Mr. and Mrs. Teacup

Another brutal episode for Elizabeth.

The Americans have always been very careful about presentation. How scenes are shot, the careful and calculated way the spies talk. Give just enough information and always listen carefully. I bring this up now because of how stark the portrayal is between Elizabeth and Philip compared to how they used to be shown. They are almost always filmed physically far apart now. In the opening, after Philip comes home after meeting Oleg, Elizabeth comes in from having a cigarette. They have a conversation from opposite sides of the kitchen.

I find this to be the hardest part of the show to watch. We’re constantly shown how far Elizabeth and Philip have grown apart. The work ruined Philip psychologically, leaving the entire burden on Elizabeth. They have different ideas on communism vs capitalism now. They aren’t on the same side any longer and that’s even split their kids down the middle. Elizabeth tends to Paige and Henry is with Philip.

When they are in bed and Elizabeth coldly refers to Henry as Philip’s problem, I never thought I’d hear that. It was one of the bleakest things she’s ever said. There’s a wall between them in that entire scene and Philip tries multiple times to get through (whether that’s done through love of his wife or will of his mission is questionable but I do think it’s out of love) and it was hard to watch. He tries talking to her, touching her, making an effort to turn back the clock to when they operated as one. It leads to another hard line from Elizabeth: “I’m tired all of the time.” That says it all.

With Henry away at school and Paige in the thick of things, that puts Paige front and center of her parents falling apart. They openly fight, it’s so bad they can’t really hide it. With the stress of the spy game not being enough, this poor girl is being turned into knots over her parents feuding over her continued role spying with her mother. When it starts up, Paige immediately wants to leave, to try and stem her parent’s fight but Philip storms out saying it doesn’t matter, there’s no use in them talking about what’s going on so she should stay to talk to her mother. Paige had recently dug up info on someone she thinks could be a source and her mother flags her down from it. She’s not ready to make a source, she hasn’t had the necessary training. If she’s attracted to this guy, then you go for a normal relationship, you can’t have a real relationship be a source. It doesn’t work. So where do we leave Paige? She’s slept with the guy after a dinner party and she’s eyeing his work badge. She’s conflicted about what to do next. I don’t think she knows what to do and I can only hope she doesn’t make a massive mistake.

Henry’s bad news is that he probably won’t be returning to his school for his senior year. In the first episode of this season, I wrote that Philip had made great gains with the travel agency, but it turns out he expanded way too fast. The business didn’t take off and the loan he took out to make it happen is now crushing him. While Philip has the joys of beer, food, and line dancing, he now knows the American past time of debt.

Elizabeth goes on another mission to get the radiation detector using the security info she got from the guy she killed last week. It ends in a complete failure with no detector and three dead. Bad luck? Sloppy, rushed planning again or bad luck? It’s a disaster either way. And as a side note, this might have been the worst shot action scene in the entire series. I could barely see anything it was so dark.

Kimberly comes home from school and meets up with Philip’s “Jim” persona. They catch up a bit, Philip giving her no new information on what “Jim” is up to now and she tells him that she’s going to Greece for Thanksgiving which means the wealth of  information they’ve been getting from the bug on her father is about to be cut off right when Elizabeth needs it. There’s nothing Philip can do about it and Elizabeth gets mad which makes her push the limits…

It’s time for the World Series and the Haskard’s have friends throwing a party. When Elizabeth finds out who is going to be there (the perfect opportunity to catch Glen Haskard and the Soviet she’s been tasked to watch on the summit negotiation team), she pushes them to go. Erica think’s she’s too sick to go (she’s right) but Elizabeth lies through her teeth (I’ve taken much sicker people than you for a night out) to convince them to go. Elizabeth is desperate for a win and she’s now taking crazy risks to get one. She’s rewarded with vomit from Erica (“I shouldn’t be here!”) and another complete failure: the bug she had put on Glenn caught him talking with the Soviet but the conversation was stopped when Erica got sick. Elizabeth is secretly tormenting this family for no reason. Oddly enough the one thing Elizabeth did get from Erica was the message “I wish I spent more time with my husband.”

Also, I’ve been waiting for this for years and it’s now going to happen. The world of the Jennings spy family and their FBI neighbor, Stan, are coming into direct contact. The defection of Sofia and Gennadi has put HQ on high alert. Gennadi has got to go, he’ll be a propaganda nightmare for the Soviet Union. They think they’ve tracked down Stan as one of his handlers so he’s the key to get to Gennadi. Claudia gives Elizabeth the mission to follow Stan to get Gennadi’s location.

