Recap of the Superman & Lois series finale and showrunner Q&A

Recap of the Superman & Lois series finale and showrunner Q&A

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details about the series finale of Superman & Lois.

The CW says goodbye Superman & Lois on Monday night with an epic finale that not only closed the chapter on Lex Luthor’s terror on Smallville, but also gave viewers a glimpse into the lives of their favorite characters.

In the episode’s intense first half, Clark (Tyler Hoechlin) not only went head-to-head with Michael Cudlitz’s Lex Luthor, but also defeated Doomsday with the help of his sons Jordan (Alexander Garfin) and Jonathan (Michael Bishop). . The two team up to save their father from death as Doomsday throws Superman to the pavement and lures the killing machine away so Superman can formulate his plan to send Doomsday into the sun.

But instead of dealing with the aftermath of the battle, showrunners Todd Helbing and Brent Fletcher decided to do something that few, if any, Superman films have – show how the hero lives out the rest of his life.

After Clark died at the start of season four, he received a heart transplant from his father-in-law, essentially ensuring his mortality. In Superman & Lois In the finale, audiences see Clark hang up his cape to address the systemic issues in his community, while also watching his sons start their own families. Lois’s cancer eventually returns, and after she dies, Clark spends the rest of his days with a canine companion before his heart gives out in the final moments of the episode and he meets the love of his life again.

In the following interview, Helbing and Fletcher spoke to Deadline about the ambitious series finale and giving Superman a worthy ending.

DEADLINE: Overall, what were your goals for Season 4 and how did you plan to achieve them with just 10 episodes?

TODD ​​HELBING: Of course, at first we thought we’d go on for a bit, but it gave us the opportunity to tell a really succinct story. The whole show is about family right from the start. That’s why we wanted to start the season at Death of Superman. We knew it was going to be pretty dark, but we’re starting to shed light on it and really see what Superman stands for, what Lois Lane stands for, and what the family stands for. It was a great joy to have Michael Cudlitz as Lex Luthor, and he was such a good villain last season who had a different family. As this family unit grows and a secret comes to light, Smallville (Superman) comes to the rescue. You can see the people in his corner getting bigger and bigger while Lex’s corner gets smaller and smaller. Ultimately, with the last episode, we just wanted to say something really powerful and talk about what Superman stands for… and really just create this big, meaningful moment for people when they’re thinking about this show and they’ve finished watching it for a week or a week Month later stays with them.

BRENT FLETCHER: What is a life worth? What is worth pursuing? Superman is such an iconic hero, but at the end of the day he’s a man. Hope and family were the things that really touched him, and we believe they are the cornerstones of what he stood for on our show and what Lois stood for on our show.

DEADLINE: Something I think this series has always done well is humanizing Superman, this larger-than-life character. In the finale, he works with Bruno Mannheim to actually give back and address systemic issues in a way that Bruno had previously criticized. What made you decide to bring this moment to the finale?

HELBING: I think that anyone who has an accident or experiences a traumatic event, coming out of it is like a life-changing moment for me. I think the tendency in most cases is to do something you haven’t done. For Superman, Bruno was right in many ways. (Superman’s) father-in-law donated his heart. So there’s really this heart transplant story and then the second chance at life. We talked a lot about, what would Superman do? We’ve talked in previous seasons about how we got into this and how Superman travels around the world and behaves differently. We never really got that far this season. It felt like we had this huge opportunity and this is the way we should end it.

FLETCHER: You can do something good and still not be completely right. It’s hard, especially when you hear it from the opposition. Sometimes you just turn them off. But perhaps there is a greater purpose in at least listening, acknowledging and processing it and seeing if there is more work to be done. We thought that was an interesting thing to do with Superman. I think he’s quite intellectual, wants to do good and is open to change. I think that’s a good thing for all of us as people.

DEADLINE: Why did you decide to chronicle Clark and Lois’ entire lives and complete the story entirely rather than leaving it open?

