Krypton Episode 6 Review: Civil Wars

Loyalties are tested and formed in the best Krypton episode so far.

This Krypton review contains spoilers.

Krypton Season 1, Episode 6

Would you trade the future of your planet for a grandson you’ve never met? This is what Adam Strange inarticulately asks of Seg in “Civil War,” a dramatic irony-laden, intensely suspenseful episode of Krypton that addresses some of the lingering time travel tensions in complicated, character-driven ways.

If you’ve watched the episode, then you know Seg doesn’t choose to side with Adam. Instead, he chooses to trust General Zod, aka Lyta’s son. While I can’t understand why Seg would trust the man who tortured him and so callously killed his own people, I understand why he doesn’t trust Adam. Even if Adam is telling the truth (which we, as Earthers, can presume he is), he doesn’t do a very good job explaining the stakes or making an argument for why his future must be preserved. Adam openly admits that he doesn’t know which timeline is the “correct” one and didn’t even tell Seg what he does know when he had the chance.

I’m glad that Krypton is finally addressing the Adam Strange situation, but I do wish Adam and Seg had developed more of a friendship prior to this episode. While it still feels awkward that Seg is “turning on” this dude he has been friendly with for the past few weeks, I would have felt even more conflicted about this if these two had engaged in any real conversations past exposition in the last five episodes.

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Meanwhile, General Zod has Seg right where he wants him. While Seg (thankfully) doesn’t think they need to use Doomsday to save Kandor City, he does seem to trust General Zod enough that Zod will probably be able to manipulate him, if he so desires. One of the best parts of this episode is that it is actually really unclear what General Zod’s endgame is here. We know him as a villain and he is definitely taking some liberties in his description of Superman, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t earnest in his desire to save Krypton. (He probably wants to rule it, too, but whatever. One catastrophe at a time.)

Speaking of ruling Krypton, Daron-Vex is making moves in his plan to overthrow of the Voice of Rao, and he has Jayna and Dev to pretty much commit completely. Jayna even kills one of the young Sagitarii lieutenants because he has started asking too many questions about Daron’s plan to take out the Voice of Rao. These characters are making some bold choices and while I don’t think all of them have been adequately explained, it makes for a suspenseful episode. 

Inevitably, it is Dev who leads the Voice to his presumed slaughter, but things don’t exactly go according to play. It seems the Brainiac’s sentry has given the Voice some extra powers. When he removes his mask, he uses his tech-tacles to take out most of Jayna’s soldiers. They didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did they? 

Adding another layer of intrigue to all of this is the reveal that Brainiac didn’t come back in time to take Krypton; this is where he started. This means that Brainiac could be someone we already know and, given General Zod’s theory that this time is when Brainiac takes over, there are a few likely options, with Daron-Vex bring the frontrunner.

We get a chance to check in with dear, sweet Ona in this episode. She has settled into her role as a disciple of the Voice of Rao rather well. The two have lots of convos about the nature of faith and belief and the Voice of Rao seems to take a real liking to her. He evens offers to take her own soul into himself in the same way he did her mother. Does this mean the sentry might eventually jump to Ona? Does it mean Brainiac will collect her in some other way? It’s hard to know at this point, but Ona complicates the Voice of Rao/Sentry character in ways we haven’t seen before. She may have a larger role to play in the future of Krypton and, you know, the universe.

Rating:

4 out of 5