Chicago Redshirt

We recently saw DOD has guns that shoot Kryptonite darts. They were presumably meant to be less than lethal, and Superman was more pissed off by them than anything. It would not be surprising if they had Kryptonite guns. But actual Kryptonite generally is in short supply in most Superman shows (with the exception of Smallville where literally it was EVERYWHERE in town). The empowering process Edge used is different from how Tag got powers. Edge is specifically trying to "resurrect" Kryptonians (still calling that he is Zod on pure speculation, no spoilers). Tag seemingly got powers through some interaction between XK and Jordan's heat vision.

I wish that Lana stood up for herself and what she did. "Kyle, this is my workplace and I'm busy. You don't see me rushing on to fire scenes demanding explanations from you about something. We'll talk about this tonight at home." That would be one approach. Or even a more benign lie/half-truth. "Kyle, you have a great thing going as fire chief. Some of these other people who we selected are exactly the people we've always said need the second chance that Mr. Edge represents." Or "Mr. Edge is a great but demanding boss. Having both of us working for him would likely be disruptive raising our girls." Or even, "I know you think the world of Mr. Edge, but what if there's even a slight chance that Lois is right about him? Do we want to put all our eggs in the Morgan Edge basket?" Instead, she told him a lie that she should have known that he will have every opportunity to find out is a lie. He will certainly cross paths with Morgan himself, or Leslie, and say, "Hey I am interested in the leadership program. What can I do to get a spot in it?" I don't think Leslie was doing administrative followup. She ran into Kyle and spontaneously mentioned that Morgan had wanted him for the leadership program. I don't see that as Morgan Edge pulling the strings. If he wanted to draft Kyle, he could have drafted Kyle, ;like you said. Speaking of Leslie, it's kind of weird that neither she/Edge nor Clark/Lois seem to have been doing much with the reveal a few episodes back that she has superpowers and Lois knows about them. One would think that for Leslie's part she would spend more time surveilling Lois and totally found out who Superman is, etc. And you would think that Superman might not take the fact that someone tried murdering his wife and is involved with a scheme to smuggle XK for unknown reasons so nonchalantly. Getting intel about how the war on Earth JHI happened, what weapons worked and didn't, and how his planet lost would help inform the best strategy here. (I bet a part of Sam was taking notes like, "OK, so synthetic k gas didn't cut the grade, but that kryptonite spear apparently does the job. Let's see if we can fast-track some more of those. Or combine them so there's a spear that gives off the gas to soften them up.") Missed the line about the van being lead lined, but as you mentioned, there are other ways he could and should have determined that the van didn't have security measures. And also, the revelation about the van being lead-lined makes what happened last episode retroactively worse, as he should have used his X-ray vision then, seen it was lead-lined and then been on alert that the van situation is fishy since normal vans aren't lead-lined. Last episode is also made a little worse by the fact that the AI can recognize Lois Lane as an authorized user and Jonathan as an unauthorized intruder but apparently was dumb enough to think that Clark was "Captain Luthor." Lois has a pager, and I think the boys have at least one. Why Jonathan didn't use one if he had one, not sure. Kyle was decent when he took Lana for the "Congratulations on getting the promotion that I wish I had" dinner. I think he was still a raging tool in that he let his disappointment at being told by Lana that Morgan Edge didn't want him for the program send him into a depressive spiral that ended with him abandoning his kid as she tried out for a part that he pushed her into and that he knew she had tremendous anxiety about. Sarah has stage fright going solo, so it's not as though she technically could not perform solo. She just feared her anxiety would get the best of her without another person to feed off of performing with her. If they had the music tracks from the song she did, she would have had the same issue. She got reassurance from having Jordan there with her. What makes you think JHI "stole" anything from Luthor? The Earth Prime universe's JHI worked for Luthorcorp, and it's certainly possible that this one did too. These could all be his tech, or at least, tech that he either got with permission from Luthorcorp or inherited after Evil Supes killed Luthor or something.

