Krypton S01E02 Review: Ashes to Ashes

Krypton, Season 1, Episode 2: House of El

After all the awkward introductions of character dynamics and a clumsily handled origin story, we finally get a fair bit of a better quality from this second episode of Krypton. It's not that much better, though, as Seyg-El is essentially trapped by so many people telling him to do different things. His sponsors (who killed his grandfather) from house Vex want him to just join the house and discard everything from the House of El.  His betrothed, Nyssa-Vex, is a lot more sympathetic, giving him ashes and stuff for closure for his family. The mysterious Adam Strange want him to investigate the mysteries of Brainiac, Collector of Worlds, this mysterious threat that's going to come and devour Krypton. The computer fascimile of Val-El (because of course one of those exists) wants to know that, no, the House of El actually isn't speaking bullshit, and wants Seyg-El to continue that dynasty. 

And most of the episode we just see Seyg-El bumble around trying to do something and be indecisive, and it's not as entertaining as the show really thinks it is. Sure, it's acted competently and all, but it's also pretty bland. Brainiac is coming because Val-El discovered it in the past, except he isn't because Seyg-El's stolen access to Kryptonian sensors show nothing, except he is because Adam Strange and Seyg-El's bar buddy finds a Brainiac probe later on, showing that Brainiac's already arrived. Seyg-El just whiplashes between his plan to suicidally kill the killers of his family and the whole saving Krypton from a threat told by a future alien bit so much just so the other supporting characters can get a chance to exposit to him, and while the show might think that it's Game of Thrones, none of the expository scenes are really that interesting to watch. 

It does make the final scene where Seyg-El finally decides that he's had enough of being pulled around by everyone else and cuts off the House of Vex symbol from his shirt pretty neat, because finally the dude's developed a backbone and does something that is truly his own, but eh. 

Of course, the one sliver of fun character arc is the (admittedly very simple) story of Lyta-Zod. While her love interest Seyg-El is torn between what to do and his hatred towards Lyta's mother, Lyta decides to take things into her own hands, say "fuck you" to all the oppression towards the Rankless, and challenge her commanding officer Quex into a duel to the death, which she naturally wins. Oh, and she manages to impress her mother, who, while clearly caring for her, had never believed she had this much fire inside her. It's interesting, but when she's supposed to be a side-character and not one of the main characters of this venture, it really speaks just how very bland the whole Seyg-El storyline really is. 

Overall, it's really pretty flat, to be honest. There are definitely some good performances, notably from Lyta-Zod, Nyssa-Vex and Val-El, but it's still a bit of a struggling effort, I'd say. It's not that the concept isn't interesting, it's the execution and the over-reliance on exposition and very, very clunky coincidences -- like Adam Strange and Kem digging just in the exact spot to find a Brainiac probe, or the Voice of Rao popping up quite literally any time it's convenient...

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

Cythonna

• The Phantom Zone is, of course, an integral part of Superman's mythos.
• The whole concept of a paternal figure manifesting as a holographic AI projection is, of course, codified by Jor-El in Superman. 
• Val-El briefly mentions an event known as the "Green Death", which in the comics is the Kryptonians' first exposure to Kryptonite, irradiated masses of their own planet, and one of the pieces of evidence that Jor-El had that Krypton is a dying world. 
• Quex, the military guild member that Lyta-Zod defeats, shares his name with Quex-Ul, in the original Superman run, one of the many Phantom Zone criminals unleashed upon the world from imprisonment. He worked with General Zod and Zaora, and in punishment for their crimes against Earth, Superman evoked Kryptonian law and executed the three with Kryptonite -- an act that, while legal and justified, would haunt Superman for years. 
• Of course, Quex dies with a neck snap at the hands of a member of Zod's lineage, which is likely a reference to Man of Steel's infamous scene where Superman kills Zod with a neck snap.
• The Voice of Rao give a brief listing of the Kryptonian gods whose faces are sculpted into his golden mask. In addition to the primary deity Rao, the other masks represent Cythonna, Telle, Mordo, Yuda and Lorra, all of whom have been mentioned -- albeit in far less prominence compared to the primary deity Rao -- in the DC comics. Out of these, only Cythonna really has any sort of backstory, an evil ice deity who fought the sun god Rao in ancient times according to Kryptonian mythology, and the primary antagonist of the Superman: Last God of Krypton one-shot. 
• Zeta Beams, the beams that allow comics!Adam Strange to travel between Earth and the planet Rann, is repurposed as the plot device that allows Adam Strange to travel back to the past.