Krypton S01E06 Review: The Needs of the Many

Krypton, Season 1, Episode 6: Civil Wars

Well, this is a very interesting episode, in that the points that are raised in this episode are genuinely interesting. In the midst of throwing in a bunch more plotlines, episode 6 of Krypton actually manages to tell intriguing storylines with both casts of characters -- the ones in the wasteland and the ones in Kandor. It's the first time that I've also actually come to care about Seg-El as an actual character as opposed to just being a designated hero, so kudos on this episode for doing that, even if the episode also throws in Doomsday as yet another layer of complications into this whole thing.  

The big debate here is a constant theme of "how much must you sacrifice for the greater good?" Both Primus Jayna-Zod and Dev-Em struggles with how much they are willing to suffer for the cause of overthrowing the Voice of Rao and installing the Vex/Zod alliance as the leaders of Kandor. It's interesting to see just how far they are willing to go. Dev-Em is willing to commit himself to the alliance, and while clearly conflicted, both Jayna and Dev are also willing to get rid of that one junior officer who's poking his noses too much into the release of a Black Zero bomber (who's meant to be the fall guy for the Voice of Rao's assassination). But when the Voice of Rao changes the terms of his address and fills the rooms with civilians, Dev-Em decides that it's not worth killing so many civilians for their cause, and warns everyone about the bomb.

Likewise, Lyta-Zod and Seg-El are forced to confront the two time-travelers about their true intentions, and for the most part both Adam Strange and General Zod tell the truth... with one small detail. Adam Strange conveniently leaves out the fact that Krypton will explode in a couple hundred years, and while Adam Strange's biggest priority is to preserve history and thus Superman's existence in the future, Zod cares far more about Krypton and wants to protect it. For Lyta and Seg, clearly the nebulous "your descendant is the mightiest hero of the future" understandably doesn't resonate quite as well as Zod's goals of wanting to rescue Krypton from its doom. It's intensely well-done, actually, with General Zod's brutal truth and Adam Strange's increasing desperation ("but we're friends, right?") being pretty well delivered. 

I do really wished the earlier episodes have been more consistent in portraying Adam and Seg's friendship and make it feel like something huge to be lost in this episode, and make General Zod not quite as cartoonishly evil with the torture and random killing of subordinates in episode 4. Which ruins this episode somewhat... but Colin Salmon's intense performance and how he keeps mentioning that, yes, he owns all his conflicts against Kal-El, but also damns Kal-El for integrating himself to mankind at the expense of Kryptonian culture. 

It all comes to a head when Seg-El and the two Zods fight their way through the Cythonnites and open a Zod/El seal to reveal the ancient weapon Doomsday, but they are talked down from unleashing Doomsday (not that, mind you, they have anything concrete like a skull-ship to unleash Doomsday upon anyway at the moment). 

The storylines in Kandor might not be quite as interesting as the time travel ethics debate, but the assassination attempt is interesting, as is Jayna and Dev's moral struggles. We also get to see Brainiac-Voice talk to little Ona (who's confirmed to not be mind-controlled) about destiny and the nature of faith and stuff, and it's... interesting, for sure. Ona's clearly a very devout and religious child, and it is interesting to see the clearly Brainiac-possessed Voice of Rao talk about giving her the chance to be part of what I assume is going to be some sort of sci-fi mind collective. If nothing else, when Dev-Em and his fellow conspirators get ready to gun the Voice of Rao down, he reveals his true powers and unleashes Brainiac robo-tentacles upon them. It's pretty interesting stuff, and honestly? This episode as a whole is a pretty strong winner, I think. Good stuff. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The "Hall of Justice", is, of course,  a reference towards the Justice League's base, famously featured in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Challenge of the Super-Friends.
• Kryptonopolis is mentioned as another one of the cities on Krypton. It is, as you might imagine, the capital city of Krypton and where Kal-El would eventually be born. 
• Doomsday, of course, is the spiky, unkillable alien who was infamous for being a monster that managed to kill Superman in the 1993 storyline "The Death of Superman". While initially introduced as just some random alien monster, later retcons revelations would reveal that the creature later known as Doomsday is a prehistoric creature native to Krypton that was the result of an alien scientist's experimentations to create the perfect, unkillable being. 
• Tangentially, if Zod being played by a different actor doesn't already clue you in, Doomsday's presence as an ancient Kryptonian being quite fully separates Krypton from the DC movie continuity.