I think Lana's character has not yet been fully fleshed out except as "Kyle's wife," "Sarah's (and other daughter's) mom" and "Clark's ex" although thankfully, they have not leaned into that last part of things. There are not too many personality traits that she has displayed. We the audience know that Lana is suspicious of Morgan to the point where she tried to steer her friend away from this leadership program but failed, and definitely by extension did not want Kyle signing up for it. Unlike us, Lana has no idea that the program is apparently signing people up for Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Kryptonian style, and that the experimentation almost always kills people, so I guess it's good that she has the instincts she does. Lana was in an awkward position, because especially while she's in the office, she can't tell Edge Fan No. 1, "I think he is up to sketchy business, and I don't want you mixed up in it." Her objective is to try to tell him something that will get him to accept that he's not going to be part of the program and stop pushing for it. If she had taken a tack similar to what you suggested, Kyle might very well be like, "Well, I'll show him! I'm going to prove I've got exactly what it takes." But being told by Lana that Edge directly rejected him took the wind out of those sails. Unfortunately for Lana, the over/under for how many episodes it might take for Kyle to directly speak to Edge and get approval to join the leadership program I'd say is two.

Trask, RIP, is apparently insanely tall. Superman looked short next to him and Tyler H is 6' tall, according to the interwebs. I know the episode brought a lot of feels, but I definitely was like, "Really, Lois, you're going to get on Jon for snooping?" That's your brand! You've presumably been meddling in super-powered stuff for 20 years in universe and for 80 years in various media. I almost wanted Jonathan to parallel that anti-drug commercial: "I learned it from YOU, mom!" Kudos to the show for handling the miscarriage thing as well as it did. In most other genre shows, they either would have been too cautious to hand an actress/actor a serious storyline or they would bobble it. I think it is too soon to say how this compares to other Superman shows after not even a full season. But with just a handful of relatively minor exceptions (football scenes, too much Jordan angst and too little concern about Jonathan) I think it's come out the gates firing on all cylinders like few other network TV shows have, genre or no. It makes sense to have Murder RV someplace where they can keep an eye on it. I would have flown it to the Fortress if I had superpowers, but then the plot couldn't have happened. For Kyle so loved his daughter that he got day-drunk and missed helping with her audition, all because he couldn't smooch Morgan Edge's butt some more and Lana held him back. It is interesting to see this Lana on the other end of "secrets and lies" after multiple seasons of Smallville where that is what Kristin Kreuk Lana would always go on about. The Shit on Jon Parade continues. Let's see if I miss anything: Lost his grandmother Forcibly moved away from his friends and the town where he is a big man on campus with no say in the matter in order to benefit Jordan/Clark His girlfriend broke up with him Lost the super-power lottery (at least as far as he knows/for now) Denied a trip to the Fortress because he doesn't have powers Had his family focus its attention even more on Jordan's needs Physically threatened with harm a couple times Forced to be a liar to protect Jordan's secret Accused of trying to pick up on Jordan's crush Told he's not in the league of a cool girl who may be interested in him Unable to make friends despite having been in Smallville for a while now Had his wrist broken by Jordan with little/no apologies Yelled at by Mom for something she did on a weekly basis. Introduced to the notion that his dad might be Evil. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, and next week will bring more additions. I will give the show that at least Jordan was willing to express some support, even if he didn't actually do anything and the second he could help Sarah with her audition, Jon's issues took a back seat. I remember that Barry and Iris went to couple's therapy on Flash, and Lightning went to therapy on Black Lightning, so it's not unprecedented for characters on these shows to do therapy. But Lois's therapy was way more grounded and better acted and directed. I mean it obviously sped through things for TV purposes so that she could have a breakthrough in less than the standard 50 minute session and Lois withheld a lot about what had happened. But it didn't seem to me to treat therapy like it treats football, or many shows treat a lot of professions. I like that they made therapy seem like a normal, helpful thing as opposed to playing it for laughs or what have you. It's not impossible that someone might watch this show and get inspired to get help, so thanks for that, show. I don't know if it really was all that reckless. There was no way for him to know that the van was booby-trapped and he had not expressly been told to not check the van out by himself. Lois just told him that she would check the van out with him later. As far as I remember (which I admittedly could have missed), she never said "Don't look at the van until I get back." Once again, Superman and Lois have some parenting fails that are easy to gloss over because how well the show is done overall. Last episode, Supes had no real excuse for not trying to X-ray the Murder Van when he was looking for clues. But you could at least excuse his actions somewhat because maybe he had limited time, or he didn't really have reason to believe that "Marcus" was a bad guy, or something along those lines. In this episode, he specifically has all the time and all the incentive to go over that van with a fine tooth comb. For him to not to do a scan of the van to see what all is there and then find out that the van had automated defenses is piss poor on his part. And it would have taken Lois literally a sentence to say "Not!Alexa, make Jonathan Kent (and Jordan Kent) authorized users as well." I don't mind that they decided to let JHI go. But I do mind that either they let him go without actually debriefing him about what happened in his world, or the debriefing all happened in Offscreensville, and we the viewers don't get the benefit of knowing how JHI's Superman broke bad, exactly what he did, what weapons and tactics got used in the fight against the Kryptonians,, etc etc etc.

