The worlds are almost merged and all hope seems lost, but Clark hasn’t quite given up just yet.

I feel like I say it almost every week but there is a lot going on in this episode, and unfortunately (and unusually) it means that things start to feel a little rushed and events which should get more attention just get hand-waved past.

Last week, the team put on a stellar example of doing a whole hour of a Superman show with no Superman in it. This week, faced with the task of tying off the whole season and setting up intrigue and plot threads for season 3 it can’t help but feel that they drop the ball slightly.

Picking up exactly where we left off, the worlds are merging, meaning that people from both are finding themselves ‘blipping’ into their opposite places, which is a nice idea that doesn’t really get a lot done with it. There’s a bit where both the Kents and the Cushing-Langs are desperately searching for a missing member of their respective families but there’s never really much done with it and then when one of them gets ‘substituted’ by their opposite turning up they basically just stand there saying and doing nothing.

Natalie’s equipment meanwhile, gets a narratively convenient surge which allows half a message to filter through from her father, meaning that now she can go and look for him in the void whereas before she couldn’t because…. plot? If that’s bad, what happens from it is worse, with a fundamental mixup which could spell the end but then gets circumvented really easily.

Clark comes up with a brainwave to stop Ally after Tal-Rho tries and fails in the most obvious sequence of events ever, and that plan requires the brothers teaming up. I like this. The show feels like it has earned the redemption of Rho, and Adam Rayner really has sold me on the character’s arc from ruthless villain through troubled victim to guy genuinely seeking redemption. My issues are: 1. Clark’s plan is dumb and 2. Tal immediately vanishes afterward and we don’t see him again until the very end of the episode in a lead in for season 3 which I feel like I would have liked to see more explanation of.

And then amongst all of this and a hundred other things going on, suddenly the Big Threat is over, and there’s still nearly half the episode left to go. And thus begins the setup for Season 3, with surprising cameos, a re-ordering of certain characters on the board and other hooks being put in place. None of this is bad, and nor for that matter is most of the action (dumb plans aside). My issue is that it all feels like it should and could have been given more room to breathe. This could easily have been two episodes, or at the very least an extended season finale, which would have given us more space for things to play out. Instead, we end up with something that’s good enough without being especially great, and which feels unfairly jammed into a smaller space than it rightly merits. And that just feels like a letdown for what has easily been one of the standout shows in its genre.

Verdict: Lets itself down by trying to do too much in too little time. Good, but not great. 7/10

Greg D. Smith