Nearly a year after the premiere of Superman & Lois season 2, season 3 is just a week away! Ahead of the premiere, we’ll be discussing the events from last season that lead to where Clark, Lois, Jordan, Jonathan, John Henry, Natalie, and the Cushing family are at the beginning of season 3.
All About Ally
Ally Allston is the big bad of the season. When she was younger, in order to receive her inheritance from her deceased parents, she had to carry the family pendant (the same one that got her dad killed). She accepts and when she gets older she creates the Inverse Society. She essentially preys on vulnerable people that are lost or feel like they have no purpose in order to get them to merge with their Inverse World counterparts. Because of this, Lucy Lane gets involved with Ally after believing her sister and dad don’t love her as they claim. Though Lois knows the whole thing is a sham, she could only prove it after someone died at the hands of Ally and she found Lucy in a bathtub after she consumed a bunch of pills. So, she wrote an Exposé for the Daily Planet and got Ally shut down (temporarily), and stripped her credibility.
Years later, talk of the article circulates once again when a podcast pops up claiming they have someone coming forward that can counter Lois’ claims which could damage her career forever. Lucy would come to Ally’s defense and reignite a family war for the ages but Lois never stopped fighting for her sister.
Ally eventually gets arrested by the DoD when she tries to open the portal to the Inverse World and a bunch of her followers are ripped apart as they try to go through. She gets broken out and takes the pendants to the inverse world to merge with her other self. She promises those on that planet that they will soon be able to merge. Superman and Tal-Rho use all of their energy and power to ruin the pendants, which they do, but she no longer needs them for it. She just needs power, ones she intends to steal from Superman and Bizarro Tal-Rho. Seemingly unstoppable, she overwhelms herself in battle with John Henry, Natalie, and Superman separating herself in two. They take advantage, defeating her and sending her back to the DoD’s custody.
Lana for Mayor
After helping with Daniel Hart’s campaign for mayor, he takes another job because it’s more concrete and will help his family. Lana doesn’t want George to run unopposed for the umpteenth year. So, with a little help from Kyle and the rest of the fire team, she fills out the papers and declares a spot in the race. Despite George’s efforts to tear Lana down, as a working mom in Smallville, she knows what the town needs: full transparency. She ultimately wins the race and becomes the new mayor of Smallville but it comes at a cost to not only her family but her friendship with Clark.
A Family Split
As part of Mayor Dean’s attempt to smear Lana’s campaign for mayor, he was prepared to reveal the truth of Kyle’s infidelity. Two years prior, Kyle had engaged in a six-month relationship with a bartender at the local bar, Tanya. In fear of the story getting out, he goes to the bar and clarifies to Tanya that nothing like that will ever happen again. At Sarah’s quinceañera, Tanya shows up to talk to Kyle but Sarah overhears everything. Lana realizes that what he had told her all those years ago wasn’t the truth.
After their split, Kyle tries everything that he can to make it right with his family. Besides Lana, Sarah is the one most hard to win over because she saw it firsthand. Eventually, he does, and she even spends time at his apartment and at the same bar he met Tammy (she no longer works there), where she performs on stage. By the end of the season Lana’s feelings don’t seem to change much. She reassures Kyle he’ll always be in her life no matter what but she doesn’t want to give him false hope that they’ll get back together.
The Truth Will Set You Free
Lana is captured by Bizarro Jon so that she can merge with Bizarro Lana. Sarah rushes over to the Kent residence where she tells Lois she thinks her mom is missing. Clark hears of this and comes to her aid but not without getting hit with Kryptonite in his chest. Bizarro Jon stabs him with a large piece in his chest, momentarily paralyzing him. Superman instructs Lana to pull out the Kryptonite as fast as she can and once she does he gets her home safely.
After this, Clark can’t shake the feeling that he should finally tell her his secret. So, with the blessing of the family, he meets her out in the middle of the road. She’s still reeling from their last encounter when Clark brushed her off so she doesn’t really want to talk to him. He says he has something to show her and he’s been wanting to tell her since they were kids. He takes off his glasses, levitates, and blows cold breath at a tree.
She looks on in awe and can’t believe she didn’t realize it sooner. She asks why he didn’t come back after he left, but he did. He went off to find himself and came back for her but she was with Kyle.
