Recap / Superman And Lois S 2 E 10 Bizarros In A Bizarro World

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Recap of Superman & Lois
Season 2, Episode 10

Bizarros in a Bizarro World

Superman travels to the Bizarro World to find and stop Ally. Bizarro's origin and motivations are revealed. Anderson realizes the gravity of the decision he made, but it might be too late. Jon-El attempts to prepare the counter-universe for invasion and assimilation.

Tropes Featured in this Episode:

• Addled Addict: Bizarro Kal's addiction to kryptonite is what eventually turns him into the Facial Horror-wearing monstrosity we were introduced to.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: We see how Bizarro Ally took over the DOD with help from Jon-El and moles inside the facility.
• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: As hinted at in previous episodes, Bizarro Ally started from similar origins as her prime self, but amassed enough power to cause large-scale riots even before she drew superhumans into her ranks. By the present, she effectively has power on par with the government itself.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • When Jonathan-El saves the construction worker in the flashback, it's not clear whether he's just had a Traumatic Superpower Awakening or already knew his powers had come in recently and only used them as a last resort when he saw his father wasn't going to notice the man in time.
  • Although her existence is briefly mentioned by Bizarro Lois and Bizarro Sam, nothing is revealed about Bizarro Lucy and whether or not she's an Ally follower in this reality.
  • Why it is so important for Ally to be the first to merge is not discussed. But she is prepared to have anybody else who tries killed for unspecified reasons.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Jon-El developed into this to Kal-El and Lois after growing disillusioned and joining Ally as her Dragon. Kal was obviously also bitter about his son, as Clark notices several pictures laying around the house where Jon's image has been removed or destroyed.
• Anti-Hero: In contrast to the Ideal Hero of Earth-Prime, Bizarro Kal has a number of serious character flaws right from the get-go (e.g. Parental Neglect as a side-effect of being a Celebrity Super Hero, and later an addiction to kryptonite), which the viewers can already ascertain from seeing his behaviour and interactions in Earth-Prime earlier in the season. Despite this, he ultimately means well, and correctly identifies Ally as an outright threat that needs to be stopped at all costs.
• The Atoner:
  • Anderson, after realizing how wrong he was about Ally, helps Clark in fighting Ally Allston and her followers.
  • Bizarro Tal eventually decides to let Clark go, not wanting to repeat the mistake he made with his brother.
• Big "NO!": Anderson (backwards!), when Bizarro Ally has Bizarro Jon kill Bizarro Anderson before they can fuse.
• Bizarro Universe: We see more of the alternate Earth in this episode.
  • All spheres are cubes, for starters, including planets and stars. Pool is played with blocks instead of balls, and cups are square instead of round.
  • Everyone dresses in dark clothing, with even Bizarro Lana's wedding dress being black and Gothic. Kal-El's costume is still the usual blue, red and yellow, but otherwise red is the only bright color people wear.
  • Chrissy's newspaper is far better staffed on account of Superman publicly living in Smallville.
  • Lana was a waitress at a country bar in Smallville before marrying Tal-Rho.
  • The episode also goes into depth with how things are with the Kent-Lane (or rather El-Lane) family.
    • Kal-El was a Celebrity Superhero compared to Clark being just a superhero.
    • Kal-El didn't grow up in Smallville and he and Lois only moved there from Metropolis after she became pregnant, he does not go by the name Clark Kent and was probably never adopted by the Kents, and his wife and sons are known to the public. He also doesn't go by Superman; he's addressed only as Kal-El, or even "Mr. El".
    • Kal-El and Tal-Rho apparently grew up together, and Tal is even more visibly excited about the news that Lois is expecting and he's going to be an uncle than Kal is, loudly announcing it to the bar they're in and paying for everyone's drinks.
    • In this universe it's Jon-El who has Kryptonian powers while Jordan-El doesn't. And Bizarro Krypto is a cat.
    • Lois mentions that Sam was always there for her and Lucy, which was decidedly not true on Earth-Prime.
