Zod prepares to unleash total obliteration on the rebels on Wegthor, as Seg and Nyssa race to find a way to warn them.

So, Lyta Zod is alive. The one we saw die was a clone which Zod apparently still had to somatically condition to make obedient. Meanwhile the real Lyta was being used as a host for a parasitic hallucinogenic plant from another planet that her son just happened to have brought with him. There was a lot of goodwill required to accept all this last episode, but fortunately the writers deployed it deftly enough to get away with it.

That said, this week there’s so much stuff that hits so well, it hardly matters. Zod’s fleet is ready to be launched, and Seg and Nyssa are desperate to find a way to get to Wegthor and warn the rebels. They get to Wegthor (thanks to another convenient little piece of ex-machina) and Nyssa gets about the reception you’d expect from the rebels considering how badly they were mauled the last time she showed up with information about Zod’s plans. Between that and feeling a little bit discarded by Seg now that his ex isn’t dead after all, a lesser character might just throw their hands up and walk off, but not Nyssa, who here gets some of the best scenes the character has had yet and proves once again why Wallis Day is absolutely the standout member of a very strong cast.

However, when the fleet does arrive, it’s in the form of a single ship, and it’s only got one inhabitant of note – Zod has decided to unleash Doomsday on the rebels to make his point. As you might expect, the results are bloody and destructive, leaving the rebels to enact a truly dangerous scheme to escape and perhaps neutralise this weapon if only for a while. This leads to some truly emotional scenes and an outcome that’s far more destructive than Val intended when he came up with the plan. Perverse as it may sound, it’s nice to have magical space scientist Grandpa come up short occasionally – fallible characters are always more interesting – but as he counts the cost of this particular gaffe, who knows how Val might be affected?

Back on Krypton itself, Jayna and Lyta awkwardly attempt to reconnect. Lyta still feels an extreme amount of guilt for having sided with her son and shot her mother. Jayna, for her part, feels that she’s essentially reaped the whirlwind of the daughter she moulded and is far too happy that she’s alive to think of much else. Dev has his own reservations, but an interesting revelation from him further reinforces my hunch that there’s more to come from his relationship with his former commander.

Most important of all is how Lyta proves the usefulness not just of her resurrection (after having apparently been executed very publicly for all of Kandor to see) but also of her own skillset. Just because she’s been through it, her natural talent and ability with people hasn’t been dimmed one bit. Between her, Nyssa and Jayna, it’s becoming increasingly clear that if this mess is ever to be sorted out, it’s going to be the women doing the lion’s share of the work.

Verdict: By turns dramatic, thought-provoking and genuinely emotional. Still one of the best examples of its particular genre by some way. 9/10

Greg D. Smith