Jordan Kent to his daddy, Clark Kent – ‘Superman is boring’. We’re kind of inclined to agree with you here, Jordy.
Superman & Lois, the seventh series of the Arrowverse premiered on February 23,2021 with Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch reprising their Supergirl roles as Clark & Lois. If you start watching this show hoping for a lot of superhero action, I’m kind of sorry to disappoint you as the pilot is quite heavy on the normal parts of Superman’s life and how much of a shitty dad he is. At some point, Jordan angrily tells him "you may have been sent here to be some hero but you sure as hell weren't sent here to be a father".
The show starts by showing a cute montage of Kal-El's life from when he crashlanded on Earth to when he met, fell in love, and married Lois (you know just in case you needed a refresher on his origin story.) And now he and Lois live somewhat happily ever after with their twin fourteen-year-old –boys – Jon (played by Jordan Elass), a blonde star athlete with a girlfriend, and Jordan (played by Alexander Griffin), a dark-haired brooding recluse who has been clinically diagnosed with social anxiety and prefers playing video games in his room – where his avatar is the one that brutally beats up Superman.
While the heroics of Superman are featured in the pilot episode, they’re kind of over in a minute or three as you see him save a kid, save a town from a nuclear reactor, and then go home to meet his disappointed wife and kids. What’s very brow-raising as you kind of get into the show is that while superman and Lois have been together for at least 14 years, they seem to never have had the important conversation of “oh what do we do when we have kids – do we tell them about your other job or?”
For most of the pilot episode, Lois pleads with Clark to tell the kids about his night job as it might make them more sympathetic towards his half-presence as a father and why he keeps missing important events like therapy with his socially anxious kid – to which Superman kept giving a resounding no. This entire dynamic was a bit off and reminiscent of archaic times when women were vetoed by their husbands on familial matters because why isn’t it more of a conversation? Why is it Superman's decision alone?
“Lois, we are not telling the boys”
Not only are things not looking up at home but in Superman’s general life as Clark Kent gets fired from work and then gets a call from his mum’s doctor back in Smallville. A tragedy has occurred and his entire family has to go to Smallville where they meet Clark’s high school sweetheart, Lana (played by Emmanuelle Chriqui), her husband, Kyle (played by Eric Valdez), who seems to be super touchy and suffering from inferiority complex as he takes everything Lois says as a jab against him and the town he grew up in; and their daughters – one of which Jordan seems to have a crush on.
The boys have a barn incident which they suspiciously and miraculously survive after which Lois and Clark have the same conversation where they talk about whether it’s time to tell the kids as the only way they survived that incident was if one of them had powers. Again, Superman says no as he’s worried about how Jordan will react to not having powers – because he was super certain that the child who took after him was the blonde athletic one. His hand is eventually forced when his kids discover his spaceship and he has to come clean about being an alien.
Every other happening in the pilot is a series of small events like them finding out Martha’s farm was in trouble, us finding out Superman is broke, Lana basically accusing Superman of deserting Smallville, Lois discovering some kind of conspiracy in the town, and then an out-of-nowhere decision to uproot their entire lives and move to Smallville – a decision that seemed very well taken by a woman who has a thriving career in a different town and a popular teenage boy with friends.
In summary, the cinematography in Superman & Lois was impressive, the acting was mostly great and while the storyline itself seems promising, the focus is more on teenage drama than superheroics. Unless you count the shadowy villain who seems to be taunting Superman.
This show is interesting in a way that while you’re not quite bored while you watch it, you’re also, not quite entertained. Would I keep watching this show? Maybe if it was right in front of me and I had absolutely nothing better to do; but would I go out of my way to search for and watch this show? Absolutely not.
Supercringe & Lame
“Mommy that’s him. You dated him and that’s why daddy got mad when he saw you on his Facebook page”. Lana’s youngest daughter says this to their gathered families and while its addition might have been to reveal the fact that Clark & Lana dated, the delivery was quite cringeworthy.
The show starts by showing a cute montage of Kal-El's life from when he crashlanded on Earth to when he met, fell in love, and married Lois (you know just in case you needed a refresher on his origin story.) And now he and Lois live somewhat happily ever after with their twin fourteen-year-old –boys – Jon (played by Jordan Elass), a blonde star athlete with a girlfriend, and Jordan (played by Alexander Griffin), a dark-haired brooding recluse who has been clinically diagnosed with social anxiety and prefers playing video games in his room – where his avatar is the one that brutally beats up Superman.
While the heroics of Superman are featured in the pilot episode, they’re kind of over in a minute or three as you see him save a kid, save a town from a nuclear reactor, and then go home to meet his disappointed wife and kids. What’s very brow-raising as you kind of get into the show is that while superman and Lois have been together for at least 14 years, they seem to never have had the important conversation of “oh what do we do when we have kids – do we tell them about your other job or?”
For most of the pilot episode, Lois pleads with Clark to tell the kids about his night job as it might make them more sympathetic towards his half-presence as a father and why he keeps missing important events like therapy with his socially anxious kid – to which Superman kept giving a resounding no. This entire dynamic was a bit off and reminiscent of archaic times when women were vetoed by their husbands on familial matters because why isn’t it more of a conversation? Why is it Superman's decision alone?
“Lois, we are not telling the boys”
Not only are things not looking up at home but in Superman’s general life as Clark Kent gets fired from work and then gets a call from his mum’s doctor back in Smallville. A tragedy has occurred and his entire family has to go to Smallville where they meet Clark’s high school sweetheart, Lana (played by Emmanuelle Chriqui), her husband, Kyle (played by Eric Valdez), who seems to be super touchy and suffering from inferiority complex as he takes everything Lois says as a jab against him and the town he grew up in; and their daughters – one of which Jordan seems to have a crush on.
The boys have a barn incident which they suspiciously and miraculously survive after which Lois and Clark have the same conversation where they talk about whether it’s time to tell the kids as the only way they survived that incident was if one of them had powers. Again, Superman says no as he’s worried about how Jordan will react to not having powers – because he was super certain that the child who took after him was the blonde athletic one. His hand is eventually forced when his kids discover his spaceship and he has to come clean about being an alien.
Every other happening in the pilot is a series of small events like them finding out Martha’s farm was in trouble, us finding out Superman is broke, Lana basically accusing Superman of deserting Smallville, Lois discovering some kind of conspiracy in the town, and then an out-of-nowhere decision to uproot their entire lives and move to Smallville – a decision that seemed very well taken by a woman who has a thriving career in a different town and a popular teenage boy with friends.
This show is interesting in a way that while you’re not quite bored while you watch it, you’re also, not quite entertained. Would I keep watching this show? Maybe if it was right in front of me and I had absolutely nothing better to do; but would I go out of my way to search for and watch this show? Absolutely not.
Supercringe & Lame
“Mommy that’s him. You dated him and that’s why daddy got mad when he saw you on his Facebook page”. Lana’s youngest daughter says this to their gathered families and while its addition might have been to reveal the fact that Clark & Lana dated, the delivery was quite cringeworthy.
All images courtesy CW
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