Recap of Superman & Lois
Season 2, Episode 14
World War Bizarre
With Superman powerless, Ally's plan continues unabated and the worlds begin to merge. As Clark looks for ways to restore his powers, John Henry, Natalie, and Jordan have to step up to protect Earth in his stead. Lana faces unprecedented challenges in her new role as mayor as the townspeople clamor for answers about the catastrophic events unfolding.Tropes Featured in this Episode:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: George and a few other townspeople ridicule Lana's claims of doppelgangers from another universe invading them, despite natives of Smallville having been possessed by dead Kryptonians the previous year when George was still mayor.
- Beam-O-War: Jordan's and Jon-El's Heat/Cold visions collide, with nobody emerging victoriously.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- John Henry and Nat save Jordan and Clark from Lana-Rho when she attacks the farm.
- Natalie once more dons her Steel armor and saves the Kent-Lanes from Jon-El and Lana-Rho during the attack on the school.
- Binary Suns: Due to the Reality Bleed, Bizarro-Earth's red cube sun appears in the sky, though Earth isn't incinerated because it hasn't fully manifested. The DOD releases a cover story about it being an optical illusion, which no one buys.
- Brought Down to Normal: Lara reveals to Clark that his cells were damaged by Ally's attack last episode, thus they need time to heal before he can begin to absorb solar energy again and regain his powers. Sadly, they kinda don't have a possible four years to wait. There's supposedly a faster method, but Lara is disabled by the Reality Bleed screwing things up.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Once Sarah realizes that Jordan has super powers, she ultimately realizes that that is what Lana was trying to tell her last episode and calls out Lana on refusing to tell her.
- Combat Pragmatist: After her first attempt to kill Superman is foiled by the two Steels, Lana-Rho is joined by Jonathan-El and they both wait until they know at least one of the Steels is occupied before attacking again.
- Contrived Coincidence: Ally's merging of the worlds doesn't start affecting the hologram of Lara until she's right in the middle of explaining how they can speed up Clark's healing.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Bizarro-Lana shows up at the Kent homestead to finish off a de-powered Clark on Ally's orders. Jordan attempts to fight her off, and is... not too successful. He fares better in their rematch, but the addition of Jonathan-El puts him at a disadvantage until Natalie joins the fight in her armor.
- John Henry's attempt to stop Ally ends in miserable failure, with her absorbing the energy of his missile before sending him flying through the void.
- Darkest Hour: By the end of the episode, Earth-Prime and Bizarro-Earth are close to merging, with elements of the latter quickly replacing things in the former, as well as John Henry being trapped in the void between worlds.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: Downplayed. A rerun of Ally's broadcast to her world hijacks the screen on Lana's TV as part of the Reality Bleed in the beginning of the episode, but doesn't happen everywhere.
- Forced Friendly Fire: In their second fight, when Jordan sees that Lana-Rho is about to fire her eye beams at him, he grabs and turns her head so that she hits Jon-El instead.
- Foreshadowing: Unfortunately, Nat's fears of John Henry losing and becoming injured (and in this case lost) a second time come true.
- Guilt Complex:
- Naturally, Clark blames himself for being unable to save the world due to losing his powers.
- Jordan also chides himself for supposedly being too weak to protect his father.
- Heroic Second Wind: Jordan gets one against Lana-Rho when he hears Lois's screams for Jon-El to not kill Clark via Super-Hearing, beating her down and then fighting Jon-El.
- Ignorance Is Bliss: Kyle and Lana discuss this, with Kyle bringing up him keeping his affair secret. Ultimately, they come to the conclusion that despite the pain, everybody deserves to learn the truth, which is why Lana tells the townspeople about the impending danger.
- Internal Reveal:
- Lana learns about Ally's plan and later tells the people of Smallville as well.
- Sarah finally learns about Jordan's powers, and realizes that her mother knew about it and didn't tell her based on her unsurprised reaction to Jordan's eyes glowing red.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Lana-Rho and Jon-El double-team on Jordan, beating him viciously until Nat steps in.
- No-Sell:
- Verbal version, with Jon-El being completely unmoved by the Kent's family's pleas.
- John Henry attempts to use a Red Sun missile to take down Ally, but she easily absorbs the energy and fires it back at John.
- Opportunistic Bastard: George, the failed mayoral candidate, seizes the opportunity to try and rally the townspeople against Lana during the crisis.
- Papa Wolf: John Henry allows his daughter to participate in missions against Ally's mooks, but teaming up for a direct assault against the Big Bad herself is out of the question. He activates a shutdown protocol that disables Natalie's armor for a specified period of time and is unmoved by her vehement protests.
- Reality Bleed: As Ally draws the two portals closer together, Bizarro-Earth starts bleeding into Earth-Prime, most prominently with the red cube sun appearing in the sky. By the end of the episode, the two are close enough that reality itself begins to glitch out, swapping between the two Earths rapidly.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: How Jordan reveals to Sarah he has powers, when he roars out for her and Lana to, "RUN!" when Lana-Rho arrives, his eyes glow red while doing so.
- Rewatch Bonus:
- After watching Clark and Tal-Rho come to the correct conclusion, it's very easy to understand what Lara Lor-Van was saying even as her AI was fritzing.
- When Jon-El and Lana-Rho arrive at the school, Jon-El takes a hit off of a green Kryptonite inhaler before going inside. Aside from implying that he has the same problem as his father, it also both explains his almost delirious aggression and raises further questions about how Lana-Rho got super powers.
- When Jordan is talking to Sarah and Lana comes into the hallway, she and Jordan make eye contact and Jordan shakes his head to indicate that he hasn't told Sarah the truth about himself. Sarah does notice this exchange, which is probably why she immediately assumed that her mother (as opposed to Clark and Lois) was the one who forbade Jordan to tell her.
- Rousing Speech: Clark gives the people of Smallville one.
- Shaming the Mob: When Lana attempts to warn Smallville of what's going on, she's initially heckled and accused of fear-mongering. They're quickly silenced once Superman steps in and confirms what's going on.
- Spotting the Thread: Sarah deduces based on Lana's lack of reaction to both her double and The Reveal of Jordan's powers that she's been aware of the situation far longer than just today. Furthermore, she gathers that Lana is the reason why Jordan didn't tell her the truth despite obviously wanting to.
- Survivor Guilt: Sam claims that he is at fault for Clark losing his powers, saying that maybe he should've died instead.
- Take Me Instead: Clark tries to sacrifice himself when Lana-Rho has Jordan beaten and threatens to kill him.
- Villain Ball: Despite having the powerless Clark at his mercy, rather than finishing him off quickly, Jon-El decides to be a petty Sadist, actively prolonging the suffering, which gives Jordan (and then Nat) enough time to step in.
- You Are in Command Now: Despite forbidding her from accompanying him directly, John Henry leaves Nat the task to protect the Kent family while he is gone.
