Ricky Church reviews the eighth episode of Krypton season 2…
With it being so close to the end of its second season, Krypton is still not holding anything back. ‘Mercy’ delivered a fairly character driven episode with some exciting sequences and even more twists that served as nice set up for the final two episodes.
It’d be impossible to talk about ‘Mercy’ without first discussing the biggest development (and spoiler): Lyta-Zod is actually alive, having been cloned by Zod and given to a Black Mercy plant after she refused to go along with Zod’s plans any further. The Black Mercy, which was created by Alan Moore in his famous Superman story For The Man Who Has Everything, is a parasite that gives its host a very real hallucination of everything they’ve ever wanted in life. In Lyta’s dream world, she is about to marry Seg after she left the Sagitari and he regained his family’s rank with everyone, including her militaristic mother, being nothing but happy for them.
The twist with Lyta was a definite surprise. Just when it seemed like the show had really killed her off, her return further signifies how much she has gone through this season at the hands of her son. Georgina Campbell did a nice job portraying a Lyta that audiences could be easily stand behind as she opposed Zod’s tyranny. While her clone, which Zod reveals still had to be reconditioned to his way of thinking, never got the chance to show some repentance, the original Lyta does. It’s clear from Campbell’s performance how much regret and responsibility for Krypton’s current state Lyta carries on her shoulders. It was quite a good contrast to her performance in the Mercy dream, showcasing such a happy and carefree woman against a demoralized and near broken one. The reunions between Lyta and Seg, Jayna and the others were well acted from Campbell and the rest of the cast as well.
During Lyta’s dream and awakening, Zod got a lot of time as he tried finding more ways to control Doomsday. Zod flexed his villain muscles throughout most of the episodes, either threatening his lead scientist or Seg and Nyssa. While Colin Salmon again did well conveying the depths of Zod’s evil, there were times when it felt a bit repetitive as all he did was glower and threaten. It is interesting, though, to see him be more threatening to even his closest underlings as he drops his more ‘heroic’ persona altogether the more things don’t go according to his plan. His scenes opposite Seg, Nyssa and Lyta were good too, but for the amount of screentime Zod had here not enough was really done with him to differentiate his scenes.
‘Mercy’ was a fairly good episode for Krypton that allowed the cast to shine together in completely tonal opposite settings while the story stepped up its endgame. The only negative to an otherwise solid chapter was how much Zod conveyed the same message in his scenes. With Lyta fully returned and on Seg’s side and Zod coming closer to gaining control of Doomsday, the last two episodes of Krypton‘s second season are shaping up to be quite good.
Ricky Church