    • When Jordan-El feels bad about not having powers, Lois assures him they'll come in any day now. Her counterpart would have said it didn't matter.
• Bland-Name Product: While talking with Bizarro Lana at the country bar, Bizarro Tal advises her not to believe everything she reads in "Persons" magazine (the stand-in for People).
• Blood from the Mouth: Anderson has this after his last-ditch attack against Bizarro Jon is met by a fatal counter-punch.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Bizarro Jon gets fed up with his father constantly ignoring how he is feeling.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Kal had been going to put out a press release about Lois being pregnant, but Tal shouts to the rafters that he's going to be an uncle. By his own admission Bizarro Tal-Rho wears his heart on his sleeve and can't keep these things to himself.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Bizarro Kal, in a very negative manner.
• The Corrupter: Something Bizarro Ally Allson has in common with her other counterpart, swaying Jon, Lana, Tal and a huge number of followers to her cause, even threatening entire countries.
• Enemy Mine: Superman is forced to team up with Anderson to battle the various Bizarros, all of whom have roughly the same powers as he does, plus the advantage of numbers and aren't being weakened by their red sun as he is. Played with in that Anderson has since repented, having seen the truth.
• Evil All Along: Jonathan-El pretends to help Clark until Bizarro Lois reveals he's working for Ally. Also encompasses the previous episode, since when he appeared in the stinger it wasn't clear he was evil.
• Face–Heel Turn: Bizarro Jon joined Ally's cult after getting fed up with his father.
• Fantastic Drug: Much like X-Kryptonite on Earth-Prime, the regular green kind is used as a superpower-granting and enhancing narcotic on Bizarro World. Bizarro Kal became addicted to it in order to cope with his family falling apart, and it's all but stated to be the source of Bizarro Lana's powers as well (given that she's wearing an outfit resembling that worn by the Supermen of America).
• Foreshadowing: Jonathan being Evil All Along is foreshadowed by the photos in the El house where he's been violently taken out of the picture, and his flying in at superspeed and removing Bizarro Lara's crystal from the Fortress mainframe "for safekeeping" while she's in the process of talking to Clark, interrupting her mid-sentence from behind before she can even notice that Jon's there.
• From Bad to Worse: Superman failed in trying to stop Ally and now the two halves have become one and obtained god-like power, forcing Clark to race back to his world before Bizarro Jon can merge with his alternate self.
• Fun with Palindromes: Anderson is able to understand that Bizarro Jordan is asking him about his dad because the word "dad" is a palindrome and thus sounds the same in Sdrawkcab Speech.
• Fusion Dance: The two Allys succeed in merging with each other.
• Get Out!: Bizarro Kal to his brother, after Tal refuses to turn on Ally.
• Happily Married: At Tal-Rho and Lana's wedding, Kal-El says that they're the happiest couple he knows. Subverted after they join Ally as a seeming Unholy Matrimony, and later Tal has a change of heart and deflects Lana from attacking Clark.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Anderson has seen the error of his ways and joins Superman. Turns into a Heel–Face Door-Slam when Bizarro Jon kills him.
  • Bizarro Tal-Rho joined Ally's cult because his wife Lana did, but helps Superman escape back to his world as redemption for failing to save his brother.
• Heel Realization: Anderson finally realizes that he and Ally were the bad guys and Superman was the good guy all along.
• Heroic Willpower: Clark keeps on going through the portal even as the energy starts ripping off the skin from his face. He heals once he passes through.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Bizarro Superman was a Celebrity Superhero in his world, adored the world over, but slowly his family troubles mounted after his sons grew into teenagers. After Jon defected to Ally's cult and Lois walked out on him to her father and took Jordan with her, he turned to Kryptonite inhalers to make himself stronger, making him unstable, until eventually he became a pariah and mutant.
• Hypocrite: For all her talk about how merging with their other selves is really a good thing for everyone, Ally orders Jon-El to murder Bizarro Anderson to prevent him from merging with his other self when she angrily realizes that her own double has not crossed over and that Anderson would thus be the first person to merge. The most generous interpretation is that she doesn't trust Anderson to share, as she does with Jon-El later, but Bizarro Anderson is her follower and should be of like mind, so it hardly works as an excuse.
