My Adventures with Superman season 1, episode 5 recap: You Will Believe a Man Can Lie

At the end of the last episode of My Adventures with Superman, Lois had just figured out that Superman and Clark were the same person.

As episode 5 opens, she’s studying her work trying to decide if her hunch is provably true, as she tries to come up with ways to prove that Clark and Superman are the same.

Meanwhile, Jimmy wakes up, excited because today is the day of the sasquatch hunting camping trip for the three of them. Of course, when he excitedly tries to tell Clark that today is the day, Clark is already gone, and calling him, Clark (who is currently in Superman mode saving people) says that he’s busy at the moment and asks Jimmy to cover at work. Jimmy also tries to call Lois to make sure she is all ready for the trip, but Lois is too focused on trying to make the Clark and Superman connection work to pay much attention to what Jimmy says.

My Adventures with Superman season 1 episode 5 recap

Once Lois sees Clark at work, he tells her about a story he wants to write exploring where all of the mysterious tech that’s invaded the city is coming from, and he asks if she will help him. At the moment, Lois is more concerned with creating a situation where she can force Clark and Superman to be in the same room at the same time, and when Clark shows her an old radio scanner, she gets an idea.

Using the scanner to try and track down Superman, she races across the city until she catches up to Superman investigating a robbery, and she handcuffs herself to him so that he can’t get away until Clark is able to “catch up” to them.

Of course, as soon as Lois and Superman are handcuffed, they come across a group of thieves with the military tech who try to escape as soon as they see Superman. One of the thieves accuses Superman of kidnapping everyone who has been using the tech, which makes no sense to Superman who has been doing no such thing.

The criminal escapes and Superman takes Lois back to the Daily Planet. He breaks the handcuffs because, you know, he’s Superman and they’re handcuffs, and leaves her on the roof of the building before going after the criminal and the military tech.

He tracks the criminal down but also runs into Deathstroke who had been tracking down the military tech as well. It turns out he’s the one that’s been kidnapping all of the criminals using the tech, and reclaiming the tech on behalf of Amanda Waller and The General.

They order Deathstroke to go after Superman and even send in a few of the robots from the first episode to help. The fight ends with Superman defeating the two robots, but he is distracted when a nearby bridge full of cars almost collapses. Deathstroke sees this as an opportunity to take out Superman for good, and Waller tells him to attack, but The General orders him to stand down, saying that they won’t attack Superman when civilians could be in danger.

Superman repairs the bridge and Deathstroke leaves, but during the fight, he was able to injure Superman leaving cuts on his neck from Deathstroke’s swords.

Lois ups the ante

After the battle, Superman returns to Lois as Clark. Lois is still on the roof of the Daily Planet and she confronts Clark about what happened, but he still avoids telling her he’s Superman. Then, taking a direct approach, Lois steps off the building forcing Clark to save her and reveal his secret to her.

Lois yells at Clark for keeping the secret from her. Clark points out that Lois had been calling Superman a liar and was vowing to expose all of his secrets. The two of them end up mad at each other, this Superman secret seems to be an unbridgeable rift between the two friends.

Meanwhile, as Lois and Clark have been going through all of this, Jimmy gets roped into having to tag along with Steve Lombard, a star reporter for the Daily Planet. It turns out that the project in question is debunking all of Jimmy’s videos about trying to prove the existence of anything mysterious. Steve tells Jimmy that they work so well together because they’re both loaners who are the third wheel of their respective groups.

Jimmy protests, but he also sends several messages to both Lois and Clark throughout the day that go unanswered. And finally, at the end of the day, Jimmy is the only one to show up for the planned camping trip. While he has no idea about what Clark and Lois have been through today, he is feeling abandoned and alone as the episode comes to a close.

How to deal with secrets revealed

The handling of Clark revealing his Superman secret can be a tricky one to manage, and over the years, it’s happened enough that we’ve seen it done very well and very poorly. It’s actually pretty common to have someone figure out that Clark is Superman without him knowing, but not telling him that they know, and then having a period of time where everybody knows the secret but they all keep acting like there is no secret because nobody’s willing to take the first step.

This version of Superman is no exception, but it does give a good reason why Lois doesn’t confront Clark as soon as she figures it out. The journalistic instinct to be 100% sure and double-check all your facts and sources before moving forward comes into play and it lets the conflict of this episode play out better while still reminding us that Lois really is truly meant to be a fantastic journalist. Plus, this part only lasts an episode before Lois decides to push the issue by jumping off a roof.

Now, we come to the next part of the Superman reveal, where people are mad that a secret has been kept. This can also be a tricky part that frequently results in people being mad for too long or uncharacteristically stubborn in order to expand the drama of the Superman reveal. After all, this is one of the big moments in a Superman story and you only get to do it once (unless a mind wipe or something is introduced). We’ll have to see in the next episode how the next chapter of this conflict unfolds, but so far, there’s no reason to think that this show can’t handle that as well as it’s handled everything else.