'Superman & Lois' Season 3's Big Cliffhanger Reverses a Season 2 Twist

The Big Picture

• Bizarro becomes Doomsday, creating a massive cliffhanger for Superman & Lois Season 3.
• Adapting the "Death of Superman" arc is a risk for the series due to season limitations and budget cuts.
• The potential emotional impact of Clark's potential downfall may be impacted by the reduced episode count and limited cast of the next season.

Superman & Lois went big for its Season 3 finale, leaving viewers with a massive cliffhanger. Lex Luthor (Michael Cudlitz) enacted his revenge on Clark Kent/Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) by turning the reanimated corpse of his doppelgänger, Bizarro, into a savage monster, a version of the super-villain Doomsday from the DC Comics source material. Lex unleashed Doomsday at the Kent farm, but his battle with Superman eventually took the pair to the moon, where they charged at one another one final time before the credits rolled. In addition to leaving viewers desperate for the series’ shortened fourth season to see what happens next, this development reverses one of the series’ biggest plot twists from a prior season, delivering a payoff two years in the making.

Superman & Lois’ Bizarro is a version of Clark from an alternate universe known as the “Inverse World,” a version of the Bizarro World of the comics. Although he served as his Earth’s Superman, Bizarro got more swept up by his fame than the regular Clark ever has and was also a less effective father, ultimately alienating his son Jonathan (Jordan Elsass), who joined Ally Allston’s (Rya Kihlstedt) cult. Bizarro dedicated himself to stopping Ally but used Kryptonite to increase his powers in order to do so, and the mineral warped his body and mind, leading his wife, the Inverse Lois Lane (Elizabeth Tulloch), to take their other son, Jordan (Alex Garfin), and leave him. Bizarro donned a suit of armor and traveled to the series’ main Earth in the hopes of stopping Ally from merging the two worlds. However, once he arrived on the other Earth, he got trapped in the Shuster Mines because of the X-Kryptonite in them, which weakens him much like regular Kryptonite does the regular Clark.

Superman & Lois

How Bizarro Becomes Doomsday in 'Superman & Lois'

In the first episodes of Season 2, Bizarro’s pounding attempts to escape the mines caused earthquakes in the surrounding area in a homage to Doomsday’s earliest comic appearances, in which he punched his way out of his own underground prison. The armor Bizarro wore also resembled the containment suit Doomsday was initially shown in. This led comic-astute viewers to expect Superman & Lois to adapt the monster and the Death of Superman story arc he was introduced in. When Bizarro’s armor was damaged in a battle with Clark and John Henry Irons/Steel (Wolé Parks), his identity was revealed in one of the series’ biggest plot twists.

Bizarro’s time as a character in Season 2 was shorter than expected. After a few encounters, Clark managed to capture him and took him to his brother Tal-Rho’s (Adam Rayner) Fortress of Solitude, where the AI of Clark and Tal’s mother, Lara Lor-Van (Mariana Klaveno) was able to imprison him and translate his backward speech. Bizarro explained the threat Ally posed and how he used her pendant to travel between worlds. When Clark and Tal were attacked by Mitch Anderson (Ian Bohen), who used X-Kryptonite to give himself superpowers, Lara released Bizarro to help in the fight, but Anderson realized X-Kryptonite was his weakness and used it to kill him. Bizarro’s body was confiscated by the DOD but later stolen by Bruno Mannheim’s (Chad L. Coleman) Intergang organization.

Mannheim experimented on Bizarro’s corpse in the hopes of discovering a cure for cancer, which his wife Peia (Daya Vaidya) suffered from. He was unsuccessful in finding a cure but, after Mannheim’s arrest, the corpse returned to life, although it acted even more feral than Bizarro had under the influence of Kryptonite. Lex discovered it after his release from prison and determined that killing and resurrecting the creature would cause it to mutate further and become more powerful, so he repeatedly did so, until the creature resembled Doomsday.

Turning Bizarro into Doomsday now is a smart, patient move by the show’s creators that allows them to have their cake and eat it too. The reveal that it was Bizarro in the armor was a great twist at the time, and he fit better into Season 2’s story and themes than Doomsday would have, but introducing the monster now rewards any fans who may have been disappointed by the bait and switch. And potentially launching into the Death of Superman story as the show heads into what may very well be its final season makes a lot of sense. Although Season 1 did a fantastic job of introducing and developing all of Clark’s relationships with friends and family, they’ve of course only grown more layered and compelling over time, so temporarily killing the character off now would have much more emotional impact than it would have if the show had done so back at the beginning of Season 2. With Lois’ battle with cancer behind them, Clark and the characters he’s close to, with the exception of Jordan, are happier than ever, before the fight with Doomsday, which, of course, is why its timing is so tragically fitting. Losing Clark is now one of the few things that can test the other characters’ emotional limits more than they have been in the past year, and adapting one of the Man of Steel’s most famous and influential stories could be a perfect way for the show to end on a high note.

The Potential Risks of 'Superman & Lois' Adapting the 'Death of Superman' Arc Now

Unfortunately, there is also one major drawback to adapting the story now. In addition to being only ten episodes long Season 4 will also feature a much smaller cast — only five members of the cast will have series regular status next season, those being Hoechlin, Tulloch, Garfin, Cudlitz, and Michael Bishop, who took over the role of Jonathan in Season 3. Other regulars from Season 3 may return in guest roles depending on the actors’ availability, but it is unknown at this time whom, if any, will actually do so. The decision to remove so many characters and actors is attributed to budget cuts the show is undergoing. This will almost certainly alter how a potential adaptation of the Death of Superman arc will play out. Lois, Jordan, Jonathan, and Lex’s reactions to Clark’s potential downfall were always going to be the most important, but it would be unfortunate if viewers only get to see shortened stories of how it affects other characters he’s close to like John Henry, Lana Lang (Emmanuelle Chriqui), and Sam Lane (Dylan Walsh), or worse, don’t get those stories at all.

The reduced episode count may also further truncate the story. If Clark does die, he will presumably come back to life quicker than he would in a longer season, as the creators likely do not want the main character’s role minimized for too long, especially with this being the last season. All of this makes one wonder if the show would have been better served by not waiting so long to adapt the famous story. Viewers have long waited to see if the story can deliver on expectations, with the recent Writer's Strike delaying the show's return, but Season 4's premiere is now set for this fall.

Superman and Lois is available to stream on Max in the U.S.

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