Recap / My Adventures with Superman S1E09 "Hearts of the Fathers"

Original Air Date: August 31st, 2023

Written by: Serena Wu and Jake Wyatt

Clark is eager to bring Lois and Jimmy over to his family home for a yam-tastic Thanksgiving, but Lois' dad Sam has also been invited, and he has a lot of questions for Clark. Will the Kents be able to enjoy their holiday dinner, or will sudden disaster ruin everything?

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Tropes for this episode include:

• Ambiguous Situation: The exact relationship between Brainiac, the unnamed Kryptonian warrior, Nemesis Zero, and Jor-El is left mysterious—the kryptonite kickstarts apparent failsafes on the ship Clark arrived in that suggest a connection to Brainiac, but the actions and attitudes of Jor-El's hologram suggest a certain level of opposition on his part to the group.
• Berate and Switch: When confronting the trio, Perry White tells them that they've brought him more trouble than every other intern they've ever had at the Daily Planet and asks them if they know how they deal with that kind of behavior. He then shows them the new story that credits the three of them and tells them that since they're terrible as interns, he's promoting them to be reporters.
• Bilingual Bonus: Watching the episode with captions turned on translates Jor-El's Kryptonese dialogue, unlike episode two.
• Blatant Lies: Clark claims he simply doesn't have the constitution for being in the army when Sam asks if Clark has ever been in the military. Clark, the most prominent Hunk in the show, is claiming to not be fit enough to join the military.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Jimmy and Lois, regarding whether or not they should show the file containing footage of the alternate Supermen becoming evil to Clark. On one side, Jimmy is right that they did agree not to keep any more secrets from each other, since that's already caused a lot of conflict between the three of them. However, Lois is also right when she points out that Clark is still deeply shaken over his perceived belief that he's a living weapon who was sent to Earth to conquer it, and showing him alternate versions of himself going full Beware the Superman would only exacerbate his already growing self-loathing.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: While arguing with Sam, Martha very nearly lets slip that Clark saved Metropolis as Superman in front of the general. Only Clark's interruption prevents Martha from outing Clark to Sam.
• Catapult Nightmare: The episode begins with Clark having a nightmare of Nemesis Omega leading an invasion in which Lois and Jimmy are vaporized, followed by Nemesis Omega removing his mask to reveal he's Clark himself.
• Clark Kenting: Sam Lane meets Clark in his civilian identity for the first time in this episode. While he gets the distinct impression that he's seen Clark before, Sam can't quite put his finger on it before asking if Clark is always wearing his glasses. Sam ends the episode (and therefore the season) unaware that Clark is Superman, but it's clear he has some suspicions, and likely would have realised their connection if the ship's activation hadn't interrupted him.
• Cliffhanger: The episode (and therefore the season) ends with none other than Brainiac meeting with a certain Kryptonian as the latter watches a civilized planet burn, telling them he's found a new planet for them. Though Brainiac warns them of Earth putting up a fight, the Kryptonian confidently declares that, in time, Earth will kneel.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: While under Jor-El's influence, the Kryptonian vessel glows a soothing blue and white color. After the ship detects a chunk of kryptonite and becomes much more aggressive and dangerous, it and the robot mooks it spits out all have a sinister red light.
• Continuity Nod: Clark, Lois, and Jimmy spot the dried-up remains of Parasite 2.0 on their way to the Daily Planet building, with all signs indicating it's there to stay.
• Conveniently Timed Distraction: While waiting in the living room, when Sam starts questioning Clark if they have ever met and Clark is worried he might recognize him, Jimmy enters the living room saying he has an announcement to make. Once Clark sees Jimmy, he uses this opportunity to leave the living room so he can tell Jimmy in private that the General is Lois's father.
• Cringe Comedy: The bulk of the episode's humor revolves around the Kents, Lois, and Jimmy keeping secrets from Sam and the embarrassing excuses they make to hold conversations away from prying ears. There's also the awkwardness of Clark facing Sam, who kidnapped, imprisoned, interrogated and tried to kill Clark not that long ago.
• Dating What Daddy Hates:
  • Inverted with the Kents. Jonathan and Martha are elated that Clark has entered a relationship with Lois. Martha is especially happy for the two of them after Clark distanced himself from others for so long. Martha does end up hating Lois' father, Sam, who keeps interrogating Clark under suspicion of him being Superman.
    Martha: [to Jimmy, in a hushed whisper] James, I hate Lois' father. She is as sweet as apple pie, but that man is... a lot.
  • Played straight with Lois who is, after all, dating the superpowered alien her father is charged with killing. While Sam doesn't figure out Clark is Superman, he's clearly suspicious and doesn't seem to like Clark regardless.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Clark panics when he realizes that Lois' father, Sam, is the General who kidnapped and tortured him. He's only barely able to avoid having a nervous breakdown in front of Sam, but Clark's loss of composure leaves the doorknob warped and mangled.
