Superman & Lois: Break the Cycle

Tensions escalate as Lex Luthor’s connection with his estranged daughter Elizabeth complicates his quest for vengeance. Meanwhile, the Kent family faces their own challenges: Jonathan grapples with his powers and secrecy, putting strain on his relationship with Candice, while Clark revisits his battle with Doomsday, fearing he's no match. Lois, however, takes a surprising approach, attempting to reach the humanity in Doomsday.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've got you, You've got me? Who's got you? Hello?

(00:21):
Come to me, son of Jao Neil before. So hey everybody,
we're back once again with another great episode of podcast
Full of krypt Tonight, I'm your host, John Read here
for another fun episode of Superman and Lois. The final

(00:43):
season of Superman and Lois. This one is Break the Cycle,
Season four, episode five, Break the Cycle. Here we get
a pretty heavy look at Lex Luthor his history with
his daughter in this iteration, so we get some good
backstory stuff. We start with seventeen years ago and a
woman gets off the phone with somebody named Cat. We

(01:05):
can possibly assume that that's Kat Grant, who has showed
up in several different iterations of Superman, whether it was
in the Supergirl TV show, whether it was in Lois
and Clark, whether it was in comic books. We've seen
Kat Grant before. This is Lex and Erica is her name,
and they are talking about getting a divorce. She accuses

(01:25):
Lex of being that angry little boy from South Metropolis
whose mother hurt him. And we're going to find out
a little bit more later on in the episode what
exactly that means that Lex had an abusive mother that
was kind of a result of having an abusive father,
so it was not a great upbringing for him. And
I'll talk a little bit later about some of the
different iterations of the Luther family and ways that we

(01:47):
have seen that play out in comic books, TV shows,
so on, and so forth. The assumption here with the
name Erica, if you are a comic book fan, the
assumption here is that this is probably the and I
am going to completely blank out on her full name,
but there was a comic book character named the Contessa,
and at one point, the Contessa was a character that

(02:11):
Lex ended up marrying and having a child with. Contessa
Erica Alexandra del Portenza was her name. In the comic books,
they just called her the Contessa, thank goodness, And in
this show, I don't know, obviously this is supposed to
be the same person, but the name Erica, Erica is
one of her fifty two million names. We go to
today and we find that we are getting closer to

(02:34):
finding Elizabeth, that Lex is getting closer to finding her,
that they're very very the research they've done, probably the
people he's got that are tracking her down, that they're
almost there, and he says he's going to head back
to Smallville to take care of Superman, knowing now that
he is alive because of all the news reports that
got blasted out. At the end of last episode, we're
back on the farm. Clark and Lois are talking, and

(02:55):
Clark and this is what I love about Superman is
that Superman, even with his great enemy, this is what
the best iterations of Superman do is even against his
greatest enemy. He's like, what if he just try to
talk to him, Like, maybe I can appeal to him
as a father. You know, this is this whole thing
about his daughter. What if I just appeal to him.
It's kind of like the Luke Skywalker thing. There's still

(03:17):
good in him, and Clark is always trying to find
the good in everybody. And that's one of the things
that this show, this Clark, this Superman does so well.
Superman doesn't always need to use his fists. When he does,
he's gonna knock you out, but he doesn't always need
to use his fists. And a lot of the times
it's the optimism. It's the goodness of Superman that is

(03:38):
his real true superpower. Lois says, great, Yeah, you go
do that. I'm gonna start looking through some files. And
the thing I juggled about was it looks like she
opens one file and boom, there's the information. So we
did have to spend a lot of time looking through
the files and maybe not quite as hidden as we
were led to believe. Clark decides to go talk to Lex. Next,

(03:58):
we get a scene with the maternals and a girl
I believe later on they call her Denise. I think
we've de nice. We've seen her. I believe we've seen
her before in some previous episodes, and a couple of
guys from school they're getting fireworks for a party that
they're gonna have later on that night, noticing that one
of these guys has a really nice car for a

