Superman on Television

Krypton: Episode Reviews

Season 2 - Episode 3: "Will To Power"

Reviewed by: Michael J. Petty

Originally Aired: June 26, 2019
WRITTEN BY: Lina Patel
DIRECTED BY: Julius Ramsay

REGULAR CAST:
Cameron Cuffe as Seg-El
Shaun Sipos as Adam Strange
Georgina Campbell as Lyta-Zod
Aaron Pierre as Dev-Em
Wallis Day as Nyssa-Vex
Ann Ogbomo as Jayna-Zod
Blake Ritson as Brainiac
Ian McElhinney as Val-El
Colin Salmon as General Dru-Zod
Hannah Waddingham as Jax-Ur

Rating - 4 (out of 5): "It's not the past that defines you, it's how you choose to move forward." - Val-El

Well, a lot happened this week as Krypton continues to thrive in its sophomore season. The most important of which has to be that Seg-El and Brainiac have been separated, and he and Adam have finally made it back to Krypton. The road to getting there, however, has been the exciting part...

Between Lobo blowing his head off and re-growing half his body, I have to admit that he is an addition to Season 2 that, although I was incredibly skeptical at first, has been a lot of fun and, dare I say, necessary. His unique blend of humor and horror puts Seg and Adam in situations in which no other villain could. Brainiac is too calculated, Zod is too focused, and Doomsday is too destructive and monstrous to even hold a conversation, but Lobo fills the humor-less void left by these supervillains in a way that is both refreshing and terrifying.

My running theory after this week, however, is that Brainiac will attempt with Lobo what he attempted with Seg, since he is indeed looking for a host with which he will evolve into something greater than himself. Lobo's healing factor and super strength may prove suitable for the Culu intelligence's never upgrade, but the Main Man's willpower (like Seg's) may also prove too strong. Time will tell.

Side-note, what do I have to give to see Blake Ritson's Brainiac face-off against Henry Cavil's Superman? Honestly!

Speaking of supervillains, though its incredibly obvious and the character wouldn't be the same without this motivation, for some reason (maybe because of where this series takes place in the Superman timeline) it never occurred to me that General Zod's motivation is stopping Krypton from its inevitable destruction. Often the planet dies of "natural causes" (be it Kryptonian interference or a Red Sun explosion) and sometimes it's destroyed by outside forces (depending on the story), but we all know that eventually the planet is going to die.

Zod knows this too. He's probably seen it while in the Phantom Zone long before he traveled through time to get here. The real question that I have at this point is, what does Dru intend to do? Yikes, I hate calling him that... What does Zod intend to do? Jor-El hasn't been born yet (unless he's actually Cor-Vex as some fan theories say) and we've barely seen the Science Guild at all since Zod took over (really since the series began honestly), so we know that he isn't working with someone to try and reverse whatever will eventually happen to Krypton. He does however, like his Man of Steel counterpart, want the Codex, seemingly (as Shannon's Zod) to "choose which bloodlines live or die". Is this how he intends to fix Krypton? I'd love to learn more about his goals here, besides the classic "kneel" thing.

The Jayna and Dev stuff seems to be developing slowly, and I think I'll care more once they're involved again in the main story, but right now it just hasn't caught my interest. Even Nyssa's story this week fell a little flat (minus her conversation with Val, which was superb), which is hard for me to say given that (as you all know) she's probably my favorite character.

Bringing Kem back this week, both in Seg's mind and on Wegthor, was a nice touch. We haven't seen him since last season's penultimate and I've been wondering if he made it out of Kandor alive. Good on the writers for throwing him back in there. I personally would have liked to have seen Seg's parents on the list of people that Brainiac imitated this week, but clearly it either wasn't something they thought of or wasn't possible. Either way, with everything Seg's been through in the past year, it seems like a disservice not to mention them again, especially with Val back.

All-and-all, this week's Krypton was just as enjoyable as the last and continues to prove itself as one of DC's best television series out there right now, and probably the best Superman series since Smallville (sorry Supergirl, you had a wonderful first season).

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