• Doting Parent: Martha gushes about her son Clark, calling him "perfect" and taking offense when it's clear that Sam instinctively doesn't like him. And while Clark and Lois are only dating, Martha clearly treats Lois like a daughter and lavishes praise on Lois too.
• Dramatic Irony: After having a nightmare in which Nemesis Omega vaporizes the Kent Farm along with Lois and Jimmy, Clark returns to his ship and accuses the Jor-El of plotting an invasion while swearing to stop him and everyone like him. Jor-El tries to tell Clark to wait and that he'd never hurt him, but Clark doesn't understand and leaves. It continues when Clark thinks Jor-El is the one behind the ship nearly causing an invasion, even though he's clearly trying to help Clark stop the attack.
• The Dreaded: Jor-El is clearly just as horrified by kryptonite as by the implications of the ship detecting it, and considering just how horribly effective the stuff is on both his son and all the technology around them, fair enough.
  Jor-El: (speaking Kryptonese) Kryptonite! The poison is here?!
• Enemy Mine: Clark is so scared that his people might invade Earth again that he wants Lois and Jimmy to help him locate the General so he can ask him for his help to prevent another invasion. He does meet with the General again, but unfortunately, he learns the General is Lois's father so he can't exactly asks for his help at that moment.
• Fight Off the Kryptonite: Superman is, if anything, even more vulnerable to kryptonite here than he usually is... but he uses a chunk of it as a weapon, despite the agonizing and crippling effects it has on him, to disable a chunk of Kryptonian technology that's just as vulnerable to kryptonite as he is.
• Fist of Rage: When Clark sees General Sam Lane again, he is hit with rage with a shot of his hand clutched into a fist.
• Go Through Me: Lois shields Clark from her father, who is aiming the Omega Cannon at him with the intent to kill. Ultimately, Sam comes to his senses and backs off.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Surprisingly enough, Mister Mxyzptlk winds up being this, despite his one-off appearance. In addition to the File X he gave Lois still having some unresolved tension in Clark's friends trying to figure out the best time to tell him about it, the pure kryptonite shard contained in the Sphere triggers failsafes within Clark's ship once it detects the rock's presence nearby, which apparently allows Brainiac's AI to seize control of the vessel and nearly trigger another Zero day. Jor-El's horrified reaction to the ship reacting to Kryptonite indicates that he picked Earth to send Clark to in part also because there was no trace of the stone on it, and he's stunned that "the poison" is somehow on the planet.
• Have We Met?: Clark's Clark Kenting only partially works on Sam, who has only met Clark's Superman identity. Sam isn't able to connect the dots, but he can't help but feel that he's seen Clark before, asking if he's been in the military. Sam continues needling Clark with questions before asking if Clark is always wearing his glasses.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • After Jimmy realizes that kryptonite works just as well against Kryptonian tech as it does against Kryptonians themselves, Clark takes the shard of kryptonite and flies off to disable his ship, despite knowing exposure to the substance will likely kill him. Sure enough, if not for the AI of Jor-El saving him, he probably would have died.
  • Speaking of, Jor-El's Virtual Ghost destroys itself saving Clark's life.
• History Repeats: Jor-El's Virtual Ghost sends Clark to Earth to protect him from an imminent explosion before (presumably) dying in said explosion, just like the original Jor-El 22 years ago.
• Hypocrisy Nod: The only reason why Lois and Jimmy haven't told Clark about the evil alternate Supermen is because they are worried about his emotional state. Jimmy is well aware how hypocritical this is since they all promised not to keep secrets anymore.
• Hypocritical Humor: Despite a bad first impression, Martha insists that Clark can't hate his girlfriend Lois' dad. However, as Sam continues to needle Clark with questions, Martha concludes that she hates Sam.
• I Have No Idea What I'm Doing: Though his dialogue remains mostly incomprehensible, Jor-El's body language and tone clearly convey this sentiment at the episode's beginning, when Clark accuses him of sending him to Earth as a Living Weapon and then leaves before he can try to communicate the truth. He comes across as a father reluctantly estranged from his son with no idea of how to bridge the gap between them, no matter how much he cares for him. Similarly, Sam's emotional breakdown when Lois stands between him and Superman after he just witnessed another Zero Day nearly occur makes it clear that his love for his daughter is fighting with the fear of the unknown threat to Earth that Superman and all the Kryptonian technology represents, and as much as Sam is trying, he has no idea how to keep Lois safe and out of danger from such a menace, his true underlying motivation for his antagonism towards the "invader".
• I'm Not Doing That Again: Jimmy gets fed up with the sneaking around and being put in the middle of his friends keeping secrets from each other after Clark piles on that Lois' father is the General while already keeping the secret about evil Supermen. He marches them both outside and demands Clark comes clean to Lois outright.