(04:19):
Kansas Farmtown. Now I understand that the boys got the
really nice trucks from Uncle Tal, but Kansas Farmtown people
got some nice cars for Kansas Farmtown. And that was
kind of one of the running jokes throughout the Smallville
series as well, was not only is it the CW,
so you've got all these beautiful people are playing all
these parts, but they all also have like the latest

(04:41):
car with the latest tech, and you're in the middle
of Kansas farm country. So anyway, let's see the girl.
She kind of almost nonchalantly is like, you know, it
is really bad that whole thing that happened with your dad.
They're like, what do you mean, you know, Superman your dad?
That sucks what you guys had to go through, And

(05:03):
they're like, what the what, And so it is clear
that there are several people in Smallville that have figured
this out. And what would be hilarious if there was
like a whole town meeting and the Kent family showed
up and the whole town was like, oh, yeah, no,
we've known for like a really long time. You guys
are terrible at keeping secrets. So the boys they clam up,

(05:24):
they're not going to say anything. But that's one of
the other things I think this show is doing well
is the idea that for Superman, the goodness and the
optimism of Superman and his family and what they've done
for the town of Smallville and the world. Basically, even
when people know his secret, they're not gonna tell, like,
he's done so much for them that the goodness of

(05:47):
these people, they're going to give back by keeping his
secret as long as he wants to have it kept.
We have soups landing in front of Lex's car. I
want to comment real quick on the supersuit because it
is definitely darker this season, or it seems darker this season,
and I really hope that as the episodes go on,
we lighten it up, we get back to the lighter
colors of the Superman suit. I understand that for this

(06:10):
show they were going for, you know, the tones in
the show are often a little darker anyway, and going
for that darker toned super suit with the almost like
the burgundy color. It's almost a little bit like the
Superman Returns suit. So maybe that's supposed to be a
call back to the fact that he has returned, and
it is a little bit of the darker colors. But
I really do hope that as things go on that

(06:32):
the suit gets lightened up to where we get the
you know, the much brighter I mean, I'm not talking
like it's got to be Neon, doesn't have to be
electric blue Superman, but I would love it to be
a little bit of the lighter red and the lighter
we get the lighter red when we do the flashbacks
to when he goes to pick up Lex from outside
of Elizabeth's school. Later on, when we get that one flashbag,

(06:54):
Superman basically apologizes to Lex for what happened and admits
that he and Lois were wrong. He's, yeah, we it
wrong and I'm sorry, and we can't go back and
undo the things that were done to you and the
time that you lost. So I'm just going to appeal
to you as a father and just say, please stop
what you're doing to my family as a dad, as
a fellow dad. Please don't we jump back again seventeen

(07:17):
years ago the divorce proceedings. Lex wants Elizabeth to stay
in the Tropolis, but Erica wants her to come to
London with her. Elizabeth walks in and was not supposed
to see all this and she kind of runs off, upset.
John and Jordan are talking to each other about people
knowing Clark's secret. Lois calls John, who has to run Candice,
his girlfriend was showing up and bringing the bus into town,

(07:40):
and he's basically like and apparently there have been some
times where he's kind of blown her off previously, and
so when he does it again this time because Jordan
again is not doing the superheroing thing, he basically says, look,
I kind of need you to cover for me and
drive her back to the farm. And Jordan apparently has
not gotten his driver's license yet. So I mean, come on, buddy,

(08:01):
how long have you had these trucks for. You have
had plenty of time to get your driver's license. My
understanding is you're at least sixteen years old, so you
should have gotten here. At the very least, you should
have gone through your permit stuff. At this point. You're
definitely at least fifteen, So I mean, come on, let's
go get this done here, especially living in a farmtown.

