They may have taken nearly two months off, but things are only getting more difficult for the Kents. This week at the Arrowverse Couch Club, we’re looking at the return of Superman & Lois, as Clark, Lois, Jordan and Jonathan have to deal with Tag targeting them after escaping the military, Jordan’s fluctuating, dangerous powers, Morgan Edge’s continued plans to exploit the X-Kryptonite in the mines and, behind it all, Captain Luthor’s continued attempt to take down Superman and how Lois factors into his plans. Elsewhere on Earth-Prime, the Waverider crew went back to the future to stop an alien from literally killing it on a singing competition on Legends of Tomorrow, a bad batch of Snakebite turned Gotham’s users into actual zombies on Batwoman, Jefferson prepared for his final confrontation with Tobias ahead of the series finale of Black Lightning and Barry looked to train Alexa/Fuerza to take on Psych and eventually the Speed Force itself on The Flash.
Legends of Tomorrow – “The Ex-Factor”
Though it didn’t receive much attention from the team, Gideon had another moment where she took surprising glee in a pretty gruesome moment. What’s your take on this: just a new quirk for Gideon that’ll result in a throwaway joke at best, or an indication of something much darker in store for our favorite AI?
Batwoman – “And Justice for All”
Though there were some pretty big developments this week (Ocean killing Enigma, Sophie officially leaving the Crows), if you watched all the way to the end, you know what the biggest shock of the night was. What was your reaction to Luke being shot, and how do you think it could affect him and the show going forward?
Black Lightning – “The Book of Resurrection: Chapter One”
Are you still intrigued by Chief Lopez’s storyline going into the series finale, or would you rather the final episode keep the focus solely on the end of the fight against Tobias?
The Flash – “Family Matters, Part 1”
Do you think Joe made the right move by resigning from the CCPD to protest Kramer and the governor’s anti-meta agenda, or would he have been better off continuing to try and fight it from the inside?
Superman & Lois – “Broken Trust”
Even though keeping secrets from a spouse never ends well, do you still think it was a good call for Lana and Lois to hide their now mutual investigation of Morgan Edge from Kyle?
There’s a theory gaining traction, especially after the return this week, regarding the nature of Jordan’s powers – that they only materialize when Jonathan is around. What do you make of this possible explanation, and does it actually seem feasible?
What episode from this week was your favorite?
Legends of Tomorrow – “The Ex-Factor”
Batwoman – “And Justice for All”
Black Lightning – “The Book of Resurrection: Chapter One”
I’m probably thinking about this too much in general, but this actually felt like a relatively straightforward episode for Legends this week (by their standards, anyway), and so I’m left thinking about this new, dark preference Gideon’s picked up. I do think there’s a real chance that this could be more than it seems, like maybe some sort of alien virus managed to infect Gideon’s systems and it’s slowly but surely turning her more sinister or something. Seeing the Legends trapped on the Waverider and having to fight a rogue Gideon could actually make for a pretty fun episode. But I think more likely this’ll end up being something like Gideon having gotten into Ava’s serial killer podcasts and she just got really into them. I could see 1 of the Legends bringing up this surprising new glee for such horror, she mentions that she’s been getting into Ava’s podcasts, the team moves on and maybe there’s a scene later where Ava is geeking out over them w/ Gideon. It’d be cute
I’m not gonna lie, it took all of my restraint to not scream out in terror and throw something at my TV in that moment. As that last scene played out, I was thinking that in the worst-case scenario, Luke would end up getting arrested again, but I never thought they’d go this far. Even in going the shooting route, I thought for a second they might pull the cliché where a gun gets pulled out, the scenes cuts to black and we hear gunshots, not actually knowing for sure what happened. But there’s no doubting what happened, and it’s gonna kill me to have to wait an extra 2 weeks to find out if he survived