FLETCHER: At one point we were told that we were the only live-action show that could really finish his story. So we felt like this was a real opportunity. There are so many questions for us about what it is like to live such a life. We did Death of Superman. That’s what we wanted to sell to the audience. But it’s actually a misdirection, because Superman’s death doesn’t occur until the end of Episode 10, and we felt that this was meant to show that it was a life well lived. What are the signs of a life well lived? He is hope, joy, family and goodness – he is all of those things. It was hard to condense it down, but we felt like this montage could provide a little insight into the whole thing and give a little inspiration. We are all mortal, and perhaps there is something beautiful in our mortality that even Superman faces. So we thought it was a nice thing. It was something we were excited about and so we followed that muse.

HELBING: In the story of Superman, he’s immortal in a lot of ways, right? He will live forever. He will outlive Lois. He will outlive his boys. But in this version, with what happened to him, he wouldn’t do that anymore. Instead of asking the audience more questions like, “Oh, I wonder what he was like when he was old,” it felt like we were just showing them. We’ve never seen this before. I think it really moves in a way that’s unexpected. These are the best endings.

DEADLINE: Was there any pressure involved, considering you’re one of the few – if not the only – outlets to present Superman’s life in this way?

HELBING: It’s Superman and Lois Lane and Lex Luthor. They’re these iconic characters, and that inherently puts a certain amount of pressure on them. You don’t want to be the version of the property that screwed up. To have the opportunity to be one of the few shows that actually ends the way we want, we were under pressure to stick the landing and do something different. But there is this pressure and then you just have to acknowledge it and then just do your job. That’s why we always approach it like this: Let’s just tell the most human, hopeful and realistic version of the story and let the chips fall where they may.

DEADLINE: What was it like from a technical and tempo standpoint to make sure you hit all the beats you wanted in this finale? A lot goes into one hour of television.

FLETCHER: I mean, on a super technical level, you need time to finish the season’s story. We have six acts. We wanted to finish this (season arc) by the end of four. Then we wanted to finish everyone’s story by the end of five – our remaining characters, where do they go? Then in six, let’s wrap up the season and tell the final story of Lois and Clark. Where are they going? What did it mean to her? What did her life mean? That was pretty ambitious. And to your earlier question: That was part of the horror. How do you do that with the resources we have? But we knew broadly what we wanted to do…so Todd and I were able to take our time, work through each act slowly and get there.

HELBING: Also, I think a montage is the worst thing you can say to any producer. So there were a lot of meetings because of the schedule and we had to add an extra day. Our schedules have been shortened quite a bit this season. So we had to work a lot of Saturdays and budget for it. But Greg Smith and Ian Samoil, our producers, really only understand television on such a small level that they can make decisions and plan the episodes in a way that actually makes it possible. It constantly feels like a miracle that something like this happens.

DEADLINE: Was there anything you wished you could have done to make it to the finale that you couldn’t?

FLETCHER: I wish more characters had come back. I think Todd agrees. If we had more time and money, we would have loved Tal-Rho. Superman’s brother was a great character for us. We love him and we would have liked the opportunity to acknowledge that. We would have liked to have had Sam Lane, perhaps seen him in Lois’ final vision. But we just didn’t have the time or resources to get people back to do it. So we had to pick our shots and acknowledge them without all the bells and whistles and try to do it in a satisfying way.

HELBING: It would have been nice to have Jenna (Dewan) back. That was a battle we had all season.

DEADLINE: What about the entire season?

HELBING: We tend to end the season preparing a new villain. It would have been fun to explore Brainiac a little more and continue with this character. I think we would have approached DC hard to bring Darkseid in somehow, and I don’t know if they would have said yes, but we wanted to try to think of something super cool and see if we could pull it off. That’s hard to say now , but Darkseid would definitely have been my favorite.

FLETCHER: I think knowing the resources, the time and everything, we knew pretty early on what we had and where we wanted to go. Then it was just a matter of approaching it in a way that we were happy with. The other desires and dreams disappear after a while because you are so focused on following the path you have chosen. So there are a few other things I would have liked to have done with more seasons, but at the end of the day I wanted to make sure that this season was special in my opinion. I think we are both happy with the result.

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