(08:22):
Now granted you only lived in the town for what
maybe a couple of years, two three years at most,
but still, like, I remember living in a farmtown when
I was a more rural town, not necessarily farmtown. But
by the time I was fourteen, my dad was letting
me practice drive. I mean, most kids had driven a
tractor or they'd driven something at that point. Like, by

(08:44):
the time you're fifteen, you're basically driving. So it seems
a little odd that he wouldn't know how to drive.
But for the purposes of the story, and a couple
little jokes here and there, they're going to throw that
in there, So Jordan does try to cover for him
and makes up some excuse for why he's running off
with his mom. John flies low to France, where she
confronts Elizabeth, finds out that she is about six months pregnant,
and Lois is begging her to talk to her father.

(09:07):
You may know the character of Elizabeth from the actress
Elizabeth Henstridge. She was Agent Gemma Simmons on Agents of
Shield and Gemma Pray. She has also directed several episodes
of Superman and Lois as well as some of the
other Aeroverse shows. I think she did dothin Knights and
a couple of other episodes of some of the other shows.
Here and there. I'm going to pause there for a

(09:29):
second and talk a little bit about some of Lex's
kids in the comics, because Lex Luthor has had different
versions of children and offspring throughout the comics. So this
is definitely not an exhaustive list, but I wanted to
highlight some of the more prominent ones just for fun.
In terms of the pre crisis, so there's the Crisis
on Infinite Earth's storyline that took place in terms of

(09:51):
pre Crisis Earth and we're talking about comics all the
way up until the nineteen eighties. Basically, Lex's family had
announced him due to his crimes and had actually changed
their last name to Thoral, which was kind of a
anagram of Luthor. He had a sister named Lena, who
grows up unaware of their connection. She actually later gains

(10:11):
some kind of psychic abilities. Lex Mary's and Ardorra on
the planet Lexor, where they have a son, Lex Junior,
who dies along with ar Dora when Lexor is destroyed
in the post crisis. Lex's family history includes his adopted sister, Lena,
whom he mistreats later a biological daughter named Lena from
the marriage to the Contessa that I mentioned earlier. Other

(10:32):
connections include his rivalry in a complex relationship with Connor Kent,
who was a clone that was the Superboy from the
Return of Superman storyline in the nineties, who you find
out later on is a hybrid of Lex Luthor and
Superman's DNA, So if Lex and Clark had a baby,
it would be Connor Kent. There were some alternate timelines

(10:53):
in universes. On the TV show Lois and Clark. Lex
fathered two sons, Lex Junior and Jackson. Xavier with X's
for the Jackson, but was very cruel rejected them both
didn't want anything to do with them. On Earth three,
Lex as a hero married to Lois Lane Larsan. Lex
Junior escapes to Earth one before Earth Freeze destruction. I

(11:14):
believe actually later becomes a villain as well. Earth thirty,
Lex's legacy drives human progress and governance after Superman's defeat.
This is I believe Earth thirty should be the a
Red Sun storyline where a Superman lands in Russia and
becomes a Russian agent. Ultimately, this leads to Lex's descendants
establishing some Kryptonian lineage on Earth. One of the most

(11:37):
ridiculous names I have ever seen in my entire life
comes from the New fifty two, or sometimes they call
it Prime Earth, and it's the explanation for why the
Luthers have red hair. And that is because there was
a descendant of Lex Luthor or an ancestor of Lex
Luthor named I believe Hannah might have been Hannah Alexander
Luthor if I've got the name right, I know Hannah

(11:58):
is right, but has she ends up marrying And I'm
not kidding when I tell you this name Jimberly Jimmington Olson.
One more time for posterity, Jimberly Jimmington Olsen. So therefore
we find out that Lex and Jimmy are long lost

(12:18):
or very very removed cousins. One more time Jimberly Jimmington Olson. Okay,
we're back. Clark and Lewis are talking. Clark might need
to go to the fortress and lay low that he
doesn't want to do that. Lois is kind of pushing it.

