Superman & Lois: The Perks of Not Being a Wallflower

Superman & Lois 1.3:  The Perks of Not Being a Wallflower

On this week’s episode, Lois continues her investigations of Morgan Edge, the boys continue to adjust to school in Smallville, and some new foils for Superman emerge. Here’s a summary as well as my thoughts on the episode:

**Spoilers ahead**

Jordan starts school and is immediately bullied by Sarah’s boyfriend and others, causing him to almost lose control of his powers again. Clark shows up and disperses the situation before anything too bad could happen, but this of course leads to more conflict between him and the boys. As if having a parent suddenly show up at school to get you out of a social jam wasn’t bad enough, it turns out Clark knew there was a problem because he was eavesdropping on the boys, which of course very much violated their trust.

The discussion of Clark’s super hearing here was interesting – he can apparently hear everything that happens in the whole world, but has learned to selectively tune into certain things, such as people in distress. While this made for a good plotline on trust and privacy, it doesn’t make a lot of sense because in a world of 6 billion people, someone *always* is going to be in distress, so how come Superman isn’t constantly busy? Even if he limited his help to only situations involving multiple people, that still should be more than even Superman can handle. It also begs the question of why Lois and the boys need the Superman pager thing when seemingly he would be able to hear them if they yelled for him… but, I guess we just have to suspend some disbelief here.

Anyway, having someone able to listen in on your conversations at any time, no matter where you are, would be a very unsettling thing for anyone and almost destroyed Clark’s relationship with Lois as we learn. For a teenager,  this knowledge could be catastrophic. While Jonathan and Jordan seem to be handling all the Superman revelations with relative grace for teenagers, it seems likely that all the trust issues will not be easily resolved and the show is likely building to some bigger showdown between the boys and Clark.

Spurred by the bullying, Jordan decides to try out for the football team. Courtesy of a combination of his pent up anger and potentially some super strength, he surprises everyone by making the team and earning the respect of his teammates in the process. However, his involvement with the team concerns his family who worry that he might lose control of his powers and that he didn’t join the team for the right reasons. Jonathan, in particular, seems both astonished and a bit resentful at being upstaged by his brother when he himself hadn’t been able to break through with the team. The situation is resolved with a compromise for Clark to join the team as a coaching assistant to keep an eye on things.

We also got a bit of a window into Lana and Sarah’s family. Apparently, Lana and Kyle are having plenty of marital issues (not at all surprising as Kyle is a real tool) and both kids are acting out. Sarah breaks up with her boyfriend and quits cheer squad, causing Lana to worry that her mental health is becoming critical. Eventually, she admits to Lana that she attempted suicide because she felt trapped in her life in Smallville and didn’t want to grow up into a life like her mother’s. Ouch!

Teenagers weren’t the only ones working on their adjustment to Smallville in this episode. Lois starts to become very aware of the limitations of the Smallville Gazette compared to The Daily Planet. Luckily, before she can get too discouraged, she is approached by a woman with information on Morgan Edge. The woman’s son was a miner at one of Edge’s properties and disappeared after leaving a rather suspicious voicemail for his mother. This information is exactly what Lois is looking for, although her editor is much less convinced. Obviously, someone else thinks that Lois should drop the story as a Molotov cocktail is thrown at her car.

Worried for the informant’s safety, Lois goes to her place and interrupts an intruder who was trying to kill her. She calls Superman for help and it turns out that the intruder was not your average home invader and he gives Superman a lot of trouble before escaping. Superman rushes the informant to a hospital.

I’m getting a bit worried about Lois as she is under a lot of stress between her sudden career adjustment and being the arbitrator between the boys and Clark as they adjust to the new parameters of their relationships. We’ve seen her drinking quite a bit of wine, seemingly trying to cope. I’m not sure there is really an adequate amount of wine to deal with leaving your dream job, moving to a decrepit small town, parenting two teenagers, and oh, being married to Superman. I hope that we see Lois finding healthier ways to deal with it all. However, I’m starting to wonder if the writers are foreshadowing a substance abuse plot for her.

Back to the episode…it got really interesting in the last moments! We see the informant’s assailant check in with someone else and then drive out of town. He is then stopped by a mysterious woman standing in the middle of the road who incinerates him with her heat vision.

Who was the man and who does he work for? And ditto for the woman! Neither of them seems to be related to Captain Luthor and the man would seem to have been working for Morgan Edge. Is the woman good or evil?

Overall, a very good episode and I’m very much looking forward to next week!

The next episode of Superman & Lois can be see on The CW on Tuesday, March 16, at 9pm and streamed from The CW site or app the next day. Check out our other coverage of Superman & Lois here.