I Watch TV: Superman & Lois Season 4

 

Superman And Lois Season 4

At the end of Season 3 Lex Luthor was let out of prison after seventeen years; it turns out that he was locked up for the one crime he didn’t commit. He blames Lois Lane, whose news report consisted of the main evidence against him. Having grown a magnificent beard while in prison he swears revenge.

Because Lois Lane is protected by both Superman and her father General Sam Lane of the DoD, this swiftly becomes convoluted. Bizarro Superman from Season 2 was being used for experiments by Bruno Mannheim in Season 3 to try and cure his wife’s cancer and also create supervillains for his criminal plans. Lex inflicts various tortures on him which make him immune to whatever damage he takes; he becomes huge, grotesque, bony and scarred. He’s Doomsday, from The Death Of Superman, Superman Vs Batman Dawn Of Justice, Krypton etc. an unstoppable juggernaut designed for killing Superman.

That’s not his only plan, though it’s the one that nearly works on several occasions. In an early episode Doomsday tears out Superman’s heart. They take Superman to the Fortress Of Solitude where he’s kept in suspended animation until they figure out a way to get him a new heart, tricky considering the few candidates for a Kryptonian heart transplant. (Superman’s not-brother Tal-Rho has relocated to Bizarro Earth).

They do manage it though, Sam Lane (earlier catfished by one of Lex’s henchwomen), fatally injured by Doomsday, injects himself with Kryptonian serum to make his heart suitable. However Superman now has the heart of a 62 year old human, slowing him. Fortunately Lois figures out that Doomsday is Bizarro Superman from the Inverse World and manages to sideline him, by reminding him of his own wife (Bizzaro Lois Lane).

So we get grief and sacrifice with the death of supporting character Sam Lane. We also get Chrissy (Smallville Gazette editor) becoming pregnant with Kyle (Lana Lang’s ex, town fire chief). This storyline twists through a lot of others. Lex Luthor is trying to buy out people in Smallville in an attempt to get at Lois, and also starts a media campaign against Lois which tangles up the Smallville Gazette. Kyle’s daughter Sarah has mixed feelings about this (as in fact does Chrissy) which gathers in the other teen members of the cast, the Kent boys and Natalie Irons (whose father John Henry Irons with the supersuit is now dating Lana Lang).

With almost all the main cast now knowing that Clark is Superman, the secret gets out, in part thanks to Lex. The show is not especially interested in how the world reacts to the news that Superman is actually mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent. Lois responds to a challenge by Lex Luthor and debates him on television on Gordon Godfrey’s show (Godfrey played by former The Flash actor Tom Cavanagh for some reason). Mostly though it focuses on how the Clark family respond to it (the boys finding their new notoriety disconcerting).

Family of course is what has made this Superman adaption stand out, Clark and Lois as parents*. Lex is also a parent. He’s estranged from his daughter. Lois tracks her down first, arranges for them to meet. He’s given a choice. His revenge or a relationship with his daughter (and prospective grandchild). He makes, of course, the choice for revenge. Someone has to pay. It’s this that also overwhelms him when his business manager Amanda Mccoy becomes his lover, only for his maniacal schemes to get out of hand.

What then to make of this show? The final episode has an epilogue, an ending to a Superman story. Clark, having been given a human heart ages and is mortal and is facing his end. He gets to tell us what he thinks it’s about. Love, forgiveness, friendship, family. Truth, justice and a better tomorrow. Not just a hero who saves people but one who makes connections. That’s a bit much to put on the last lingering show spun off from the Arrow-verse. In the epilogue Superman talks about trying to push the world down a better path. But that’s the epilogue, that’s what he does after the story is over. The story IS about saving people and punching villains. If sometimes it manages to have some real feeling, it’s in the personal, in families trying to work things out, to keep secrets, and of course to get through hardship and tragedy. And unlike the saving and punching they don’t always hit the mark!

Anyway, I guess that’s it, we'll never have to think about Superman again.

Watch This: Superheroics with heart and family
Don’t Watch This: Lot of flying and kids acting up

* There’s a family connection in all of the plots! In Season One John Henry Irons was married to an alternate Lois Lane on his world; meanwhile Tal-Rho is Superman’s half-brother. In Season Two the link to the Inverse Method cult is via Lucy Lane, Lois’s sister, and the Inverse World gets to show a funhouse mirror alternative to the Kent family. In Season Three Bruno Mannheim is doing crimes to try and save his wife, and also to make a better world for his son.