• Internal Reveal:
  • While the previous episode confirmed to the audience that the General was Lois' father Sam, this episode has Clark and Jimmy find out for themselves. Similarly, while Lois knew her father was a general, she didn't know he was the General who kidnapped Clark until she overhears him reporting to Waller about Nemesis Omega returning.
  • Clark finally finds out about File X and the evil Supermen it depicts... which is immediately upstaged by him, Lois, and Jimmy realizing exactly what the shard of kryptonite stored inside it can do to Clark.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • While he showed inklings of it in "You Will Believe a Man Can Lie", this episode firmly establishes Steve as a decent-ish guy at heart as he sincerely congratulates Jimmy on his promotion, picking him up and swinging him around with genuine pride.
  • Despite his grouchy attitude and initially denying them credit for their first big scoop, Perry seems genuinely proud of the main trio when promoting them.
• Kryptonite Factor: Kryptonite is shown to not only be effective on Kryptonians, but also their technology. Jimmy holding up a rock to drones causes them to immediately short out and crystallize. Clark exploits this to destroy his ship and stop another Zero Day, despite the same effect nearly 'killing'' him just from being nearby the stone, let alone having to touch it.
• Last Episode, New Character: Season one ends with the introduction of Brainiac and a "Kryptonian Warrior" who will make the Earth kneel.
• Lying to Protect Your Feelings:
  • While neither Lois nor Jimmy are happy with hiding File X from Clark, especially since it's hypocritical in the face of their whole "no more secrets" vow, they decide they don't really have a choice considering Clark is in the absolute worst headspace to process its contents in the wake of learning the truth of Zero Day.
  • Clark tries to do something similar once he realizes that Lois' father is the General, only for Jimmy to get fed up with all the secret keeping and drag both him and Lois outside to get them all on the same page. Unfortunately, he also kept File X on him, and on seeing it in her bag, Lois panics and tried to take it off him, eventually resulting in Clark seeing the truth about his Evil Counterparts in the multiverse. Jimmy's reaction indicates that whilst he did intend to cut through the miscommunication their secrets were causing, that particular one he didn't want Clark finding out so soon.
• Mundane Utility: Clark uses his heat vision to cook the turkey when the oven doesn't seem to be doing the job.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Implied for General Lane; after he reports to Waller that his sighting of Nemesis Omega was a false alarm, he completely vanishes without a word to Lois, who had seconds prior prevented him from shooting Clark.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Clark's reaction to seeing Lois' father and realizing that he's The General that's been trying to kill him.
  • Jor-El reacts in horror when realizing kryptonite has arrived on Earth, referring to it as "the poison".
  • Sam understandably has a horrified expression on his face when he sees Clark's ship rising from the ground, re-living Zero Day all over again, before he composes himself and orders the civilians to flee from the threat whilst he engages it solo. Though he retains an outward stoic expression, his tone is full of stunned disbelief when his own daughter talks to him about Task Force X and Zero Day, despite all that he'd done to keep her away from the threat involved with those. When the ship opens another portal with an incoming alien shape ship exactly like Zero day, Sam clearly has a Heroic BSoD at the sight.
    Sam Lane: No...not again.
• Parental Neglect: Sam seems surprised when Lois shows unconditional support for Superman. This is what tips off Lois to him not bothering to read anything she writes because he's been so busy with his job in the military. This frustrates her, as she invited him to the Kents' Thanksgiving dinner to reconnect with him, only to get this reminder of how he never engages with her or her passion.
• Poor Communication Kills: Lois still has the sphere containing information about the evil Supermen, as well as the Kryptonite shard. She refuses to tell Clark since she feels he had already been through enough involving the General, but then Jimmy arrives with her bag with said sphere while he demands Clark tell her about her dad. Clark opens up the sphere to see the recordings and the shard nearly kills him.
• Portal Cut: Clark destroys the portal-generating ship only after the larger invading ship has already partially crossed through it, resulting in this when the portal closes.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: Played With: The "Zero Day" two parter had Clark facing off with the combined might of his accumulated Rogues Gallery in Task Force X, built up throughout the season, learning the Awful Truth about Zero Day and why he's believed to be a threat to Earth by the General, and ended with him having a climatic battle with a Kaiju Parasite to save the city. In contrast, the episode initially seems to be much lower-stakes with Clark having to suffer through some Cringe Comedy at the Kent farm once he realizes that Lois' father is the same General who's been hunting him, until the File X that Lois had on her opens and allows the presence of kryptonite to affect both Clark and his buried ship, which escalates events to the point that another Zero Day nearly occurs.
• Prefers Proper Names: Martha refers to Lois by her full name and is the first character to use Jimmy's given name James.
