Superman and Lois has continually impressed me. I’ve been reading comics most of my life, and superheroes have always been a major interest of mine. This is, in my educated opinion, the best version of Superman since the Christopher Reeve era, and the best Lois Lane I’ve ever seen in live action. The second season of this fantastic show ends with “Waiting for Superman,” which will hopefully wrap up the Ally Alston saga, and resolve a few other issues. With this being a season finale, there will be some spoilers below.

Ally, filled with power from merging with her other self, is trying to bring Bizarro Earth and Superman and Lois’ world together, forcibly blending people and worlds. Chrissy gives Smallville a warning about not being able to count on Superman for the first time in years, and things are looking pretty grim for everyone. While Chrissy tries to find Lois, the Cushing family goes in search of Kyle, who suddenly disappeared and left Sophie alone, which is very unlike him.

On the Kent farm, most of our heroes are gathered together. Jon Kent is worried, and asks his father if he’s ever seen anything like this before. When someone like Superman essentially says “No, this is new to me,” things are looking bad, especially when Superman has lost his powers. Something Clark said here made me wonder about something, and that and one of my ongoing problems with the series gets resolved later. While reality flickers around them, Natalie tries to reach out to her missing father. She explains why this situation brings up some past trauma for her, and the boys try and reassure her. Natalie gets a garbled message from Steel, and Lois goes through an unwelcome change of location.

After a bit of wandering, Lois finds out she’s not alone when she finds Sam. Never ones to take things lying down, the Lane family begins making plans for what to do next. Jordan’s emerging powers give them a heads-up as the Kent farm gets another unexpected visitor or two. Acting on the best, if partial, information she has, Natalie goes into action to try and help her father. There’s a nice little goodbye scene between her and the boys. As the Cushings keep searching and deal with some of the fallout of the Earths merging, Clark has a chat with some of his family, and another desperate plan gets hatched. Clark gets corrected about someone’s motives in helping, and this newest attempt to stop Ally fails. Jordan manages to salvage something from the mess, and shows he’s getting better with his powers.

Desperate to do anything to save everyone, Clark comes up with a very risky plan that everyone thinks is insane. His plan is based on what he thinks Lara was trying to tell him back in Tal’s Fortress. There’s a lot of “I think this is what they said,” going on in the episode, at some really high stakes levels. Clark makes an inspirational speech that persuades everyone to give this a try, in part because there doesn’t seem to be another option. Natalie goes ahead with her own decision, and debates what’s going on with Hedy the AI. Lana and her girls keep searching for Kyle, and talk with some of the firefighters he works with. On Bizarro Earth, Lois and Sam make an ally, who uses a clever phone ap to solve some communications problems. Things keep looking worse as the chaos spreads, and then Lois and Kyle end up finding each other.

Steel is in the midst of leaving a goodbye journal entry for Natalie when she ends up finding him. Unfortunately, with his last transmission being so garbled, Natalie didn’t do something important that he needed, and they need to try and come up with a new plan. Tal-Rho helps Clark carry out his desperate plan, and the two get in a brotherly love potential goodbye. There are a few factual errors in this scene, but I’ll let them go for overall enjoyment of the episode. Natalie (who needs a codename) and Steel come up with a solution for their problem and embark on a new risky stratagem to try and stop Ally from merging the worlds.

Kyle and Lois have an emotional conversation where the man is clearly close to a breakdown. I really didn’t like him when this series started, but the character has definitely shown some growth, and I’m enjoying him more. He finally gets a break and has something good happen. Out at the Kent farm, Sam finally arrives, having had his own adventures. He gets in a line that resolves many of the issues I’ve had with the entire series: this is NOT Earth-Prime of the Arrowverse. This is another Earth, and I suppose these characters have all technically been dopplegangers of the originals from the “Arrowverse.” What I find really interesting about that is that, as of Crisis, Superman and Lois are still on that Earth, and they have “boys” there, so I’m wondering if there’s a Jordan with developing powers growing up there. But it also means there are no superheroes on this world aside from Superman and Steel, with the possible additions of heroes-in-training Jordan and Natalie.

On the heels of this revelation, Superman arrives, looking better than usual. He actually resembles some variants of the character I’ve seen in other alternate timelines. Taking advantage of a serious, if temporary, power upgrade, Superman rescues Steel and Natalie, and defeats Ally, much to her surprise. He even ends the imminent merge of the worlds, although I’m really not clear if he sent Bizarro World back where it came from or destroyed it. I don’t believe he’d knowingly wipe out an entire planet, but it sure looked like he did.

There are several wrap-up scenes to end the episode and season. Smallville (and presumably many other places) are celebrating their survival. There’s a big banner up over Main Street reading “Miracle Monday,” which is a nod to a classic Superman story from years ago. Superman makes a brief stopover at the event (which is probably going to help Lana a lot come the next election), and then she and Clark have a heart-to-heart, resolving some of the tension that came from his revealing his secret to her. At the Gazette, Lois stops by to tell Chrissy something important. It’s an important scene for their relationship, and entertaining initially as Chrissy thinks it’s a joke at first.

There’s a ridiculous amount of Superman merch on sale at this celebration, which makes me wonder where the money’s going. That to one side, Jonathan is with Candace again (which I think is a mistake), and, in happier news, Jordan and Sarah manage to reconcile. It’s a scene with emotional depth and maturity and there’s not a blame-game, which is great to see. Clark and Lois get some time for a dance, and there’s some amusing fallout from the conversation Lois had with Chrissy. Kyle and Lana have a serious talk, and they avoid the cliché “Everything is perfect for everyone now” ending. Lois confronts the captured Ally at the DOD, and they’ve made a really questionable judgement about Ally’s confinement. Out at the farm, the boys get a major surprise present from a relative, which both amuses and exasperates Clark. We see where Tal ended up, and it makes me wonder if we’re going to see him again. He might have actually gotten his happily ever after here.

But we’re still not done. At the diner, John Henry gets a very unexpected visitor, and a possible new mission. And out at the farm, there’s some reconciliation in the Lane family, and it looks like Sam is giving retirement another try. I hope whoever replaces him at the DOD works out better than Anderson did, although it’s not likely to be worse. The final scene is the Kents taking a trip, and restoring something Clark lost. I think the new location is a bad idea, but hey, it’s not my call. It’s a good note to end on, and makes me wonder what’s coming next. The show has been confirmed for another season, which I’m very glad to hear.

What I Liked: Almost everything. Clark being willing to risk everything to save the world was perfectly in character. It was nice to see Jordan stepping up to help as best he could, and Natalie similarly impressed me. Kyle is learning a lot about what’s actually important, although it might be a bit too late. I’m really happy that Jordan and Sarah might be patching things up. As ever, the characterization, acting, and writing were fantastic. I’m very intrigued by John Henry’s visitor at the end.

Mixed Emotions: The reveal that is an alternate Earth I have some very conflicting feelings about. It does resolve the “Why is no one coming to help?” questions I’ve been having since this series started, and that’s good. But it’s another blow to the collapsing Arrowverse, and makes Clark and Lois not showing up at the big wedding in Supergirl’s finale make even less sense (I’m told the real world reason was COVID complications).

What I didn’t: Very minor in contrast to the more serious things, but I can’t fathom Jonathan and Candace getting back together. If nothing else, I don’t think Clark or Lois is going to be happy about this. The DOD is making a horrible mistake with Ally, and I’m sure that’s going to come back on them later. I also wonder what happened to Bizarro-Jonathan. Did he go home? Is he in custody?