Superman & Lois
The old saying goes that "When momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" and this is never more true than the debut of the 2nd season of Superman and Lois.
It's been three months since Natalie Irons popped out of a pod escaping from an alternative Earth where that world's Lois Lane... and Natalie's mother... was killed.
And Lois is irritable as fuck about it.
It stands to reason that seeing Natalie would mess with Lois's head in so many ways. We found out in season 1 that Lois had a miscarriage with that would've been her daughter who she and Clark were going to name "Natalie".
Still, she is so cranky with everyone, with Chrissy at the Smalliville Gazette, with Clark, with Jordan and with Jonathan.
Well, Jonathan crosses a line when Lois catches her 15 year old son half naked in bed with his 15 year old girlfriend. Lois goes from cranky to super pissed off.
(Also it appears unlike comic book Jonathan Kent, TV Jonathan is not going to be gay.)
Things smooth out a bit for Lois when she finally agrees to a sit down chat with Natalie and we find out what's really eating at Lois, her lack of reaction to meeting Natalie the first time and the reminders of her own mother's perceived lack of empathy.
Meanwhile, Superman's dealing with shit.
Sam Lane's replacement with the Department of Defense is not happy that Superman will not put American interests first ahead of the rest of the world.
Someone is psychically attacking Superman at random.
And somewhere, deep down in the Earth, below miles of rock, something is punching it's way out.
Comic book fans recognize what's going with that plot point: Doomsday is coming to Superman & Lois.
Ooh boy!
Batwoman
Oh man! Where to start?
Mary Hamilton continues to her descent into becoming Poison Ivy with the sociopathic murdering Alice as her only friend.
(Alice killed Mary's mother back in season 1. Now Mary and Alice are all "Thelma and Louise".)
Team Batwoman finds a potential cure in a serum used to incapacitate Pamela Isley, the original Poison Ivy, who is a desiccated comatose zombie buried deep beneath the Bat Cave where Batman trapped her years ago.
What the what now?
Getting to the Bat Cave is not so easy since Ryan Wilder lost Wayne Enterprises to Marcus Jett for... reasons.
Marcus Jett is sinking deeper into his own madness, becoming a sociopathic murdering prodigy of the Joker.
And Rene Montoya has been harboring her own secrets, manipulating Batwoman in order to get close to her girlfriend Pamela and risk unleashing the original sociopathic murdering Poison Ivy on Gotham City once more.
OK, Batwoman, I am trying to hang in there.
But you're close to pushing me into becoming sociopathic murdering Bat viewer.
Naomi
Based on the comic book created by Brian Michael Bendis, David F. Walker and Jamal Campbell, this new CW series is about a teenage girl named Naomi McDuffie, super smart and weird in a good way who is a major fan girl of Superman.
Superman the comic book character. Unlike the comic book which was firmly rooted in the DC Universe, the TV series is set in a world much like our own where Superman is a comic book character.
Until one fateful day he isn't.
One day in her home town of Port Oswego, Oregon, Superman and a blue skinned villain get into a brief but devastating brawl before disappearing.
Superman is... real?
Naomi misses the event, passing out. Something weird is happening to her.
- Does she have super powers?
- Who is she really?
- Is the world around her to be trusted?
It does seem that a lot of people in Port Oswego know more than they are telling. Her adoptive parents seem particularly evasive.
The first hour of Naomi is quiet and methodical as it introduces us to Naomi, her family and friends as well as some of the strangers lurking on the edges of Port Oswego. It is an interesting approach to launch an ostensibly Arrowverse show in a world where super heroes are not real but are comic book characters.
It's been more than a few years since I was a teenage geek looking at life and wondering if there was more to the world than I was seeing. Sadly, the wonders of imagination did not manifest themselves in my world but they do for Naomi.
A lot of what makes this debut work hinges on the charm of Kaci Walfall as Naomi McDuffie, super smart and geeky but still manages to bridge into a world with more "normal" kids. I wish I could've been more like Naomi at that age.
The slow unraveling of her perception of the world around her is every comic book fan's dream and nightmare. Yeah, it would be cool to have super powers but we've read enough comic books to know this will not end well.
Naomi is off to a strong and intriguing start and I hope it can sustain that quality through it's first season.
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Other TV stuff!
By the time this posts, I will be 4 episodes into the 6th and final season of Justified.
It's hard to avoid spoilers for a show that ended nearly a decard ago but I've done my part by avoiding Justified on TV Tropes and Wikipedia.
But I guess I do know for sure Raylan Givens makes it out of Harlan County, KY for sure.
Timothy Olyphant his own damn self is coming back as Givens for Justified: City Primeval, a new limited series for FX.
His baby daughter down in Florida is now a teenager and Givens is trying to live his best life as a US Marshall and a dad down in Florida when pursuit of a violent, sociopathic fugitive takes him to Detroit.
The press release describes Givens as "His hair is grayer, his hat is dirtier and the road in front of him is suddenly a lot shorter than the road behind."
It's good to know that my journey watching Justified has a new chapter to look forward to.
Speaking of TV shows getting 2nd acts, the revival of the original and still best Law & Order is debuting February 24th with Sam Waterson set to return as District Attorney Jack McCoy and Anthony Anderson as Detective Kevin Bernard. I've been glomming reruns of L&O in anticipation for the series return.
The rest of the cast is new. The new cast member I'm looking forward to most is Camryn Manheim as Lieutenant Kate Dixon, filling the spot for held by Lt. Van Buren overseeing the detectives in her squad, a role very similar to Manheim's role in the late and very lamented Stumptown.
OK, that is that for today's touchbase.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.
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