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TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Superman & Lois Episode 3: The Perks Of Not Being A Wallflower

March 10th, 2021 by Todd Black Comments

One of the initial problems of Supergirl’s run when it debuted on CBS (and then came to the CW if you recall) was that despite Superman and Supergirl being the “only Kryptonians on Earth”…they turned out to NOT be the only Kryptonians on Earth, and that kind of ruined things. While “The Perks Of Not Being a Wallflower” had certain going for it, it definitely got weighed down by supervillains just showing up and having the same powers as Superman…again.

But let’s start off with the good. Something I definitely appreciated about this episode was the continued focus on family in its various elements. From Clark trying to be there for his family, and it blowing up in his face when he overstepped. To Clark supporting Lois when things started to go wrong with her new job (how many Molotov’s do you think have been thrown at her cars?). To the brothers Kent both butting heads and trying to look out for one another. It’s great stuff for the most part. It’s very Black Lightning Season 1 if you will where the superheroing is still there, but the family is still the focus, and that really elevates the show overall.

Just as much, I like how Lois’ continued fight to find the truth about Morgan Edge was handled for the most part. From Lois continually trying to fight for the truth, to the struggles of her not having the resources of patient boss that she had before, and so on. Lois had a lot of screentime tonight and I loved that and I look forward to seeing this  as it develops even more.

To my surprise, the Lang family also had a good amount of story in this episode. From Sara trying to ‘find herself’, to Lana Lang trying to understand happened with her kid. The confession scene at the end of the episode was very well handled as it could’ve come off as incredibly cheesy but the writing here was spot-on. And funnily enough, we got to see Lana showing off the dark side of being from a small town where some people honestly do feel trapped and fall into things that they don’t want to because they were “taught a certain way” or “pressured to be something they weren’t. Thankfully, the showrunners have already caboshed any notion of the Kent’s getting split up by a third party and that would’ve been Lana in this case. So hopefully, any growth in the friendship between Lana and Clark will be 100% plutonic…which is something that does happen in the real world!

That being said, there were some definite “yo-yo” elements here where something would go down early in the episode and then be wound up nicely by the end in a way that was just…too much. Having it happen once? Sure, that’s fine. Like Clark with the “listening violation”. But then it happened again with the brothers, and then with Lois’ new boss going from “when can you start?” to “this might not a story so drop it!” and then bouncing back and going “look what I dug up!” It was annoying to see it happen over and over again.

Also, there was some mixed messaging with the football storyline. Because it’s clear Jordan has super-strength to some level and yet Jonathan and Clark were playing it off a bit. Also, Jonathan getting punished by the coach for “not telling him about his brother” was lame. And then while Clark’s baseball story was nice, it still feels pretty risky to let Jordan do sports when you could argue they don’t have a full grasp on all he can do.

Still, in the end, “The Perks Of Not Being A Wallflower” had a lot of good elements that overpowered the bad and annoying ones. Next week’s episode looks like it’ll be even more on the family drama side and it’ll be interesting to see how it’ll all go down.

Oh, forgot to mention. That paint scene that started the episode? That was masterful.

Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!