First off, there's exactly zero evidence that this show doesn't take place on Earth Prime outside of writers/showrunners statements. Sam Lane saying Superman is this Earth's only hero is actually pretty easy to explain away. The way I took it in the episode is "That's a weird line, but maybe he means he's the only hero that can help *in the current moment*, so okay, I'll allow that". But think about it for a moment. Flash is dealing with Negative Forces stuff and is probably planning Iris's funeral; the Legends are in time jail; Black lightning retired; Oliver Queen's dead; and Batwoman... I quit watching three episodes into season 2, but I can only assume there's a reason she's not trying to help out outside of the fact that she's a street-level hero with exactly zero experience splitting apart two universes that merge together. That just leaves Kara Zor-El and J'onn J'onnz from Supergirl. Kara's trying to live a normal life, and J'onn's supposed to have a kid with Miss Martian, so maybe he's chillin' on Mars. And based on the other evidence this episode gives us, there's always a chance they all just got warped into the Bizarro World during the fusion too. Compound that with the Diggle crossover from season 1 (and here as well by the way), the fact that the Kent family knows about Crisis on Infinite Earths (which you had to participate in to know the details of because Martian Manhunter had to go messing around inside everyone's brains to restore their pre-crisis memories), and the existence of John Henry Irons on this show, and you get an insufficient amount of evidence to say that S&L takes place on a separate Earth. There's a reason innocent until proven guilty exists, right?
Now that I've gotten my customary rant out of the way, let's actually talk about the episode.
This second season has been a step down from season 1 in almost every way. It's almost like by making it not be a part of the Arrowverse made the writing quality drop, and if that's not the definition of irony, I don't know what is. This episode had a surprisingly great setup with the worlds beginning to merge and things getting displaced, but after all the hype of doppelgangers showing up and trying to merge with people, you'd think that the writers might actually focus on that, right? Or did they blow their entire remaining budget in that cool action scene where Clark goes to the sun, rips Not Parasite in half, and then splits the two Earths back to being separate? I'm not saying Kara has to show up, I'm saying that there's probably doppelgangers trying to merge with people and we should've gotten an action scene with Natalie, Jordan, or even Tal-Rho trying to stop Ally's followers.
Instead of something actually interesting happening, Lois, Sam Lane, and Kyle Cushing get warped to the Bizarro world and... Do absolutely nothing for the entire episode. I mean, we do get an alright conversation between Lois and Kyle, and a cool scene where Bizarro Chrissy uses some kind of device to understand Lois's speech, but that's really all this plot amounts to. It takes up a lot of time in what could've been a really exciting episode, and it's something I did not like. Say what you will about Stargirl's season 2 finale "Summer School: Chapter Three", but they did not let up for one second with the action. And Legends of Tomorrow's (unfortunately) series finale "Knocked Down, Knocked Up" was able to balance the emotional scenes with the action as well. If anything, Legends' finale felt rushed in some places, which is the exact opposite of this episode by the way.
And there really isn't a big climactic battle either. Sure, we get this glorious scene of Clark saving the day, but there's no battle between the remaining members of the superfamily and Ally's followers or anything like that. In its place we get this absolutely stunning scene of Clark flying out of the sun, taking out Not Parasite, and then flying around the planets to separate them. My eyes were glued to the screen, and my mouth was hanging open. That was beautiful! I especially loved how you could see Clark's veins through his skin because of how much energy was pulsating through him at some points. That effect is very Black Lightning-esque (at least season 1 Black Lightning-esque before the CW bled them dry of their entire budget), and it is very cool. The visuals are truly glorious!
