After four seasons, Superman & Lois ended its run on The CW Monday night. The series, the last of the network’s DC Comics-inspired series, had been unique from the start in telling a family-oriented Superman story, one that centered itself around not just the superhero, but the relationships that are as much a part of his life as his heroics. But the series finale, “It Went by So Fast”, was unique all on its own, delivering an emotional conclusion to the story — and for the series showrunners, closing the book was something they took very seriously.
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Warning: Spoilers for the series finale of Superman & Lois beyond this point.
In the series finale, Superman & Lois not only wraps up the show’s season-long plot involving Lex Luthor and his machinations against the Kents, but it takes things a bit further — literally — by giving viewers a look at the future. The finale features a few time jumps that reveal what happens in the aftermath of Luthor’s defeat as well as how the Kent family goes on to live out their lives. Viewers get to see the twins grow to adults and have families of their own, learn that Lois’s cancer eventually returns after a long life, and that Clark eventually gets a dog, Krypto, before his human heart gives out decades down the line. According to Brent Fletcher, telling the story this way allowed them to show what Clark’s life meant, as well as makes Superman& Lois the first live-action Superman to get a complete story.
“We had been told that we were the only live-action Superman that had the opportunity to really close the book and so we took it literally,” Fletcher told ComicBook. “We just felt like, let’s take it all the way. Let’s show what his life meant and Lois’s life meant to the audience because they’ve been on this journey. So, let them complete the journey and close the circle. It just felt like a satisfying end. And also, because of how emotional it is, we felt it could do the thing that I think Todd [Helbing] and I both gravitate to a lot in movies and books and TV which is like ‘happy sad’. I really love happy sad. I like to smile and kind of cry at the same time and we just felt like this kind of had all of that stuff. And it was beautiful and it kind of encapsulated what the show is.”
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By having Superman & Lois tell the complete story of Clark’s life, the series was also playing a bit with the Death of Superman storyline that had been so teased at the beginning of the season. For Helbing, concluding the story with the end of Clark’s life as an old man was a way of telling that story, just not in the way fans expected.
“Superman’s existed for 85 years and the fans are so astute. We constantly tried to set up a storyline which was really setting up a different storyline, but have the audience think one thing,” Helbing said. “At the beginning of the season when we talked about it and when we started doing press after we had shot everything, we were acknowledging the death of Superman but we were talking about the ending, really, and that we were going to do this story. And it just felt like a great way to stick the landing and have something meaningful that would last with people.”
And in the end, the series did deliver the death of Superman – just at the end of a life well-lived and one in which he gets to reunite with the love of his life on the other side.