FollowWhat a difference six months makes, eh? Well, not that much. Seg is still a dumb-ass and Adam is still pretty annoying.
However, it has to be said that it’s gearing up to be an interesting season with plenty of possible plot-twists.
First things first though. We start of in Kandor where Dru-Zod has solidified his hold on the city and has also annexed the other cities on the planet under his rule.
What else do we know?
- Lyta is by his side, enforcing interrogations of Resistors and ordering their synaptic reconditioning
- The colony on the Kryptonian moon, Wegthor, is the only hold out against Zod
- He plans to build a space armada to spread “Kryptonian exceptionality” throughout the galaxy
Talk about a ridiculous mother-son bonding exercise.
Speaking of mothers. Jayna is still missing, something that is obviously bothering Lyta (possibly more than the unknown whereabouts of Doomsday). We know that her long-though-dead brother, Vidar, found her in the season finale so I can’t wait to see what’s happening there.
Just as in the Season 1 premiere, Adam Strange makes an early, nearly accidental appearance. He witnesses Dru-Zod’s holographic address to the people of Krypton and then gets nabbed in a back alley by a one-eyed Jax-Ur.
She brings him to a lair where he is reunited with Val-El (in the flesh this time) and Mama-Zed from the Rankless ‘hood. Also, Nyssa-Vex is there with her son, Cor-Vex, the child produced from her binding to Seg-El.
They catch Adam up on what has happened since his disappearance. In return, he tells them that Earth in his time (their future) is subjugated by Dru-Zod AND collected by Brainiac so that’s an indicator that things aren’t changing for the better.
From there, we leap into the Phantom Zone where Seg is wandering aimlessly through the dimension, tortured by scenes of Lyta being killed by Dru and being helpless to intervene.
He cries out for help and, conveniently, Val appears to help him out. Of course, the moment he describes himself as a projection of Seg’s mind, we HAD to know it was a trap.
How could Seg project something that knows more than he does? Seriously.
So, Brainiac (because who else do we KNOW is in the Phantom Zone with him?) disguised as a projection of Val-El leads Seg to a wormhole where he instructs him to use the Sunstone Key to open it.
Instead of returning them to Krypton, Brainiac takes Seg on a stroll down memory lane and they end up on Colu.
There, we get the backstory on how Brainiac was created by the people of Colu in an attempt to better themselves by incorporating A.I. technology into their biology.
Brainiac’s first action was to wipe out his creators. The planet, with no civilization to build cities and raze its natural habitats, has returned to wilderness since the annihilation of the Colu inhabitants.
A couple of unexpected things happen on Colu.
First, there’s a scanner that is triggered by Seg and Brainiac passing by. As the message – “Shithead detected. Transmitting location” – doesn’t specify which individual it was looking for, it’ll remain a mystery for the moment.
Second, and this isn’t TOTALLY out of character (just not something anyone in their right mind would try) Seg decides he’d rather just fight Brainiac than play whatever game Brainiac is using him for.
Considering Brainiac has a Sith lord-like ability to telepathically paralyze Seg, I just don’t see how this could’ve gone down.
So, the fact that Adam arrives in the third act to find Seg standing over Brainiac’s body with all those much-lauded brains spilling out all over the place makes me wonder if Brainiac pulled some shady shenanigans in the interim.
The last surprise is the well-advertised reveal of Lobo, the galaxy’s greatest bounty hunter (Emmett J Scanlan, The Fall)
Assuming the transmitter was his, we still don’t know whether he was looking for Seg or Brainiac. However, he’s got an unconscious Seg and Adam instead so… oops?
Based on first impressions, he’s not going to raise the intellectual average of the men on this show but let’s see where this goes.
It also raises the question of who put the bounty on whom?
Back on Krypton, we leave things in a bleak state. Mama-Zed turns coat on the Rebellion and Nyssa is captured, her son taken into Dru’s custody, while Jax-Ur and Val-El make a desperate attempt to reach Wegthor.
In terms of closure, Nyssa’s scene with her father is a major WTH moment. Wanting the truth behind her mother’s death and her own cloning, it looks as though Daron is going to spill it all when Lyta arrives and blows his head off.
For a season premiere, this episode ticks all the boxes. It provides continuity from the finale, grants insight into some motivations, and sparks a lot of speculation about how the conflicts will be resolved.
At the moment, the characters are spread across a vast distance so the only failing I predict is that we spend multiple episodes trying to cover disparate plotlines.
Krypton airs on Syfy on Wednesday nights, 10pm ET/PT
