In Review: Superman & Lois (S4 – EP6) When the Lights Come On

Synopsis: In When the Lights Come On, Luthor plans to move LuthorCorp to Smallville, but finds opposition in Lana; Sarah faces a difficult decision; Clark confronts Luthor face-to-face.

The Story

In his continuing quest for revenge against Superman and Lois Lane. Lex Luthor hatches a plan to bring LuthorCorp and all of its operations to Smallville and gets his Lawyer Amanda McCoy to make arrangements. Seeing the deal come through the town planning Lana who is now Mayor of Smallville meets with the person that LuthorCorp is trying to buy the land from in order to stop the deal before any documents are signed. Furious at not being able to purchase the land Lex sends Otis out to kill Lana.

Seeing his close friend badly hurt because of Luthor. Superman confronts Lex and an almighty fisticuffs takes place, which ultimately ends with Lex packing up and leaving Smallville. At least for the time being.

By the close of the episode, we see Lex talking with Amanda McCoy as the pair strategies a new plan that sees Amanda uttering the line, “You need a killer suit.” Hmm, now what suit might that be?

The Acting

Tyler Hoechlin and Michael Cudlitz both put in very strong performances throughout this episode. The confrontation between Superman and Lex toward the close of the episode is well and truly earned. The scene where Clark and Lois visit Lana after she is attacked is pretty much the ignited fuse that triggers Superman to go after Lex as you see the fury bubbling up all over Clark’s face when he sees how badly Lana has been attacked.

We also get a strong performance from Emmanuelle Chriqui in her role of Lana. I loved the scenes where she stood up to Luthor and refused to remove all the red tape that he needed to go through in order to buy the land. I also enjoyed how that scene got followed up when Lana and the townsfolk once again say no to Luthor, especially when he tries to buy their cooperation.

Overall

When the Lights Come On was a fairly strong episode that built on the events from previous episodes and added a little more Juice to Luthor’s storyline as I am fairly certain we are going to see one of Lex’s many Mech Suits or even a variation on the Kryptonian power armor we have seen him use in the comic books. The question is how will they write that into the overall story arc and how will it come about?