Krypton S01E04 Review: Brainiac's Convoluted Plan

Krypton, Season 1, Episode 4: The Word of Rao

It's a... weird episode of Krypton, for sure. We pick up from the previous episode, 'The Rankless Initiative', and deal with the fallout of that episode. Predictably, Lyta-Zod is put to trial, but far worse than insubordination, the Voice of Rao decides that he needs a fall guy in order to restore the Voice of Rao's standings among the Rankless, and decides to pull strings in order to get Lyta to be that fall guy. It's never really made clear just what the role of the Voice of Rao is other than some vague leadership/papal role, and just why he needs to maintain his standings among the Rankless when he was so eager to push the Rankless Initiative in the previous episode. But Lyta is framed for being an agent of Black Zero thanks to some fake testimonies, setting her up to get executed in the same way that Val-El was in the pilot. 

This ends up driving the whole Brainiac plot to a halt as Seg-El (fine, we'll use the show's spelling) decides that a Krypton without Lyta isn't worth saving, and Seg quite literally drops everything regarding investigating Brainiac to do this side-quest. And everything revolves around Seg's attempt to get Lyta out of jail, but at the same time  events are also unfurling for the ever-encroaching arrival of Brainiac, and that's a bit of a weird discrepancy there. 

And while Seg manages to get Nyssa-Vex to help out in getting Lyta out of jail from a legal way (Nyssa, conveniently, is the Kryptonian equivalent of a lawyer of some sort?) and Nyssa ends up being the only person left to fight for Lyta when Seg gets kidnapped by a group of... some other dudes that aren't the enigmatic Black Zero, but are allied with Black Zero. Colin Salmon's (Arrow's Walter Steele) currently-unnamed character notes that, yes, Brainiac is coming and they are an organization that knows this and is trying to stop this. Seg tries to get them to break Lyta out of jail, but instead tries to get free from this organization and attack their minions? Eh. 

Nyssa ends up confronting Jayna-Zod and pretty much tries to get her to stand up and overthrow the Voice of Rao, which is neat. This part of the storyline is fun, in no small part due to really strong performances from both actresses involved. 

Meanwhile, the Rhom-Brainiac gestalt is still indecipherable, but probably dead, causing Uncle Kem to have a talk with Ona about death or something, and this, in turn, causes Ona to rush forwards to the Voice of Rao when he visits the Rankless. Ona gives the Voice of Rao a little figurine, and the Voice of Rao plays with this to maintain his saintly prophet image and elevates Ona into one off the priests of Rao... but this is all a ploy from Brainiac's probe? Who has apparently infected Ona (or maybe just the figurine?), which in turn infects the little gift, which in turn infects the Voice of Rao -- not when he received the figurine, but when he's in his room? It's a neat plot twist, but it's definitely a wee bit too convoluted. Just how intelligent is Brainiac's little figurine? Isn't the whole mission statement of the probe to collect information and send it to Brainiac? Why is it trying to infiltrate the higher-ups in the Kryptonian government, then? Did Brainiac give the drone new standing orders? If he did, then why did the Rhom-drone need to find some huge communication device to talk to the real Brainiac body? 

Overall, it's a weaker episode of Krypton, I feel, for the simple reason that the show does a lot of exposition, but at the same time it also doesn't tell us enough about some aspects of the setting. Black Zero's mentioned a lot of times by practically all the characters, but is hardly relevant, never actually showing up. Adam Strange is some sort of Kyle-Reese-esque character, someone from the future trying to save the past, but half the time he doesn't do anything more than Kem does. The Voice of Rao shows up a lot, but we never really get any sort of real concrete note as to how he figures into Kryptonian politics. Ultimately, the show does have enough good points for me to be interested in continuing to the next episode, but it's definitely flawed in execution and plot-pacing. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner: [not much of these in this episode, surprisingly]

• Lyta is imprisoned in Fort Rozz, which Supergirl viewers might recognize. Fort Rozz, in the comics, of course, is also a prison for Kryptonian criminals. 
• The Nova Cycle is indeed a Kryptonian holiday in the comics, where in Nova Cycle, the Kryptonian Religious Guild has the right to absolve any criminal of his or her wrongdoings.