In Review: Krypton – Zods and Monsters

Synopsis: General Zod pushes for control of a dominating weapon.

Review: A solid episode, which delves into the history of Doomsday.

The Story

Val-El sends Adam Strange and Kem on a mission to seek out Zod’s soldiers who are trapped in the mines. Meanwhile back in Kandor City Zod is working with one of his scientists to try and make Doomsday more responsive to suggestion. Zod’s tinkering triggers some rather painful flashbacks for Doomsday, who is as yet not conscious.

Elsewhere, Seg enlists Nyssa’s help to get the Brainiac nanites out of his head. To do so they need to use the Val-El hologram in order to get the correct directions on how to safely remove the nanites. It is a race against time as Brainiac’s influence over Seg is getting stronger.

The Acting

Shaun Sipos and Rasmus Hardiker put in a wonderful performance as Adam Strange and Kem respectively. The scene where Adam learns that Kem has been given command is quite funny. Especially the moment where Kem teases Adam about the symptoms of the radiation, which Zods soldiers will likely have been exposed to while trapped in the caves.

We also get great performances from Cameron Cuffe and Wallis Day as they both get to work with some fantastic character beats, which have a degree of gallows humor to them, which is something that most dystopic storylines tend to lack these days.

Overall

This is the strongest episode of the season by far. We get plenty of backstory with regards to Doomsday and his creation as well as some foreshadowing concerning Superman’s father who gets his official name of Jor-Ell in this story.  I loved the sarcasm from Seg-El and Nyssa as she was operating via instructions from the computer construct of Val-El, whose reaction of, “Great, more sarcasm” was timed to utter perfection.

All the backstory concerning the creation of Doomsday was done really well, but a bit hard to watch at times. The utter coldness coming from the scientist Wedna-El was disturbing and will have you questioning whether or not the family of El is as pure as it is often painted out to be given the atrocities she inflicts in the name of science.

Overall. A solid episode, which reveals the horrifying backstory of Doomsday’s creation and leaves us with a heart-ripping cliffhanger.