"Blood Moon" – Krypton S02E09 Review

Ummm, that's good penultimate episode stuff. Credit to David Paul Francis, who also wrote last season's "Transformation", which I also remember fondly. And other stuff I've enjoyed, like two episodes of Powers. Either Francis didn't get the memo on "Blood Moon", or he ignored the memo most of the creative team have been working off of. Francis wrote an actual good episode. It didn't gaze deep into the navel of Superman/DC Comics lore. It didn't dwell on the Seg/Lyta or the Seg/Nyssa romance. It gave Dev something to do. He wrote out Kem with a suitable finish. He gave us some suspense. And he and director Cameron Welsh gave us some slo-mo fight scenes worthy of Watchmen.

Hint: Welsh does better as a director than as a writer.

In short, Francis wrote an episode that's a good action-adventure story. Which makes it an odd fit for Krypton where the creative team is more interested in doing their own backstory of Krypton: The Early Early Days. The episode seemed more like Dune or Star Wars or Highlander 2, with lots of laser guns flashing, and a monstrous unstoppable creature stomping around, and desperate rebels fighting to hold the enemy back so some of them can escape, rather than win a fight.

But where is all of this coming from? "Blood Moon" is an episode of several moving pieces Francis and Welsh put together in pleasing shapes. Dev finds a spaceship of sorts so Seg and Nyssa can go to Wegthor and warn the Rebels--including Val, Kem, and Adam--that Zod's fleet is coming. Nyssa and Seg head out, and we finally get a bit of acknowledgement Nyssa is screwed now Lyta is back in the picture. Her character isn't particularly deep, but I like Wallis Day as Nyssa this season since they've given her something to do. Last season and the early part of this season, she lurked in the shadows and had divided loyalties. Now she's on the Rebel side, trying to redeem her past crimes. More on her in a bit.

Lyta, Jayna, and Dev hang out in the Outlands base, wherever the heck it is. Thanks to some minor virus the Black Mercy gave her, Lyta is sick and Dev finds her some "hantha root". While he's gone, Lyta and Jayna have a chat about how Lyta shot Jayna when she choose Zod over her mother. You know, typical mother-daughter stuff. This is another one of these things that got introduced and then touched on occasionally, so it's good to see Francis actually do something with it. Again, it's not particularly deep and significant, but at least having the two characters acknowledge the history between them--and having Georgina Campbell and Ann Ogbomo act it out--is a pleasure.

Later, Dev tells Lyta he got it on with the Lyta clone but it didn't make him feel any less empty. Again, the Lyta/Dev/Seg triangle has been one of those plot points that used to be a thing and then got dropped. Leaving Aaron Pierre as Dev to wander around without much to do. So as I've noted before, seeing Pierre get to do something, when he's clearly up to it acting-wise, is nice.

Finally, two Sagitari show up and get captured. And Lyta gives them a speech about how Zod is a man without honor and doesn't deserve their respect. Yet again, none of this is particularly deep. But it's nice to see the "real" Lyta take command, give an inspiring speech, and sway some of her former soldiers over to her side.

On Wegthor, Seg and Nyssa link up with Val, Adam, Kem, and the Rebels. Zod sends a single spaceship, which delivers Doomsday. Doomsday rips through the Rebel lines in one of two impressive fight scenes. It's good the creative team didn't opt for an actor in a suit, because I doubt if they could have captured Doomsday's sheer indestructible juggernaut nature if they had. Instead we get CGI, which is fine since Doomsday has rarely been that "developed" a character. The CGI Doomsday is big and ominous and we see the blood flow as he literally stomps through the Rebels.

The rest of the episode is Seg and the others trying to get away from Doomsday and off of Wegthor. It gets a bit confusing at this point, but they end up with Adam and Val staying behind to coordinate the evacuation, while Seg and Kem go to plant explosives and blow up the tunnels, trapping Doomsday while the Rebels run away. Things go to hell: Doomsday brings down tunnels which bury Val and Adam. Adam is seemingly paralyzed (??), and Val and his people carry him to the spacecraft. Which the Rebels have taken in another impressive fight scene. Nyssa leads a group of Rebels in the attack to redeem herself, and this is where the slo-mo fighting goes as she shoots and hacks her way through a bunch of Sagitari redshirts. It doesn't say much for their training under Jayna and/or Lyta that a patrician's daughter cuts them up like day-old salami. But it looks impressive.

Seg and Kem have a "remember the old days" conversation, and then another tremor causes Seg to lose the detonator to the explosives. Whoops!. When Seg realize he's lost it and tries to go back, Kem steps down the tunnel, activates a force field, and says his goodbyes before going to get the detonator. Seg and Kem have already been the heart of the show, and Kem gets a decent sendoff.

Then Kem goes back and we get a camera/gun butt POV of him going through the darkened tunnels. He finds the detonator, and then Doomsday catches him, rams a fist into his chest, and with his dying breath Kem gives Doomie the finger and activates the detonator. Goodbye, Rasmus Hardiker: you were a class act always providing much of the humor when they could bother to put you into an episode. You will be missed.

The tunnels blow up, and the Stellarium in the mines blows up in a chain reaction (Whoops! again), tearing Wegthor apart. Val, Nyssa, and the remaining Rebels get away.

In yet another "Everyone thinks he's dead but he really isn't" moment, Seg gets to the aforementioned spacecraft and escapes the doomed moon.

Next week's promos show the return of Lobo and Brainiac. And yet another final showdown between Seg and Zod. Which will probably involve Seg strolling through the Sagitari security for... what, the third time? But at least this time some of the Sagitari are working for Lyta, so Seg has an excuse for sneaking in so easily.

After that, who knows where Krypton goes? Doomsday is presumably buried on Wegthor and then blown up with the moon. Which should take him off the board until DC's "present". Brainiac is doing whatever he's doing with Jor. It's hard to imagine Zod going another season, as his empire starts to collapse around him. Colin Salmon does the "Kneel!" thing real well. But that will only get a super villain so far.

Then again, I'm not sure if the creative team cares if they have to set up stuff for a third season. That's kind of how it went last year: they wrote several cliffhangers and spent the first few episodes of season 2 trying to piece it all together. I'm surprised they didn't do Krypton: The Early Early Years ala the second season of Sledge Hammer!

(For those not in the know, Sledge Hammer! got a surprise renewal after the creative team did a finale that had everyone blown up with a nuclear bomb as basically a big FU because they didn't expect to get renewed. The second season started with Sledge Hammer! The Early Years, supposedly set before the events of season 1 even though absolutely nothing changed.)

No, I haven't heard if Krypton has been renewed for a third season. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. I find it hard to believe it keeps getting renewed while something like Blood Drive is cancelled. But I suppose DC and Warners can't afford to let the property die. So if it does get renewed, I wouldn't find it very surprising. If Krypton comes back, we'll have to see how the creative team rakes all of the ashes and pulls it out of the fire.

But that's just my opinion, that's why I get paid the big bucks to write it down. What do you think?