With her sister Lucy revealed as the source for the Podcast, Lois enlists Chrissy’s help to track her down. Clark enlists the help of John Henry to track down his doppelganger. Jordan and Jonathan separately get themselves into trouble.

I thought that Superman & Lois had gone to some dark places in its maiden season, but this episode shows I had absolutely no idea When this writers’ room commits, it really commits, and it’s difficult not to come away from this episode feeling as bruised as our protagonists.

Having established for sure that her sister is indeed the source of the podcast causing all her current career woes, Lois enlists the help of Chrissy to infiltrate a meeting of the ‘cult’ and see if she can get a face to face meeting with Lucy. What’s fascinating here is how the show plays with our expectations on so many levels. It’s not often Lois Lane is caught out, but then she is dealing with her own flesh and blood so maybe those smarts are genetic after all? And Ally Alston sure seems like a bad person leading a kooky cult, but also cleverly the show manages to present her in such a way as to make it apparent why people follow her.

You go into it all very much thinking you’ll know what to expect because it’s Lois Lane, but then the show just up and pulls the rug from under us all with a switcheroo that, while it doesn’t exactly cast her as a villain, certainly undermines a lot of basic assumptions we have about the character. It’s deliciously murky and I can’t wait to see how they deal with it moving forward.

Meanwhile, Clark gets another visit from his doppelganger and only the timely intervention of John Henry helps him survive the encounter. It seems clear from the cheeky title card reversal at the end of last episode and the reversed ‘S’ on the creature’s suit that we are dealing with some sort of mirror Supes situation, but where it’s ultimately going I can’t guess. John manages to fashion a way of tracking him though, and Clark shares this with Anderson, asking him to inform him first when it’s found because he doesn’t believe that Anderson’s team of ‘Super Kids’ (including last season’s Tag) are ready to face his evil twin. But this is Anderson, who’s lost all faith in Superman because he won’t guarantee putting ‘America First’ so of course he does his own thing, with horrific consequences.

Back in Smallville, in one of the lighter moments of the show, Jordan slips up big time when he uses his powers not-so-discretely to foil some attempted shoplifting in full view of the cameras. Thank goodness Grandpa Lane is a retired ex head of the DOD who has retained some great contacts, and the bit of grandfatherly advice he gives is both unexpected and delightful. They’re really getting a lot more mileage out of the character this season than I had expected and Dylan Walsh is obviously having fun with it.

Brother Jonathan meanwhile is skirting a more serious form of trouble. It’s genuinely agonising to watch him considering taking the X-Kryptonite. Jonathan has been such a strong character in the show to date, and has confounded a lot of the expectations you might have of the Jock brother who didn’t get the Super Powers. But I guess he’s also human. Still, incredibly difficult to watch and better as an advert about the dangers of drug use than a thousand after school specials.

And on the subject of Smallville, the mayoral campaign gets nasty as Dean starts digging up dirt on the past of the Lang-Cushings. Kyle and Lana worry about the impact on Sarah, but are then blindsided by a confrontation with Dean which leads to the most crushing moment of the entire episode. Kyle has always seemed a good man, a decent, loyal family man struggling through issues. Undermining that may be the toughest pill to swallow in a show which is ultimately all about family and the ties that bind us. But it certainly seems, as the credits roll, that that’s exactly what the writers are about to do.

Verdict: Dark, emotionally challenging and raw. Just keeps getting better. 10/10

Greg D. Smith