. Though what I really want for season 3 is for them to finally put a real "S" on his costume. Come on, it's the most iconic superhero symbol ever. Maybe put away the sharpies they drew it on with and pry open that budget for a real "S" shield.

[Frontier]

I think this season was definitely a step down from season 1 in several respects:

- It didn't really feel like we got a lot of good Kent family time or development. Even when the family was on-screen they were usually either sniping or arguing with each other or dealing with the plot.

- Lois was really wasted this season. Her reporting credentials were constantly called into question, she was constantly judged and criticized, and she mostly just reacted to stuff going on and really didn't get to contribute much meaningfully to this season.

- Similarly Jon really got the short thrift this season. No character really engaged with him or directly confronted his emotional issues despite numerous opportunities to do so, nobody wanted to see him date a drug dealer or do drugs, and he still barely contributed anything to the plot precisely because they still refuse to give him and let him keep actual powers.

- Too much of Lana and the Cushing/Cortez family. I get that they're probably the main supporting characters and the "normal" perspective but they're not who people are tuning in to watch. And everyone singing Lana's praises and acting like she's much bigger than she actually is got to be a bit too much.

- Ally was a much weaker villain than Tal Rho in terms of execution. When they were initially leaning into her cult leader vibes and as a human villain for Lois, she was fine, but then when they started going cosmic with her without diving into her motivations or reasonings and just had her stand around as such an omnipotent villain...it just didn't really work.

- The show did some interesting stuff with Bizarro World but it ultimately felt almost as underdeveloped as Ally. On-top of that they killed Bizarro way too soon and unceremoniously.

I like shared universes to a degree, I just don't like the crossover thing in general. Like I am fine with it in the old DCAU model, I like having solo series and team series. I don't like the whole everything needs to interconnect all the time, what happens in the team stuff disruptive the solo stuff aspects. Like I'm really not all hating on shared universes all the time, I just hate that they have become such a huge part of the focus and is all anyone ever wants to talk about anymore. Like any little thing it becomes "I hope they crossover". Especially when imo most of the time the crossovers aren't that good. Like my favorite MCU movies are Iron Man, Ant Man, GotG, but not the Avengers.

Ant-Man had Falcon though .

I would never advocate for anything to be team-up heavy or too reliant on guest stars (and honestly I don't think the Arrowverse was outside of Crisis), but in a shared universe I think it's to be expected that there would be crossovers and interconnectedness otherwise what's the point of them all existing in the same universe and existing, playing off, and living alongside each other? Flash wouldn't exist without Barry's appearance on an episode of Arrow.

I get that the shared crossover stuff though is your favorite aspects. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I feel like that you're painting me as "oh, he's never happy, he hates everything shared universe and crossover" when that is just not true. I just prefer it in smaller doses, and I prefer when it's not mandatory to understand what is going on in later solo stuff. That is all. I'm just a bit tired of how big and overwhelming it's become, at least in my opinion, and how hyper laser focused so much of the fandom has become about it.

I don't think it's so much that the shared universe is my favorite aspect so much as that what I grew up kind of built into me this idea of how it's supposed to work, like the DCAU or the 90's Marvel cartoons that had a lot of guest stars or supporting heroes like a mini-Marvel Universe. And then I read the comics and got that same vibe.

Of course if you just prefer standalone stuff or something to not feel as intrusive into what you're enjoying, I can understand that.

And yes there is a point if the events don't have an impact - an excuse to do a team up. That's the whole point of the crossover, the crossover itself. We just need the one off crossovers without it having lasting implications.

I think the main crux of the crossover is obviously the crossover but I think it can still develop the characters well enough. They can be fun one-offs but I don't think they need to be.

Barry and Oliver's entire relationship was built up in crossovers and that was one of the biggest emotional cruxes of the entire Arrowverse.

