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Recap of Superman & Lois
Season 2, Episode 3
The Thing in the Mines
Tropes:
- Be Yourself: After Lana's "professional" mayoral candidate persona fails to impress, Sarah persuades her mother to livestream herself cooking dinner to show Smallville she's a down-to-earth homemaker.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- After the build-up of the creature in the mines being Doomsday, with Lois even saying the word as a seeming Foreshadowing, it turns out to actually be Bizarro.
- Also, when Jon goes to confront Candice about selling X-Kryptonite to Timmy, it initially seems like he wants to break up with her. But what he really wants is buy from her himself.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Dr. Faulkner thoroughly cements her status as a villain by knocking down John from behind when they're investigating the mines together, as she was indeed behind the detonations to free Bizarro.
- Call-Back: At her political rally, Lana is reminded of the reverse mortgage loans she convinced people to sign for that ended up costing them their homes. This is exactly what Lois and Clark were dealing with in the series premiere after inhering the Kent farm and the accompanying loan that Martha had taken out from Lana's bank. She is also reminded that she was the primary recruiter for Morgan Edge.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Lois does this to Sam, due to his refusal to help her reach Lucy and listening to her in regards to how dangerous Ally Allston is. It makes him reconsider.
- Church of Happyology: Ally Allston's cult is presented this way in the video Lois watches.
- Fantastic Drug: Candice is dealing X-K, an aerosolized form of X-Kryptonite that gives the user a temporary boost of speed and strength.
- Foreshadowing: One key, subtle moment that hinted that the creature in the mine wasn't truly Doomsday was when he flew into the air while still in-costume to engage Superman in combat. In most incarnations, Doomsday typically isn't known for having the power of flight, whereas Bizarro can fly.
- Horrible Judge of Character: It is pointed out that Lana historically has not been a good advocate for the citizens of Smallville because she is not able to identify when someone has bad intentions. She encouraged them to take out reverse mortgages without realizing that the loans were set up for failure which would allow Edge to buy extremely valuable farm land for pennies on the dollar. She also recruited people for Edge's Kryptonian experiment. People signed up for both because Lana was their friend and they believed she would not encourage them to do something she hadn't fully vetted and found to be in their best interest. Unfortunately, this was not the truth.
- It's All About Me: Jordan is insistent on wanting to tell Sarah about his abilities even though doing so risks more than just him. If Sarah, a 16-year-old, does not maintain strict secrecy, it could compromise the entire Kent family. Later, when Clark is visibly in crisis and is trying to explain the issues with his heat vision, Jordan sarcastically and unhelpfully calls him a "rage-a-holic" clearly more focused on his dad yelling at him that morning rather than his dad's super out of character behavior.
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Why Clark is strictly against Jordan telling Sarah the truth. He later comes around, making a compromise with Jordan, telling him that he'll reconsider if they're still together in one year.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Chuck correctly points out that while Lana may have the best of intentions, her big plans tend to end it disastrous fallouts at the expense of other people.
- The Juggernaut: Bizarro dominates the fight with Superman, subjecting him to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
- Logo Joke: The closing card of the episode is mirrored, coming just after Bizarro arrives at the Fortress of Solitude.
- No-Sell: Bizarro is completely unaffected by John's red sun weapons.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Nat and Jon both point out that Jordan is also keeping a secret from Sarah, and it's an even bigger one.
- Not Himself: Due to the continuing visions, Clark is very on the edge throughout the episode.
- Oh, Crap!: The whole football team's reaction when Jonathan accidentally sucker punches Clark as the latter attempts to break up a fight.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Clark always preaches the importance of controlling your emotions and your powers. When he first gets so angry his eyes light up with heat vision, the boys think he's being unreasonable and are deeply hurt by such an uncharacteristic display of anger. Later, when Clark gets so angry that he has to discharge his heat vision in the locker room, similar to Jordan's on field loss of control last season, Jonathan knows that something is seriously wrong.
- Power Incontinence: The second time Clark has a psychic-induced outburst, he can't hold back his heat vision and fires it into his palms. At the beginning of the episode, he also crash-lands due to a particularly painful vision.
- Rage Breaking Point: Jon gets into a physical fight with Timmy after the latter taunts him about getting the drugs from Jon's own girlfriend Candice.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Clark's heat vision flares up when his emotions are affected by the psychic link, the second time forcing him to burn his own palms when he can't hold it back.
- The Resenter: When Lana has her mayoral campaign announcement, one of the residents, Chuck, is skeptical of her due to the reverse mortgages she sold many inhabitants years ago, and also due to her connection with Morgan Edge.
- The Reveal:
- Timmy is taking a performance-enhancing drug, but it isn't normal steroids. It's X-Kryptonite. And Candice is the one selling it to him.
- The being inside the mines isn't Doomsday — it's Bizarro.
- Sdrawkcab Speech: Bizarro is speaking backwards. When he is unmasked, he says "LEAVE ME ALONE," and when he arrives at the Fortress, he says "HOME."
- Voice of the Legion: Clark gains this when Bizarro's rage affects him.
- Wham Shot: The creature in the mines is finally revealed...as Bizarro.