The fight between progress and the status quo has made a soup of misery for Elizabeth and Philip. Things are getting worse for the both of them with no relief in sight. How far will Philip go to stop her? How much can Elizabeth use Paige effectively and good lord is Paige going to get herself caught or killed on her own? Will Stan end up being the one to expose the Jennings’ after all this time? With how well Elizabeth’s missions have been going it’s impossible to see her pulling this one off.

Urban Transport Planning

Yeah, we still have two spies on the show.

The show picks up right after Elizabeth’s mission imploded. Instead of talking about what happened, Elizabeth unloads on Paige about leaving her post. She broke every protocol and endangered the entire mission. She even goes as far to say, if you weren’t my daughter, you’d be finished. If Paige didn’t know she had a shield of favoritism around her before, she knows now.

I was worried about how Paige would be affected by seeing her mother covered by the brains of a dead man and she’s handled it way better than I ever thought she would. A big factor is that she thinks the American killed himself. She doesn’t know that the bullet was intended for her mother.

The house divided shows again. Philip and Elizabeth have different approaches to guiding Paige through this. Philip takes the gentle road. Asks about her feelings, talks calmly and generally wants to ease Paige around. Elizabeth takes the hardline stance. She’s mad as hell and offers no comforts to Paige. No, you can’t stay here tonight, go back to your place we’ll talk about this later.

When Paige leaves, Philip moves in. He may be out of the game for a few years but he didn’t forget any of his coercion techniques. He manages to get mission information out of his wife. She opens up a lot in the comfort (maybe shield is the better word) of their home but she stops talking before she says too many details. It was hard to tell if she realized what Philip was doing or if just by instinct she knew to draw a line because he isn’t working anymore.

This episode shows more of what Philip is comfortable with now. He doesn’t miss espionage. When Henry calls from school, Philip is all about talking to his son about hockey. He only deflects the call because a volcano is spewing lava into the living room behind him. He gives a sales pep talk at work and we find out the Jenning’s are a bit cash strapped at the moment. He wheels and deals delaying a payment for Henry’s private school tuition. He likes being a traditional American dad.

Elizabeth is just neck deep in the meat grinder. She’s doing everything with the original mentality she had when first placed in the USA years ago. The Soviet way is right, America is wrong. She talks to Paige about the sacrifices they must be prepared for in their line of work. The mission with the American went wrong because she rushed the correct process to work an asset because of the strict deadline. She loves her homeland. She spends time with Paige and Claudia listening to their music, cooking their food, watching their TV shows. And then when she leaves Claudia’s apartment, America comes crashing back down like an anvil.

In another stark scene for contrast, Elizabeth brings home a bit of the food for Philip. He says it smells great but demurs that he just ate Chinese takeout for dinner. He’d love that home cuisine, but he’s just too full. Elizabeth quickly takes the dejection and moves to throw it away (their protocol so strict that that shouldn’t have a shred of Soviet anything in the house) and Philip quickly moves to take a bite. It does nothing to break the sadness of the close up off Elizabeth dumping the food into the sink and turning the disposal on.

Meanwhile, we get to see Renee possibly angle Stan to get a job at the FBI. He quickly shuts it down. Also shut down is Sofia and Gennadi. Sofia wants a divorce so the stable relationship they need is ruined and she’s running her mouth to the man she met. It’s too risky to keep them on the mission (which only Gennadi was seemingly doing) so the FBI pulls the plug. That means the two will be separated by witness protection to keep them safe. It means that Gennadi will be separated from his wife and child. His family is being physically pulled apart.

Stan also pays a visit to Oleg, who is none too pleased to see him. Stan explains how he told (and threatened) the FBI to leave him along. Oleg isn’t exactly moved by the explanation and apology so Stan moves on to the business on hand. Whatever you are here to do, don’t do it. Oleg doesn’t say anything.

The episode ends with Philip and Elizabeth on their own missions. Elizabeth works a mark for security details at a facility that holds the radiation detector she needs. Philip goes to meet Oleg. After getting the information she needs, Elizabeth strangles the mark to death.

Elizabeth is a ruthless soldier. Chills. Another rock solid episode.

Tchaikovsky

Everything is getting worse for Elizabeth. She’s being put into more and more dangerous situations by herself at an alarming rate. Her life and Philip’s have never been more different. He’s upset about a long time client going to a competitor and she has to figure out how to do a lunch meeting in the State Department cafeteria!

