Superman and Lois reached the midway point of it's first season and is taking a bit of breather.
Clark, Lois and sons Jordan and Jonathan are still struggling to make life work down on the farm in ol' Smallville.
Jordan seems to be doing a bit better since he now as a friend who is also a girl (wink! wink!) and he has some small slice of dad's super powers.
Jonathan has tried to be the good brother but the flipped dynamic is clearly bothering him. Back in Metropolis, Jonathan had a girlfriend, he had a top spot on the football team and he was popular. In Smallville, the girlfriend has dumped him by phone and he's playing 2nd fiddle to Jordan on the football team. He's hanging out with a bad crowd that has led to Jonathan getting drunk so that's not a good look for him.
Clark is trying to be a better father to his sons but the world won't stop needing Superman to save it. And there's whatever the mysterious super powered armored stranger is up to.
We know (but Clark doesn't yet) that this is a Lex Luthor from another Earth where Superman is a bad guy and Luthor was in love with Lois Lane. Out of the armor, our alternate Luthor has made contact with Lois, in the guise of a fellow journalist who ostensibly wants to help her with her Morgan Edge story.
You can take the woman out of the big city but that doesn't mean she leaves behind her big city reporter's instincts and Lois is hard on the trail of whatever fuckery Morgan Edge is up to in Smallville. Smallville, a hungry and desperate town, is all in to give Edge whatever he wants in exchange for jobs and investment. But Edge is up to no good.
Edge is mining for radioactive rocks that give people super powers. Out of control, very destructive powers as we've witnessed the sad end of a couple of Edge's powered up lackeys.
Superman and Lois has stepped aside for a few weeks so Supergirl can finally return. The first episode of the series required a lot of remembering of a lot of details from the last new episode from a year ago. The episode was clearly meant not to be a season premier but the previous season's finale, a finale delayed due to lockdowns in place for the coranvirus.
Lex Luthor is going to mind control most of the world to love him and those that are not under his control will be killed. J'Onn and M'Gann shut down Luthor's satellite network by... thinking real hard, I guess? Supergirl throws down with Lex Luthor which is a bit of a miss match as Lex can shoot kryptonite rays at her.
Luther's schemes are upended and that British dude whose name I can't remember writes up an expose for Catco that blows open the whole sordid scheme but somehow, Supergirl winds up zapped into the Phantom Zone and oh no! We'll have to wait all summer... no, we'll find out next week how that turns out.
Major impact of Supergirl in the Phantom Zone? She no longer has bangs. How does being in the Phantom Zone change Kara's hair?
The Phantom Zone is filled with Dementor rejects and Supergirl is all alone except for her father Zor-El who may or may not be who he says he is. (Andrea and I are assuming he's not.)
Out in the real world, Kara's super friends have sought out a gay alien vampire (from the planet Transelvane, no less) named Silas. Silas can turn into a bat by shouting "Bat!" (A nice shout out to What We Do In the Shadows.) He also has experience with getting in and out of the Phantom Zone. The first attempt to breach the Phantom Zone doesn't go so well as the Dementor rejects burst through a portal to ravage Earth. Thanks to Dreamer doing.... whatever it is she does (seriously, what exactly is that wonky energy she shoots out of her fingers anyway?), the raging wraiths of the Phantom Zone get pushed back and the portal is shut. They will just have to try another day but everyone is on edge and testy about not being able to save Supergirl.
And also on edge and testy about whatever shit Lex Luthor is up to.
Lex Luthor is on trial for murder, crimes against humanity and littering. Acting as his own lawyer, Lex discredits Eve Tessmacher and Lena Luthor and finishes off with an impassioned speech that he's just a dude trying to do good in the world and is the target of vengeful women.
And it works. Even Lex Luthor is surprised!
By the way, Andrea and I are still catching up on Batwoman and we're both glad we decided to give this show a 2nd chance. Ryan Wilder is such a great character and it's been a lot of fun watching her grow into the role of Batwoman.
Another super hero TV show debuted recently, Invincible based on the comic book by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker and Ryan Ottely. The Invincible comic book series is at once an old school throwback to classic comic book tropes and a serious upending of those tropes in a brutal and devastating manner.
And the TV show follows that pattern.
The majority of the first episode tracks a typical coming of age story. Mark Grayson's father Nolan is really Omni-Man, a Superman expy and Mark has finally begun displaying the powers he inherited from his father. We get a nice, warm half hour of Mark spending some father-son bonding time as he learns more about the use of his power and creates the super hero persona of Invincible.
But then...
The last act of the episode follows Omni-Man to the HQ of the Guardians of the Globe, an expy of the Justice League. And Omni-Man murders them.
No clean bursts of heat vision and poof, a super hero turns to ash.
Yes, there is a lot of blood. A seriously large amount of blood as Omni-Man shatters skulls and punches holes in chests.
It is a sudden and violent betrayal that upends everything we knew about Omni-Man,
It also announces to the audience to check your expectations at the door. This is a series that will zip when you think it will zag.
If Spider-Man was handled the same way as Invincible, Aunt May would've been dead years ago.
The look of the animation perfectly captures the clean bold lines of the comic book art by Walker and Ottely but make no mistake, this is no kid's show.
People will say "fuck".
Before I wrap up this post, I gotta say a word about Jeopardy. Aaron Rodgers is friendly and affable as the guest host but he is a bit too quiet in his delivery. He has a soft warm voice that calls to mind Bob Ross painting videos.
Aaron is the only guest host so far to indicate he wouldn't mind having the gig on the regular but I'm just not seeing it.
OK, that is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down, will ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.
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