Though I’m still thinking that he won’t actually be killed off, I can’t say that w/ full confidence, as we saw that he took multiple bullets right to the chest/torso area. Even if he does survive, the next episode is gonna keep us hanging for pretty much the entire time before they potentially reveal it, and I can only hope they’ll spend plenty of the episode making sure Tavaroff gets everything coming to him and then some. And if Luke is indeed killed off, I honestly don’t know how I’d be able to keep watching the show. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that this is another example of the show working in real-life issues of police brutality, which I’m not opposed to in general. But that sort of approach would absolutely be going too far if it results in the writers feeling like they have to kill off a main character just to make a point like this. A major character death needs to serve the story and provide a dignified ending for said character, and this would absolutely not be that
But like I said, I’m still thinking he’s gonna survive, and assuming he does, this is gonna be a completely transformative experience for him. After having already mentioned earlier in the episode how he had learned to keep his head down and know when to diffuse a situation he feels he can’t win, this could end up being a breaking point for Luke. He may come out of this not wanting to feel so helpless ever again, and so this could very well end up being the thing that starts him down the path to becoming Batwing. And while I would want a less traumatizing way for this to happen, I would also get pretty excited at the prospect of Luke finally becoming his comic alter ego, especially since I had already resigned myself to it not happening at all. It’s also worth noting that in said comics, Tavaroff is actually an enemy of Batwing who goes by Menace and has direct ties to Snakebite. Regardless of what happens here, it’s interesting to note that there was already an established connection rather than this just being a random, unplanned occurrence
Under different circumstances, I’d probably be more into Lopez’s arc, but I don’t think it makes any sense to have any significant part of the series finale focus on a character who was only just introduced this season. I know the majority of the episode will focus on the conclusion of Jeff and Tobias’ long rivalry, but now that Lopez has powers and is going after Lightning, they’re gonna need more than a minute to wrap up that story. Even if the writers manage to end it efficiently, it’s still gonna take up more time than can really be afforded in only a 42(ish)-minute bloc. I feel like those scenes are ultimately just gonna feel like a distraction to the real conflict that’s been building up for years now. I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but I just take this as another sign that the show ended prematurely and w/out enough time for the writers to craft a proper ending for the series. But that said, I figure it’ll at least be pretty satisfying to see Jen kick Lopez to the curb after being targeted by her all season
While this obviously limits how much Joe will be able to actively fight against moves that he knows are clearly wrong, this could still end up being quite effective in how it affects others. Joe very much has the respect of his officers at the Central City precinct, and we could tell just from the way they looked from him walking out to Kramer staying that they’re probably pretty unlikely to treat her just as warmly now that he’s gone. Though this was obviously his decision, I could very much see the cops there still blaming Kramer for forcing Joe’s hand, and w/ that kind of attitude, Kramer will likely find it a lot harder to enact her agenda. And if that’s the case, I say good riddance. My disdain for Kramer’s character is only growing, and I’m so upset that her time on the show didn’t end w/ Frost’s trial. Despite the attempt to explain her background, her hatred of metas still comes across as pretty one-dimensional, and I think part of that even comes from the acting. I’m not sure if this is Carmen Moore giving a bad performance or if she’s being specifically directed to act so cold, but either way, it’s not compelling in the slightest and whenever she’s on screen, I just pray the scene ends as quickly as possible. But if Joe’s resignation leads to other city officials like Singh throwing their support behind him and resisting this anti-meta effort, it’ll also be satisfying to see Kramer have to actually head back to the governor w/ her tail between her legs