Philip is largely in the back seat now. He exists on the peripheral of Elizabeth’s world. He goes about his separate, civilian job while she’s in the trenches of trying to continue the Soviet Union’s fight in what are, historically, the waning years of the Cold War. He checks in with Elizabeth about Paige and that’s about it.

Elizabeth is juggling and spinning plates at the same time. And one of those plates is her most valued: Paige. While Paige is gung-ho about the secret family business, she’s still green. It’s a good three years into her training now and while she’s in the field, she’s not that good and Elizabeth is worried about her. Even worse, she’s still treating her with kid gloves.

There’s no way around it: Paige is a creampuff. Elizabeth knows this and it sounds like she’s thinking long-term with this in mind. When she talks to Claudia about Paige, she see’s her daughter being embedded into an organization like the CIA where she can stay behind a desk to pass information along, not doing covert ops on the outside.

The work that her parents do is gross. They’ve done terrible, psyche-damaging things. Philip hit his limit years ago. When Paige first found out her parents were spies, they eased her into it. They lied to her about any notion of using sex or violence to accomplish their missions–they convinced people with words. We’re talking about a young woman who got really conflicted about pushing Pastor Tim out of the country last season. She felt guilty about changing his life behind the scenes and that was a dream scenario come true for him. What her parents kept from her is that he was almost killed to get him out of the way. Elizabeth is still fronting to Paige about the world her daughter is now in and she can’t keep doing it. Paige reads about using sex as leverage and coerision and Elizabeth tells her it isn’t true. She then fights with herself about lying to her and sort of admits that it’s possible. That you can get close to targets and how dangerous that is. This all comes to a head when Elizabeth pushes an old American contact for a lithium-based radiation detector and it goes horribly wrong. Last season Paige freaked out over getting jumped in a parking lot and seeing her mother kick some ass. What’s going to happen to her now that she’s seen a man’s brains all over her mother’s face? If Paige wasn’t her daughter, Elizabeth wouldn’t be training her this way. She’s being a parent first and it’s caught up to her.

Aside from the deal gone wrong, Elizabeth is also keeping tabs on her American negotiator mark, Glenn (the husband of the ill woman, Erica). Erica is deteriorating quickly, Claudia tells Elizabeth that her goal is to keep her alive until after the summit. Elizabeth is really uncomfortable on this mission. She’s not a real nurse so her bedside manner is terrible. She openly distains art, which is basically Erica’s life force at this point. Erica has no patience for any kind of nonsense so she forces Elizabeth to sit down and take a crack at drawing. She’s going to make Elizabeth look at the world differently. In another uncomfortable scene, Elizabeth offers Glenn help to shorten Erica’s suffering.

Then she’s got her old contact set up a lunch meeting at the State Department to catch up (he thinks she’s also an employee). A Soviet spy getting into essentially ground zero for getting caught is a hell of a task and when forced into it, Elizabeth commits to it (Claudia’s face when she tells her where the meeting is, says it all). She barely pulls it off and ends up getting valuable information. Ronald Regan is apparently going senile. That means he isn’t running the show…the people around him, who are even more hard-line about the Soviet Union, are most likely calling the shots now. This throws out the rulebook the Soviets have been using.

Meanwhile, Stan and Dennis’ mark from last season is in bad shape. Sofia was always a risk, she’s a blabbermouth. The man she met, Gennadi, ended up being a lucky get. He was all about helping out and has become valuable for the services their department put them on (it looks like an info courier). Stan has moved departments though, so he’s removed from managing them. Gennadi asks to speak to him directly and he goes to help out Dennis. Sofia is fed up with Gennadi and wants a divorce. She’s convinced he’s cheating on her and she’s met a “nice man” at work. Gennadi doesn’t know why she kicked him out. Her talking to another man is bad enough (re: blabbermouth) and the dissolution of this relationship could completely kill this asset (literally too, what Gennadi does is dangerous). Also, Oleg has been spotted by the feds in the country. He’s got all the right paperwork to be in the US, but Dennis would like Stan to talk to him if they were to cross paths. I look forward to seeing that.

