Recap of Superman & Lois
Season 2, Episode 8
Into Oblivion
Tropes Featured in this Episode:
- The Aggressive Drug Dealer: Micky, Candice's XK supplier.
- Apologetic Attacker:
- Anderson to one of the soldiers at the dig site he attacks.
- Lucy towards Sam, after spiking his tea.
- Big Damn Heroes: Jon is on the wrong end of a superpowered beatdown by Micky, but Jordan hears his brother's distress and comes to his rescue.
- Big "NO!": Ally, when Anderson steals the pendant.
- Broken Ace: Thanks to his brain damage, John gets random confusions, thinking Lois to be his wife.
- The Bus Came Back: John and Nat come back after being absent for several episodes.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Anderson steals the pendant before crossing over to the Bizarro universe, the only person who can thanks to the XK making him hardy enough to survive the crossing.
- Continuity Nod: The Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) is referenced here as we find out that John and Natalie were caught between worlds when the Anti-Matter Wave hit. John's ship punched through, since it had more power, but Nat's smaller escape pod had to wait several months in a void of nothingness until it could locate his signal.
- Control Freak: Sam tracks his daughters' phones. Lucy, however, anticipated this and left her phone at home, sending automated messages.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The Bizarro Universe portal tears apart anyone lacking Kryptonian-level durability, as several of Ally's adherents fatally discover.
- Didn't See That Coming: Ally, when several of her followers are disintegrated.
- Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: Invoked by Natalie. She points out how hard it is to live with a guy who looks exactly like the man who killed her mother. The fact that her father nearly died trying to help Clark makes it even harder, because if she loses another parent to Superman, it doesn't matter how noble his intentions are on this earth.
- Exact Words: Jon tells his parents that he was walking Candice home to explain his late arrival, which is technically true.
- Face–Heel Turn: Lucy fully turns against everyone, spiking her father's tea to make sure Ally's plan comes to fruition.
- Hannibal Lecture: Ally gives one to Sam when in captivity. Unfortunately, Villain Has a Point, as a heartbroken Sam acknowledges that there has been a hole inside of him ever since the day his wife left.
- He's Back!: In the wake of the situation with Anderson, Sam returns to duty, although only temporary.
- Internal Reveal: Jordan learns that Jon took the fall for Candice and why.
- In the Hood: Jordan wears a hooded sweatshirt to conceal his identity while beating up Micky. It helps that it's night and the road is dark, save the headlights of the nearby car.
- It's All My Fault: Sam blames himself when he thinks that Lucy died.
- The Missus and the Ex: Sarah talks Jordan into being friends with Aubrey, the girl she kissed at camp. Jon jokes that between him being caught as a drug dealer and Jordan agreeing to her request, Jordan's situation is the more dangerous one.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Jordan demonstrates Super-Speed for the first time on screen when he hears Jonathan in danger. Unusually in his case, this is implied to be a power he's already figured out, as opposed to previous instances where his powers would manifest and he needed time to get them under control. This could be chalked up to his training with Sam, but it's notable either way.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Jordan fights off Candice's supplier Micky, who is amped on XK, to save both her and Jon, but despite being the stronger of the two, he still suffers bloody knuckles and other minor wounds from fighting someone nearly as tough as himself. With no way to explain this to Sarah, he decides to skip the meet-up with her and Aubrey even though it will disappoint Sarah.
- Properly Paranoid: Ally suspected her plan to cross over might hit a snag, since they had to get past the DOD to reach the portal, so she left Lucy behind as a fail-safe to bail her out if she was captured.
- Shout-Out: Chrissy compares almost being sucked into the portal to Poltergeist.
- Swapped Roles: Lois is usually the stricter parent of the family, with Clark playing the Good Cop to her Bad. This time, her experience with Lucy has softened her stance while Clark, dealing with a bunch of issues, is much harder on Jon. She agrees that Jon's actions warrant it to some extent, but not to let it carry on too long.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Lucy comes to the Kents' house, claiming that she left Ally at the last second before the crossing, while actually manipulating her family in order to spike her father's tea so she can get his access card.
