The below review of Season 2 of Superman & Lois discusses some important plot points, but no major spoilers. Season 2 is now streaming on CWTV.com and The CW's app.
Every so often, fans of superhero media clamor for stories about civilians living in these fantastical worlds (the movie or TV equivalent of Marvels by Alex Ross and Kurt Busiek). Season 2 of Superman & Lois scratches that particular itch, partially on purpose — its focus on one Smallville family is the series’ highlight — and partially because its title characters and their world-ending entanglements aren’t as interesting this time. It’s more scattershot than Season 1, featuring unimaginatively conceived villains with hodgepodge plans, and heroes going mostly through the motions, but on a human level, the way these events radiate outward leads to some fantastically written and acted drama.
The season begins in an interesting place. The Gregory Smith-directed premiere, “What Lies Beneath,” picks up a few months after last season’s cliffhanger, which saw Natalie (Tayler Buck), the teenage daughter of John Henry Irons (Wolé Parks) and Lois Lane (Elizabeth Tulloch), on an alternate Earth, arriving on this one to rescue her father. She finds out her mother isn’t quite her mother, but what’s more, she discovers that “our” Lois is married to the Kryptonian Ubermensch that killed her back in their own universe. It’s an awkward adjustment period, to say the least. Clark (Tyler Hoechlin) and his teenage sons, football player Jonathan (Jordan Elsass) and awkward romantic Jordan (Alex Garfin), mostly watch from the sidelines, as the pseudo mother-daughter duo approach each other with caution. Lest we forget, the Lois we know had a miscarriage many years ago, and she would’ve named her daughter Natalie. There’s unprocessed grief and anger on both sides, and it finally grants Lois narrative centricity (narrative agency is another issue; perhaps it’s too much to ask in a show driven by supernatural beings).
However, this premise dissipates rather quickly to make room for the season’s central premise. Someone, or something, keeps trying to bust its way through the Smallville mines — this creature is later revealed to be a warped, alternate-universe version of Superman, based on the comics’ Bizarro — and in order to deal with it, our Superman must liaise with the new head of the D.O.D., Lt. Anderson (Ian Bohen), a driven and intriguing antagonist, if only for his quiet mistrust of the Man of Steel. This Bizarro Clark Kent is eventually tied to events unfolding elsewhere: self-help leader Ally Allston (Rya Kihlstedt) keeps amassing followers by preaching about some phantom “other world” in which people can merge with their doppelgangers in order to become whole — platitudes that work to drive the plot, but aren’t nearly as disquieting as a tale of predatory cult tactics should be. Lois is involved in this subplot too, since her sister Lucy (Jenna Dewan, who plays a version of the character on Supergirl) is drawn in by Ally’s promises, but as usual, the ace reporter is along for the ride, responding to events and bouncing between other people’s drama (even though Tulloch imbues each beat with urgency).
The real meat of the season, however, is the Cushing/Cortez/Lang family, the Kents’ neighbors, comprising Clark’s childhood sweetheart Lana (Emmanuelle Chriqui), her rough-around-the-edges firefighter husband Kyle (Erik Valdez), and their teenage daughter Sarah, played by the incredible Inde Navarrette (they also have a second daughter, Joselyn Picard’s Sophie, but she’s always at ballet practice or a grandmother’s house; the show’s disinterest in her plays like a strange running joke). See, Sarah is Jordan’s girlfriend, and she’s being kept in the dark about his superhuman abilities (not to mention, his family’s other super-secrets) and while Jordan is technically a lead character — and Garfin is undoubtedly a treat to watch — he functions mainly as a bridge for the Cushings’ involvement in Season 2. It’s primarily their story, and they tell it boldly from start to finish.
Kyle and Lana’s troubled marriage is finally on the mend, only his dishonest past comes back to bite them at the worst possible moment: Sarah’s quinceañera. As it is, Sarah herself is caught between Jordan’s growing aloofness and her own burgeoning (bi)sexuality, and what Navarrette does in response to this story is marvelous to behold. Last season, we were given hints about Sarah’s past depression and her suicide attempt; she doesn’t quite crumble to that degree this time, but over the course of 15 episodes, Navarrette takes us through a quiet journey of why (and more precisely, how) a teenager ends up turning inward and growing distant from their family. Her demeanor changes in subtle ways, but Navarrette externalizes — often through glances, and by staring off into nothingness — the ways she’s being pulled and pushed internally, even as she sits still. Her relationship doesn’t make sense. Her parents’ marriage is on the rocks once more — since Smallville is hurting financially, Lana chooses a career in local politics, rather than forgiving Kyle’s repeated screw-ups — so she has nowhere to turn but inward.
The Kent family drama, meanwhile, isn’t inert by any means. Tal-Rho (Adam Rayner), Clark’s biological brother and last season’s big villain, enters the fray as a friendly Hannibal Lecter type, a prisoner with vital information, but someone who genuinely wants to change — if only to be finally accepted by family. It’s a touching arc, even though it’s often sidelined in favor of the world-threatening plot. Jordan, as usual, deals with keeping secrets while trying to live a normal teenage life, but the Kent MVP this season is Jonathan, whose jealousies over his brother’s powers lead not only to some self-destructive decisions, but to subsequent ethical dilemmas that challenge Clark and Lois’ parental instincts. It’s a brief but dense family saga that forms the backbone of several episodes, before Superman has to fly off to save the day once more.
Ironically, the show is at its best when Superman isn’t present at all. At one point, he escapes into the dimension from which Bizarro hails, and where another version of Ally is attempting to achieve the same world-merging goals. In the process, the ninth episode (the Ian Samoil-directed “30 Days and 30 Nights”) is allowed to slow down and focus entirely on the Smallville drama in Superman’s absence, but soon after, we’re yanked into the aforementioned alternate reality for some mind-numbing antics. Human villain Anderson skips about 15 dramatic beats in order to transform into a major threat, while the Bizarro planet — cube-shaped though it may be, like in the comics — is revealed to be pretty much like our own, only slightly red-tinted and with more Goth-inspired fashion. It’s a dour and deeply uninspired rendition of a quirky comic book concept — people whose physiology and morality are the “inverse” of ours in every way — leading, here, to the main cast playing versions of themselves who only differ because they have a bit more of a temper.
Despite this overarching premise flailing and eventually flatlining, the final few episodes bring together the season’s drama in satisfying fashion. The question of whether the Kents should be keeping their identities secret becomes a key point of dramatic tension — especially since it challenges the character’s central premise since 1938 — and it’s given enough room to unfold in the season’s back half, though it mainly works because Sarah and Lana are eventually roped up in this dilemma.
Season 2 may not be nearly as coherent as its predecessor, nor does it take the time to let many of the Kents’ emotional challenges breathe. However, its supporting cast — Navarrette, Chriqui, and Valdez — practically warp the series around themselves via their characters’ touching, complicated drama, until Superman & Lois becomes less a show about its title characters, and more about the regular, everyday people caught up in their orbits.