Finally, I noticed a disturbing undertone throughout. Elizabeth planning for her end. Everything is riding on this summit. All of her missions now are putting her in danger. The odds of getting caught at the State Department were huge. She tells Claudia what she wants her to do with Paige if she gets caught. Talking to her old contact (starting at the bookstore) made her worry about her home and thus her future. Her contact thinks the US holds all the cards and that the Cold War is really close to coming to the end. That means the end of Elizabeth’s work…in failure. She and Philip devoted their whole lives to this. Odds are, Philip would be okay with this outcome. Elizabeth, definitely not. From her perspective, she sees the end of her life. Prison, the ever-present threat of death, failure of her life’s work. And this fear makes her push the second old contact (he went to them in 1981 about the Star Wars program) too hard. He freaks out and she almost gets killed. One dangerous job turned out okay but the second is a disaster. The consequences are going to be major.

Dead Hand

Here we go!

Some time has passed since we last saw the Jenners. It’s 1987 and they’ve gone forward with the plan of staying, with Philip retiring from the spy game and Elizabeth continuing the work. Henry is now at board school and has a spot on the hockey team. Judging by the girls in the stands cheering him on, Henry is doing well socially as well. Paige is now in college (I think she’s a junior) and has stuck with her parent’s secret job. She informs her mother about a certain professor at the school and she’s in what looks like regular contact with Elizabeth’s handler, Claudia.

Philip and Elizabeth now live separate lives. The change in Philip is immediately apparent. The travel company is thriving in new, larger, offices. He’s into line dancing, he’s got a sweet car, and he has the time to go see Henry play hockey. Elizabeth is in the trenches. She’s up to her eyeballs in the shadows. She’s working some kind of angle in someone’s home as a caregiver and another job has her managing a man in a honey pot scenario. Then Claudia sends her to South America to meet in super secret, a Soviet general.

Philip is happy. He looks much better, he genuinely smiles. He digs what he does at work (we watch him give a rousing pep talk to his employees) and he’s embraced line dancing like you wouldn’t believe. He knows the steps, he loves the environment. Elizabeth is burning herself up at both ends. She never stops working for the Mother Land. She looks dower and exhausted every waking second. They made the right moves for each other. Philip is no longer at risk of imploding and Elizabeth still has the drive to solider the immense pressure and responsibility for spying for the Soviet Union.

Paige is committed too. She’s actively doing work with Elizabeth, staking out men who are involved in the huge summit meeting in Washington between Ronald Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev that is coming up in 9 weeks. There’s another woman working with them but she doesn’t know that Paige is Elizabeth’s daughter. While on the job, a guy who works at the nearby Navy facility (looks like he’s on security duty) notices her in the car. While investigating her, he pulls a shady move to get her to go out with him over the weekend. He asks for 2 forms of ID and she gives her drivers license and school ID. He keeps the school ID as collateral to get her to come out on Saturday.

When Paige meets up with Elizabeth later, she’s upset that she was noticed by security. But Elizabeth reassures her: you did everything you were trained to do. You didn’t raise suspicion and gave him fake info. It’s nothing to worry about.

Now this mission from the South America meeting is a massive one. The man she meets tells her of Dead Hand, the Soviet “last resort plan” to strike the United States with nukes should America strike first. The system is being built to be completely automated. One person needs to start it and it can’t be stopped. He and his side of the “old” government are afraid Gorbachev is going to give away the Dead Hand project in return for the US to stop their “Star Wars” defense program at the summit. They believe that the US can’t be trusted in these negotiations, that have to keep Dead Hand, and it’s very existence, to keep the Soviet Union together. Elizabeth is on board. Her mission is to find out what’s going to happen at the summit. If Gorbachev intends to sell out the Soviet Union, they’re going to have him killed to stop it. And in a chilling move, the man says, “Now that you know of Dead Hand, you can’t be arrested” and gives her a necklace with a cyanide capsule hidden in it.

And then Philip is drawn in from the other side. Back in Moscow, Arkady is now in command of the program that runs the spy operation, basically Elizabeth’s boss. He finds out about Elizabeth meeting with the Soviet general and that was not sanctioned. Soviet leadership has splintered. The general represents the side that wants no change, that the US can’t be trusted. Arkady represents Gorbachev, that it’s time to change politics to keep from being left behind in a changing social and economic world. Arkady needs to know what Elizabeth’s mission is and he can’t use his power because there are defectors all over the place. It would tip off the other side. So he seeks out Oleg, now a family man working for his dad in transportation to fly to the US to talk to Philip. This is crazy dangerous for Oleg. If he gets spotted in the States, he’s never getting out of prison. If he gets caught by the anti-Gorbachev movement at home, he’s dead. Arkady leans on Oleg’s patriotism to get him to go.

