Lois & Clark, Episode 3: Neverending Battle

Note: I think there was some confusion as to how we're doing these reviews. Joe and I reviewed the pilot together and are alternating episodes from now on. We'll also start reviewing some other shows on our own soon. WHOO!

Netflix Synopsis: The staff of The Daily Planet is assigned to uncover more about Superman. Lex Luthor threatens to cause an endless succession of disasters in Metropolis to prove that Superman can't save everyone simultaneously.

Oh, that Lex Luthor, he's incorrigible.

The episode opens, as it so often does, on The Daily Planet office. Perry comes in all, "where are my pictures of Superman?" and Jimmy's like, "wah wah, we don't have them," and Perry says, for realsies, "GREAT SHADES OF ELVIS." What does that even mean? I think he's trying to be intimidating, but he's no J. Jonah Jameson. He calls for a meeting at 6 AM (what?) with blow ups, and I don't know what those are, so I'm going to assume they're blow up dolls.

Meanwhile, Lois and Clark (hey, that's the name of the show!) are working with an artist who is trying to sketch a picture of Superman. Clark! Take off your glasses! That might help. They discuss whether or not Superman ever wants to "get down" if you know what I'm saying and I think you do. Cat, of course, says she wants to take him for a test drive, which is gross, and Lois tries to pretend she wasn't thinking the same thing. Also, she's mean to Clark a whole bunch. I feel like I shouldn't have to say that anymore. From now on, if Lois and Clark are in the same scene, let's assume that Lois is being mean to him.

Superman is Hulking out.

Lex Luthor is on his balcony looking at pigeons with what looks like a viewfinder. A bird dive bombs into the cement and dies. Suicide bird! Did Lex kill that bird with his mind powers? I know this episode aired like a billion years ago but still...topical.

How do you change the picture?

Lex reads some newspapers and they're all about Superman. He's totally jealous. He is the Gretchen Wieners to Superman's Regina George.  Also, it turns out he didn't make any birds commit suicide, but his hawk did eat all the pigeons Lex had been looking at. I'm sorry that I misled you all.

Back to The Daily Planet! It's the 6 AM meeting but there are no blow up dolls anywhere. What a tease. Perry is yelling at everyone for not getting the Superman story yet. Why doesn't Clark just put on his outfit and go find someone at The Daily Planet who can take some pretty pictures of him or something? Sort of like how Peter Parker used to take pictures of himself being Spidey. Peter Parker is way smarter than Clark Kent, yes?

Lois yells at everyone that SUPERMAN IS HERS. Because he saved her that one time. Clark and Cat make fun of her. I approve of this. Then Cat hits on Clark and puts a magnifying glass up to her cleavage. Subtle.

LOVE ME.

Clark gets a phone call from, we're assuming, someone tipping him off to Superman's whereabouts. Lois overhears and follows him. Naturally. It turns out he's just checking out an apartment that he's thinking about renting.The apartment is gross. The water runs black, there are cobwebs everywhere, and the floor is littered with garbage. Clark, your prison cell is better than this place. Lois burts in demanding to see Superman, and of course he's not there (well...he is...because Clark is there...but you know what I mean) and Clark is all, "Ur dum. You cannot has Superman."  Clark thinks in LOLcat sometimes.  Not a lot of people know that.

Meanwhile, Lex is holding some sort of focus group or something on Superman. They're all in a dark room. It looks sort of like the war room in that movie Joe's always trying to get me to watch. Lex wants to know how powerful Superman is. More powerful than an avalanche? A locomotive? Can he leap tall buildings in a single bound?  (Probably, probably, and why would he do that when he can fly?)

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room.

Some lady is all, "he's still a man," because she wants to ride Superman's locomotive. All women do, amirite, ladies? Actually, she's just pointing out that Superman, because he is a man, is weak. Lex explains that he's going to test Superman. The lady is all, "can't we just shoot him?" and Lex is like, "no, and I'll explain why we can't just shoot him by using a lot of words so Jennie gets really bored."

Over at the newsroom, Lois overhears something on her police scanner. There's trouble! Right here in River City! Lois assumes that Superman will show up, which is actually pretty smart, because he likes to save people and stuff.  This dude is threatening to jump off of a building and I guess that's bad, although it really doesn't seem like anyone's business except the dude threatening to jump but WHATEVER.  Hey! That dude is one of Lex's dudes! He was also in Juwanna Man. You're welcome.

Superman music! He flies down and tells the jumper all the normal stuff...you don't want to do this, you have so much to live for, blah blah blah. The jumper was never going to actually jump ANYWAY so he's all, "sweet, let's go get some cappuccino."

Lex is watching from, like, a dark cave or something and he tells one of his minions to push the annoying lady from earlier off of another building. She screams, like I assume one does when one is thrown off of a building. Superman saves her. Obviously. Yawn. Lex says that Superman saved her, "faster than a speeding bullet." Oh no they didn't.

