"Danger Close" – Krypton S02E04 Review

And we're back to dark and gloomy. Well, mostly dark and gloomy. No Lobo, and Brainiac only appears briefly. So not a lot of humor and comic book villainy.

Seg and Adam return to Kandor, and then separate. Adam is still funny, but separating him from Seg and putting him with the lighter Val seems like doubling up the light-heartedness instead of spreading the wealth.

"Danger Close" starts with a flashback to how Seg and Lyta first met. Which is somewhat funny. And it does put the couple back together. The chemistry between Cameron Cuffe and Georgina Campbell is good. Which means keeping them separated for so long is a misstep of sorts.

Kem gets captured by the Rebels after they attack and kill the Sagitari on Wegthor.

Seg and Adam separate and Seg finds Lyta. They have sex and then Lyta summons Zod and leaves for Wegthor.

Adam finds Val and describes seeing a wall blocking the future as if there was nothing there. Which sounds like the Iron Curtain of Time the Time Trapper had in the comic books. The Time Trapper being a 30th century Legion of Super Heroes bad guy. So maybe he'll show up as well. The show could use a "big" villain to replace Brainiac and Lobo, and the mostly off-screen Doomsday.

Seg tries to get through to Zod, but Zod isn't impressed. While undergoing a medical scan, Seg runs into Raika. She pitches a fit when he tries to remind her of their shared past, and Seg throws his weight around to get her out. The techs don't seem surprised when Seg says he's Zod's father, so I guess the age discrepancy doesn't bother anyone. Or they all know about time travel.

Adam teams up with Kem, Araame, and some faceless Rebels to sneak into the Space Elevator Base and open it up so the Rebel ground forces can get in. However, Jax also has a Corvex "smart weapon" set to kill all of the Sagitari on Wegthor through genetic targeting. The weapon sits in Jax's bedroom, while Araame takes the detonator with her. Which seems mildly inefficient, given we see Araame in constant contact with Jax.

Zod's plan to lead the Rebels into a trap works, and they all die when their oxygenerators shut down. Araame hits the detonator button but it doesn't work, since Jax has deactivated the weapon and given it to Nyssa to take out. Since Nyssa somehow learned about the weapon, and that's what she was studying last week when she brought up the hologram plans. Lyta and her Sagitari arrive to capture Adam and the others.

Back on Krypton, Seg soon learns Zod is doing mental reconditioning. He checks the records and first finds two reports Lyta wasn't reconditioned. But then he finds a file showing that Zod had Lyta reconditioned. Zod shows up and has Seg reconditioned. Once he leaves, Seg breaks free and knocks out his guard. He checks the reconditioning file and sees an image of Brainiac superimposed on him, so I guess Brainiac's mental presence protected Seg's mind.

Oh, Jayna and Dev are still hanging out at the bar. Dev explains what he rebelled against Zod's "kill all the civilians" orders, got captured, and Kem freed him. After going AWOL and visiting, Lyta turned up at the bar and met Jayna. Jayna says she'll stand with him, and that's it for them.

And that's it for "Danger Close". And no, I don't know what the titles signifies.

As I noted earlier, we're back to first-season Krypton, Which is dark and gloomy: you'd think an advanced civilization would be better at paying their electrical bills. There's back-stabbing and intrigue, and the humor we get comes from Adam and Kem. Their humor is still a breath of fresh air in the stuffy halls and tunnels of Kandor. The rest of it is backstabbing, and intrigue, and plotting.

It's okay backstabbing, and intrigue, and plotting, but it's just okay. When the characters go into plotting mode, they go out of characterization mode: it's like they can't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. I'm missing the forest of Vancouver... umm, I mean Colu, already. And Lobo. Lobo wasn't the greatest villain ever, but he was a ray of sunlight compared to the gloom and darkness of Kandor, and Zod.

The brainwashing of Lyta isn't totally surprising: it was about the creative team's only option to turn her into a villain yet provide a relatively easy way for her to revert back to normal. Because Seg will either uncondition her reconditioning with one of the machines, or get through to her with the power of luv.

Overall, "Danger Close" represented a reversion to season one. There were some moments of light-heartedness: Adam hugging Seg before leaving, Kem griping about how no one respects him and they should make him commander. But Adam and Kem have always been the MVPs of the show. Along with Val, who is barely present this week.

We do get some mention Adam might have meddled so much with time he's destroyed the future. But the show is so vague about the timey-wimey stuff it's hard to care much. Plus that's not what Krypton is about. The creative team really want to do Game of Thrones in Superman's grandfather-era Krypton. The time travel stuff seems thrown in like the creative team had to address it just because it's the reason Adam is involved. But there's a lot of holes in it, so they just want to mention it and move on.

"Danger Close' was okay. If you liked season one, but also appreciate the lighter tone of the first three episodes of season two, then "Danger Close" merges them . The dark/gloomy season-one stuff overwhelms the lighter stuff. So, if you liked season one, you'll probably like "Danger Close". And folks must have liked season one: that's why Krypton got renewed, right?

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?