Superman & Lois finished its third season but didn’t tie up all of the storylines. That was my fear since the season was finished before the characters were cut from the fourth season. The writers had no idea it had to wrap up any character’s storylines. The CW President Brad Schwartz had already said season three would end in a cliffhanger, so it’s good the show got renewed, but what about all those characters leaving?
Right after Superman & Lois got renewed for a fourth season, it was announced that Dylan Walsh (Sam Lane), Emmanuelle Chriqui (Lana Lang Cushing), Erik Valdez (Kyle Cushing), Inde Navarrette (Sarah Cushing), Wolé Parks (John Henry Irons), Tayler Buck (Natalie Irons), and Sofia Hasmik (Chrissy Beppo) would be cut for budgetary reasons. But the season three finale didn’t close out or give farewells to any of these characters.
Dylan, Emmanuelle, Erik and Inde have been on the show since day one, so their characters deserve to have proper goodbyes to their characters. Not just written off off-screen. Wolé has been around almost since day one and has become a big part of the show. He’s another character that deserves a send-off. The writers already have the right path with him moving to Metropolis to make gadgets for the DOD, but John Henry Irons and Natalie saying goodbye to everyone makes sense. They wouldn’t just disappear. While Natalie showed up later, she has become an honorary Kent family member. Sam even called her his granddaughter.
Speaking of Sam. He’s been kidnapped by Lex Luther (Michael Cudlitz). We should see a rescue mission. Even if he didn’t make it, that should happen on-screen, not off-screen.
Sarah and Jordan Kent (Alex Garfin) at least got their closure in the season finale. That’s the only story that got some sort of conclusion. But Kyle just proposed to Chrissy, and they are having a baby. The writers just gave us Lana and John Henry, though both of them knew that wasn’t going to last.
While John Henry Irons and Natalie will be moving, Lana is still the Mayor of Smallville, and Kyle still works at the fire station (with a storyline with Jonathan Kent (Michael Bishop) that I love). Chrissy works with Lois Lane (Bitsie Tulloch). How do all of these characters just disappear?
Since The CW cut all these characters, it’s likely that explanations will be given in expository, which isn’t the kind of season premiere anyone wants, especially when the last shot was of Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) fighting what looks to be Doomsday. He’s on the Moon while the town looks on hoping Superman will survive this fight. It would reason the plan was probably to pick up exactly where things left off, but that’s probably not the plan now if those actors won’t be there. Do they all decide to move because of what happened? Even if that were the case, it’s not like moving away would have them escape threats like that.
Next season is going to see less of Superman suiting up to save money. But The CW is already saving money because the CGI on the Superman & Lois season finale was not up to its normal quality. But neither was The Flash series finale. So I guess it will be better with less bad CGI. But the writers just set up Lex Luthor, how is he going to be the big villain if Superman doesn’t suit up as much? It’s going to be more of a family show. While there are a lot of good storylines there, it’s going to be hard to continue that with only five characters. It’s just hard to imagine a Superman show without much of Superman.
Don’t get me wrong I loved seeing Clark Kent the reporter this season, and I want to see more of that. But like Walker, it balances the family and the action. It works well. And it’s nice to have low-key episodes in between the action, but I don’t know if it can work without much of Superman, especially losing many of the Superman & Lois characters. Much of the drama with the twins is when something happens in their lives. Like Jordan and Sarah. Jon and his girlfriend. You need more actors for that. Superman & Lois has done such a great job at creating its world and its characters and all of that will be torn down for the fourth season.
And it’s such a shame that these characters are not going to be given proper goodbyes. I hope that maybe they will have them as recurring characters so they can all get goodbyes and finish their stories, but with all these budget cuts in Hollywood, it’s hard to know what The CW will do. It’s all about the bottom line and less about the content that comes out.