Clark, of course, pretends that he saw the whole thing once Lois finally shows up. He says he's going to call the story in, but Lois convinces him to just start writing it instead. Without telling anyone. Oh, she's up to something. That wily minx.

The next day, Lucy Lane brings Lois some lunch at The Daily Planet. Lois yells at Lucy for being out all night (With Jimmy, perhaps?  Ooh la la!) and Lucy shames Lois for stealing Clark's story. SISTERS. So Lois stole Clark's story. Of course. But she feels really bad about it. She uses her Lois!Logic and somehow blames it on Superman. And then she refuses to apologize to Clark.

Clark comes over to yell at her and she insists that one day he'll thank her for being a total see you next Tuesday. He storms off and some random dude walks up to Lois, asking for Eduardo Somethingsomething. He pretends to be all annoyed and mentions that he's going to another newspaper with his story about Superman.

Lois follows him, of course. She bullies him into a conference room and Clark bitches to Jimmy about Lois. He asks if Lois is always so aggressive when going after a story, and Jimmy says, "yeah, pretty much," but then admits that she's being even worse about the Superman story. Probably because Superman is all dreamy but that's just a guess.  Clark says someone ought to teach her a lesson. Jimmy says that Godzilla could teach Lois a lesson (huh?), which I suppose is true if the lesson they want to teach her is...don't get stepped on? I don't know.  Jimmy's kind of a tool.

Perry has Jimmy fixing his foot massager and it makes Jimmy sad. He's a journalist! Not Mr. Fixit! Clark advises him to stand up for himself but, let's face it, Jimmy is the Zeppo and will never stand up for himself.  Perry sends Clark and some random guys out to cover a story about a bomb. Jimmy tries to go but Perry yells at him and GUESS WHAT Jimmy just slinks away like a kicked puppy.

Lois is interviewing the random dude from earlier, whose name is Mr. Cleveland. He says that Superman is an alien, from the planet Tropax. He says he's been on the ship. So...Mr. Cleveland nuts, basically. He tells Lois that he's up for reelection and that his first name is Grover. Uuuuuugh.  Sometimes I want to punch this show in the face.

While Lois is preoccupied with Faux-ver Cleveland, Superman shows up at the bomb site. Lex blows up the building after Superman runs inside. Superman comes out of the building, looking fine (awww yeah), and Lex calls him a "man of steel." I wish they'd stop doing that.

They find Lex's cameras inside the building and deduce that someone lured Superman there in order to set off the bomb. Lois gets all sad for poor Superman, probably because of their "connection." "Who would want to kill Superman?" she asks. Clark doesn't say anything, I guess because he's wondering the same thing. He's probably a bit more invested, though, since he's the dead one in the "LET'S KILL SUPERMAN!" scenario.

Later, Clark is on the phone with his mom, asking her how to get the bomb stains out of his costume. Sure. His dad is totally worried about Clark, thinking that someone is trying to kill his son, and it's adorable. Clark tells them he's fine and gets to renovating his craphole apartment. He turns on some crappy 90s music and uses his powers to make his apartment less craphole. There are some hijinks involving his landlord sort of witnessing this mysterious renovation, but it's too stupid to spend time on. So. Moving on.

Clark's back in the newsroom, doing whatever it is journalists do when they're not being almost blown up or sneaking onto space stations or stealing stories. It looks boring. Lois tries to worm herself into working with Clark. And it works. Because she's pretty, I guess. It's sure not because of her charm. They discuss the two would-be jumpers that Superman saved and, well, there's weird stuff going on. Obviously.

Jimmy comes over and says he has an idea for how to track Superman but Perry yells at him about...soda...before he can tell them. Jimmy storms into his office, looking like he's going to yell and finally stand up for himself, but instead tells Perry that he's a huge Elvis fan. That leads to an Elvis speech from Perry and I'd tell you what he said but I fell asleep.

Lois and Clark discover that both jumpers worked for LexCorp. DUN DUN DUUUUUN.

Lex is busy picking out some new suits. He orders a dozen. He likes to suit up, just like Barney.

Superman shows up to yell at Lex for putting people in danger.  "You want to know how strong I am?" he asks, and bends a sword in half, which is really no big deal. Any bending robot can do the same thing.

"You want to know how fast I am?" he asks, picks up a gun, shoots at a wide-eyed Luthor, and then catches the bullet before it can hit him.  That's a dangerous game.  Can you imagine if he'd juuuust missed that bullet?  SuperOopsies. 

Lex calmly asks if that concludes his demonstration, because Lex is a badass. Superman tells him the tests are over but Lex is all, "I'm not saying it was me, but it was totally me and I'm not going to stop, ever, because my daddy didn't love me." He has daddy issues, right? Lex tells Superman that as long as he stays in Metropolis, innocent people will die.

