Season 1, Episode 11: "A Brief Reminiscence In-Between Cataclysmic Events" (SPOILERS)

Usually when Clark makes his transformation into Superman, he tends to move at Super speed with great efficiency and precise framework that usually involves take off flight.

So clumsiness is never an issue.

 

Part of the threat was to expose that Superman/Clark had a family at all. Unless Flash was going to reverse time, no one would be able to help

 

For god sake Clark, get on the phone to Kara, or Barry, or Kate, or anyone. There's a world of heroes out there. Pick up your phone and call for assistance. Jesus!

 

For all those saying you didn't want Zod, Morgan Edge effectively is Zod. Just with a new name and origin, but this plot is hitting all the same beats.

 

In some ways, yes. However, I feel like Edge's motivations are different than those of Zod's due to his family ties with Superman. Judging from what I've seen, it looks like Edge had longed for having a family as opposed to just ruling over all of humanity and Krypton.

 

I dont see it as very different. This storyline is about Clark choosing his Earth family over his brother at this point. But the classic Zod vs Superman story is largely about Superman choosing Earth over Krypton. It is essentially the same struggle. Just sub out the word family for people, and it doesn't change much of the context honestly. Now for me personally, I see the brother thing as adding nothing. In fact, I think it is worse. Clark has had no meaningful relationship to Edge pre this show. He has been a guy at odds with him for years. Why would he choose this guy who had been opposition for him for years over people he loves? The show can act like then being family means something, but I just don't see it. It just feels like cheap pathos to me. At least before he meets Zod, he has no positive or negative relationship to build off of from the start.

 

It's very different to me. With Tal-Roh having grown up on Earth just like Kal, it makes him into more a "dark mirror" type of character - sort of the Tommy Elliot to his Bruce, so to speak. Something Kal could've been if he hadn't been found by the Kents, and if he hadn't been a product of Lara choosing love over her arranged match. Which I find much more interesting than the Kryptonian military wing finding it's way to Earth, which is essentially what Zod represents - your basic fanatical Kryptonian nationalist.

Kal having to choose between Earth and his Kryptonian heritage is gonna come with the territory ANY time you have a Kryptonian villain, but that doesn't make all those stories the same. There are many Kryptonian villains with many different goals/motivations. What the Eradicator does is not what Zod would do. Zod's a conqueror - he would simply kill/subjugate the people of Earth by force. Tal-Roh believes he is giving the humans the easy choice to "ascend" into Kryptonians. It's almost like a spiritual reincarnation thing, preserving the souls of Krypton through "willing" hosts. And his motivations are clearly more personal. As a character, in terms of personality, he is just not Zod at all, imo. He's much more...sad and broken to me. Like a lost, angry, abused child looking for acceptance and validation.

 

I can grant you the point on the dark mirror. But I don't agree on many of the other points. He is only starting with voluntary indoctrination. Clearly conquest is his eventual goal. So I don't see that as anything meaningful to his characterization of being damaged. He is using people until they cannot stop him. The ascension thing is just an excuse to make this world Krypton. And again on the personal front, it still feels like cheap pathos to me. Again....what did the man expect? That Superman would drop his loving wife and children so they can be besties despite them being at odds for years? If this had been a new character or someone Clark had never encountered before, maybe this would work better for me. See an example of the Ice Truck killer in Dexter. Kind of like John Henry Irons did. That reveal was much better for me. There was mystery about him and what he was doing. I could believe this struggle. Maybe they didn't want to do that with 2 characters in 1 season, but in doing it this way, I just don't buy it and it feels like cheap drama. Just saying "How can you abandon your brother" doesn't add anything for me. Why didn't he reveal this years ago in all the years Superman knew him or at least was aware of him? Why start this adversarial relationship if his goal was eventual brotherhood? Why would you expect that to change at the drop of a hat when you were a nemesis of his for years? I am just asking too many questions and I cannot get into this story for that reason. You just cannot act like that past baggage doesn't exist or doesn't matter because "brothers"

But again, that's just me and how I feel.