As other people have said, Carrie's decision to not actually show up at the hearing was her abandoning her quest for custody because she has started using again and had realized that it was in the best interest to not take her kid from the stable home that he's been in. She left it to Mare to convey what happened to the court, which seems kind of ridiculous since she literally is downstairs from the hearing that she made wait for a long time. I know she's a junkie and all, but she could just as easily called her lawyer and told the lawyer that she was withdrawing her custody petition. Indeed, the judge would have every reason to question whether Mare is telling the truth (even if it's not public knowledge or knowledge that Carrie's lawyer has that Mare tried to plant heroin on Carrie.) I think calling it a "diversity stunt" shows that you do really care. Had Siobhan had the exact same scenes with boys or a boy and a girl or whatever shouldn't matter all that much. I don't see how it's any lazier writing to have her relationships be with women than anything else. Personally, I think there is a good contrast between Siobhan and Mare. Siobhan was grappling with her memories of Kevin and turned it into art that got her to what would presumably be a haven for her in Berkeley. Whereas Mare has been stuck in the same emotional and physical space and only at the end of what she's gone through is barely able to explore some of it that she had closed off for too long. I guess the rub is: is Carroll a responsible gun owner at this point? All signs point to no. The notion that he originally had the gun in an attic where the grandkids could find it, that he did not put a trigger lock on the gun, that he didn't have it in a lockbox, that he left it loaded. that he had it somewhere that Ryan might know about it in the first place, that he didn't report it missing immediately when he noticed it or that he talked about it in the same breath about the mysterious pizza slicer disappearance only inadvertently...all suggest the character is at least somewhat flawed, forgetful, inappropriate or fill in the blank.

Good point. Most revolvers don't have safeties. On another front, it's extra sad that Erin got catfished into one beatdown and then Ryan feigned being John to lure her into another confrontation.

I took it that John is not the sharpest tool in the shed, and Ryan seems overly bright for a teen. I can buy that Ryan knew John's unlock code or managed to grab the phone at a time when John had left it unlocked. At a guess, he would be charged with involuntary manslaughter if the prosecutors believe his account, and then would likely serve the five years till he turns 18 and perhaps some few additional. Ryan was the actual killer, and so he would presumably have more serious charges like murder or involuntary manslaughter. Even though there is a possibility that he would go free sometime after becoming an adult, there is also the possibility that he either could be tried as an adult or he could get a long sentence. Scrolling through a Wikipedia article, it looks like a lot of teen killers get 20+ years to life in the U.S. The Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty for juveniles is unconstitutional. John's most serious charges would likely be attempted murder/aggravated assault for threatening Billy, obstruction of justice and conspiracy for misleading the murder investigation and covering up Ryan's crime and statutory rape of a minor. It's not impossible that with a good lawyer and some luck, he would not serve anywhere close to the full time for those crimes. It is entirely possible as a first time offender, he could get straight up probation. The cafeteria scene showed that Ryan was unafraid to get physical with someone who was if not bigger than him presumably a bigger threat than Erin. I assume that Mare would have known that Carroll had been a Ridley cop. The scene was just written in an awkward way. I also assumed the multiple officers were there to try to make sure the kid didn't run away, and the difference wasn't so much the threat of grown man with a gun. Ultimately she talked to Lori and Ryan alone too.

