"Zods and Monsters" – Krypton S02E07 Review

We finally get some Superman mythology! It's still vague and non-distinct, because maybe it's just me. But is Jor-El really that big a piece of the Superman mythology? Yes, he's Kal-El's father and all. But the revelation that Cor-Vex is renamed Jor-El just doesn't seem that exciting. Even when director Erica Watson plays it up with a bit of John Williams' Superman theme.

Ditto for Doomsday. It's all very tragic that two misguided scientists (and forgetful: does everyone on Krypton forget to pay their electrical bills?) transformed someone with a genetic mutation into Doomsday. But it's set a thousand "cycles" in the past. As is often the case, the fact that Krypton is set in Superman's past tends to blunt so many things on the show. But that's the problem with most prequels. We know that Anakin Skywalker is going to become Darth Vader and most of the Jedi will be wiped out.

On with the "Zods and Monsters" review. The episode is actually pretty good, even if not much happens. The main plot is that Seg and Nyssa get Cor to the Fortress, and the Val hologram manages to remove the Brainiac cluster of nanites from Seg's brain stem. Well, Nyssa does it after Seg gives her a pep talk about how she's already done unbelievable things so what's one more.

We then get the aforementioned scene where an un-Brainiaced Seg holds his son Cor-Vex. Nyssa doesn't want their child to have the discredited Vex name, and the hologram suggests that they follow tradition and name the baby after a great descendant: Jor. And so we get Jor-El.

But then the nanites disappear, and eventually jump into the hologram. Which "becomes" Brainiac and announces that he's leaving Krypton to travel the universe. Brainiac then starts acting very non-logical, offering Seg a place at his side and then saying that Seg has "earned the right" to refuse him. Umm, huh? Seg has been fighting him every step of the way.

Then Brainiac does something else illogical: he decides that the best way to preserve the "best of Krypton" is to leave and take baby Jor-El with him. And this is what I mean about the lack of drama in Krypton being a prequel. Are we supposed to believe that Jor-El is gone for good, and will never return and thus never have a son, Kal-El, which eventually he'll rocket to Earth where the child will grow up to become Superman?

But we're supposed to be moved by Nyssa's grief at losing her son. And don't get me wrong: Wallis Day as Nyssa is good throughout this episode. But for all of her acting talent, it's hard to be moved by Nyssa's tears of grief at the end when we know that by the end of the season, or in a season or two (assuming Krypton gets renewed), that Jor-El will return safe and unharmed.

Even if the creative team somehow pulls some shenanigans and has Brainiac raise Jor-El as his own son (which is, ironically, the pre-Crisis origin of another Superman villain, Terra-Man, in the comics), the fact that may happen down the road doesn't negate the apathy over believing now that Jor-El is more invulnerable to permanent change than Doomsday.

Which brings us to the second plot line, which is Zod capturing Doomsday and then probing its memories before applying somatic reconditioning. This gives us the origin story of Doomsday, who was originally a Kryptonian named Dax Baron (Staz Nair) a thousand cycles ago. And just as a note, if they ever cast Superman on the show, they could do worse than bring back Nair. Give him the hair curl and he's the spitting image of Superman.

Dax has the "Vara gene", which is never explained but seems to be a genetic mutation that does... something about eventually making him instantly adaptable to any force directed against him. Two scientists, Wedna-El (Toni O'Rourke) and a very Tim Russ-looking Van-Zod (Dempsey Bovell), put Dax through a series of execution-style trials to kill him. And then initiate a "resurrection protocol" to bring him back to life. So if he can adapt to any force, why do they need a resurrection protocol? What is a "resurrection protocol"? Can they bring anyone back to life, or only someone with the Vara gene?

Dax has a wife, Enaj (Danielle Galligan), who is all tearful and such. Dax is letting them experiment on him for the good of Krypton, which is plagued with civil wars so the scientists need an "ultimate weapon" to stop the fighting. Creating doomsday weapons is never a good idea: see the Star Trek episode of the same name. Enaj eventually comes back to the lab and announces the war is over, but she's too late: after 455 trials, Dax has turned into Doomsday. His wife is having none of that and runs out of the chamber in disgust.

At the end, Zod announces that the Kryptonians will now be conquerors and are ready to launch their first fleet of spaceships out into the universe after stopping off at Wegthor to beat up the Rebels. What part Doomsday plays in all of this isn't clear. Does Zod plan to use it against the Rebels, and then all of the would-be conquerd planets? I guess he didn't see "The Doomsday Machine" either.

That brings us to Wegthor, were Kem (Rasmus Hardiker) has a subplot of his own. He goes to check out some mines where Sagitari were spotted, and takes a squad of Rebels with him. Including Adam (Shaun Sipos) and an obnoxious forward scout (Seyan Sarvan), who is always questioning Kem's decisions. Kem eventually goes off on his own to check out some biosigns, rather than tell his people to kill the biosign sources. He comes back with a bunch of half-starved Sagitari who Zod abandoned. When the Rebels hesitate to give them food on Kem's orders, Adam sides with Kem and yells at them.

As I've mentioned before, Kem and Adam are probably the most entertaining parts of the show. So this episode gives them screen-time to do whatever. Watching them banter back and forth and rib each other is the highlight of the show.

But there's other good stuff as well. Seg gets a chance to give a heroic speech or such, and it's kind of goody. He convinces Nyssa that since she can double-cross Zod and jump out of a window, that qualifies her to remove the nanites from his brain stem. But Cameron Cuffe and Wallis Day are so overly sincere about the whole thing, with both the actors and the characters acting like they know there's no way it's possible, it's entertaining.

Ian McElhinney as Val, and as the Hologram Val, is also pretty good. The actor isn't a laugh riot, but he provides a nice understated British sense of irony to most of his lines. One recurring gag is the hologram trying to grasp the concept of "sarcasm".

Blake Ritson and Colin Salmon get the major villainous stuff. There isn't much for them to do this week: Brainiac is all sinister, and Zod is all "I'm a misunderstood hero just like Doomsday, which makes us brothers because we both fight for Krypton's future."

Aaron Pierre, Ann Ogbomo, and Hannah Waddingham are nowhere to be seen as Dev, Jayna, and Jax, respectively. Maybe that's why the episode is better than average: they're the most boring/serious of the main characters. While I wouldn't say they're a drag on episodes that they appear in, the Jayna/Dev stuff is mired in confusion and dead-end plotting. And Jax provided a bit of internal strife that wasn't really necessary: we've got Seg vs. Brainiac, and the Rebels vs. Zod, and Doomsday versus whoever Zod aims him at. And going by the previews, Lobo is still out there somewhere. And an episode without Lobo is like... well, an episode without Lobo.

Overall, "Zods and Monsters" is an above-average episode of the series. Co-executive producer Joel Anderson Thompson writes his first episode for Krypton, and does a pretty good job of it. Granted, he doesn't have to deal with the baggage of Dev, Jayna, and Jax. And he gets to do a story that partially focuses on Kem and Adam. But even the parts without them aren't bad. It's the first time I could actually see Seg and Nyssa as a couple, so Thompson succeeds in giving them some chemistry. And I suppose Kem/Adam shippers (is there such a thing?) could find something there if they looked.

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