TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Superman & Lois Season 3 Episode 7: Forever & Always

I’ll admit that many episodes of Superman & Lois this season have been trying to do a big “stinger” at the end to push things forward, and sometimes it’s worked…and sometimes it hasn’t. In “Forever & Always,” I don’t feel it worked because it spoke to the episode’s bigger issue of “conflicting tones.”

I’ll start with the positives because there were lots of them once again. First and foremost…that opening scene. They’ve been crushing it lately with starting things on a brutally honest note. Showing Lois starting to fail in her health was a nice touch as it further highlighted how the cancer is affecting her. Furthermore, her talks with Peia throughout the episode were nice because it was actually very believable that Lois would think she went too far because cancer had “thrown off her instincts.” After all, it’s cancer. It had thrown off everything else…so why not her hunches about things?

I loved the honesty of Lois in how she “doesn’t have many friends,” and if you think about it…that’s kind of true. She has Lana, and technically John Henry (theirs is a complicated relationship), and Crissy, but all of those come with…caveats in their own way. She and Peia would’ve been good friends…had circumstances been different. That leads to the next positive of Clark being the one to understand the truth and how Bruno was willing to make a profit off of everything he touched…except the cancer center…because it really was about healing his wife. Which, I’m glad they confirmed because I wasn’t sure what to make of the Peia reveal last week, so I’m glad they cleared that up.

Even seeing Lois admit after the bell scene how she couldn’t help but see Bruno Manheim as a “loving husband” versus a “vicious gangster” was strong as it showed that sometimes even the bad guys have something to fight for. I also enjoyed seeing Bruno’s past with Peia and how the two become a couple…over the dead boys of everyone she killed…yeah…good times…lol.

Another thing I enjoyed was the Lana ending with her and the fireworks. It was very self-aware of her to note that she felt that everyone was moving on except for her, and that made her sad because she’s still trying to do so much for others, like with the mayor’s position. So for her to cut loose with her daughter, and Sarah to be there for her in her mom’s time of need, was great stuff.

That being said…I didn’t appreciate how certain other things came off.

The first thing is Jonathan. A child being concerned about their potentially dying parent is totally understandable. But the way he went off on Clark for not potentially using the Kryptonian tech? The way he rummaged through his parents’ things to find the will and goodbye letters, and called out how “hope doesn’t cure cancer?” That felt so…off. Yes, both the boys had shown concern before, but nothing like this. And this is now two episodes in a row where boys called out their father in a position where they “thought they knew better,” and they totally didn’t.

The “makeup” scene wasn’t much better as it retreaded ground from the last episode with Clark not accepting what might happen or them promising to “not keep secrets” anymore. It also didn’t help that Jonathan had to call out some of the symptoms that Lois was allegedly showing when we only saw a few bits of it. And she totally has a full head of hair. Just saying.

Moving back to Sarah, her treatment of Crissy was totally uncalled for. Moreover, them pointing out the age difference between Crissy and Kyle just made things more awkward as there are MANY people who would call out such a thing. I still hate that relationship, and I honestly don’t feel better about it here. Especially since…Crissy is apparently a stoner…ok…

As for John Henry, his “protective dad” routine was…way too much. We’ve seen that kind of scene in how many different shows? Why did we need to see it here? And while I appreciated his explanation, and his scene with Mateo afterward…it still came off as a bit too cliche…which Nat even admitted he was! When you have to break the 4th wall like that? You’re doing something wrong.

Finally, there’s the Manheim family. While I enjoyed much of their story, the season seems bent on trying to portray Bruno as a “noble villain” and now Peia as a “cancer fighter”…and yet we know they’re both killers. Peia killed the former mayor this season and we saw her wipe out people in this episode. It’s kind of hard to feel bad for people, even those with cancer, when you know what they’ve done in the past. Plus, with Mateo now revealed as their son, this is only going to make things more awkward, and we don’t need that.

In the end, “Forever & Always” had some incredibly strong scenes, but they were met with others that kind of knocked them off course. With more advances being made in the overall plot, let’s see what happens next.

3.5/5