Ricky Church reviews the ninth episode of Superman & Lois…
The latest Superman & Lois episode ’30 Days and 30 Nights’ was an interesting one in the series’ first largely Superman-less episode, placing the focus on all the other characters. It wasn’t a filler episode as it still progressed plenty of the story and character development, but allowed a small breather from the danger around Ally Alston. It again showed the strength of the rest of the cast for keeping things compelling despite the lack of Superman’s in person presence.
It was a fairly surprising development for the episode to open right out of the gate with Superman disappearing through the portal to the inverse in an effort to re-capture Ally. Rather than follow him and the immediate threat, ’30 Days and 30 Nights’ shifted instead to how Lois, Jordan, Jonathan and everybody else were affected by both Superman and Clark’s mysterious disappearance. It really put a spotlight on how each of them were dealing with it, though we got occasional glimpses at how the world was reacting with media speculation about where Superman is and John Henry Irons stepping in to help where he can.
On the note of John, this was the first episode since his injury to really put him back in the centre of the story both in the action and his relationship with Natalie. Wolé Parks did a nice job as John, but Taylor Buck stole the show as Natalie through some emotional scenes where Natalie reflected on the loss of her mother and how it felt like they were forgetting their version of Lois Lane. It was nice to see her build her friendship with Sarah and begin to heal the rift with John through their memory of Lois and Buck did very well in bringing Natalie’s grief and trauma to the forefront.
Elizabeth Tulloch likewise did a great job balancing all of Lois’ emotions from having to juggle her worry over Clark’s fate to parenting two increasingly stubborn and independent teenagers. It gave Alex Garfin a bit more room to grow without Clark’s guidance as Jordan began taking it on himself to step in where he could, like saving Kyle’s life in a massive fire and then teaming up with Lois and Sam on a recon mission. Jordan Elsass also gave a good performance as Jonathan continued to struggle with disappointing his parents as well as the rest of Smallville and finally came clean about his girlfriend’s involvement in the ex-K drug trade. He still didn’t get too much to do though, but now that his secret is out Elsass can do a bit more to move beyond Jonathan’s need to protect Candace – especially now that the Bizarro version of Jonathan has arrived.
While not as pressing as the danger Ally presents, Lana’s campaign for Smallville’s mayor finally came to a head as the episode took place on election day. Like Tulloch, Emmanuelle Chriqui did a fine job balancing everything Lana was dealing with and now that she has won the mayoral position it will be very interesting to see where she goes next. It also provided interesting moments with Kyle as his current situation seems very depressing and Erik Valdez conveyed Kyle’s uncertainty well. For Sarah, though, it seems a little drastic for her to break up with Jordan so soon after they expressed their love and he gave her the promise ring, but considering his behaviour in this episode, as well as ditching his date with Sarah and her friend in the previous episode to save Jon and Candace, it’s not too much of a stretch to see how she came to that decision but still could have been explored a little more even with the advice her father gave her.
’30 Days and 30 Nights’ was a good episode that nicely progressed the arcs for Lois, Jonathan, Jordan and Natalie while examining the absence of Superman’s presence. The breather from the main plot was nice and allowed focus on the other main and supporting characters to grow and raises plenty of questions for what was happened to Superman in the inverse world.
Rating: 7/10
Ricky Church – Follow me on Twitter for more movie news and nerd talk.