• Rags to Riches: While downplayed in that none of the trio were poor, Jimmy ends up going from working-class income to becoming a millionaire after Perry buys Flamebird for the Daily Planet for over five million dollars.
• Rank Up: Clark, Lois, and Jimmy are finally promoted to reporters after writing a story on Superman saving Metropolis from Parasite in the previous episode.
• Reality Has No Subtitles: Played with; the episode proper once again gives no subtitles to Jor-El's dialogue, but closed captioning and streaming services translate his dialogue so the viewer can understand.
• Red Herring: The title refers to Sam Lane and Jor-El, but there's one more father who appears in the episode—Jonathan Kent, who frequently dies of a heart attack in comics and adaptations, suggesting the title could be literal (referring to Jonathan's physical heart) as well as metaphorical (referring to Sam and Jor-El's respective wills). Ultimately, however, Jonathan plays little role in the episode besides as comic relief, and he ends the episode alive and well.
• The Reveal:
  • Kryptonite's only presence in the series prior to the episode was the League of Lois Lanes having kryptonite weaponry and a pure shard of the stuff inside File X, all of which was from other universes. Red sun radiation replaced it as the primary method of depowering Clark throughout the season, leaving it ambiguous as to kryptonite's status in the show's main universe. This episode not only confirms that kryptonite exists in the main universe but also reveals that it's hardly an unknown substance, as both Jor-El (who refers to it as "the poison") and Brainiac (whose ship has countermeasures against it) are aware of what it is and what it can do. That said, why it's apparently utterly absent from Earth is not answered, since most adaptations have the radioactive rocks getting scattered across the universe as a result of Krypton's explosion, suggesting that kryptonite's origins are somewhat different (or at least, given how recent the explosion was, simply haven't reached Earth yet).
  • Clark's spaceship that delivered him to Earth is apparently a repurposed and reprogrammed warship, infected with an AI of Jor-El to allow him to pilot his son to the safe haven of Earth. This unfortunately means that when the failsafes on the ship react to the kryptonite's presence, the ship's Mecha-Mooks are activated and infected with what appears to be Brainiac's code, turning the ship hostile against Earth and making it look to Sam Lane that Superman is indeed leading an invasion of Earth after all.
  • Whilst the last episode hinted at it, this one confirms that Brainiac is apparently a Kryptonian AI. Furthermore, he is actively aiding what appears to be still-living Kryptonian warriors in a violent conquest of the galaxy, moving down to a planetoid to converse with one of them, whose dialogue indicates he might very well be General Zod himself.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Clark's ship escalates in response to the destruction of its assault. When Jimmy disables a drone with kryptonite, it sends out one of the larger tank drones. When Clark takes out the larger drone, it opens a portal to summon the fleet.
• Tempting Fate: When Lois is panicking over her dad coming to dinner with them, Clark utters the aboslutely forbidden line "what's the worst that could happen?" while trying to calm her down. The next second, the doorbell rings, and when Clark opens the door he finds himself in front of the same general who tortured him during the past two episodes, revealing himself to be Lois' father.
• Thanksgiving Episode: This episode is set around Thanksgiving, which is nearly three months from its release date.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After an entire season of struggling, Clark, Lois, and Jimmy are finally made official reporters at the Daily Planet.
• The Unreveal: Nemesis Omega's fate following Zero Day is not clarified. Whilst Brainiac confers with another Kryptonian warrior during The Stinger, his body armor and physique are noticeably bulkier and different from Omega's, and Brainiac's ignorance of Earth's existence until the episode's ending indicates that whatever happened to them, they weren't able to report back about the planet they attempted to conquer.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Jimmy getting fed up accidentally gets Clark exposed to the truth of evil Supermen. Worse still, it also exposes him to kryptonite. His ship then detects the substance and nearly triggers another Zero Day by opening a portal to the fleet's present location, a crisis only narrowly averted by Clark delivering the kryptonite to his ship and destroying it. The AI of Jor-El seemingly sacrifices himself to save Clark, so while Earth retains its hero, Clark no has no idea what's coming and no one who can explain it to him. And as the cherry on top, even that averted incursion has alerted Brainiac and another Kryptonian to Earth's location.
• Wham Line: While the Kryptonian that speaks with Brainiac at the end of the episode goes unnamed in both dialogue and the end credits, their sole line gives them away immediately:
  Kryptonian Warrior: Let them rebel. It does not matter. In the end, they will kneel.
• Wham Shot: Lois' father has arrived at the Kent's house for thanksgiving. Clark opens the door to greet him, and it's the General!
• The Worf Barrage: Sam's Omega Cannon is shown to effortlessly cut through Brainiac's infantry bots, only to then fail miserably when a tank bot is deployed in response to the former proving insufficient.

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