Lana wants to keep the secret from the rest of the family so they can lead normal lives, but she really has no choice but to tell Sarah once she sees Jordan with powers. This leads to Lois not wanting to keep secrets from her partner in crime, Chrissy, so she lets her in on it, too. Though, she definitely needs to get better at keeping it on the DL!
Jordan and Sarah are at Odds
Jodan and Sarah start the season with a rocky start. Sarah returns from camp with cold feet but it turns out she kissed a girl while there. Though she tells Jordan it meant nothing and she wants to be with him, he’s obviously very surprised and hurt by this. They eventually reconcile but Sarah is tired of secrets and if she can’t be a priority to him, then she doesn’t want to be with him at all (you go, girl!) He tries to get out his feelings in a letter which she doesn’t accept and then they fall to the back burner until the end of the season. After she finds out the truth about his powers, he tells her everything. She believes that if they just do a hard reset and are honest with each other, things will be okay.
The Thorn in Superman’s Side (and the Supermen of America)
The post-General Sam Lane era began when he appointed Lieutenant Mitchell Anderson after retiring. He and Superman butt heads almost right away when Superman does what he does best, saves the world, but runs nothing past Anderson. And not only that, according to Anderson, there are greater threats nationally that they could concern themselves with. As you’d expect, Superman doesn’t listen because his “job” is to protect people, no matter where in the world.
This forces Anderson to appoint his own team (The Supermen of America). The S.O.A. is a young group of metahumans dawning the iconic Superman symbol trained by the DoD to take over Superman’s position. The operation is relatively short-lived as members of the team die in combat against Bizarro Superman and then Anderson gets himself fired from the DoD.
In between all of that, though, Superman gets arrested for “treason” and will be let go once he tells Anderson the location of Bizarro Superman so they can deal with him themselves. Superman doesn’t give up the location, instead leading them to his fortress. It buys both him and Tal-Rho time to devise a plan that would break them free from their cell and get to Bizarro before Anderson and his men do.
Bizarro Supes
At the beginning of the season, Clark experiences a series of unexplained visions that get progressively more violent. Lois and John Henry investigate the mines (containing X-Kryptonite) and record the seismic waves of the “earthquakes” that are happening. They find it may connect to Clark after all, as it’s Bizarro Superman.
He’s technically their Earth shadow self. His mission was to defeat this version of Ally before she can fully ascend and become a godlike being. Unfortunately, he’s unable to get it done. Once Lara lets him free to have him help save her sons, he falls victim to Anderson who has huffed X-Kryptonite.
But that’s not the end of the bizarro world. Superman enters the other world to stop Ally, where he encounters Jonathan’s “other half” who tries to get him on his side. That world’s Lois foils that plan, causing Superman to realize Bizarro Jonathan is working with Ally. Superman works to keep the pendant and Anderson (who ran off with the pendant in the first place) safe from Ally and her henchmen.
Anderson may have been a bit of an inconvenience, but he redeemed himself when he realized that he and Superman were on the same team all along. He was just trying to protect his family. Anderson huffs his last X-K and battles “Jon” in a losing effort. However, it helps buy Superman the time to get back to his Earth amid the merge.
Tal-Rho’s Redemption
Tal-Rho reappears in the season finale after Ally merges the Earths and everyone blips between worlds. He thought he was done but he comes back to help save his family. After seeing all the good Clark has done for others, including his own, it’s lit a fire inside Tal. Superman, with no powers (currently) because of Ally, Tal helps him get to the sun. Their mom told him that the only way to get them back quickly is to throw himself into its orbit. The only problem is it could kill him. But who would Superman be without a little hope instilled in us all? Tal helps him get there and flings him into it.
Ally senses her plans are being foiled, so Tal sacrifices himself to fight her but all she does is drain his powers. Overhearing this, Jordan flies to space to put a stop to her, taking her off guard and then going to save his uncle who is currently falling back to Earth. After everything is back to normal, the boys see two trucks outside and wonder where they came from. Turns out it’s a gift from “Uncle Tal.” At the end of the episode, Tal is back in the Bizarro world looking to start a new life for himself.
Season 3 of Superman & Lois premieres Tuesday, March 14 at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.