Frank does not have to know who DJ's true father is, or he can think that it is Dylan. All he has to know is that Eris is a single mom whose boyfriend and dad are douchebags and either unwilling or unable to provide basic necessities like diapers and food in sufficient quantities. He could either not be lying - you can decide to help a student you barely know. Or he could have just not wanted to get into him helping out. She had been saving her prostitution money up. "Accomplished liar" seems a little strong. He let Lori think that the affair was with Sandra rather than Erin....and that's about it. If we take his voiceover at its word, he never intended to actually shoot Erin, just scare her. And the scene as it played out -- which by genre conventions is what really happened -- confirms that it was an accident. It is undercut by the notion that presumably the cop would have kept the safety on the gun on when it was stored, and Ryan would have had to know to take it off. But maybe the cop was just sloppy with safety. I think the call at the house party was Erin from a burner phone to his real phone. Ryan overheard this, and that is why he went to confront Erin. Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember a scene with Ryan calling his dad or uncle to inform them what happened. In a world with good gun control, almost all those killings or attempted killings probably still would have happened. It would be more implausible for Ryan to accidentally kill Erin, because he's so young and apparently did not have murderous intent. But a struggle, slip and her falling the wrong way still could have happened. Patrick still would have had plenty of opportunities to kill Dylan with his bare hands, a rock, a knife, etc. Wayne similarly could have attacked Zabel and killed him. And John would have slipped Billy pills or done something else to fake a suicide. Guns just made things easier for the killers/would-be killers.

Maybe I'm too easy, but I didn't think the 4400 was that bad. It could/should have been better, and its broad mythology was a mess, but I enjoyed it OK during a relatively recent rewatch. As to what Amalia did to Sarah, obviously it was a betrayal. But I am not sure how many options she had. It's not a situation she could physically fight her way out of, which is the bulk of what she knows. She could have stood up to Dr. Loboticus told him the truth and ended up where Maladie did. She could have lied that she had no idea what he was talking about and pretended to not know that Sarah was talking about these things, but that would be a transparent lie, as the staff had And they both would have gotten got. She could have said something more neutral and then advised Sarah to lie about it as well. But trusting Sarah to be able to pull off the lie, and Dr. Loboticus to believe the both of them also seems like a long shot.

I think the realization that "Marcus" is the Stranger is pretty rational, Like I and others have said elsewhere: Lois knows about the multiverse before Crisis and doppelgangers and the like. She knows the Stranger claims to have come from an alternate universe with an Evil Supes. She knows the Stranger has tech powerful enough to stymie real Supes. She knows that "Marcus" has tech that stymied Lara Larr and knows about a form of Kryptonite that neither she nor Clark do. And she learns that "Marcus" is a doppelganger for someone who was supposedly dead for six years. While there are other logical possibilities ("Marcus" is Prime JHI who has been resurrected or who faked his death, "Marcus" is a clone or doppelganger of JHI for some reason, etc.), the notion that "Marcus" is really the Stranger is too serious to ignore. The people from Earth Prime generally had their memories wiped. To the extent we've seen them (alt-Brainies in Supergirl, alt-Beth in Batwoman, and I am guessing at least one alt-Wells if not more) people who somehow ended up in the Prime Universe despite being from another one retained their memories of their original universes. Also, our heroes have been able to restore people's pre-Crisis memories through telepathy or tech, so even if Steel ended up with no memory of his original Earth, it could have been restored in a similar fashion.,

Top Chef judges: Man, I don't think we can get a worse pasta. Chris: Hold my dough.

In addition to 70 years being a long enough time for a business to be considered "longtime", the farms could have predated the formal incorporation of the town.

I would consider Jonathan friends with Sarah also. Now maybe it is just that he only is there to try to facilitate Jorah/Sardan or whatever their shipper name might be. Or maybe he is subconsciously interested in dating her, as Jordan clearly seems to fear. Maybe Jonathan's blowup at Jordan this episode was a case of the twin protesting too much. In terms of Popular Girl, there are lots of ways the writers could go. They could give Jonathan a well-deserved break and have him date an actually cool person. Or they can have her be playing games and break his heart. Or they could have Popular Girl's interest be the spark that gets Sarah interested in some Jonrah/Sarathan action. Given what I know about the CW and the show's treatment of Jonathan so far, I'm guessing it won't be the former.

