I have to admit that there was a moment early on in Superman & Lois episode 2 that I hoped they would cut to a scene of a meteor crashing through the Smallville sign with Remy Zero’s “Save Me” playing in the background.  It would have been perfect.  But, alas, we are in an era of shows without theme songs.

I also have to admit that I stopped watching the episode a few minutes in because I couldn’t handle the angst (especially after a frustrating season premiere of The Flash).  But I finally got back around to the episode and found myself drawn in again.  Sure: the Luther plotline is one of the weak links.  That’s awkward because the Luther element helped make Smallville the great show that it was in the beginning.  And while I’m not overly fond of the “do I have powers or not” plot for Jordan, I find the scenes with him and Jonathan to be well done and oddly believable  And while I’ll probably get tired of scenes where Clark falls through the atmosphere, I’ll probably always be impressed when Lois takes control of the room.

The show is doing a great job being a stand-alone, which hopefully it will remain.  I feel the same way about the second (summer) season of Stargirl.  I’ve heard rumors of other Arrowverse heroes appearing, but it’s in a good, thoughtful context.  It will be easy to forget, of course, that this Superman and Lois have been around for a while and have even met the Clark of Smallville.  Here’s that scene-of-meeting from the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover from a while back.