(12:38):
Lois is asking, like, can your mother not help with something?
You're not ready to fight doomsday? You're going to die
again if this happens, and I can't take that. Lois
drags John away again mere seconds after he has promised
Candace that he's not running off in him, she has
his undifided attention, and Candace kind of looks at Jordan
after this, and because like Lois even says, Jordan will explain,

(12:59):
and then when they both leave, she looks at Jordan
is like, can you really explain him? He's halfway through
a bowl of cereal and has this like goofy look
at his face. Some good comedy with Jordan in this episode.
So Clark is asking his mom for help. How can
I defeat something that gets stronger when it dies? Clark
puts on the Krypton Vision Pro, which I'm excited that
somebody has found a use for this with its high

(13:19):
price tag. You know, it's great that you know that
kind of technology is even though it's out there, it's
somebody who's actually finding something useful to do with it.
Reviews his fight with but Doomsday and they kind of
go over its baran. Really, he sees no options where
he comes out of another fight alive. Lex gets a
phone call that Elizabeth has been found and it was

(13:40):
actually Lois who found her, so he basically blines it
to the gazette. Confronts Lois at the Gazette, and Lois
actually says, we were just about to come see you.
Elizabeth comes down the stairs and she is there. Lex
and Elizabeth are talking at the diner. Clark and Lois
are talking at the Gazette across the street, and as
Lex and Elizabeth are talking, he's trying to find out

(14:01):
some more information about her. She won't share who the
father of her child is. She's like, you don't get
to know that. He asks, why did you stop writing me.
She basically says, look, I needed to move on. People
assume the worst with your last name is Luther. And
he's basically pulling the lies lies, and he says, if

(14:22):
there's anyone who knows to me the real me, it's you.
So we get a flashback of her hiding in a
closet after she witnessed some of the divorce proceedings, and
so he sits down with her and he basically tries
to explain. He say, look this just you know, we
got married and I wasn't necessarily ready to be married,
and then a lot went wrong in our marriage. And
the comment she makes is like what And I'm thinking

(14:46):
you're asking Alex Luthor, like what possibly could have gone
wrong in his marriage? He married someone? And I'm gonna
pull from all the different areas of Lex Luthor. Let's see,
he married someone, and after they get married, what could
possibly have gone wrong? The character of Lex Luthor well
number one. He caused the destruction of the home of
the planet of Lexor, which kills his wife, Ardora, and

(15:08):
their son and millions of civilians. That was in the comics.
He became US president at one point abused his power
to discredit Superman, undermining the government for his personal and vendettas.
He murdered his parents so that he would get their
wealth in the New Earth continuity. He engineered their death
to collect insurance. He created different iterations of Bizarro and

(15:30):
doomsday variants. He created a robot, Lois Lane, who he
kind of used for frisky time and to kind of
become immortal himself. He manipulated Connor Kant's Superboy as his
quote unquote son. He started a war with Superman. I'm
thinking about Batman versus Superman. Dawn of Justice orchestrated the
conflict between Superman and Batman. He imprisoned and later orders

(15:54):
the assassination of his own life, the Contessa. He also
created a nuclear Man and tried to trigger a nuclear
arms race, so really doesn't care much about the Earth itself.
He cured his sister Lena's paralysis in the comics, only
to revert her condition as kind of a cruel message
to Superman to show just how powerful and ruthless he is.
So when somebody says could have possibly gone wrong in

(16:15):
your marriage, there is a bit of a list of
things that Lex might have done that could have soured
a relationship, just say. We cut here to the high
school party. The cover story apparently is a black market
puppy adoptions that he has been working on with Lois
in Candace. She's not having any of it. She's lying.
You're both lying to me. Tell me what's going on

(16:37):
or I am leaving. Lex and Elizabeth are seemingly starting
to reconcile while they're talking of the dimer. Lex is
pretty adamant that it's Lois's fault. Elizabeth says he needs
to admit to his faults, and she starts to walk out.
Clark goes and talks to her. Basically says, look, you
gotta give him a second chance. Even though he may
look like a monster to you, there's got to be