Using the old dead drop techniques to contact Philip, Oleg meets up with him (I love the spy stuff so much). Oleg uses the same lines that Arkady used on him to get Philip to move. At first, Philip swears up and down that he wants nothing to do with this, he’s been out for years. But Philip has embraced America. He doesn’t disparage his new home like Elizabeth and Paige do (and it’s unclear how in touch he is with what Paige is currently doing with her mother). So Elizabeth is for the status quo, while Philip is for the change. They’re on different sides in the same house. And then there is the ominous final request Oleg gives Philip. If he finds out Elizabeth is ultimately up to no good, stop her at any cost..,

Elizabeth takes matters into her own hands with the Navy officer. She figures out where he is the same night Paige meets him (which is also the same night Philip meets Oleg) and shanks him on the street! Elizabeth took this dude out with extreme prejudice. She doesn’t want anyone to know about Paige and made the executive decision to cut off this threat then and there. A burst of violence and extremes in an otherwise calm episode.

Finally, Elizabeth returns home. Another brutal day, another life on her hands. Philip wants to talk to her right when she walks in. She’s in no mood to talk and shuts him down at every turn. More than just wanting to sleep, she’s angry at him. Jealous too? It must make her boil that all of this is up to her now. For the longest time they shared the burden and like she told Tuan last season, you need someone to be by your side for this line of work or you’ll never make it.

Now, I’m not sure what Philip was going to tell her. I got the sense he wanted to tell her everything because he doesn’t want to play spy in his own house. He’s done with it and wants to warn his wife of what’s going on. But would he have? He lets her go upstairs without saying anything and I don’t know how he’s going to approach this now.

Riveting start and I skipped over Stan (still with Renee) and the Anderholts (Dennis being Stan’s partner) who now have a baby. There’s a very brief scene with Renee seemingly fishing for info (is she a spy?) while Elizabeth eavesdrops.

The honey pot scenario was left entirely alone but the caretaker job got some significant looks. I didn’t catch what the husband does but there was a rather large focus on the ill wife being an artist. She constantly draws and Elizabeth pays no mind to it until the woman talks to her about it. While this woman is very attuned to things, very observant to create (she draws Elizabeth while she’s sleeping at one point), Elizabeth is very detached. She doesn’t care or think about anything beyond her mission. Elizabeth tells her she doesn’t really look at art and the woman laughs. When Elizabeth does focus on one of her rather haunting works, you get a sense that she sees herself.

This year, Baskets was a season about growing up.

Christine Baskets has her kids, they’re who she holds on tight to. Her father was terrible and her brother picked up many of his traits. While they aren’t estranged and meet up, Christine has needed to assert herself to him many times. Her DJ twins are successful, career wise anyway. As such, they’re on the own and only check in here and there. They’re distant.

Chip and Dale are in her orbit. Chip tried to leave Bakersfield (and failed) and Dale made his own business in town (which eventually failed along with his marriage). Chip and Dale have had a difficult time succeeding and with their father committing suicide years ago, there’s that specter always hanging over them. Christine especially feels guilty and worries about Chip and Dale (especially Dale this season).

A lot of what Christine does is to provide for her kids, to fix what goes wrong. She’s always the safety net. They know where they can find her no matter what happens and despite how many times they take advantage of her.

She also adopts Martha in a way. Maybe she’s just looking for a friend but she ends up treating her like a child. It’s not until Martha tells her how controlling she is, does Christine realize that she doesn’t listen to what people tell her (much like Dale).

The Baskets Family Rodeo represents the pinnacle of Christine’s efforts. A massive investment to get them all working together. And Chip and Dale, of course, do what they always do. Chip was the first one to come around though. He’s the more clear-headed of the two and considering how much he fights with Dale (which is almost always his fault) that’s not a surprising turn of events.

Dale had a really rough time this season and his meltdown(s) were especially bad this season. His constant pushback on Ken turned out to be an exemplary demonstration of how good of a person Ken is. Someone who does and can make his mother happy. Ken isn’t an enemy.

Considering how obnoxious Chip and Dale can be, it’s a wonder how well the writers can make this show work. A large part of that is how good Zach Galifinakis is at playing both characters. They share similar traits but they read as two completely different people. And Louis Anderson holds them together as Christine. Now she may not be the constant glue as her boys have come to realize that they aren’t kids. They need to grow up and rely more on themselves.

I’m very happy this season of The Detour turned out so well. I think how much I hated the season finale of 2 skewed by the perspective of that entire season when most of it was really funny.