As much as I hate this cliché, I do actually think it makes sense for the sake of the investigation. Both Lana and Lois know that if Kyle found out about their plan to investigate Edge, not only would he be completely against it, but he’d almost certainly inform Edge about it. That would then make it practically impossible for Lois to inform on Edge and Lana would of course lose her new job, though I have to figure she’s prepared for that eventuality anyway since taking down Edge would also have the same result for her, but at least she could take satisfaction in knowing she helped prevent more harm from being done. Plus I’m sure Lana would plan on telling Kyle about all of this eventually. Even if everything in this investigation were to go as planned (which of course means nothing will go as planned), I doubt Lana would want to keep a secret this big from her husband for any longer than she has to. She may be banking on being able to tell him after Edge is shut down, at which point Kyle and the rest of Smallville will see him for what he really is, which will make the confession hurt less since Kyle will be able to see the good that came from her lie. That said, I’m fully anticipating that Kyle will find out before she and Lois get what they need so that the fallout drama will be even more substantial
This one definitely made me think a lot harder about these brothers’ relationship when I first saw it, and not only could I see the show pulling a twist like this, the idea does sound pretty promising. In the short term, it could end up causing some friction between Jordan and Jonathan, as Jordan, assuming he still doesn’t like having his powers, might feel that he can finally be free of that burden by staying away from Jonathan. But then he’d realize that he just can’t stay away from his family because he loves his brother too much, and so he’ll just have to go back to finding a way to live w/ the powers. And in the long term, it could really do a lot to reinforce just how important they are to each other in both a physical and emotional sense and give a new meaning to the usual theme of real strength coming from the people you love. Of course the big question that would come out of this is why Jonathan wouldn’t be manifesting powers as well when he’s around Jordan, though that’s also already a question the show is having to deal w/ anyway. It could still be that despite this fact, Jonathan’s biology is still just different enough to not have powers in the same way Jordan does. But I also remain convinced that Jonathan will get powers eventually, and maybe this could tie into that by saying his powers would “unlock” faster the more he’s around Jordan or something
I definitely screamed. Between the conversations with Luke, Ryan and Sophie in jail and now this, Batwoman is not holding back on the narrative pertaining to recent events. And I like it. I hope Luke will be okay and that Tavaraoff (I doubt I spelled that right) will get in trouble for his actions. I also assume this event is what will push Luke to start to become Batwing.
I didn’t expect this at all. I hope he isn’t leaving the show. But I wonder if this will be a short time thing and Kramer will bring him back in after a couple failed attempts to ‘help the city’. I think Joe knew that if he sat in that office and pushed against Kramer it was going to go nowhere. So he decided to try from a different angle. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
I know we aren’t supposed to like Kyle so I don’t mind this. I usually don’t like this type of trope but in this case it’s good. I just hope Lana doesn’t get hurt because of it.
As a twin, I kinda hope this isn’t the case. Twin’s can do things by themselves. They don’t always need the other one there. Besides, Jonathan wasn’t in the last scene anyway, so it kinda kills the theory. He also wasn’t on the field when Jon’s power went haywire the first time and he wasn’t near him the second time.
I think it is more interesting that Jon was able to catch Jordan’s punch. Even though it broke his hand, it still stopped the punch. Maybe Jordan isn’t as powerless as we all thought.
I am planning to watch Legends tomorrow. So I’ll answer that one then.
As it turns out, there are recent set photos that actually confirm Luke’s fate. I won’t put it out here openly, but I will put it behind a spoiler tag for anyone who, like me, is just too anxious to wait until the next episode. He lives! But there’s even more, and this is an even bigger spoiler so you’ve been especially warned, even though it’s already being reported on by a number of comic news sites…He’s officially gonna be Batwing!
