REVIEW: Superman & Lois – Season 3, Episode 4, “Too Close to Home”

Television Reviews

For most of its run time, “Too Close to Home” is tedious, focusing on family drama that isn’t as compelling as the show seems to think it is, retreading plot elements and themes and conflicts that likely won’t be going away anytime soon. But in its last ten or fifteen minutes, it finally does something interesting, turning the three main plots on their heads and finding novel solutions that are genuinely surprising.

Clark warns the boys not to agitate Lois while she rests between cancer treatments. Jon confronts Candice’s father. Sarah refuses to talk to Lana as Kyle tries to mend fences. John Henry investigates his doppelganger’s sister and her connection to Intergang. Sam tries to teach Jordan about the sacrifices that come with heroism.

The opening scene of “Too Close to Home” finds Superman in the middle of a forest fire, rescuing people from falling tree trunks, with Jordan lending a hand. He’s interrupted when he hears Lois cry out, and Jordan advises him to help her while he puts out the fire. This is a good way to start, and not only because it’s a way of hooking people into a fairly quiet episode with an exciting scene; it also sets up the theme that permeates each of the storylines. Superman is caught between his family and his duty, and Jordan makes him understand that, to tend to both, the mightiest man in the universe needs to accept help. Clark is having a difficult time accepting that his son is growing up, but when he allows Jordan to take the reins of the fire rescue, Jordan does it. That Lois’ big emergency was a dropped glass is a precursor to their conflict.

***SPOILERS***

That’s right; “Too Close to Home” is another “Clark doesn’t trust Lois enough, just because you’re Superman you don’t get to fill-in-the-blank, girl power” episode. Clark is worried about Lois because she’s his wife and she has cancer, so of course, he’s a monster. He tells Jon and Jordan not to make too much noise or bring their problems to their mom, and Lois is angry when she hears about it because she can do anything at all times, and cancer is little more than a bed sore to her. My biggest gripe with Superman & Lois is how insufferable Lois tends to be. She’s nasty, condescending, ungrateful, and often acts like a teenager when dealing with her own teenagers. She’s also not as bright as Lois Lane usually is, and she makes giant, boneheaded mistakes that she rarely admits and never thanks whoever fixes them. All of these faults are on full display this week.

Okay, I get it; she feels helpless in the face of her illness, and she lashes out at Clark and whoever else tries to help her because admitting she needs help is difficult for her. People can be like that in real life, and it’s hard for everyone involved. But how many times can the series go over this same theme in one season? It would be one thing if it manifested in different ways, which is what a good show does – and that includes Superman & Lois, which accomplished this quite well in the last two seasons. But now, Lois is constantly slapping away the hands that are trying to help her, and it’s grating. A week ago, she refused to go to her chemotherapy treatments, and somehow, she wonders why everyone thinks she needs their help. Now, she’s mad that Clark is trying to take on as much of the parenting responsibility as he can because having a loving and supportive husband is a burden to her.

So, like the imbecilic child she is, Lois decides to tackle Jon’s problem head-on. Jon’s adventure with grand theft auto from last week comes out when Candice’s father confronts him and gives him a black eye for saying he stole Jon’s car, which is so obviously true he might as well be twirling the keys. So, Lois’ bright idea – after yelling at Jon and Jordan for getting the car back – is to confront the car-stealing drug dealer and tell him to leave her boys alone. This goes hilariously wrong when he shows her a gun stuck in his waistband and tells her what he’ll do to her or her kids if they come near him again. Here’s the best part, though: not only did this blow up in her smug face, but she brought Jon and Jordan with her and told them to wait in the car! She put her kids in the very danger she admonished them for putting themselves in five minutes ago. This Lois is kind of dumb.

The subplots follow a similar pattern. Sarah is mad at Lana for giving her the hearty face slap she’s richly deserved for a long time, and she’s staying with Kyle, refusing to take her mother’s calls or answer her texts. Lana is sorry and hates herself for doing what everyone watching the show must want to do on a weekly basis, whereas Sarah, of course, has no remorse for being a miserable, selfish brat. She won’t talk to her mother, and she won’t even allow her father to help bridge the gap between them. Meanwhile, John Henry meets his doppelganger’s sister, Darlene, to find out how his counterpart is related to Intergang. They share a great moment where they connect as siblings, but she ultimately asks him to stay away, not wanting the burden of someone who looks and acts like her brother but isn’t really him. She rebuffs his offer to help keep Intergang away from her. This last one is easily the best of the three stories because Darlene’s reaction to John Henry is understandable; of course, seeing her dead brother freaks her out, even if she understands it’s not really him – perhaps even because she knows it isn’t him. (I also like that she automatically understands that he’s from an alternate universe; these people have seen too much to dismiss these things out of hand.)

But here’s the twist: it turns out that the men were right all along! Clark solves everything by finding Candice’s father at the diner, applying some restrained-because-he’s-Superman pressure, and letting him know what will happen if he ever comes near Lois and the boys again. So the little thug leaves town at a clip, and Candice comes to stay with the Kents. (Have you already visualized the inevitable stern talking-to when Lois and/or Clark find her and Jonathan getting a little too familiar with each other?) Kyle puts Lana and Sarah back together by making them both realize how they hurt the other (not that Sarah thinks she did anything wrong; God, I hate this character). And when Intergang kidnaps Darlene and straps a bomb to her to get John Henry to comply with them, he uses his Steel tech to find her and rescue her. This is great; it shows that men are necessary in a family, that sometimes a father or brother knows best, and that the women constantly whining about trust need to throw a little towards the guys in their life once in a while. It would have been nice if Lois acknowledged this for half a second, but we knew that wouldn’t happen.

Does this resolution make up for the rest of “Too Close to Home”? A little bit, I suppose, but it doesn’t make the first three-quarters any easier to sit through. There are some other bright spots, though. I liked the small D-plot with Jordan and Sam, particularly because of what it says about respecting a man who served his country and the honor of passing down that service to each generation, even if it takes a different form in the modern era (and in a superhero show). Seeing Steel rough up Bruno Manheim is satisfying, even if the tables turn by the end of the scene; we’re slowly coming to understand how dangerous Manheim is.  Superman burning the last of his blood right in front of the general was GREAT, even more so because of Sam’s little smile. And I love that Clark’s moment with Candice’s dad ends with him apologizing to the rest of the diner’s patrons for interrupting their meals. There’s good stuff here, but it’s a slog to get through much of it, and this season still hasn’t hit its stride.