Superman and Lois season 3, episode 13 review: What Kills You Only Makes You Stronger

“What will Lex Luthor do next?” Spoilers for Superman and Lois season 3, episode 13 follow.

Still reeling from Lex threatening her, Lois tries to continue on with her life with the assurance that Superman is watching over her.

Meanwhile, Lex continues with his plan to kill Superman.

Here’s everything that happened in the Superman and Lois season 3 finale, “What Kills You Only Makes You Stronger”.

Superman and Lois season 3 episode 13 review

Waiting

Based on the beginning of this episode, Luthor hasn’t been seen or heard from in over a month after threatening Lois at the end of the previous episode. It’s small, but it’s nice to actually have a confirmed time jump between the end of last episode and the beginning of this one, because the best parts of this episode wouldn’t work without that knowledge. Because of that knowledge of that time jump, it’s not weird for them not to focus completely on Luthor, but once they feel like he has actually just disappeared, the Judge that Lois connected with earlier in the season is murdered right in front of the Daily Planet. It’s clear that Lex is sending Lois a message, as he then has an operative catfish Sam and kidnap him, luring Superman to exactly where he wants him.

The real part of this plan though comes from the fact that Lex has been holding Bizarro hostage and is prepared to use him to kill Superman. But the thing is, Lex discovers that Bizarro is becoming Doomsday by killing him over and over again, just like he was originally teased as in season 2. So, once we see him at his full powers, and this is a nitpick criticism, he’s not spiky enough. However, hows he’s created and how imposing he looks on screen is executed incredibly well, that it makes the nitpick very forgivable.

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Intimacy

With Lex on the backburner for them, Clark and Lois are intimate for the first time since her surgery. CW shows might be known for using sex as a plot point too much, but this is a completely different story as the moment is very poignant and beautiful. Both Tyler Hoechlin and Bitsie Tulloch are incredible in this scene and show how much the love between Clark and Lois transcends physicality. It’s a powerful moment for Lois too as she reclaims autonomy over her body.

After a season of teasing it as well, John Henry and Lana finally get together. They’ve been cute together every time they’ve interacted this season, so it’s nice to finally have that plot thread handled.

Lack of focus

The problem with this episode though is that it focuses on the wrong things. Instead of focusing on Luthor and everything surrounding him, which is the A-plot of the episode, there’s too much time spent on other things, mainly the relationship  aspects of the supporting characters. So much of it feels like the writers knew that they were needing to write off basically every character on the show besides the Kents and Luthor, so they were trying to build reasons why they would leave next season. Lana, John, Sarah, and Nat May go to Metropolis. Sam is probably killed. And Kyle and Chrissy go off with their child. However, most of these are just uninteresting, slow, and really take away from the great parts of the episode.

However, once the episode forgets about all of that and focuses on Luthor and Doomsday, “What Kills You Only Makes You Stronger” is great. The montage of Luthor killing Bizarro in a myriad of ways is wonderfully sadistic. Plus, once Doomsday actually begins to fight Superman, it’s incredible. A bit too dark at first, but once they get to Metropolis, it’s tense, scary, and brutal. It’s too bad that the season ends with them fighting on the moon as a cliffhanger. Hopefully season 4 will begin right there though.

While a bit of a disappointing season finale, the ending of the finale really made it a great end to Superman and Lois season 3 as a whole.

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