If he was, there’d be an announcement about it just like they did w/ Carlos Valdes and Tom Cavanagh. He can still be around even if he’s not at his job anymore, though this could also result in Joe being away for a little while again. He’s certainly no stranger to being written out for short periods at a time
There’ll definitely be plenty of emotional pain, but that’s par for the course on the CW. Physical pain is a different story. It might depend on how long it takes Leslie to recover
I figure it’s more about them being in the same general vicinity. Like if this theory is true, Jonathan could’ve been upstairs in the house or just on the same football field for it to work. But when Clark brought Jordan to the Fortress earlier this season, Jonathan was far away, and AI Jor-El wasn’t able to detect Jordan’s powers
I have been saying this for the past few weeks on my Legendary Island of Misfits weekly summary: something is wrong with Gideon. We know it never ends well with AI from the future when it gets murderous. I noticed it the other week when she seemed to have glee in her voice when saying they would have to cut into Spooner’s head and disect layer by layer to find the alien issue. Then, this week she seemed too excited over viewing an evisceration of DJ S’more Money. Personally, I hope the writers are planning something bigger than just she has been getting into Ava’s podcasts (no offense meant @arkhamassassin ). There would be no reason to add these little things into the show, other than to quietly build up to something. I can just imagine the direction they had to give to the actress who voices Gideon, now just say it like you take enjoyment in the pain and torture. We have been keeping our eyes on the search for Sara, and fighting aliens, and I expect this all to be resolved this season, but I would love for a cliffhanger where the ship turns on the crew and they have to destroy the timeship in order to save themselves. OK, maybe my imagination is getting away from me, but I do feel there is something planned for this, as it seems too specific to just be another joke.
OK, as I mentioned to you privately, this threw me so much! I know the episode was tackling the issues with police and African Americans, and they had been doing it well (I still think Black Lightning has done a more thorough job of it, but this episode did it well too.) but to have Luke shot and seemingly killed in the end just made me yell at the tv. It looked like when he fell he had been shot in the chest and I do not think the police were rushing to call an ambulance, but…I saw on another site that Luke seemed to be suiting up as Batwing so unless we are already reintroducing the multiverse(which they should do on Flash before anywhere else) it seems he is not dead. I hope this is the case because to be honest he was the major glue holding this show together. Don’t get me wrong, I like the rest of the cast, but he was the “man in the chair” helping Batwoman along. Mary was there for emotional support but he was the tech guy to help out. My thoughts were the only way I would be semi ok with him dying is if Spoiler came on to the team as their tech person. Then, it would be an all female team for Team Bat and I enjoyed her character enough to be OK with it. BUt I would rather he not be dead as he is the only true link back to the original Batman, being Lucius Fox’s son; without him, the rest of the team would have no direct ties.
It seems there is too much packed into the final episode already. ~40 minutes does not seem enough time to have the final fight with Tobias, the metas getting their powers back, the meat-hating cops being run out of town, and possible remarriage(?) The show started with Tobias and Jeff and that is how it should end. Introducing cops with powers now just makes it seem like the final episode is going to be a huge war again like they had with Markovia. Now, I know they need to keep it interesting and the fights on this show have been great (Ishmael versus Painkiller was fun to watch two evenly matched foes) as compared to the Flash “Lets talk it out”. But this series has really had Tobias as the BIg Bad even underneath it all since the beginning so it should only be fitting for him at the end. I really hope he gets his, because I am tired of him being so smug and arrogant, yet succeeding at everything he has done so far.
In addition to Chief Lopez, the secret society that Tobias seems to be a part of really has not been fleshed out, and actually confused me at first. It seemed to come out of the blue that he was sorta working for this group of powerful people, but we know nothing about them. When one or two die, I have no investment in it.
I think it has been building for a while. WIth Kramer there, she has really changed what it has meant to be a cop in Central City and I love Joe sticking to his integrity. He even tried giving her a chance as of the last episode, saying he thought she was a good cop but needs to be careful of which side she picks. She repeatedly went around him to go on her meta-hunting crusade, and I think Joe has had enough. I did enjoy the looks everyone gave when he walked out of the police station, it really shows how much respect they have for him and I would be concerned if I were Kramer. She will probably get some support because I am sure there are some bigoted cops who hated working with the Flash or that the Flash always seemed to steal the cops’ thunder. BUt I hope the rest of the force sees what is happenning. The actress playing Kramer really has done a good job of playing someone you want to hate so much. She cannot seem to see any good in metas and I do not think they can convince her she is not doing the right thing.
I hope Joe now helps more with Team Flash, as he always has good advice just when they need it, and I would hope this is not a way to lose another original cast member with him riding into the sunset with Cecille and the never referred to baby. Did the baby get erased in Crisis?