• Idiot Ball: Bizarro Superman was strong enough to steal the Bizarro half of the pendant and intended to destroy it on Earth-Prime. But since he already had it and they couldn't take it back, he could have just as easily chucked it into the sun or thrown it as hard as possible into deep space, never to be seen again. This can partially be blamed on his Kryptonite addiction making him unbalanced, as he was warned it was a fool's errand by his mother yet tried anyway.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Despite some major differences, the same people are born in similar if not identical roles. This is most notable with Bizarro Superman, who was raised an El, not a Kent, yet still wound up with Lois and named his kids the same. It's implied that there's a resonance between Bizarro World and Earth-Prime, as Bizarro Superman purchased the Kent farm simply because it "felt" like the right thing to do.
  • While several people have different occupations in the Bizarro World, Chrissy Beppo is still a reporter (albeit a more successful one) and Sam Lane is still a general and head of the DOD.
  • Lara Lor-Van is present at the Fortress of Solitude as her son's holographic mentor, seemingly replacing Jor-El in this world, and is wise enough to recognize the threat Ally Alston poses.
  • Given that Kal-El, Tal-Rho and the Fortress are all on Bizarro Earth, Bizarro Krypton was presumably still destroyed.
• Internal Reveal:
  • Anderson deduces from Bizarro Superman's life that his Superman is likely married to the same woman and has the same kids.
  • Bizarro Kal's family learns that he is dead.
• It Gets Easier: Bizarro Jon has a slight My God, What Have I Done? moment after killing Bizarro Anderson. No such thing happens after killing Prime Anderson.
• It's All About Me: Downplayed. When Ally starts the process to merge her two selves, she tosses the pendant to Jon-El so he can go merge with his other self, showing that she is at least genuine about having everyone merge. However, she also has Bizarro Anderson killed before his prime counterpart can fuse with him, so she seemingly won't tolerate anyone other than herself being the first to do so.
• Language Barrier: Anderson can't speak Bizarro and can't be understood by Bizarro World's residents, so he fumbles around trying to communicate while fleeing Ally and her minions. Some Talking with Signs allows Chrissy to lead him to Lois, and he understands "dad" since it's a palindrome, his reaction allowing Sam to figure out that their Kal is dead.
• The Maiden Name Debate: One of the crowd in the first flashback refers to Lois as "Mrs. El", but the title card for her segment still reads "Bizarro Lois Lane".
• Monster Is a Mommy: Anderson learns that both Superman and Bizarro Superman that he's been hellbent on demonizing and neutralizing are actually decent men simply trying to protect their families. This is particularly emphasized when the first thing Jordan-El does is desperately ask for news of his father and then breakdown sobbing when it becomes clear that Bizarro Superman is dead.
• Mood Whiplash: Ally's The Bad Guy Wins moment of merging her two halves gets slightly interrupted by a flashback to Bizarro Kal announcing to his brother that Lois is pregnant, with upbeat country music playing, followed by Tal and Lana's wedding and Tal telling Kal that he can always ask him for anything. Of course, it gets downplayed, since this sequence too ends in tragedy once it catches up to more recent times and Tal reveals to a degraded Kal that Jon introduced him and Lana to Ally's cult.
• My Beloved Smother: How Jonathan-El views his parents forbidding him from doing heroics without his father's supervision after he becomes a Celebrity Superhero in his own right, especially coming after years of Parental Neglect by Kal before Jon's powers came in.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Bizarro Jon is slightly taken aback after incinerating Bizarro Anderson, having never killed anybody before.
  • Anderson is horrified and tears up after realizing that Bizarro Superman had a family and he himself killed the father that Jordan-El is asking him desperately about.