(16:58):
some good in there. He's give him second chance. Just
hear him out. Lois then kind of determines that well,
she's got her own plan and grabs the ELT, the
signaling device from General Graham's box with some goodies. Clark
and Elizabeth are talking. He shares about losing his dad
when he was young. Clark is trying to have her
see the good in Lex, like I said, and trying

(17:19):
to encourage her to give him that second chance. Candice
end up ends up leaving so that she walks out.
Jordan goes to talk to John. In the next scene,
the ELT has been signaled. Elizabeth comes back to the
dinator tries to break the cycle. Lex talks about the
first time his father left. He was seven years old
and his mother took out her anger on Lex using
his father's belt. Lex had kind of always kept that

(17:41):
from Elizabeth because he didn't want her to know about it.
We get a flashback of Elizabeth saying that she wants
to live in Metropolis, Erica. The mother walks out. We
see Lois in the middle of nowhere and uses that
ELT to call the doomsday. John and Jordan start talking
to each other, and as they're talking, they pull the
mirror case thing again and they hear the LT. Jordan

(18:03):
stays behind, and John zips over and arrives to where
Lois is and she's like, you have to leave. You've
got to get out of here right now. Quick little
commentary here, What did she think was going to happen? Like,
I don't own a dog whistle, much less many dog whistles,
which would necessitate the use of a dog whistle rack

(18:23):
in my car. But I don't own a dog whistle.
But I don't think dog whistles are specific to one dog,
Like when you blow that dog whistle, it's not like,
you know, Roger the beagle is going to sit there
and go, oh, that one's for me. No, all the
dogs are going to hear it. Any superhering person Clark

(18:45):
should have heard this. The boys are both going to
hear this. So I don't know what she was thinking,
thinking that she would only get be Doom's day when
she does this. Anyway, but Doomsday shows up. He's growley,
he's angry, and Lois tries to talk to him. She's like, look,
you know me. You were married to a version of me.
Look at me and try to remember, please please spare

(19:06):
my family, leave them alone. Back at the diner, Elizabeth
sharres more details about her baby. She's asking hear him, well,
how is Metropolis now that you're back. He's like, look,
I haven't been back. I've basically been here. And she's like, wait,
you've been here, so you really have been tormenting the
Kent family. And she's like, look, you're gonna need to

(19:27):
back off, like if you want to be in our lives.
You need to give up the revenge. It's like you
need to either choose revenge or choose me. Incidentally, movie
fans choose me as a very charming nineteen eighty four
movie starring Genevieve Boujeo, who Eagle eared fans of star
Trek will know as the first choice to play Captain
Catherine and Jadeley, so the more you know. Lex, however,

(19:50):
did not like Voyager and was more of a Discovery
Season one fan, so he responds she has to pay.
He's all for the pain, and she basically responds, look,
mom's right about you. All right, Mum was right about you.
I won't expose my son to this kind of hatred,
so you need to stay out of my life forever,
and she walks off. We get a flashback of Lex
dropping Elizabeth off at school. Superman shows up. Lex is

(20:11):
basically like, look in front of my daughter's school, are
you kidding me? And he's like, I wanted to. They
gave me the police, the Feds. They I ask them
if I could pick you up myself so that you
have an opportunity to drop her off at school. Otherwise
they were going to come for you. Earlier, Lex and
Clark stare each other down across the street. Things are
not really good. John gets back, so clearly Lois was

(20:34):
not pummeled into a bloody pulp. Oh no, it wasn't
the air planes. It was Beauty killed the base talking
Beauty particularly. Candace kisses him and basically says, Jordan told
me everything, and then the fireworks go off, and I'm thinking,
at this point, yes, let's just share the secret. I mean,