[Vakanai]

I think this season was definitely a step down from season 1 in several respects:

- It didn't really feel like we got a lot of good Kent family time or development. Even when the family was on-screen they were usually either sniping or arguing with each other or dealing with the plot.

- Lois was really wasted this season. Her reporting credentials were constantly called into question, she was constantly judged and criticized, and she mostly just reacted to stuff going on and really didn't get to contribute much meaningfully to this season.

- Similarly Jon really got the short thrift this season. No character really engaged with him or directly confronted his emotional issues despite numerous opportunities to do so, nobody wanted to see him date a drug dealer or do drugs, and he still barely contributed anything to the plot precisely because they still refuse to give him and let him keep actual powers.

- Too much of Lana and the Cushing/Cortez family. I get that they're probably the main supporting characters and the "normal" perspective but they're not who people are tuning in to watch. And everyone singing Lana's praises and acting like she's much bigger than she actually is got to be a bit too much.

- Ally was a much weaker villain than Tal Rho in terms of execution. When they were initially leaning into her cult leader vibes and as a human villain for Lois, she was fine, but then when they started going cosmic with her without diving into her motivations or reasonings and just had her stand around as such an omnipotent villain...it just didn't really work.

- The show did some interesting stuff with Bizarro World but it ultimately felt almost as underdeveloped as Ally. On-top of that they killed Bizarro way too soon and unceremoniously.

Ant-Man had Falcon though .

I would never advocate for anything to be team-up heavy or too reliant on guest stars (and honestly I don't think the Arrowverse was outside of Crisis), but in a shared universe I think it's to be expected that there would be crossovers and interconnectedness otherwise what's the point of them all existing in the same universe and existing, playing off, and living alongside each other? Flash wouldn't exist without Barry's appearance on an episode of Arrow.

I don't think it's so much that the shared universe is my favorite aspect so much as that what I grew up kind of built into me this idea of how it's supposed to work, like the DCAU or the 90's Marvel cartoons that had a lot of guest stars or supporting heroes like a mini-Marvel Universe. And then I read the comics and got that same vibe.

Of course if you just prefer standalone stuff or something to not feel as intrusive into what you're enjoying, I can understand that.


I think the main crux of the crossover is obviously the crossover but I think it can still develop the characters well enough. They can be fun one-offs but I don't think they need to be.

Barry and Oliver's entire relationship was built up in crossovers and that was one of the biggest emotional cruxes of the entire Arrowverse.

I know Frontier. I'm just not really up to keep discussing it in depth any more.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I don’t think S2 was as good as S1 but I also think some people had delusions about what this show was going to be. It’s still a CW show at the end of the day, there was always going to be dumb, boring drama, bizarre plot choices, and baffling creative decisions. When it comes to these shows you’re sitting through 90% of the scenes to get to the 10% you’re actually there to see and ultimately you have to decide if that 10% is worth it or not. For now I still enjoy some of the cast enough to keep watching for them, and I think the foe they’ve selected for S3 is one that could potentially allow for them to do better in terms of uniting all of the cast and plot threads together in a way they failed to do this season. But this show isn’t going to radically change and we’ve probably seen both the best and worst of what it has to offer by now, so you should definitely tap out if the pros don’t outweigh the cons for you at this point.

I had no delusions of what this show was, but I wasn't expecting the quality to drop so soon. Usually, the second season is stronger than the first because the creative team figured out what worked and what didn't. Black Lightning was the only ex exception. It started off strong, then became unwatchable following its first season finale.

I was hoping Superman & Lois would improve this season, just as Arrow, Flash, Legends, Supergirl, and Stargirl had. Of course, I would eventually give up on all of those shows (except Stargirl, it's still solid), but after they'd delivered some fun superhero soap opera.

I'll check out the season premiere next year, certainly, but my fear is that the structural problems inherent in the premise will become more and more crippling. It's a shame, because there are definitely parts of the show I enjoy.

[Matt Rat]

CW reportedly set to be sold for approx. $0



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