It's certainly possible someone might recognize the name of someone but not their face. Even with relatively famous people. Skateboarder Tony Hawk famously tweets about times when people see him, often with skateboards in his possession, and see his ID that says "Anthony Hawk" and don't quite put together that he is THE Tony Hawk. And of course, Lois is infamous for not putting together Clark is Superman, despite seeing each of them numerous times close up. While I agree her reaction is most likely just her putting the pieces together that not!Marcus was the Stranger, it's possible that something about the name John Henry Irons triggered a specific memory. In addition to being a journalist and thus perhaps knowing trivia that could include that name, she is also the daughter of General Sam, so it's possible she had some knowledge of their John Henry Irons. Red K as destroyer of inhibitions was just one variant, mainly from Smallville. I don't think the super-hearing was the issue. Prior to getting under the red light, Jordan seemed to have had no problems with his hearing at that point. He was able to focus and lead Jonathan to where the fight was.

Well, the AI apparently could be fooled into thinking that Steel is Lex or another Luthor. It still IIRC can distinguish between Kryptonians and non-Kryptonians; I think it was able to somewhat track/identify either Superman and/or the Morgan Edge mook a few episodes back. To build on what another poster said, at some point, the different Arrowverse shows resided on various Earths. Flash and Arrow were on their one earth, dubbed Earth-One. Supergirl and Superman were on their own earth, Earth 19. Black Lightning was on his own Earth, which as far as I can recall, never got its own number. And there were also infinite earths were variations of these heroes existed, none of these heroes existed, etc. The Michael Keaton Batman movie universe, the Smallville series universe, the Birds of Prey TV series universe all existed in parallel dimensions. The PTB decided to compress things so that almost all the heroes and villains we care about were on one Earth. (There technically still are other universes representing stuff off the CW,) The details of how don't matter ,much, but there was a revamping that put all the characters on a shared earth with a new shared history. But somehow, some of the versions from the previous universes managed to make it onto Earth Prime. I would say that even if one doesn't watch the other Arrowverse shows to know the particulars of the above, the basic notion of parallel universes is a fair thing to ask a comic book shower viewer to understand/buy into. Neither this show nor any of the other Arrowverse shows have explained how exactly some people have made it to the current main reality. Your guess is as good as anyone's if Natalie is going to somehow make it to this universe, if she somehow has a doppelganger here, etc. My personal guess is that Evil Supes or his minions killed her too. In a previous episode, I believe Clark referred to Steel as "the Stranger" when talking to Lois. I can't remember why they chose that name. We have objectively seen Jonathan have football team friends that he was hanging out drinking during the town festival and who he was going to the liquor store with (along with Jordan). Maybe Lois is unaware of them, or maybe she doesn't consider them "real" friends, as they are just people he parties with or something. But we're presumably at least a month into the school year, so hopefully he has some actual friends. I don't think there's any real in-universe explanation for why Clark knowing that the mines contain some crazy version of Kryptonite, that Leslie tried to use superpowers to murder his wife, and that Morgan Edge is up to no good, doesn't take a more active role. He could be using his own superhearing to eavesdrop on every conversation either Leslie or Morgan has. He could be using his X-ray vision to look at files. He presumably has super-tech at the Fortress that he could use to hack Morgan's computers. He has super-speed that he can zip in and out of the mines for reconnaissance purposes. Etc. Etc. The only real reason he doesn't try any of these things is because the season would be over.

The show described the woman we saw as "Natalie" IIRC, which may be meant to indicate that she is different from "Natasha." We still have only seen some of what happened in JHI's timeline. But from the glimpse we've gotten: 1. Evil Supes seemingly started off akin to Our Superman 2. He then enlisted at least 5 and possibly more Kryptonians/quasi-Kryptonians who indiscriminately slaughtered and destroyed at least part of Metropolis 3. Evil Supes personally killed the love of his life. I have no problem with JHI taking the Snyder Batman's philosophy that if there is even a 1 percent chance that Our Supes will go bad, that you have to treat it as an absolute certainty. As for Kyle, it could be that Edge doesn't want to leave his butt unkissed if the experiment failed. More seriously, I suspect that Edge is sexually interested in Lana and is reading that her decision to not name Kyle for a position he obviously would want might be an opening. I think the writers and Clark did give Jon credit for the save. Lex Luthor is alive in the Arrowverse. He is played by Jon Cryer. Over in Supergirl, which so far has been ignored by S&L, he had just gotten away with literally trying to brainwash most of the planet into loving him, beating a criminal case against him. As to Diggle,