One more thing, I also watch the show Legacies on CW and noticed a character who bullied Landon and he looked familiar to me. Darned if he is not Deon, the Still Force from the Flash.
OK, one more more thing: What is with all the death or possible deaths this week? All the people Batwoman was trying to save before the Crows mowed them down, Luke shot, Black Lightning maybe dead (Tobias could be lying), Psych and Fuerza and Iris on the Flash…I better get some happier endings next week.
I think that not telling Kyle is going to bite them in the butt. I understand the need for secrecy now, and I am very happy that Lana is finally seeing the light about Edge, but anytime these shows where characters keep secrets from loved ones it never ends well. And if Edge is as ruthless as they are making him to be, she could be endangering her family by going along with Lois. If she told Kyle her suspicions, he would not listen anyways, so it would not help them to tell him. SO as I said I agree with the need for secrets right now, but do not be surprised if later on it turns into a tragedy.
Hmmm, interesting theory on his powers. I might need to look back over episodes, but it does seem like he manifests them when his brother is around and when Jor El examined him and found him lacking, he was with his dad not brother. I had not thought of this, but it would be an interesting take on the powers, so maybe Jonathan has powers just that they only allow his brother to use his. Of course this could make it difficult for Jordan to fly anywhere as he would have to carry his brother with him, or make sure he was always around. It reminds me of the limitation on Anissa’s powers on BL, where she has to take a deep breath first. The new suit helps her maintain it longer, but without that breath she is powerless.
I did feel for Jonathan when he put his hand in the way of Jordan’s fist to prevent something worse. These brothers love each other and want to help, and it seems realistic to me with this show about family where they pick on each other but support each other and get mad at each other. BUt then that bully seemed to almost deserve it, but he needs to control his anger with strength like that.
And hey Sarah may be figuring there is something different about Jordan? It makes you wonder if Clark would have been able to keep his secret from Lana long ago if smartphones and web videos were a thing. Heck Lana still does not know on this version of the show.
Yeah, something’s wrong with Gideon. I noticed it earlier when she was excited to operate on Spooner. This should be a fun setup to what I assume will be a crazy reveal in the second half of the season. They always try to get an episode with the actress who voices Gideon, so it looks like we are preparing for another one of those.
It might’ve been covered in 1 or 2 or…dozens of sci-fi stories in the past
None taken at all. I was just trying to think of a possible way that this could be brushed off as little more than a gag, but I guess there’s plenty of ways that could happen
Sometimes that’s how the best speculation happens!
Spoilers for future episodes: I agree, Batwoman really isn’t the place to re-integrate the multiverse. At this point, if they’re not filming for the finale they’re certainly pretty close, so whatever scene of Batwing they were shooting there would’ve happened far enough after this to allow Luke to recover. Probably not fully, though, but 1 of the hallmarks of a true Bat is stubbornly pushing past everyone telling you to rest and instead suiting up to fight the immediate threat
Though part of me is glad the team on this show has stayed w/ just 3 people into the 2nd season and not gotten bloated like some teams get, I also just really want Steph to join anyway, whether it’s providing tech support, suiting up as Spoiler or both
I think this is just gonna apply to Lopez as opposed to her whole task force. My thinking is that after Lightning takes down Lopez, the rest of the cops will see the dangers of using the meta boosters and, along w/ what I’m assuming will be Tobias’ arrest, will decide against using them. It still takes away more screentime than necessary, but at least it’s not a case where you’ve got a bunch of cops now w/ powers
I was trying to remember if this was something that had been introduced in a prior season that I just forgot about, but that’s sadly not the case. It could’ve been interesting to see them possibly get fleshed out in a fifth season and beyond, but now it’s just another element of the show that in the best-case scenario might have a chance of being explored further on Painkiller