  • Anderson realizes that his own Superman wasn't being secretive and difficult simply to spite Anderson, but rather because he had a family to protect. In his misguided attempt to prove Superman is not a true American hero, Anderson has imperiled two entire universes worth of people.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Bizarro Tal-Rho tried to help Bizarro Superman by suggesting he give Ally a chance, but all it did was drive them apart because Bizarro Superman blames Ally for taking Jon from him. Bizarro Superman tried to talk Tal into leaving Ally's cult, but he couldn't abandon his wife Lana. In the present, Tal helps Superman escape because he sees it as the opportunity he should have taken with his brother.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Jonathan-El's "Superboy" outfit is a heavy nod to Conner Kent's various iconic Superboy outfits, including the spike-studded leather jacket from Brian Michael Bendis's Young Justice (2019) run and the black S-Shield T-shirt from Geoff Johns's Teen Titans run.
  • Jordan-El suggests that Jon-El use the name Superboy, which he rejects as embarrassing.
  • Chrissy mentions an Olsen working at her paper.
  • During the Silver Age of comics, planets in the Bizarro Universe were featured as being cube-shaped.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: After being beaten by Bizarro Jon, Anderson tries to charge at the latter in a valiant, last-effort stand to save Clark, only to be punched in the chest with enough force to kill him almost instantly.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Bizarro Jon is quite fond of handing these out, first to Clark, later to Anderson.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently, Bizarro Ally caused an uprising in Star City.
• Not Quite Dead: Clark finds a corpse he thinks is Anderson when arriving on Bizarro Earth. It turns out to be Bizarro Anderson, who was killed by Bizarro Jon for attempting to merge with his Prime self. Earth-Prime Anderson is still alive.
• Not So Similar:
  • It's initially shown that Bizarro Kal was very similar in personality to the Kal of Earth-Prime, though the episode slowly subverts this as more and more of the family's backstory is shown. Of course, the viewers already know Bizarro Kal is quite different from seeing his interactions on Earth-Prime earlier in the season.
  • Though on the opposite end of the spectrum, Bizarro Kal also appears to have similarities to his famous dark Captain Ersatz, Homelander, given his focus on fame and glory rather than actually being heroic or being there for his family. In fact, the truth lies somewhere in the middle—he's still a good guy unlike Homelander, but nowhere near as virtuous as his Earth-Prime counterpart, putting him firmly in Anti-Hero territory.
• Parent-Child Team: Kal-El and Jon-El are seen fighting crime together for a little bit. The latter has a problem with his father not wanting him to do this solo.
• Parental Neglect: Kal-El's superheroics and celebrity lifestyle have led to him not spending much time with his sons outside of galas and family photo ops. He made some attempt to provide the boys with a grounded life by moving to the farm on Smallville before they were born, but obviously it wasn't enough.
• Pet the Dog: Although the three of them constitute basically the entire remaining resistance movement, Jon still won't harm Lois, Jordan and Sam directly, instead insisting they make themselves scarce.
• The Quiet One: Even compared to his counterpart at the beginning of the series, Jordan-El speaks infrequently and fades into the background.
• "Rashomon"-Style: The perspective shifts between various characters, and also different time frames, showing the leadup to the two Allys merging. The segments are titled onscreen: "Superman", "Bizarro Jonathan-El", "Bizarro Lois Lane", "Lieutenant General Mitchell Anderson", and "Bizarro Tal-Rho".
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Bizarro Tal-Rho and Bizarro Kal-El appear to have this dynamic, with Tal as the Red.
• Redemption Equals Death: Anderson gets his chest caved in by Bizarro Jon while trying to help Superman stop Ally.
• Sdrawkcab Speech:
  • Given a twist here: Anderson and Superman speak backward in Bizarro World, because they're the ones out of their reality. Somehow, after a moment of effort, Superman is able to make himself speak the way the natives do, like Jon-El did in the previous episode, but Anderson can't — might be a Kryptonian thing.
  • In Bizarro World, the writing is both mirrored and capitalized in reverse, as seen with the display in the Fortress of Solitude (which we see from behind so it's normal to us, but it's backwards from Superman's perspective):
    "thE risE and falL of ouR herO, kaL-eL"
• Senseless Sacrifice: Superman encourages Anderson to use the last X-Kryptonite inhaler to return to Earth-Prime, but he instead chooses to stay and fight by Superman's side. Unfortunately, he doesn't help much in the battle and seemingly gets killed by Bizarro Jon for his efforts.
