Clark finds himself in an impossible situation, leading to some unexpected choices. Jonathan tries to do the right thing. Sarah reaches out to a friend. Dean goes low in the ongoing Mayoral campaign.

So Superman is now locked up on charges of treason, by the very government department for which he has been tirelessly working for years. And it isn’t even his mirror self. Anderson has clearly started to lose the plot, and that becomes more and more obvious as the episode progresses. There’s some dark stuff here, including some which feels all the more disturbing given what we know in the real world about how the US Military and intelligence communities have conducted ‘interrogations’ in the recent past. Disappointingly, the show doesn’t really have a lot to say on that score, preferring a narrative that Anderson is just a bad egg in an otherwise decent organisation, and preferring to dwell on Sam’s guilt at having been the one who recommended him for the job. To be fair, there’s a lot this show does very well, so I’ll not mark it down too much on this one, but it merits raising.

Meanwhile, Lois is of course going out of her mind at the news that her husband is locked up as a traitor to the country, and certainly doesn’t need any other issues adding to her plate, so when Jonathan finds himself in serious trouble, safe to say she doesn’t take it well.

Interestingly, having had Jonathan act out a lot over the past few episodes, the writers manage to turn this one around nicely so we can sympathise with him, ably assisted by Jordan Elsass’ fantastic performance in the role. Jonathan never really struck me as the kind of person to do what he’s been doing, but here we start to get some insight as to why, and more importantly we see him step up to do what he thinks is right, even in spite of what it stands to cost him. And if that doesn’t cement him as absolutely being the son of Kal-El, I don’t know what else could.

And speaking of Supes himself, he’s locked up with his brother, which is about as fun as you might expect given Tal-Rho/Morgan Edge’s propensity to talk. But again what’s interesting here is that we get another insight into Rho as a character, and it’s more rounded and nuanced than you might expect. Adam Rayner has always relished the more vicious side of the character in his performances, but he’s also very good at drawing out the other side as well. Rho remains an imperfect, often unkind person, but we understand what eh endured at the hands of his father and here we are starting to see that there may well be more of his mother in him as well than we had imagined. I look forward to seeing where the show decides to take this in the recently confirmed third season.

As for the Lang-Cushing household, things are tough. Lana is still wrestling with her feelings about Kyle’s betrayal, but the ongoing Mayoral campaign doesn’t care and Dean is taking every opportunity to air her family’s dirty laundry for her. Funnily enough, it’s when someone else turns to her for help and advice in their hour of need that Lana realises exactly how she can fight back. Sarah meanwhile is caught between wanting to speak to her father and wanting to remain loyal to her mother, and reaches out to a friend for some help of her own, which might make things a little awkward all round later down the line.

While the episode has a few flaws – the aforementioned open goal it misses on the military side of things and a fairly rapid devolvement of Anderson with flimsy reasoning – overall it’s another solid entry in the show and certainly has far more positive than negative moments to take away.

Verdict: Even when it’s not quite perfect, it’s still better than most of its competitors. 8/10

Greg D. Smith