True, but it would have been better for Steel to have built those precautions and better for the story for Clark not to break in someone's RV in broad daylight without apparently even trying to use his X-Ray vision. Clark is extremely lucky that Steel's AI is not all that bright and that Steel didn't set up internal surveillance cameras. "Captain Luthor, we had an intruder. Here is a holo-image of him. Also, I detected Kryptonian DNA."

Indeed, but even before Clark had been hit by Steel, he reacted to the light as if he was hurt by it. The in-world explanation might be that Steel rigged his "solar flares" to hurt/it is an exception to the "red sun radiation drains powers painlessly" rule. The real world explanation is that TPTB either conflated the effects of red sun radiation with Kryptonite or thought it would be more dramatic to act that way or they wanted to clear the path to Jonathan getting his long awaited W by having Jordan somewhat sidelined.

What our heroes experienced was not red Kryptonite, which traditionally has random effects on Kryptonians (and in Smallville, turned them into angry douchebags, or more angry douchebags depending on your perspective). Rather, what Steel set up were lamps that simulate red solar radiation. Along with Kryptonite and magic, red solar radiation is one of the biggest weaknesses Superman and other Kryptonians have. The main reason Kryptonians have super powers in most Superman stories is that Earth has a yellow sun (sometimes, there was credit to Earth having lighter gravity than Krypton, but that part has been largely left by the wayside). Kryptonian biology allows them to store and translate the yellow sun radiation into the array of abilities we know and love. At least in the Arrowverse, Kryptonians can get charged up through exposure to simulated yellow sun radiation, and they can use all their stored energy in a single burst called a "solar flare," after which they are just as vulnerable as ordinary humans until they can recharge. However, expose them to red solar radiation like from the original sun Krypton orbited and their stores of energy either start to deplete slowly or they immediately renders them completely powerless (usually the latter, but there have been stories where it's the former). I don't think Jon did anything that needed superpowers while he was under the red sun radiation or even after. I'll have to watch again, but I think that he had the trouble lifting Steel's hammer one might expect a 14-year-old kid (with a broken wrist!) to have.

In the 1990s, the comics "killed" Superman. He fought a genetically engineered killing machine called Doomsday and died in the struggle. In the wake of his death, four people came forth using his famous insignia. Two of them claimed to be resurrected versions of him. One was a teen-aged clone that used some of his DNA and some of Lex Luthor's. The final one was Steel, or John Henry Irons. Basically, he was an engineer who created a set of armor and the hammer we saw in this episode. The character was the subject of a mediocre movie starring Shaq. At some point in the comics, JHI's niece Natasha took the mantle of Steel in her own right. I think it's a tribute to the writers that it was not obvious that the Stranger was alt-John Henry Irons, even though he was obviously an armored black guy. When they showed Natalie, I had to do a couple of takes because he referred to her as "Nat-bug" and I was like OMG, is that Steel? His appearance makes me hope that they reboot Steel as a movie character.

I think it would be a stretch to think that Our Lois would have had a previous relationship with some one that resulted in a pregnancy 20 years ago. There would be a lot to have to explain 1. Why Lois didn't recognize JHI as looking like, sounding like etc. her baby daddy 2. How Lois, even then presumably a professional journalist, had this pregnancy and baby without apparently impacting her career 3. How the subject of Lois's adopted baby never came up. It seems like a lot of work to have the same actress play Natasha when you can just handwave that Earth Prime Natasha looks like JHI's original Natasha. It is interesting I am trying to remember Lois having been depicted as having had serious boyfriends other than Clark in the main continuity of comics and movies, and the only one I can come up with was Richard from Superman Returns.