This sends Clark into a tailspin of guilt, even though it's totally not his fault, and he doesn't know what to do. His parents are nice to him and offer to help, but he's still all emo when he leaves their house. He flies around the city for a bit and then goes back to his not-so-craphole apartment. He gets out a suitcase and folds his Superman outfit into it. No! What will give you purpose now, Clark?

The next day, Lois is sketching Superman's S symbol onto a piece of paper and wonders where Superman has been because no one has seen him for three days. Cat says Clark looks depressed and tries to cheer him up with her boobs but Clark is NOT. IN. THE. MOOD. Lois asks Jimmy how they should find Superman but his idea is totally stupid. Just like Jimmy. Anyway, his idea is that Superman is an alien, right? So he must have a spaceship. If they find his spaceship, they find Superman. Oh, Jimmy. Go away.

Lois and Clark look sad some more. Lois walks away with her sad pad of paper and sits at her desk.  She makes a phone call to get some satellite images, I guess to find Superman's alien spaceship. Clark is all, "We're listening to Jimmy now? OH, FML." He sits at his desk and devises the stupidest plan imaginable. He draws a map, superfast, and it looks like a 10 year old drew it. Just...here.

And you know my name is Simon...and I like to do drawrings.

He calls someone to get a messenger to pick up his map and take it to Lois's apartment later. This...this is just so stupid. I mean, Lois is a reporter, right? So I'm thinking she could easily track this map back to Clark, given that he just called for a messenger to pick this map up FROM HIS DESK.

Lex is staring off of his balcony, rejoicing in the fact that Superman hasn't shown up in so long. His manservant is all, "shall I bring your guest in?" and Lex is all, "sure, fine, whatever," and there's a cheerleading outfit sitting on a chair nearby. WHAT. This is never explained so I think we can safely assume that Lex has a cheerleader fetish.

Lois is watching a riot or something on TV. Superman isn't around to save anyone so SHIT IS GOING CRAZY. Lois wishes that Superman would come back and Clark thinks it just so she can get a great story. But Lois HAS LAYERS and insists that she doesn't even care about that story, it's that Metropolis needs Superman. She gives Clark an inspirational speech and it's a good thing Clark is Superman, because I bet it helped. She leaves and Clark goes home to get his pretty costume out and he flies around the city, looking for trouble or kittens in trees.

There are some men outside The Daily Planet, hanging up a new sign. This isn't going to end well, right? A little old lady and two adorable blond girls are holding hands and laughing and OH NO the sign is going to fall on them! One of the girls drops her teddy bear as they run to safety, and of course she goes back to get it. You know what? Maybe this is controversial but if that little girl is stupid enough to run after her bear and get crushed by a sign...maybe we should just let it crush her. Survival of the fittest, you know? This is also why I think school zones are stupid, too. Let's thin the herd, the world is overpopulated.

Superman saves the little girl, of course, and it's pretty cute. Lex decides to stop his testing because...I don't now, he's probably bored. I know I am. Anyway, he decides that Superman is the opponent he's been waiting for. Also, I think he has a crush on Superman. He says that Superman is tough, but not unbeatable, because he has morals and Lex doesn't. Lex Luthor is no one's bitch.

Lex sends his hawk, Faust, out to hunt. "Let's go kill some pigeons," he says and Faust is all, "CAW!" or whatever hawks say.  Why does Lex hate pigeons so much? 

Everyone is happy happy joy joy back in the newsroom. Especially when Lois comes in, covered in mud and carrying her broken heel. Oh. Right. Clark's map to Superman's spaceship. Lois got it and followed it. All she found was a Godzilla doll dressed as Superman. Remember how Jimmy said Godzilla was the only one who could teach Lois a lesson? Har har, show.

So. Lois is pretty pissed. She's even more pissed to see that Clark got the Superman story. Clark is smug and Lois is mad and everyone else is happy. I guess they used up their party planning money in the pilot, though, because there are no balloons around. Maybe only Lois Lane's stories get a party.

Lesson learned: don't follow maps drawn by 10-year-olds.

Clark's "lesson" to Lois inspires Jimmy to finally stand up for himself. Perry's all, "good for you, kid," and he's not mad at all so Jimmy probably should have done that a long time ago.

A calmer Lois approaches Clark later and congratulations him for winning. Then she's mean to him again. And refuses to work with him as a team. She's all, "we'll never be a we," and he's like, "we'll see," and she says, "how long can you hold your breath?" and walks away. He grins and says, "a very long time," and it's totally cheesy but I'm sure I loved it when I was 12 and wanted Lois and Clark to get married and have all the babies.

REVIEW: This episode wasn't all that terrible, really, probably because Lex Luthor was in it and he makes everything more entertaining. I like his hair, it's very curly. Really, since he's the number one bad guy and Superman's arch nemesis, it would make sense for him to be in every episode, so hopefully he'll be around a lot more as the season progresses. I still don't know what he has against pigeons, though.