Welcome to the Couch Club, our recurring column devoted to all things #DCTV! This week, Joshua Lapin-Bertone discusses Lex Luthor’s unwillingness to forgive on Superman & Lois.
There has been a lot of talk about hearts on this season of Superman & Lois. The final season of The CW’s superhero drama has had broken hearts, both metaphorical and literal. Oh, and Sam Lane donating his heart to bring back his son-in-law Clark. And then there’s all the talk of letting forgiveness into your heart. That’s a whole lot of heart, but if you’ve been watching this series from the beginning, that shouldn’t be a surprise.
The theme of letting forgiveness into your heart is an interesting one, because it’s driven two of the major conflicts this season. As we see in the episodes “Always My Hero” and “A Perfectly Good Wedding,” Jordan was having some difficulty forgiving his mother after Lex Luthor crafted a trap for Lois requiring her to choose one of her two sons to save when she believed both were in peril. Hoping that Jordan’s powers would protect him, a tearful and conflicted Lois chose Jonathan.
The choice played into all of Jordan’s self-doubts and drove a wedge between him and his mother. This was part of Luthor’s plan. He could have killed Jordan, but he was looking at a bigger picture. He wanted the boy to turn against his mother, tearing apart their family. In Luthor’s eyes, that would wound Lois far more than killing Jordan. However, Lex was projecting, and didn’t count on the Kent family being more emotionally stable than the Luthors.
It took some time, and Jordan is still struggling with it, but he’s forgiven his mother. Lex couldn’t foresee this because he struggles with the concept of forgiveness. This was demonstrated in the episode “Break the Cycle.”
After many episodes of searching, Lex was finally reunited with his estranged daughter Elizabeth. This presented us with a vulnerable side of Lex Luthor that we hadn’t seen in this series before. His primary motivation for going after Lois and her family is the belief that she and Superman “stole” all those years he could have had with his daughter.
For a moment, it looked like Elizabeth and Lex were mending fences. It seemed like Elizabeth was ready to forgive her father and give him a chance to be in her life. Then she saw his hatred for Lois Lane, and his refusal to let forgiveness into his heart. Elizabeth didn’t want that negativity in her life, and who can blame her?
Lex squandered his chance to reconcile with Elizabeth because he couldn’t let go of his hatred. Even when faced with losing his daughter and his future grandchild, he couldn’t stop his crusade to destroy Superman and Lois Lane. Is it ego, stubbornness, or does he hate the Kents more than he loves Elizabeth?
Throughout the episode, we see flashbacks to Elizabeth’s childhood, giving us a glimpse of what kind of a father Lex was. In one of the most memorable, the fighting between her parents becomes too much to bear and young Elizabeth hides in a closet. When he discovers this, Lex drops his bravado and emotionally opens up to his daughter. He even shares some of his vulnerabilities with her, like his traumatic childhood and his struggle to break the abusive cycle that has weighed on his family.
“The reason I’m fighting to be part of your life is because you’re the best part of mine,” Lex confesses. For a single scene, we see Lex Luthor not as a villain, but as a father. Like most parents, he’s struggled with his own doubts, wondering if he could be the type of father his daughter needs.
When Lex sits down with his daughter in the closet, he becomes a better parent. But ultimately, he’s unable to remain that man. His hatred for Superman and Lois consumes every part of him. Whether he realizes it or not, he’s continued the cycle of abuse that he hoped he could escape from.
Seeing her father’s inability to embrace love and reject hate, Elizabeth banishes him from her life. “You’re not the man who sat with me in that closet,” she exclaims. “You never were.”
I think Elizabeth has half the answer. The Lex we saw in the closet wasn’t an act. This was Lex dropping all his defenses and being a real person. Lex loves his daughter, but he doesn’t know how to be a good parent. He doesn’t have the fatherly instincts that come natural to Clark Kent, Kyle Cushing and Sam Lane because he wasn’t raised by that kind of father.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not absolving Lex from responsibility. He’s responsible for multiple murders, and he’s spent the entire season trying to do unspeakable things to the Kent family.
All Lex had to do was break the cycle, but he couldn’t let forgiveness into his heart. As a result, the man in the closet is merely a memory. Meanwhile, Elizabeth shows that it’s possible to break the abusive cycle because that’s exactly what she does.
Despite being raised in the Luthor household, she knows the importance of embracing love and rejecting hate. Ultimately, that’s why she tries to give her father another chance. However, she knows the damage that uncontrolled hatred can do to a child and that’s why she rejects Lex. She doesn’t want her unborn child to be exposed to the same kind of obsessive behavior, criminal activity and unending anger that she was.
She’s closing the door on the man in the closet for good.
Superman & Lois airs Mondays at 8 p.m. (7 p.m. CT) on The CW.
Joshua Lapin-Bertone writes about TV, movies and comics for DC.com, is a regular contributor to the Couch Club and writes our monthly Batman column, "Gotham Gazette." Follow him on Twitter at @TBUJosh.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Joshua Lapin-Bertone and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.