My Adventures with Superman Season 1 was about Clark and Lois meeting, flirting, and eventually confessing their attraction to each other. Season 2 is about testing and complicating their inherently complicated relationship--showing that it can withstand turmoil, danger, and the imbalances that come with dating the single strongest living thing in the galaxy. But relationship drama is still kinda boring, y'all. Spoilers follow for My Adventures with Superman Season 2, Episode 5.

"Most Eligible Superman"

While Lois and Clark are trying to find time to talk about the things that have been bothering them, Perry drops an assignment on them: Superman has been named one of the most eligible bachelors in the city of Metropolis, and they need to cover the event. They're donating money to save sick children, so of course, Superman is going to show up. Meanwhile, Jimmy Olsen meets a strange girl who doesn't know what ice cream or hot dogs are, but she seems like a real sweetie.

Watching this episode, it feels like a lot of it could be written by the numbers. Despite how interesting and refreshing I found much of the first season of My Adventures with Superman, this part of the show hasn't been particularly interesting from a plotting or writing perspective. It goes about as you'd expect. Clark and Lois are asked to report on who Superman might be dating. The two quickly agree to pretend that Superman is a single guy so that no one realizes that he might be dating someone--which could lead to them finding out about Lois, and then finding out about Supes' identity. Of course, Lois sees Superman being flirted with and struggles with her feelings.

All of this makes a reasonable amount of sense. Lois and Clark are both young--something the show reminds us of frequently. Lois is the youngest reporter in the Daily Planet's history! Both of them were pretty isolated as kids; Clark by his rural upbringing and the shame over his powers, and Lois by the constant moving around by her emotionally absent father. They don't have a ton of experience communicating. It makes sense, but it's boring. The will-they-won't-they is not just something we've been through a thousand times before, we already know they will. It's hard not to think about the version of Lois on Superman & Lois, and how hilarious she'd find all of this. Lois is often depicted as being a fair amount older than Clark, and it kind of makes sense. An older woman wouldn't have the same insecurities that someone Clark's age would, and it also significantly delays the suspicion of the 'how come your husband is still smoking hot' question since he has to do some catching up.

It makes me think that putting Clark with an older Lois is good not just for story logic reasons but because it makes their relationship dynamic so much more mature and interesting. I'm just not interested in watching the two of them reach for each other; it feels contrived in a way that much of this show hasn't.

That's all offset by the moment that Jimmy Olsen saves a short blonde woman from an oncoming truck. The moment we see her brow furrow and stance shift, we know exactly who she is. The twist comes when Jimmy, realizing he needs to actually talk to Clark about the way the symposium with Lex went down, takes Kara to the bachelor show.

Here's the stuff we've been waiting for. This version of Kara is different from lots of the other versions we've come to know. She wasn't sent to Earth to protect Clark, help Clark, or anything like that. When she confronts Superman, he brushes her off--he doesn't realize she's his cousin yet, and is understandably concerned with the emotional distress that Lois is experiencing. Kara takes that as Superman being soft, and suits up.

Her suit is visually inspired by the office-building-sized EVA units in Neon Genesis Evangelion--though thankfully, for both us and Superman, it's human-sized. The two have an explosive battle that ends in Kara's favor.

Kara seems to be under some combination of mind control and brainwashing by Brainiac, seeing Superman as an obstacle to Kryptonian dominance--and proving the worst fears of people like Lex Luthor and Amanda Waller right in the process in the most public possible way.

This stuff is interesting. I don't care about how Clark and Lois will resolve their relationship woes because we already know they will. What I'm interested in now is how Clark gets out of this situation. The only biological family he has left has captured him and plans to dominate Earth. He'll want to stop her and talk her down, talk her away from Brainiac, of course. But even if he does, how do his enemies respond? And how does he make it make sense for the people of Metropolis and Earth?

With Kara, people will have seen a Kara, another Kryptonian, under mind control, proving that Kryptonians can be corrupted and/or controlled. Even if he wins, wouldn't Superman be in doubt after that?

This twist on Kara's arrival on Earth complicates both Superman's life and his role in the world, and we don't know exactly how it'll go down. This is the stuff we've been waiting for. I just wish we hadn't spent so long getting here.