Superman & Lois seems to have taken the decision to jump in with both feet, even though this is only the third episode. In a bit of an uneven manner, ‘The Perks of Not Being A Wallflower’ goes much further than we’d expect at this stage, and should possibly slow down a bit. *Warning! Spoilers Ahead!*
Following on from relativity gentle introduction and examination of Jordan’s (Alex Garfin) powers last week, the main storylines this week seem much more dramatic and also divergent. There is a clear split between the home life issues and a much more explosive Lois (Elizabeth Tulloch) plotline that seems build up to a crescendo out of nowhere.
The Jordan story is much more what you would expect at this stage of the series, with him beginning to get comfortable at school. Clark (Tyler Hoechlin) ruins it by keeping tabs on both Jordan and Jonathan (Jordan Elsass) using his superhearing and breaking their trust in him. From here though they go further very quickly with Jordan deciding to try out for the football team to push back against the bullies he’s encountered. Emboldened by having some extra strength due to his limited powers, you can understand him wanting to try something like this, but where it falls slightly flat is that they race through some of the issues.
This may be because we’ve seen very similar scenes in ‘Smallville’ in the past, so there is a little bit of retreading old ground. It would have been interesting though to see some intermediate stages of him experimenting with his powers, rather than going full on into playing football and suddenly becoming friends with people who were his enemies 5 minutes earlier. It felt very rushed and because of that there are surely some nuances and details that will be missed.
Unlike ‘Smallville’, there is the issue of what Jonathan thinks about all of this though. There was never a jealousy issue initially in ‘Smallville’, so this is an area that could really be tapped into as a source of some significant drama. This sort of gets brushed off quite quickly however, so we have to hope they revisit this. Similarly, Clark’s eavesdropping has the same fate and is dealt with in one brief scene. These interpersonal issues surely need more of an examination.
Like the school side of the plot, Lois’ investigation of Morgan Edge (Adam Rayner) in ‘The Perks of Not Being A Wallflower’ escalates very rapidly, putting half a season’s developments, at least from a proportional response point of view, into one episode. At the beginning of ‘The Perks of Not Being A Wallflower’ Lois decides she will investigate Morgan Edge after all, and before we know it, her car has been firebombed and there’s been an attempted murder by super-villains. It’s so over the top and reactionary, that going by these turn of events, Morgan Edge must try to murder anyone who looks him up in the phone book.
It makes little sense that such extreme reactions would occur so quickly, and you would normally expect there to be some basic investigating done for a few episodes before a firebombing. The residents of Smallville and the surrounding towns must therefore hate Lois, as you can’t imagine there’s been anything like it in town for a long time, if at all.
On the positive side, the relationships between all the characters are being well portrayed and this group of actors has a great rapport. Obviously, we’ve seen Hoechlin and Tulloch in these roles for a while, but Elsass and Garfin have really taken to this quickly, and convincingly portray the siblings. Equally, the addition of Inde Navarrette as their friend Sarah gives it an interesting dynamic, especially as she is troubled like Jordan.
These aspects are new for a Superman show, and we haven’t seen anything exactly like this approach to mental health in previous incarnations. While some elements have been dealt with before, it was much more on a ‘fatherly advice’ level than delving deeper into psychology. Acknowledgement of this is interesting and Lana’s (Emmanuelle Chriqui) emotional chat with Sarah is the kind of thing that tells you it’s a more modern approach than before.
This show seems to be trying to find the right balance and rhythm to mark itself out from other versions of Superman, but it hasn’t quite figured it out just yet. With any luck there will be a way to handle all the new and unique elements they have here, without the dramatic shifts that are evident in this episode. Once it finds that balance Superman & Lois has all the potential to carve out its own path, as it has the cast and the characters it needs.
Superman & Lois airs on The CW on Tuesdays.
