Superman & Lois season 2, episode 13 review: All is Lost

“There’s just one thing left for us to do. Merge both Earths into one.” Spoilers for Superman & Lois season 2, episode 13 follow.

Ally has found another way to accomplish her goals not that Superman has destroyed the pendant. However, it needs a lot of power in order to do so.

Meanwhile, the fallout of Clark revealing his secret to Lana has begun its ripple effect.

Superman and Lois season 2 episode 13 review

Merge

Now that the pendant is destroyed, Ally can’t do anything else, right? Well, according to her, she can. Instead of merging everyone on each Earth, she’s just cutting to the chase and wanting to merge Bizzaro-Earth onto Earth-Prime. And well, that doesn’t sound all that great. To do that, she comes back to her cult and manages to get Superman there to save Lois, Sam, and Lucy, draining his powers. That’s really the plot of this episode, and it’s done well, but that’s not the actual important part of the episode.

The important part of this episode is seeing Lois and Sam trying to get Lucy out of the cult once again. Unsurprisingly, she won’t listen to anything that they say, despite everything being said being the truth about Ally. Ally has manipulated her feelings of unworthiness and being unloved, despite the opposite being true, into forcing Lucy into becoming someone that she’s not and we really get to see how in this episode.

Seriously, this is such a well-done example of the brainwashing that groups like this can do to the people that they target. Obviously, a show like Superman & Lois won’t go into complete of the brainwashing and abusive behaviors that cults can do, but it’s not really pulling any punches either.

However, Lucy finally sees Ally for what she actually is after Ally almost kills Sam and Superman. And yet again, this pushes the plot forward, but character-wise, it’s so important for her too. It shatters her brainwashed worldview and shows how wrong she’s been, which is a shock to the system that someone in this situation needs to break out of it.

Girl of Steel

Back in Smallville though, John finds Nat’s suit and obviously confronts her about it. He’s her father and is scared for her safety like any parent would be, especially after everything that they’ve been through. He doesn’t want her to end up dead like basically everyone else that they’ve known and the suit only makes him think that she will die. In true fashion, he comes around though, which is probably one of the least surprising things to happen on this show.

However, the true highlight of this is Nat’s arc. It’s been awesome to see her arc as it’s occurred over this season and no matter what’s happened, it’s always felt like an organic arc for her. It’s really been genuinely fantastic. Seeing her go from being the angry loner to building her new family with the Kents to wanting to protect her new world, it’s been a thrill to watch.

And then we get to see her in action for the first time with her dad and, despite the actual context of the scene, which is incredibly dark and serious, it’s hard not just to get a smile on your face seeing them both together in their suits.

Family drama

The thing that could’ve really brought down this episode though would’ve been the family drama with Lana, and it felt like it might have at first. Jordan is still annoyingly pining for Sara (which hits a bit too close home for this writer right now) and it felt like we would get some cringey CW drama when he goes to see Lana. And we don’t. It’s that simple.

It’s a heartbroken kid begging his ex’s mom to let him see her and, with everything going on in her life, Lana is brutally honest. It’s a genuinely brutal scene that feels incredibly real and something that could potentially happen between a teenager and their ex’s parent. Lana reacts as one would expect from anyone in her situation and doesn’t pull her punches. She regrets what she said yes, which is very in character but doesn’t mean that she was wrong to say it.

Superman & Lois continues to be absolutely phenomenal and continues to do so right by all of its characters.