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TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Superman & Lois Season 3 Episode 10: Collision Course

May 31st, 2023 by Todd Black Comments

I find it almost hilarious, in a tragic way, how much of a shift we got in Superman & Lois from last week to tonight. If you saw my review of the last episode, I felt that they had delivered one of the most heartwarming, mature, and well-written episodes ever. Not just for the superhero genre but in television in general. They hit almost every note perfectly, and it was incredible. Unfortunately, “Collision Course” was the near opposite. Very few beats hit, and I was left wondering, “What did I just watch?”

And the worst part is that it gave a bit of a red herring by starting this episode off with a beautiful sequence of Lois finishing chemotherapy and getting to ring the bell. It was a beautiful moment…and the only one we’d get.

I’ll start with the good because there were a few good beats. For example, Lana taking the initiative and talking with the governor of the state was nice. A few episodes ago, she didn’t know what to feel about her new life and station. But now, she was talking about moving up the political ranks, and that was pretty cool. It didn’t end well, but it was nice seeing them advance Lana’s ambitions.

Another good thing was the talks between Lois and Peia. I liked how Lois tried to be a friend to her even after all that she knew, and she was right that it would be best if she, Lois, wrote the story instead of everyone else. And you had to wonder if Peia would’ve confessed the truth…had Bruno and Mateo not pulled a fast one. It was obvious what they were going to do, but it was a nice payoff to see Onomonopeia breaking out of the DOD without much issue. How she got back to Metropolis on her own was rather odd…but I’ll roll with it.

Sadly, just about everything else in this episode…well, sucked. It felt like a typical CW teen drama, and that’s something that this show has done well to avoid in the past, including in the last episode with an episode that puts most CW series to shame. Their whole series!

So, what went wrong? Well, Clark decided to do the very fatherly thing of making up lost time with the boys since he’s been away with Lois and her treatments. But Jonathan went full 100% DICK and decided to bail…because there was a kegger party going on. And he decided to bring his socially awkward brother with him…just so he could ditch him as his girlfriend showed up. I don’t think I’ve hated Jonathan more than I did in this episode. Everything that came out of his mouth outside of like one conversation came off as so arrogant, reckless, stupid, or just plain insolent. He not only lies to his father, but then when he gets caught in the lie he acts like he did nothing wrong.

Yes, he didn’t drink beer, which does show some growth, but then he made it seem like nothing he was worthy of punishment and that his FATHER was to blame for everything. Not only should Clark have pushed back hard, but he should also’ve done so with some of the force we’ve seen him push back with Jordan. And yet, he didn’t. He just folded, which was infinitely frustrating.

Oh, but Jordan didn’t come off Scot Free. At points, he was even worse and acting like a CW trope more than Jonathan was. Like when he got ticked that Sarah was talking with another guy, and then the INFINITELY CRINGE line, “Sometimes I wish I never fell in love with you.” Who says that? Even a socially awkward kid like Jordan would think twice about saying that to the ONE GIRL he’s been open with about his feelings.

Not to mention, this ONCE AGAIN enforces the CW trope that a guy and a gal can’t be “just friends,” they HAVE to be pining over one another, and that’s bull. And based on the preview of next episode, it’s not going to get any better. Plus, his blowup at Clark was just a mirror of all the other times he’s blown up at him…and he’s in the wrong EVERY TIME!

Oh, and Sarah making the same mistakes as before also didn’t help. Like how she didn’t tell her mom she was going to a party and then decided to be a getaway driver for a guy we’ve only met twice really didn’t make her seem that responsible. Which only hurt Lana because, of course, this came out right as she was having dinner with the governor. Way to go, Sarah.

As for Kyle finding out about the family’s secret…it just felt off. Him researching the “new hero in town” could’ve been a good angle. But they pushed way too hard and threatened to break every relationship in his life when, to be blunt, he didn’t need to know. And who knows how this is going to go down next week? It was just too much all at once on top of everything else that was WAY too much.

In the end, “Collision Course” did very little to bolster the characters after last week’s fantastic episode. If anything, many of them came off looking worse than normal, and the only good parts were the ones that progressed the overall plot…which were few and far between.

2.5/5

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!