Things take an explosive turn this week, with potentially catastrophic consequences in ‘Blood Moon’, episode 9 of Season 2 of Krypton. Spoilers lie ahead!
After last week’s misstep, we’re in more action orientated territory, as Zod (Colin Salmon) tries to wipe out the resistance once and for all. His master plan is to use Doomsday (Staz Nair), sending him to Wegthor, much like he intends to with other planets in his upcoming conquering spree. The rebels and Val El (Ian McElhinney) are completely unaware that anything is afoot, as all communication has been severed since they blew up the elevator.
This means we get a Hail Mary mission from Seg (Cameron Cuffe) and Nyssa (Wallis Day), using some rickety converted skimmer, which gets them up to Wegthor. This is all so far so good, but it does jar a little that there is no real in depth discussion of why Nyssa betrayed them, and it is relatively glossed over. Bearing in mind the death toll in that incident, you’d think there would be more animosity towards her than there is. Obviously, as an audience we know her motivations and why she did what she did, but no one on Wegthor does, so it’s a little weird.
With Zod sending Doomsday in one of his new ships, all hell breaks loose and the rebels are poorly equipped to handle him; but then who would be? As you’d expect the one plan they do have goes awry, which ends up costing the life of Kem (Rasmus Hardiker), which felt more final than the ‘death’ of Lyta (Georgina Campbell). Sadly it probably means we no longer get Kem in the show, as they wouldn’t use a weak plot device, as they did with Lyta, twice in quick succession, surely?
Typically, the ineptness of the rebels plan has far greater consequences, which results in the complete destruction of Wegthor. This raises many questions. Quite apart from the minor issue of what the other city states have been doing while Zod merrily wreaks havoc in Kandor, surely the loss of a moon would be catastrophic for a planet? If our moon blew up, wouldn’t we have some significant debris etc.. to contend with? Not to mention any gravitational effect! Hopefully this will be addressed immediately in the next episode, but the lack of any discussion along these lines seemed strange.
There are some nice sections in this episode though. Most notably, Nyssa, as ever seems the total badass, leading the charge on Zod’s ship. For some reason, this kind of self-confidence and capability always seems to be evident in Nyssa, when we’d expect to also see it in Lyta, who is Primus of the Sagitari after all! Only once or twice has Lyta been given the chance to show some mettle.
It will be interesting to see what direction they take the show in now, as there’s just one episode left in this season. It doesn’t feel entirely like we’ve been building to a natural cliffhanger, so there may be a number of things that are left hanging over til next season. Will Doomsday return, and will next season become one big baby chase, as Nyssa and Seg look for Jor El? Everything feels a little vague at the moment, and some opportunities may be being lost. With any luck, the season finale will pull that around, and will set things up for a stronger third season.
