In Review: Superman and Lois (S4 – EPs 1 & 2) The End & The Beginning and A World Without

Synopsis: In ‘The End & The Beginning’, Superman is locked in a brutal battle with Luthor’s monster; Lois and the boys race against time to save General Lane. In ‘A World Without’, Lois gets some help from Lana and Sarah who join the fight against Luther.

The Story

Events pick up from where the last season left off. Lex Luther has returned and he has vengeance on his mind against both Superman and Lois Lane. To that end he has created a monster called Doomsday whose sole purpose is to kill Superman and remove his heart. While Superman is off on the moon fighting Doomsday and getting his butt handed to him. Lois struggles to keep Jordon from going after Lex Luther and potentially making a very bad situation a lot worse.  This is no easy task given that Luther has brought property in Smallville and is looking to make it his base of operations.

When Doomsday returns with the dead body of Superman and seems to have taken Superman’s heart. Things escalate as Jordon becomes determined to steal his father’s heart back from Lex Luthor and sets about doing just that. However, it would appear that Luther is ready for Jordon’s attacks and is several moves ahead. Meanwhile, Lois who is trying to juggle everything all at once has to difficulty of writing an obituary for Superman.  Thankfully, Lois is not alone in her fight against Luther as Lana and Sarah join the fight and start trying to figure out a few plans.

The Acting

Michael Cudlitz puts in a truly menacing performance as Lex Luther who is rather more a blue color version of the character than what we have seen before. The scene where Jordon Kent confronts Lex in the opening episode is brilliantly done and Alex Garfin does well to maintain a level of intensity throughout the scene where Lex and Jordon are taking the measure of each other.

Elizabeth Tulloch is fantastic as ever in the role of Lois Lane and has a great deal to cope with throughout this episode as she deals with her character’s grief over the loss of Superman as well as being a good mother and career woman. Perhaps they should have called these two episodes superwoman.

Overall

A solid start for the fourth and final season and has some pretty good visuals considering that the series has suffered some budget cuts due to the takeover of The CW.