This season took place entirely in Alaska with the Parkers still on the lamb. With the family on the run for going on two years, they’re all getting worn down and in desperate need to get some semblance of a life back. When you have to lie to everyone (and your parents being often bad at said lying) that’s hard to do. There was a good mix of outlandish gags with honest family moments. The Detour has never been afraid to be absurd and I think this arc found a good tone to stick with.

With the family trying to settle in one place, it gave everyone something to do and work on. Robin and Nate try to get jobs, Jareb’s run as town mayor was hilarious, and Deliah’s struggle to be a normal girl was the strongest part of the family. She’s rebellious (the hell she gives her mother is great), smart, and witty. She keeps her cards close to her chest and you have to keep an eye out for her.

And man did they stick the landing. The complete opposite of last year. It was like watching a murder mystery come together (and as such I won’t be specific about what happens, I think it works best to go through the realization of what happens with the characters). It weaved together many smaller moments from the entire season brilliantly and brought the main arc of the series to a close. The set up for another season is intelligent, something I never considered at the start of the season. I was surprised and honestly affected by the last moments of the show. The writers knew exactly where they wanted to go when they started writing. Next year (if it happens, I don’t know if it’s been greenlit) is going to be very different and I’m excited to see where they take it.

The SYFY Channel got a lot of weird looks when they announced Krypton. A show in the Superman world without Superman that starts two generations before he’s born? Has anyone asked to see that?

So out of the box thinking and the potential is there for something interesting. It’s an alien planet with a society that’s been talked about in the comics for generations but has never been explored in any extensive way. Superman is part of the DC trinity so there’s a lot of love and expectation there.

The premiere kicked off this week and I like what I’ve seen so far. The production is really good, SYFY put up the money to make Krypton on TV. Great sets, costumes, and attention to detail. CG set extensions and full CG scenes (cityscapes and ships) are very well done. So the world looks believable. What about the characters?

I don’t recognize any of the actors, so for me, there’s no cast hook to reel me in. I’m fine with that and it usually makes it easier for me to like characters and suspend disbelief. I don’t know the actor from anything else so the role they are playing “is” them. So far I like all the cast I’ve seen too. The writing can be a bit on the nose (scenes are clearly built to push you on one side of the good/evil character scale) but I’m OK with that for a pilot. The show is doing everything it can to get the audience onboard as quickly as possible. Here are your main characters and here’s the problem: find out what happens next with us!

So without Superman. what is this show about? The show is called Krypton and it takes place on Krypton so the built-in canonical story of Superman’s home blowing up cuts any “gee, what’s going to happen here?” off at the knees. So what’s the pitch here? Adam Strange travels back in time (and to another planet, another good trick) to deliver Superman’s 21 year old grandfather, Seg-El, a dire message. Something is coming to Krypton to keep the galaxy’s greatest hero, Kal-El, from being born. And that thing is The Destroyer of Worlds, Brainiac.

In terms of Superman villains, they don’t get any more dangerous than Brainiac. A major foe in every metric, it makes sense for the android alien collector to come up with the idea of going back in time to keep the biggest thorn in his side from making it to Earth. They show him too and he looks amazing! An actor (Blake Ritson) in prosthetics, it looks like they’ll be using little to no CG for his portrayal. This gives us all sorts of angles to consider

First, we get to see the society of Krypton and Kal-El’s family explored in ways we’ve never seen before. And what’s Brainiacs full plan? Kill Seg-El? His wife or maybe both? Wait until they have a child (Jor-El, Superman’s father) and kill him? Then we have the destruction of Krypton, the reason why Kal gets sent to Earth. Does Adam Savage tell Seg-El about it, potentially messing with what happens? Does Brainiac offer to help stop the destruction of Krypton, saving billions of lives? He could make the deal that no Kryptonian leaves the planet in return (and also the promise that he himself won’t harvest from the planet and destroy it)?

There are some shades of Game of Thrones on display. Family names are a big deal on Krypton and there is a very clear class system at work. While Krypton is really technologically advanced, if you’re not born into the right family, it looks like your life is going to be way more difficult. The show starts with the House of El being ripped of it’s standing so we’ll be seeing a lot of that.

Finally, one thing jumped out at me. While everyone speaks English for obvious reasons, I don’t think I heard one attempt at making new vocabulary. All slang is American, even “shit” is used as a curse. That jumped out at me as being very odd for a world that is very far from our own.

I’m excited to see where this goes. If they can keep this quality and improve on the few sagging bits, SYFY could have their next The Expanse on their hands.