Review: Superman & Lois 1×05 – “The Best of Smallville”
[Editor’s note: This review may contain spoilers!]
Director: Rachel Talalay
Writers: Brent Fletcher and Nadria Tucker (Teleplay), Todd Helbing (Story)
Starring: Tyler Hoechlin, Elizabeth Tulloch, Jordan Elsass, Alex Garfin, Wole Parks
Reviewed by: Steven Brown
Summary
There’s a festival going on in Smallville and Clark is eager to show his family how great the small town life can be. Lois finally meets Lex Luthor and a revelation is made between the two.
Positives
Superman & Lois 1×05 really shows us how great the people of Smallville are. In this episode there’s a time of year called Harvest Fest, where people in Smallville generously donate to others in need all over town. Along with fried foods of every variety and other events, Clark was all too eager to show off his town’s festival to his family. Lois does great in this episode as she is still pursuing a story on Morgan Edge and his obsession with the Smallville mines. A revelation is made here which makes Lois press the story further–which leads her to meet Lex Luthor. However this is the Lex from the destroyed world from Crisis on Infinite Earths. Using the cover story of being a fellow reporter, it seems Lex wants to get closer to Lois for unknown reasons right now. We see briefly that on Lex’s old Earth, he and Lois seemed to be in a relationship. Could it be that Lex wants this relationship back with Earth Prime’s Lois Lane? I never thought of Lex being emotionally attached to anyone, but he has always had a heart for Lois. I’m looking forward to seeing what the writers do with this later in the season.
Negatives
I have no complaints about this episode, as it focused more on the town and how it made Clark the man he is today, and I enjoyed that. We see brief flashbacks to Clark’s struggle as a teenager and Martha’s difficulties in raising him alone. It correlates really well especially when we see Clark trying to relate to his twin sons Jordan and Johnathan later in the episode. Johnathan is still struggling in Smallville and although Clark is trying his best to help and relate to him–its not working at all. Towards the end of the episode Clark and Johnathan do have a bonding moment and seem to grow closer but only time will tell.
Verdict
Superman & Lois 1×05 was a great episode and I’m looking forward to more once the show comes back from it’s brief hiatus. Although we didn’t see much of Superman in this episode until the end, it still made for a great episode. Everyone has a their own story to tell here in Superman and Lois, and I think that’s what makes the show so good. I not only want to see Clark and his family do well, but you actually care about the citizens of Smallville as well and their stories.