Nope, little Jenna is still around, though she hasn’t appeared this season. The last time she got some attention was when Joe had to go into witness protection when Black Hole was trying to kill him
Well we have to wait another 2 weeks on BW, BL killed off 3 characters in its last finale and I doubt they’ll pull any punches this time around, and I doubt any of those “deaths” are gonna stick from Flash, especially Iris. It’d be a pretty anti-climactic way for Alexa and Psych to die, especially since Alexa was already “killed” similarly, though we are also at about the halfway point of the season, so it’s always possible that the big bad could get switched up after this next episode
Now I’m laughing at the thought of Jordan being a superhero and Jonathan being his sidekick only so as to keep Jordan powered. It’d be a pretty amusing dynamic for us that they’d probably get pretty sick of fast
1 silver lining of Jonathan having him arm broken is that if he didn’t intercept the punch, Jordan very well could’ve killed that bully w/ a full punch to the face. Even though he’s not as strong as Clark, it wouldn’t take a fully powered punch to do the trick. At the very least, he’d hurt the bully a hell of a lot more than he hurt Jonathan, and that would’ve led to his teammates, parents, etc. asking a lot of difficult questions
W/ Lana now getting more involved in the investigation into Edge, which already involves kryptonite and Kryptonian powers, I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up finding out down the road. Now that’d really complicate things w/ Kyle
I’m always up for getting to actually see more of Amy Pemberton, but I’d be pretty scared at the prospect of the Legends having to face Gideon 9000
Black Lightning - Lopez’s anti meta motivation is interesting, but I am more interested in that orange blob in the ionosphere that reached out to Jennifer.
S&L - Jonathan and Jordan almost a la Mas y Menos? I’m feeling it. I still want Jon to manifest.
Kyle has a lot to lose should Edge’s true agenda be revealed.
Batwoman - they are really doubling down on the police violence. The recent dabble in bias training at work is oddly serendipitous. I liked the hard truths with Ocean and Alice.
I would like to see Sophie and Ryan wing-girl for each other. And that can be as civilians or as supers.
I can’t see an ending where Edge doesn’t get taken down in some way, but I’m also hoping that someone/something else will come along to essentially replace him in terms of jobs in Smallville. As much as I haven’t liked him at times early on, I do also feel for him and others in the town who have struggled to get back on their feet. Smallville deserves an opportunity to lift itself back up like what Edge is offering, but an honest one that isn’t gonna screw them over
Anything to get an actual gay kiss, which this season has been sorely lacking in. It’s insane that despite having still having a lesbian lead w/ other lesbian characters, we’ve only gotten straight kisses this season. I don’t have any major inherent problems w/ Alice/Ocean and Luke/Steph, but a show like this really needs to do better in that department
They might be saving it for the season finale. I like the focus on her finding her bat footing. We did get a taste of the cost of the secret identity as Ryan let down her lawyer friend. another super hero trope (vs something more bat specific)?
I also like the depiction of the police corruption and other bad elements. Luke’s shooting played out almost stereotypically.
Legends - Gideon’s glee could be how she banters about the upcoming mission. She is as much a Legend as any fleshbag.
I also liked Ava giving to Mick. She gave him the right whatfor. Granted, an alien got squished who clearly was willing to talk, but I am going to go with ‘shouldn’t have been there’. For an alien so well versed in subterfuge, one would think avoiding getting squished would be almost their superpower. I would convert the head into a platform so i can speak to the other giants and not descend to stand among giant feet. But hey, that’s merely one (1) nerd’s opinion.
Flash - I would have preferred Joe stay and fight from within. In general, I am liking the Forces arc and it is somewhat classic mythology. not realizing you created gods and trying to destroy them. By sparing them, it doubles down on being responsible for what you created. Nora’s look went a little dark. My guess for the solution is the paragon of love taking Nora to his speedster bosom while she slowly can’t keep it together until she releases Sage and Strength.
If Lord Nox had gotten to meet Mick beforehand, he might’ve been able to account for the fact that someone on the Waverider would probably want to smush him. Oh well