(20:56):
we're pulling at this point. Jordan is the Barry Allen
of the show. Anyway, Like anytime somebody has a headache,
Barry Allen would pull off his mask and be like, hey,
I know your head hurts, but I just want you
to know. He pull the cowl off. My name is
Barry Allen, and I'm the flash. Barry could not keep
a secret worth anything, basically like you know me when

(21:17):
it comes to Christmas time and I am too excited
about what I've gotten for people, like, I cannot keep
a secret worth anything. So I mean, come on, at
this point, people in town know, Candice knows. I mean,
they are telling people that I think will be good
about keeping their secret. But at the same time, it's
like this Cole secret identity thing is pretty much done
at this point, which is exciting for me because I

(21:39):
really want them to just go ahead do away with
the secret identity thing so that we can get true
super Boy outfits that don't have to rely on goofy
goofy goggles. One indication that we might get this is
there is a book listed on Amazon called Superman The
Definitive History by Edward Gross and Robert Greenberger. There is
a page with some concept art for Superboy outfits for

(22:00):
both Jordan and John. What's exciting about that is in
the concept art, and that's not to say they're gonna
use them. It's concept art, but if they did. If yeah,
it'd be cooler if they did. They have concept art
where Jordan has a costume that looks like New fifty
two Superboy. It's a black and red costume, and John

(22:24):
as the Connor Kent Superboy, which we saw from the
John in the Bizarro World stuff earlier, but looks like
it little bit of an updated costume maybe, so that
would be exciting. I would love that as the Superboy
costumes for the Fraternals. That would be great. Clark zips
to the farm realizing nope, his family is done for
we or we don't have a chance. Now he's going
to be calling newsday and we're all gonna die. But

(22:46):
Lois is super chill, comesit down lots of fireworks. He's like,
are you flipping kidding me? Like, we got to get
out of here, and maybe I need to get you
guys to the Fortune. We got to get out of
here and now. And she's like, we don't worry about
the Doole's day anymore. And we get a bunch of
flashbacks to bizarro world and flashback to a few moments
ago where she's begging him please don't hurt my family,

(23:08):
and then we get one of the final scenes of
the episode where Luther goes to his little basement layer
and finds out that be Doomsday has gone and gone
for good. And that is the end of the episode.
We have a trailer for the next episode. These are
real short trailers anyway, like twenty second trailers. They don't
give away too much about the story. Basically, Lex Luthor

(23:30):
breaks stuff and Lex Luthor's losing his mind. That's what
I found from the trail. I'll play the audio for you,
but that's Basically, how I can sum up the trailer
is he's breaking stuff and he's losing it. I have
a plan. I know exactly how this will end. Ruth
is losing control and he will take you down with him.
You can barely hear anymore, and you have a Lex

(23:51):
Luthor breathing down your neck. I am not what I was.
All right, that is it for this episode. Once again,
another fun episode of Superman and lois some tension. You
get some of the side characters from the show that
we have seen before, some people coming back, supporting characters

(24:13):
coming back, and I thought it was just a great
showcase for the family aspect and the goodness of Superman
aspect that we see from this show, and that this
show has done so well. So we are about halfway through,
actually this is the halfway point of the seasons. But
Doomsday is gone. I know we had that callback to
Bizarro a little bit ago. I don't know if that's

(24:35):
going to be I mean, with only five episodes left,
I'm curious to see what Lex's next steps are. I
think that could be a stretch at this point, since
we haven't said anything else about Bizarro to try to
cram that into the last five episodes, but I we'll see,
we'll see what they do. I have trusted the people
who are running this show up to this point and

(24:55):
they haven't disappointed. So just just very curious see what happens.
From me here but from here on out. We are
in the back half of the final season of Superman
and Lois everybody, thank you so much for joining us here.
We will see you back here again next week with
another exciting episode up, up, and away, and we'll see
you back here next han me God, talk to my nest.

(25:20):
Got so back fool the suit, the dream listed, the
Shining Hove, the ball and it h copping ma tell
the battle