‘Krypton’ Continues to Deliver Edgy Science Fiction Thrills With “Savage Night”

This week’s Krypton episode, “Savage Night”, is proving that even though the show started rough, it’s determined go out on top. I can definitively say Krypton is miles better now than when it began. In this episode in particular, we got more of Adam being hated by everyone, a new forceful presence coming onto the scene, a cool team-up, retribution, and even a bit of salvation.

On the very sad side of the night, though, we had to sit through a really horrific moment featuring little Ona.

Why kill Ona?!

I understand why she died, as far as the story goes, but did she really have to go out that way? That’s brutal.

If you read a lot of my reviews on /Film and elsewhere, you’ve probably noticed a theme in my work, which is that I’m extremely wary of how death is used in a story, especially where children are concerned. I think out of any type of character, the hardest ones to kill are kids, because what the audience sees is something no one wants to think about in real life. Even The Walking Dead, for all of the blood and gore they throw around on a daily basis, was still taking a risk when they decided to kill a child.

Krypton’s pulling that same risky card by killing Ona. In fact, they double down on it by having The Voice of Brainiac turn her into a bomb. The aftermath wasn’t much – just a child-size radius of burnt floor and cinders – but the little we did see was haunting enough for us to think, “Wow. They just blew up a child!”

Goodbye, little Ona. We hardly knew you, and it’s unfortunate your life turned out to be so tragic.

Everybody Hates Adam 

Turns out the hatred for Adam extends beyond just Earth and Krypton’s borders; apparently, the hatred is even more intergalactic than we could have ever imagined!

The show goes back two weeks (by the way: all the events that have taken place on Krypton have happened in only two weeks!) to show Adam getting dropped into a hallway that looks similar to the hallways of the clone production facility on Kamino and immediately lectured by a voice by the name of Sardath. Sardath is justifiably annoyed with Adam for stealing their time travel technology in the first place, but now he’s even more upset that Adam has conned himself into believing he’s the one who should save Superman.

Adam pleads for Sardath’s backing on his self-appointed mission, but Sardath isn’t really into it until the voice of Alanna, Sardath’s daughter, gives Adam enough of an endorsement to allow him on his way. But even she doesn’t sound completely convinced, and she’s already mad with him for disregarding her inexplicable love for him. Anyways, Adam gets his grace period, but it still seems like he’s gonna fail. Or rather, I wish he’d fail so the show can become the alternate reality extravaganza it could be.

No matter if he’s in a weird hallway, in the Justice League, or on the streets of Kandor, Adam doesn’t know how to make friends. He’s already driven Seg away, and the only other person he can count on as an ally is Kem, and he’s doing his best to drive him away too, by talking over Kem’s frustration over how to successfully rescue Ona from The Voice. At one point, Kem yells at Adam, saying literally everything I’ve thought and written about over these past weeks. In so many words, he tells Adam that the universe doesn’t revolve around him and his personal plan to get Superman back, that the real people of Krypton matter more right now than some mystical imaginary kid, and if he could shut up for once in his life, it’d be a massive improvement.

Apparently, Adam is one of those people you have to yell at before they can literally understand anything you’re telling them, because once Kem goes off on him, he becomes more than willing to help rescue Ona. But to be honest, I’m not sure they did enough. Like, couldn’t Adam and Kem have concocted a plan to just steal Ona away from her post? Adam could have done the techno-shield thing he did when he saved everyone from Ona’s blast. I feel like there was a lost opportunity.

Zod’s real mission

Until he gives me reason to doubt him, I’m still on Team Zod. He’s charming, but beyond that, he’s our best ticket at this show finally splitting from the canon and becoming an alternate reality in which Krypton never blew up. If Zod is truly trying to take over Krypton to save it, then maybe…they should let it happen and then depose him? That’s just my thinking. If you alter events enough from Adam’s timeline, then the events that happened in his timeline won’t happen at all.

In any event, Zod and Jayna have a nice grandma-grandson bonding moment (in between stalking about and killing people) in which Jayna gets Zod to talk about his past at length. He tells her he was actually trapped in the Phantom Zone when Krypton blew up, and the reason for his entrapment was because he tried to stage a coup to destabilize the government. Seeing how Jayna and the team are doing the exact same thing, I’m not sure where her doubt is coming in. I mean, someone out of the group has designs to rule other than Zod, right? Wasn’t leadership the exact thing Jayna was promised? Isn’t leadership something Nyssa wanted for herself?

Anyways, Jayna feels it’s necessary to tell Seg this information. Let’s also remember that just two weeks ago, Seg hated Jayna because she killed his parents in front of him. How is all of this taking place in two weeks? But whatever; the plot point we needed to get to was for seeds of doubt to be sown, and they definitely are now. However, I’d argue that for as much as we should be conflicted about Zod’s possible villainy, Adam’s doing a good job of becoming an accidental villain by giving The Voice everything he needs to know about the coup. Again, all of this is just in Adam’s own interest; he so desperately wants to be a hero, but he could get the entire world of Krypton just because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Hologram Val’s the real MVP

Hologram Val really came through in the clutch for the gang, particularly Dev, who was still under Brainiac’s control. It seems like the cold (and the trauma of having an arm shot off) brought him back to his senses long enough for Lyta, Nyssa, and Seg to bring him back to the Fortress. There, Val set to work on the improbable task of repairing his brain and removing Brainiac’s hold. There was a chance he could have died, and for a while, it seemed like he was going to. But thankfully, Val fixed the glitch and Dev was brought back to his rightful state.

Also, because of what Val achieved, he was able to turn off the rest of the soldiers under The Voice’s command, meaning a win for Team Coup, particularly Jayna and Zod, who shot The Voice in the Genesis Chamber and sending him plunging to his “death” below before he could suck up all of the Chamber’s energy and use it for nefarious purposes. They also captured Daron and turned him over to Jax-Ur (Hannah Waddingham), a hardened political terrorist and leader of Black Zero, a group hoping to bring democracy to Kandor. She’s a woman I’d love to see more of on Krypton, since she, like Graves, adds a unique sense of legitimacy to the fantastical proceedings just by flinging herself completely into the role. If she’s bold enough to slice Zod’s face with a knife without hesitation, then she’s someone you don’t want to mess with.

Where did Adam go?

At the end of the episode, Adam did a Heroic Thing and saved Seg and Kem from Ona, but in the process, he launched himself into another reality. Is it another alternate timeline? Is it a future look at something happening on Earth? Or did he zoom himself back to Earth and realized his messing about with time caused Earth’s own timeline to come to a screeching halt? Has Adam destroyed the universe after all just because his fragile ego needs soothing? I guess we’ll learn that next week.

Two more episodes to go, everyone! The show has gotten better! Huzzah!

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