 

Sorry, but I see a huge difference between wiping out the race that lives on a planet just so that you can terraform it and rebuild on top of it, and wanting the humans who’ve ostracized you your whole life to become like you so that you’re no longer alone or an outcast and can finally feel like you belong. Sure, to the humans it may look the same, but to Tal-Roh (and a lot of the viewers), it makes you a very different kind of beast, imo. This is more Magneto than Zod and I’ll take this less mustache-twirling variety of villain over a Zod type any day, personally.

Also Tal-Roh didn’t know Clark had a wife and kids to ditch until about 5 minutes ago, so that was hardly a part of his plan/goals lol. And when he found out, he was appalled because he can’t see humans that way. When Clark sees humanity, he sees Lois, and all the good. When Tal-Roh sees them, he sees his primitive abusers. He cannot fathom loving humans as they are. So yes, that last plea in the fortress was an especially desperate one because he just straight-up couldn’t understand how Clark could do that. Notice that he didn’t threaten to kill Clark’s family to his face - he threatened to tell the world about them so that Clark would likely have to choose to leave them and be an outsider again like him. He only threatened to kill Lois once he was at the farm and was raging at her for ruining his own chance at family.

And finally, the “brother” thing matters to me because it’s one-sided. Tal-Roh was indoctrinated with a very specific notion of “family” that even Clark’s own Kryptonian parents rejected. It’s all about genetics to him, because that’s why he was created (I’m not saying “born” because I still have my suspicions he’s a science experiment). What matters to Clark is that it’s given him a connection to Lara that he never had before. Through this storyline, he has gotten to know his Kryptonian mother for the first time, and got to know beyond a doubt that even before he met the Kents, he came from love. So to me, knowing that Lara defied her genetic match and chose Jor-El for love his huge for him. It’s a way to show him that Kryptonians aren’t as unlike us as they probably seemed to him before. And through Tal-Roh, he may still yet be able to have a connection with her, as thanks to her, he now believes there may be a better nature in him to appeal to. It’s not the simple “he’s my brother so now I care” reveal that you’re making it out to be, SF. It adds a lot of complexities to Clark’s (and our) understanding of Tal-Roh’s motivations, as well as Clark’s own understanding of where he came from and the people who sent him here. That’s a well worthwhile story to tell, imo, and it’s got me riveted. But different strokes.

 

What he is doing is effectively mind control or host possession. That isn't preserving the human race in any way. That is still a form of conquest. Which no doubt will become more overt as he obtains more under his watch. Eventually the Kryptonians will be the only ones in those bodies. That is the eventual goal. I don't see this as a Magneto struggle. Magneto is someone persecuted by life and fighting for others born like him. Sure, Edge was persecuted and experimented on for having powers. But he isn't fighting for an oppressed people. He is fighting for the survival of a race long dead. That is much more similar to Zod than Magneto.

On the Superman front, even if he is unaware that he didn't have a wife and such, he is a person who Superman has muddled in his affairs for years. He has been able to observe Superman in the media. Superman having compassion and love for humanity isn't something that should surprise him. Maybe Superman doesn't say he was raised in Kansas, but in all the interviews I am sure he did since Superman has been a public figure for years, I am sure he said at least he had wonderful parents. It isn't like Edge is new to the Earth and doesn't understand people. Quite the opposite. He demonstrates that he does. Hence why he is good at manipulating people to doing what he wants. If he wasn't portrayed as a master manipulator on one hand but was some socially awkward guy or something, this disconnect may make sense. But he is not. He has been portrayed as a cold and rational person. So, Superman's compassion for humanity should be obvious to him as should it being unlikely Superman would help him in effectively killing the very people he saves multiple times a day. Honestly, I would have preferred if he went straight to mind control and skipped the typical "I want to do this together" thing. Say he is making him the brother he always wanted or something. It would be more in line with this type of character

As for him finding out he was sent there out of love, I also don't buy this. He already knows this. He has talked to his father for many years and he knows why he sent him to Earth. Again, this is nothing new and not covering new ground. Sure, he got to have a proper conversation with his mother and that is cool, but that isn't really relevant to his relationship to his former enemy now brother.

If these were characters meeting for the first time and starting on a new foundation, then this would have merit. But this isn't that. They have observed one another for years. They know their actions. They have demonstrated who they are, and I don't think this offers anything complex or requires Superman to re-examine his life.