I suppose I might be in the minority here, but I hope this Steel turns at best an antihero who grudgingly teams up with Clark to fight Morgan Edge and Co. I think a heel-face turn would be unrealistic given that he has every reason to believe that Supes can and will turn evil at some point. At least hypothetically, a good John Henry Irons from another planet could have also survived Crisis and gotten to Earth Prime. Lois knows pretty much nothing about JHI beyond: he knows a lot about XK, he had enough high-tech tools to help them escape a powered person, he lied to her about his true identity, and he claims to be on a mission to save the world. We don't know one way if JHI's Natalie has made it from their pre-Crisis world to this one, and technically an Earth Prime version of Natalie that looks like the Natalie we saw in this episode should not exist in the same way because Lois and JHI did not have a child two decades ago.

It would have been way better to make it so they were super Kryptonian ear protectors that were whipped up to look like normal noise-cancelling headphones. And if they explicitly said something about the internal sounds. It would have been better if the RV was lead-lined. As to the warehouse, Clark was trusting that the enemy of his enemy is his friend. It's easy to say knowing that Steel is a villain (for now) that Clark should have been more paranoid. But with the information that Clark had, he had every reason to think that Steel was on the level or even if not, Clark could easily deal with or escape from him. It really is not that huge a leap that Lois Lane, investigative reporter and woman he presumably thinks he knows really well because he was with her doppelganger for what looks to be around two decades based on Natasha's age, would need a major development to tear her away from investigating the mysterious story he presented. Yes, technically, she could have gone for any number of lesser things even, but it is a reasonable assumption based on what Steel knows that one of the few things that would cause her to suddenly bolt was a development with the mines. Other posters have said that Lois seemed to have recognized the name John Henry Irons. So she may know more about this world's John Henry Irons than the audience does to help her reach the conclusion that he is the Stranger. But even assuming that this is the first time she had heard the name, she knows: 1. the Stranger is from another world. 2. John Henry Irons is believed dead. 3. The multiverse had been a thing where people who are dead in this world could have doppelgangers who are alive in other worlds. It is a reasonable hypothesis that Steel is one such doppelganger. There are of course other possibilities -- the military was simply wrong about the prime universe's John Henry Irons dying, or that John Henry Irons was somehow brought back to life through any of the many ways to resurrect people in the Arrowverse, or that we are dealing with a shapeshifter/clone. But Irons being a guy from another universe is as good a hypothesis as any. Add in a few more facts known to Lois: 4. The Stranger has access to levels of technology allowing him to face off with and escape Superman. 5. The person who seems to be John Henry Irons has used technology to enable him and Lois to escape superpowered Leslie 6. The Stranger and the person she met both know things that are not common knowledge (Clark's Kryptonian name for the Stranger, the existence and relevance of XK for JHI). I was under the assumption that time was of the essence to confront Evil Supes, and there's something of the notion that cutting the head of the snake would potentially limit the threat. I think we saw Edge seeing Lana and friend together. Edge has enough reason to hang out in Smallville: he wants to oversee the mining and shipping of XK and to create more quasi-Kryptonians and he wants to win a charm offensive with Smallville residents to ensure he can continue to mine XK unbothered. I assume most people in the town are on a watered-down version of Kyle's love for Morgan Edge and his potential revitalization of the town that they are flattered that Edge is personally staying in town and doing whatever, rather than leaving it to whatever subordinates. I am operating under the assumption that Larr got elevated because she got powers that ended up being stable Clark puts too much faith in the DOD in general, and in particular after he just got hit with kryptonite darts. I would have packed up the RV and everything in the warehouse to the Fortress and analyze it privately. It's possible through whatever post-Crisis excuse led to Steel ending up on Earth Prime that his Natasha has also ended up on Earth Prime.