But within that beautiful visual, we get one of the most disappointing moments in the entire series. And I really do mean that too. We see Clark, charged with the energy of the sun, force Ally to absorb his powers. He even says "Take some more." And she starts excreting purple energy, and I get so excited because I'm thinking the writers finally pulled the trigger on making her the big purple CGI monster from the comics. And then... Clark rips the two Ally Allston's apart, flies them back down to Earth, and commences with the rest of that beautiful scene. And I'm sorry, but you've been hyping this up for so much of this season that when you finally have the perfect setup to do something about it, you just pull the rug out from under us. Why? This episode showed that you clearly have the budget to go full Parasite with her, so why didn't you? Because that would be something that's actually a really cool way to please the fans of Superman's rogues gallery that you've been cucking since episode 1? Yeah, I'm still not over the John Irons twist. They fixed everything wrong with that twist with Bizarro this season, but then they killed Bizarro basically immediately, so my initial statement still stands.
But you know what? Glass half full. The writers finally fixed one of my biggest complaints about the season. Sarah finally apologizes for cheating on Jordan! I said in my review of "Truth and Consequences" that the difference between Sarah cheating on Jordan and Kyle cheating on Lana is that Kyle showed shame and remorse. He even breaks down crying in this episode because he thinks that being trapped on the Bizarro World is his karma for cheating on Lana. Kyle felt bad about what he did while Sarah went on like everything was business as usual. But in this episode she finally apologizes! Finally! It finally happened! Sarah finally realized that what she did was wrong! I got off the couch screaming when this happened because it genuinely shocked me that the writers finally let her talk about it! Sure, she doesn't get taken to task like Kyle ever did, but she acknowledged it and let Jordan forgive her, so I'll take it!
But then Lana tells Sarah the Kent family's secret, and suddenly I went from being very happy to very angry all at once. Just because Sarah apologized doesn't mean she's off the hook, and it also doesn't mean she can be trusted with a secret that monumentally big! Same with Chrissy. I get that Lois has been keeping a lot of secrets from her, but that's the one secret that you do not tell, Lois. It technically isn't even Lois's secret to tell, but the bigger issue here is that we're approaching modern CW Flash territory of a few too many people knowing Clark's secret. It's actually been refreshing to have villains that don't know our major protagonist's secret for once, so we'll see how long that lasts next season.
Other things to note about the finale I guess, the new Fortress of Solitude is kinda dumb. Clark's fortress wasn't even destroyed, it's just that the DoD knows where it is now, and since Sam is (seemingly) spearheading the DoD again, I don't think people are gonna be going there anytime soon, so why do we really need a new fortress? Also, as awesome as Clark getting thrown into the sun was, it does seem a bit stupid that he survived that and get his powers back. But I'll allow it if it means we get that breathtaking CGI sequence. You could cut Lucy Lane out of the season entirely and basically nothing would change, it just means that the super family would have to be connected to the Inverse Society a different way. Actually, the Inverse Society never really has an impact this season. It would've been interesting to have Sarah or someone else join the Inverse Society during the season. Missed opportunity there.
And finally, X-Kryptonite can do whatever the plot needs it to. It can make an indestructible lacquer for the Steel and Vaporlock suits, it can power said suits, it can store kryptonian consciousness inside it, it can give regular humans kryptonian powers, it can be actual Kryptonite to the kryptonians of the Bizarro World, and it's also apparently explosive enough to destroy a portal between dimensions. Just, wow, there's a lot of stuff this material can do because the plot says so.
Overall, this finale was enjoyable, but it was pretty disappointing. A lot of stuff just happens to take up screen time instead of doing something interesting, we didn't get Parasite, Lana told Sarah the Kent family's secrets and we're all just gonna pretend that it's okay, apparently we can just casually get to and from the Bizarro World whenever we want now (or we're just never gonna see Tal-Rho again which would make me sad), and we have twenty minutes of setup for next season and I just don't find any of it that interesting. I think this finale, while fun, has a lot of problems, not unlike this season as a whole. If Superman and Lois season 1 was the exact show we needed when it was aired, season 2 is a shaky mess that never really knows what it wants to do with itself, and ends with a lot of things bein completely unresolved for a lot of characters. Honestly, where last season's finale made me a Superman fan, this finale reminded me that the show is made by the CW. There may occasionally be something legitimately cool that happens, but the entire network is still this bubble where everything exists in crippling mediocrity, and where good superhero shows go to die.
6 / 10.
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