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Lois returns, Chloe’s pissed, Tess is beat up, Clark is “Suped” up, and Zod’s back, baby. Zod’s back.

It’s three weeks after last season’s finale, and Lois zaps back to present day on a monorail train, chased by some super-powered ninja chick who ends up almost crashing the train (but for Clark’s quick save). Clark’s been AWOL since Jimmy’s death, being trained by Jor-El and saving people full time in a black costume with a trench coat and his family crest emblazoned on his chest (y’know…the “S” symbol).

Ollie is punishing himself for failing to kill Doomsday and save Jimmy by giving up the Green Arrow identity and joining some kind of Fight Club. Tess is stuck in Luthor Mansion at the mercy of Major Zod and his small army of Kryptonians, after having released them from the Kandor Orb. Chloe’s mad that Clark disappeared, and gets even madder when she finds the Legion ring Lois left at the hospital and Clark refuses to use it to go back in time and save Jimmy. Lois only cares about getting in touch with the idiotically-named Red-Blue-Blur and doesn’t remember her time in the future…until the end, that is, and it doesn’t look good.

Who would have ever thought that a series about a teenaged Clark Kent would make it to nine seasons? I certainly didn’t, despite the fact that I’ve enjoyed most of the seasons of the show. In fact, when it did start to get pretty bad a few years ago, I thought it was done for. But last year the new producers managed to turn it around, and even though there were some missteps, they seem to be taking it in generally the right direction.

I think it was a smart move to make Zod the new Big Bad for this season. Clark’s too powerful for freaks-of-the-week now, so having not only someone who’s more than a match for him, but a whole army of Kryptonians to fight (assuming they gain their powers) makes sense. I also like that it’s an “earlier” version of Zod, apparently from when he was only a Major and not a General. The storyline with Zod having to retake control of his people was a good way of establishing who he really is.

Metallo could be interesting, and I would have laughed at the thought of Brian Austin Green playing a villain if I only remembered him from his 90210 days, and hadn’t seen him do such a great job on Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles. I like it better when they use major villains from the comics rather than just some random Kansas resident who was exposed to Kryptonite.

I’ve already heard grumbling about Clark’s new costume, but as someone who is colorblind and wears nothing but black myself, I really like it. It will make a good transition to the full-blown red, blue, and yellow one we’re all waiting for (probably in the series finale).  It’s also reminiscent of the black and silver outfit of one of the Supermen who showed up in the comics following Clark’s death at the hands of Doomsday. I guess we can take it as Doomsday having metaphorically taken Clark’s life last season by killing Jimmy and making Clark give up his humanity.

Okay, on to the complaint section of the review: Clark is on high alert to save everyone who’s in trouble, and he somehow misses the fact that his boss has been kidnapped for three weeks by Krypton’s greatest criminal, who’s been zooming around collecting his army of fellow Kryptonian soldiers? Yeah, right.

Overall, a good episode that left us guessing at some points and made us fill in the blanks, which for me is always a good quality in a show. I think I’m ready to fully give this show a chance again.

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