I have to say that of all the Arrowverse shows, BL was the one where I skipped the most episodes. (About half of S3 and at least a couple episodes this season.) It's also the one I'm probably least likely to rewatch down the road. I could see at some point going back to the first season or two of Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, or about S2-3 of Legends (S1 was pretty weak), although I don't feel a rush to do any of them in an era where we are spoiled for choice just on superhero/genre shows alone. I think that the premise just would have been better for a two-hour movie than a four season series. There really wasn't a good Watsonian reason why Jefferson didn't avenge his father's death decades ago, let alone when he came back as Black Lightning. Jefferson was an eyewitness to his father's murder, and as far as I recall, there was nothing stopping him from testifying to what he saw. There was nothing, once he came into his powers, using them directly to capture Tobias. There was nothing stopping him from revealing Tobias's evil deeds during his current incarnation, especially when they had so much direct evidence of all the messed up stuff he did, and they could always get more (when you consider they have Gambi and now TC on their side). But the writers were just too in love with their creation and let him continue to exist and not freaking lose, pretty much ever. Or at least, almost never really let Jefferson win. Until now. So when it came to the finale itself, I guess it mostly lived up to its name. Each character got a measure of closure and for the good guys, they were left in a good place. Jeff finally avenges his father's death. But I think the show downplayed this enormous moment both for him and for the city of Freeland. There was a hint that Looker was going to out Tobias as the slimeball he is and bring back Jeff and Lynn's good names. But in the meantime, Tobias is the mayor, and he's dead after BL was possibly seen flying to his office. Fair enough Jeff may not have to answer to that from the law. But what about from himself? Or his family, given all the lectures about how there's no killing? Jeff and Lynn finally are getting remarried. And Jeff is re-retiring. Isn't there more work to be done to save the soul of Freeland? It seems like forever ago when Jeff was a teacher/principal. What is it about Arrowverse shows squandering the potential of their heroes' day jobs for the most part? Khalil is free of the kill order. It felt like he got about as much screen time as BL. Which is messed up. I wish I liked the twist that the real Jen was captured in an energy field till now. I don't begrudge them bringing the actress back for the finale, though I am curious as to the behind the scenes reasons for her departure. I want to be a good ally to LGBTQ+ folk, but I feel like Anissa/Grace has been largely chemistry free. Part of me hopes that Thunder or Lightning get to do a run on Legends. I didn't particularly need to see Lala again, but if we had to, why didn't they put him before the scene with the Pierces so we could have ended on a sweet note? I mean, they knew it was the final episode, right? Lala showing up again would have been more fitting if there were a possible S5 where he was the big bad. Gambi got a decent sendoff. They must have had the scene talking to young Jeff about a code as a nod to the actor's role as Dexter's dad who set him up to be a serial killer for justice, only BL is sort of the opposite. Where'd his girlfriend go? Anyways, despite all the ups and downs (mostly downs), I appreciate a lot of what the show was trying to do. Rest in power, Black Lightning.

First of all, Kyle is not exactly a reliable narrator on this point. It is surprising that he can still talk while kissing Morgan's ass 24-7.. But accepting for discussion's sake that Kyle is telling the truth that Smallville as a whole is hurting nd will die without the great and powerful Morgan Edge, this does not mean that a) there are not people who are well to do within the town who might get together to allow their football team to have this indulgence or b) that even the people of the town can't really afford it and it would be more sensible to spend their money elsewhere, they have made the choice to do something nice for the kids and/or to try to put a brave face on when confronted with their financial problems. In the big scheme of things, I wouldn't even say it's that much money. Let's say for discussion's sake, there are 50 players on Smallville High's team. You would probably then want somewhere on the order of 15-20 rooms, including coaches and chaperones. Let's say the hotel rate is $150/night/room. So we would be looking at about $3000 for the hotel stay, Maybe an extra couple of hundred to pay for the bus driver working two days (as opposed to overtime on one) and to reimburse for some expenses. Indeed, Morgan Edge himself could find that kind of money in the seats of his limo if it were needed and he wanted to continue on his campaign to win the hearts and minds of Smallville. So for me, the notion that the trip was an unaffordable indulgence for struggling Smallville is not much of a concern. As to "stick," one football slang for the word is "a hit" or "to make a good tackle." It's possible that the writers meant it that way, but that of course would raise other questions.. I think it would be unlikely that a grade school would be playing football,, although there's Pee Wee football. I also think it would be unlikely that any football would be tackle, or if it was touch/flag that Cutter would talk about it being a "stick." And of course, it that loner Jordan would be playing football even if it was. All this is probably WAY overthinking the notion that he was probably threatening to hit him in the game like he did off-the-field in grade school.