 

I do want to emphasize though, this is just my opinion. If people like the way the story is playing out and love the show, then that is cool. I am just being vocal over elements of the show I personally don't like and think could have been done a lot better. In the end, I am personally frustrated about this because I was enjoying the show before it went this direction. So naturally, I am voicing my own personal displeasure

 

The host/possession thing is very much like the vampires in Buffy to me, minus the whole “inherently evil” part: a demon/Kryptonian sets up shop in their body but still retains memory/knowledge of the life before. But they’re now uber-powerful and possibly immortal. The Kryptonians/vampires see this merely as an upgrade, not a loss of self. Hell, even some humans still saw it that way on Buffy, even with the “inherently evil” part. Of course that’s a twisted and wrong way to look at it, but I can see their POV, and I maintain its VERY different from Zod’s POV, especially when you factor in Tal-Roh’s personal motivations.

As for Edge, I don’t believe he ever met Superman until their first encounter in the recent episode. So it’s not a case of “he’s been meddling in his affairs for years.” If you eliminate knowledge of Clark from the equation, Tal-Roh would’ve seen Supes on TV helping people as a case of “I’m all alone on this world, I might as well make the people of this world like me, because they’re all I’ve got.” Tal-Roh basically can’t grasp the notion of Supes choosing/loving his found family, because he was never exposed to that concept as a valid thing, on Krypton or here. To him, blood/genetics are everything.

And sorry, but no, nothing he ever got from Jor-El’s hologram could ever properly convey who his Kryptonian parents really were. It was an impressive A.I., but still just an A.I. at the end of the day. That’s just not how people work. If it were me, that connection to Lara would have been priceless. This connection has given him so much more than he’s ever gotten before, imo.

Sorry it’s not working for you SF, but I just can’t relate to your complaints on this one. This story is so far giving me pretty much everything no Supes story has ever done in live-action. And if the worst thing it has going for it is that “it’s using well-worn genre tropes” then, frankly I don’t see a problem at all, considering ALL superhero properties do that. If you use those tropes to tell such a heartfelt story as this one, I say go for it.

 

I dont see it that way at all. In this show when the Kryptonians have come out, the people have blacked out and not been home and haven't remembered what happened. That is possession to me, not Buffy esque.

They may not have met, but they clearly had history based on the first episode. Lois and Clark both knew who he was and all that. The history def felt like it was there.

As for his parents, yeah an AI is not a person. But think of it more like watching a video of your parents talking to you after they die or something. The emotion is all there. The message is there. This is just an AI he can communicate with, but same concept: they explained why he was sent there and that they loved him. I don't see how it not being physical is any less meaningful than my video example.

Superhero things all use tropes, yes. The MCU uses a lot of them, but character motivations and such still have to make sense to me even if you're building off a trope, and that is where I think this falls really flat. For me anyway, and I do wish this show worked better for me. I think I just ain't a CW DC guy at this point. I watched all these until I got to Flash season 3's year and started to actively dislike most of the shows for various reasons. Tried coming back in for Crisis and hated that. Now this being a Superman show I wanted to give it a shot cause I love Superman and I mostly enjoyed it, but this plot just leaves me with a similar sour taste like seeing the Flash only have speedster season big bads and such did. So maybe this just isn't my universe, lol

 

It’s the Kryptonians who retain the human’s knowledge/memories, not the other way around. So it looks to many - on both sides even but especially the Kryptonians - like an upgrade. Even though obviously we know it’s not. It is possession, but really that’s what it was on Buffy, too. But from the POV of the ones doing the possessing, it’s an upgrade, just like it was to the vampires when they turned people. The only difference here is that if somehow someone on Buffy was returned to their original self (which was extremely rare in that ‘verse), they would also retain the memories of what the demon did in their stead (hence Angel’s years of agony over Angelus’ crimes). Here, those who went back to being their old human selves are the ones who “blacked out,” and the Kryptonians ain’t concerned about them, lol. But that’s also a mercy compared to the Buffy version, as they at least don’t have to live with the memories of what they did while the Kryptonian was at the wheel.