• Shooting Superman: A couple of instances. Bizarro Superman and Bizarro Jon confront armored car robbers and are fired upon with a full-auto weapon, to no effect. (Bizarro Jon seems slightly relieved to get confirmation of his durability, much as Supergirl was in the pilot of her own show.) Later, Bizarro Jon and Bizarro Lana are fired upon by DOD security troops, which also does nothing.
• Shout-Out:
  • Apparently, the President of the USA in the Bizarro Earth is Jerry Seinfeld. This probably is rooted in the Seinfeld Season 8 episode "The Bizarro Jerry", wherein Jerry takes the time to explain to Elaine how Bizarro is the opposite of Superman after she calls her ex-boyfriend the opposite of Jerry but didn't know who Bizarro was when Jerry called said ex the "Bizarro Jerry".
  • The Warner Bros. studios water tower (with the logo inverted) is glimpsed.
• Skewed Priorities: Bizarro Kal fails to notice a construction worker falling off a building behind him because he's only paying attention to the reporters and fans around him. Fortunately, Jonathan sees it and rescues him, displaying his powers for the first time.
• Special Edition Title: Not only is the logo inverted, the theme also has a sort of bizarre remix.
• Stage Mom:
  • Kal-El's personality in the Bizarro World, which eventually alienates him from his entire family.
  • Lois also suffers from this and enables her husband's celebrity career. The difference is she realizes sooner what the consequences have been for their family and admits her own culpability.
• The Stinger: The last scene cuts back to the regular Earth, with Bizarro Jon preparing to take away his counterpart.
• Take That!: A clownish celebrity was elected the POTUS.
• Talking with Signs: Anderson, unable to adapt to Bizarro speech as Kryptonians can, resorts to writing "Lois" on a piece of paper to get through to Bizarro Chrissy. His speech may sound like gibberish, but the word is legible despite being mirrored (and oddly capitalized) from her perspective.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Jon-El is introduced to Ally Alston by his girlfriend Misty. He likewise introduces his Uncle Tal and Aunt Lana to her, and Tal stays in the cult largely because Lana becomes a true believer.
• Toxic Phlebotinum: Abuse of Kryptonite is what caused Bizarro Superman to mutate from his regular appearance.
• Translation Convention: Everyone from Bizarro World is shown speaking normally. Superman and Anderson speak backwards when they first arrive, except when they're talking to each other. Superman soon learns to talk like the Bizarro-people do, at which point we hear him speaking normally.
• Uncertain Doom: The last we see of Anderson is being severely wounded by Bizarro Jon and having Blood from the Mouth and a visibly caved-in chest, which suggests the blow was critical if not outright fatal. We don't see what happens afterwards to him, though.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Bizarro Ally, thanks to her ever-growing legion of followers. Her control of the media is such that she's able to put out public enemy alerts for Clark and Anderson urging the citizens to report any sighting of them (or else).
• Void Between the Worlds: When Superman transitions through the Earth-Prime portal, he winds up in a black void with bits of rock and the other portal leading to Bizarro World.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Bizarro Anderson gets killed in his introduction scene.
• Whole Episode Flashback: The episode is a flashback to Clark's month in Bizarro World, and there's further flashbacks to how Bizarro Superman fell from grace and Ally rose to power.
• Worf Had the Flu: Superman's powers are slowly fading because he is stuck under a red sun, putting him on the back foot against the Bizarros, who are all in their element.
• World Shapes: Bizarro World is cube-shaped, as is its red sun. At least the edges are rounded.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: Superman has been gone for a month by Earth-Prime's clock, yet he spends no more than a day on Bizarro World before flying back through the portal. This is strange because there's no implication that time runs any differently on Bizarro World, doubly so because Bizarro Jon makes the transition within the same night.

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