Superman and Lois Episode 4: Haywire

Spoilers Ahead: Beware.

A lot is going on in this week’s episode of Superman & Lois, aptly titled Haywire. Meta-humans, X-kryptonite, a radical anti-Superman mad scientist. To put it bluntly, Clark has a lot on his plate this week. Being Superman ain’t easy; neither is being a good dad or a good husband. Trying to balance all three is difficult, and that’s the point of Clark’s arc this episode. He has been taking a lot of time to be there for his family, but according to grandpa General Lane (Dylan Walsh), that’s just no good. Dylan Walsh is really channeling that angry old man energy because I can’t stand him, General Lane. Almost everything he says holds some truth, but the lack of empathy is par for an older generation of men still holding onto duty over everything else. He tells Superman he needs to show his face in Metropolis more because evil is noticing his absence. He requests he handle a prison transfer of one of Clark’s dangerous enemies, Thaddeus Killgrave, a minor Superman rogue.

General Lane tries really hard to drill his mindset into the twins, who are doing a lot better socially. According to him, their super dad needs to focus on saving the world, and he goes as far as telling his two grandsons to leave him alone. Thanks, Grandpa. That quickly bites him in the ass when the twin’s classmate, Tag, a fellow footballer, who has been sidelined with an injury from a bonfire explosion, gets powers. The kid is on the fringes of freaking out, and he is showing meta-human abilities. At a party, things take a turn for the worse, and Jonathan goes out of his way to try to help him. Jordan tries to help because Grandpa says calling their dad is the wrong call. Meanwhile, their dad is being attacked by Killgrave. Using a sonic blaster to attack Superman where it hurts the most, his hearing. Remember how he can literally hear almost every sound on earth? Yeah, that must hurt. However, he hears his boys crying out for help, and he quickly dispatches Kilgrave and rescues them.

The show makes a great effort to weave these three stories in and out, making sure the viewers know everything that’s going on with the family. Lois is dealing with Morgan Edge, who is definitely up to no good. She struggles to deal with some legal red tape and needs Clark to show up during a town meeting to help deal with it. Of course, he is super busy, so it fails. And you’d expect the show to have Lois super upset and ready to argue at Clark for not being there, but she is so incredibly reasonable. So much so that Clark is trying to get her to be mad at him. The two actors really have great chemistry together, and it just feels like a proper mature conversation about priorities. She communicates the issue, and Clark does his best to try to rectify them. She clearly understands the struggle he is facing, and Clark doesn’t take that for granted. He tries to make it up to her later and it’s incredibly romantic. Communication is key, folks. Now, if only the in-laws were as easy to talk to because General Lane is now plotting against Superman. He is still mulling over those dog tags the still missing Captain Luthor gave him. Superman has given him no reason to have these suspicions. It’s incredibly dumb to see him start to doubt his own son-in-law enough to prepare a secret government anti-Superman project. Oh no, you love your kids too much, you’re at home too much; clearly, you’re becoming evil, Clark. You must be a bad father like me, Superman! It’s ridiculous and the weakest part of this plot.

Unfortunately, Morgan Edge gets a huge win this episode. We find out he is looking for X-Kryptonite. A radiated mineral that was formed when Superman first landed on Earth. We saw some land at the beginning of the episode, and now we see how he has a whole surplus of them after acquiring the mines. This rock is what gave Tag his powers, so it’s probably what gave Morgan Edge his superpowered assistant Leslie. My guess is Captain Luthor gets his hands on some of that down the line and ends up being a real thorn in Clark’s side. Hopefully not because what this family really needs is a vacation, and the show only just started.