TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews The Krypton Season Finale: The Phantom Zone

Let’s just get this out of the way…KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!!! Ok, I’m better now. I like “The Phantom Zone” to the recent season finale of Gotham, where the final 10 minutes were pretty epic and game-changing. Unlike Gotham though, the other 30-odd minutes weren’t as entertaining.

I LOVE Krypton as a series, but the problem here was that despite all the great buildup…they kept building it up…for 30 minutes. Why? Brainiac was already here, what more did they need to build up? And while some of the big twists were great, we really didn’t need some of them.

For example, Lyta and Dev’s attack on Brainiac…which lasted all of ten seconds. They spent so much time on that and then Lyta was naturally devastated, and then she committed the rest of her forces to the evacuation efforts. What was the point of that storyline?

Nyssa faired a little better, as it was totally believable that she would want to save her son (Seg’s son too) from the bottling of Kandor. And she even had an epic moment of threatening an AI and getting it to yield. And yet, her meeting Jax-Ur and finding out she’s a clone? Really? We already knew about the cloning because of last episode (or the one before that, I don’t recall), did we really need another crash course of what Daron Vex did?

Just as frustrating was the twist with Adam Strange. We had no idea where he was, and yet apparently he is in Braniac’s ship. One that has conquered a part of Earth somehow…despite them saying a few episodes back that he wasn’t from the future. So…how did he have Earth? And why did Adam’s Zeta Beam take him to that specific spot? We don’t know, and that’s very frustrating.

Moving onto more positive storylines, I was very pleased with the twist that Val-El was alive. Not because of trickery or the like, but because he went to the Phantom Zone, which obviously is a huge part of Superman lore, and was in the Fortress of Solitude the whole time!

Then, the fun twist that Zod was willing to sacrifice Val-El to Brainiac to save Krypton felt very in character. And that meeting between two of Superman’s greatest foes was a real treat. As was the final twist of Brainiac being taken to the Phantom Zone…along with Seg.

Yep, Superman’s grandfather is gone, and that’s changed everything. General Zod now rules Krypton, and he seeks to expand his reign, which will apparently include Earth if what Adam saw is to be believed. Oh, and Superman becomes a Zod…somehow.

The problem here is that we know this is all going to be reverted. Yes, it’s nice to see for now, but something is going to give because Superman has to return. And as powerful as Zod’s speech was, we know he won’t rule forever.

In the end, “The Phantom Zone” had some very good twists, and a great ending, but the process to get to those wasn’t the best.