“Hearts of the Fathers”
What They Say:
It’s Thanksgiving, and Clark, Lois, and Jimmy are heading to the Kent farm to celebrate — but the holiday turns into a fight for survival as Task Force X, family, and Kryptonite collide!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The last couple of episodes had their fun but the timing of more multiverse material didn’t do well for a lot of people who are definitely feeling fatigue there even if they’re not feeling superhero fatigue in general. So it was welcome to get the opening for this episode to stand out nicely with something bigger for a nightmare sequence for Clark taking place in the familiar field of his home. Having the massive ships and the very anime-inspired elements of the mecha and outfits play out was a big plus as well. But the show also works a good moment into it with Clark going back to Smallville in order to confront the hologram of his father and what the invading army was doing. There’s still a disconnect there to be sure – I’m not too keen on Jor-El being presented as this large villain figure – but even if they go there it’ll at least be something new to work with.
The main focus of this episode is a bit of Thanksgiving fun as Clark brings Clark home to meet the family, though Jimmy doesn’t get to come back like he normally does. It’s a lot of the usual awkward stuff that you’d normally get here with her meeting his parents but then Lois also brings her father to visit, which of course is the General that Clark realizes very quickly. It adds all the right kind of tension to the moment but we also get the whole protective father thing as nobody is right for his little girl. And that gets Ma Kent all protective as well. But what’s good to see is some of the way this helps to thaw things a bit between Lois and her father but it’s not going to be an easy thing overall – especially when he realizes that Lois is something of a fan of Superman as well. It’s all the usual complicated stuff that comes from secret identities and all that when mixed in with parents.
Jimmy’s arrival complicates things when he has a bag of Lois’ that has a Krptonian device fall out of it that shows him from a darker timeline where he wasn’t a good guy. It also unlocks a chunk of kryptonite itself, which causes him distress but also actually raises a Kryptonian ship from under the earth that Clark had been using to communicate with his father with. I like this shift from a pod to an actual ship as part of the invasion element as it lends itself well to a new interpretation. All of it circles back to how it’s a new Zero Day event of sorts but one where Clark is going to fight back as Superman to protect the world. There’s a great moment where he kisses Lois before flying into danger and it reminds me of the decades where any form of intimacy like this would never make it into a cartoon like this. It’s so welcome to have this even if, once again, so much of this season felt like they’re speedrunning things and not getting the full emotional weight they need behind it because of that.
In Summary:
There’s a lot going on in this episode and it’s frustrating because there’s a lot of good stuff going on. It’s just so much so fast and as much as I enjoy the Lois and Clark dynamic with these specific characters, I wish we had more time to establish it. And the same with all the other relationships that play out. We needed more time with the Kents, more time with Lois and her dad, and just more time being reporters and friends for the core trio. There’s so much good stuff here and it does work but it could have been so much. I’m hopeful the second season will ease on the gas a bit with what it does but it’s pretty unlikely. It’ll continue to be a fun show with some neat new interpretations of how it unfolds and the origin side of things and I love the anime elements. But the pacing is what’s frustrating it the most.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Max