I’ve watched first couple eps more times than I can count, and I never got the impression that the “history” with Morgan Edge was anything other than him being a well-known wealthy public figure that Lois was trying to expose as corrupt through her journalism when he bought the Daily Planet. There was no hint yet of the type of nefarious background that would have called for Superman intervening.

As for the other stuff, I think at this point it’s best if we just agree to thoroughly disagree, as I really don’t wanna get into all my issues with the current state of the MCU and why I’d take this over any of their shows thus far, lol.

 

I fail to see any Magneto similarity with the possession angle here. Having the memories of the people isn't some kind of preservation of humanity or anything. We haven't seen any of the human memories make the possessing Krytponians less kill happy or anything. So I don't see this as being meaningful, unless we start seeing Kryptonians start chilling out or something. As of now, I see it as a tactical advantage they can use against people.

Admittedly I only watched each episode 1 time. But these are the impressions I have gotten watching the show, and nothing has indicated to me a miss reading as the show has progressed. So I guess agree to disagree there.

I much prefer the MCU shows at this point. Besides the obvious budget advantages, I think they are just better written and just all around better. I don't hold the effects against the CW shows. They look fine for TV budget. But we can disagree about which is better. It is all good in the neighborhood! We enjoy what we enjoy

 

To the extent that Superman & Lois feels like a fresh/interesting take on an old story, most of that has to do with the grounded “realism” (compared to the other CW/DC offerings) and the family dynamic — i.e. Clark and Lois as a married couple dealing with kids. But in terms of the “villain du jour” that these types of show require, I (frankly) don’t expect much novelty. With Superman, in particular, the options for a believable antagonist are limited: a mortal criminal with kryptonite (i.e., Lex Luthor), a super strong alien (often another Kryptonian) or some kind of generic behemoth (monster, robot, etc.). So I tend to accept/forgive the repetition and self-plagiarism as a genre trope. It’s the natural consequence of retelling the same mythology for 80+ years.

IMO, the relevant issue is this: Notwithstanding the “stock villains” and their requisite Evil Schemes, is the rest of the narrative compelling? For S&L, I’d say yes.

 

The Magneto comparison was about his motivations, not methods - the idea that he’s doing this wanting to make those who’ve persecuted him his whole life into his own kind so that he’s no longer an outsider, but also to spite/punish them at the same time. Sure, Magneto claims these “noble” aspirations of ~helping his oppressed people~, but at the end of the day, much like Thanos, his goals come from a much more selfish, ego-driven place than he’d ever admit.

Agree to disagree on the Marvel shows. So far, except for WandaVision, I find them to be sloppily written and completely soulless marketing exercises, little more than self-congratulatory worldbuilding and meta-references that seem to exist more for the sake of their universe and setting up The Next Thing than for having a story they truly need to tell with these characters, and aside from being dressed up in their obviously fancier budgets, don’t hold a candle to this, so to each their own.

 

Tell us how you really feel about them, lol!!!

 

Dammit, I told you not to get me started on them!

 

How can I resist a challenge?

 

I completely agree with flickchick85 on the Hush parallel. Yes, initially I was reluctant that we are doing another evil Kryptonian plot line (with an original villain, which is usually a massive pet peeve of mine), but Tal-Rho actually feels really fresh in terms of Superman villains. I how he is so blatantly an evil version of Kal-El. He's a what if tale. What if Kal's Kryptonian family were fascists and he was imprisoned and tortured by humans instead of lovingly adopted? He'd probably be pretty messed up and scary. Evil Superman tropes are becoming so overdone lately in other media (Ultra-man, Homelander, Brightburn), so I love that this show is tackling that head on and making the main baddie a literal evil Superman. It makes Superman himself really shine as being such an optimistic and feel good character when contrasted against his half brother.

Also, I love Jor-El in this show. He is so much warmer than the Brando and Crowe versions. Him proudly calling Clark "My son!!!" when they first met made me so happy, and I also loved how he emphatically called out Tal-Rho for enslaving innocent humans to Kryptonian minds. After the morally ambitious Job-El we were stuck with on Smallville (who literally brainwashed and killed innocent human beings), seeing one who is so clearly a force for good has been so refreshing.

 

First episode I havent really enjoyed so far, hope things can get back on track.