Superman & Lois Season 4 Episode 7 Review: A Regular Guy

Superman & Lois Season 4 Episode 7, “A Regular Guy,” is an exceptional profile of Clark Kent. This episode pays close and careful attention to the strain the secret of being Superman puts on Clark’s ability to make and maintain friendships.

Written by Katie Aldrin & George Kitson and directed by Gregory Smith, “A Regular Guy” finds its beating heart and lens in Clark’s friendship with  Jimmy Olsen. 

Finally, the beloved DC Comics character makes his debut on Superman & Lois.

Jimmy’s arrival has been highly anticipated since Superman & Lois Season 1 Episode 1, “Pilot,” aired in 2021. That excitement only builds after the Daily Planet flashbacks (Janet is Jimmy’s sister!) on Superman & Lois Season 1 Episode 11, “A Brief Reminiscence In-Between Cataclysmic Events.”

The show doesn’t make a better argument for waiting to introduce Jimmy Olsen than it finds within “A Regular Guy.” As themes of friendship and trust come into sharp focus, Superman & Lois revisits an unfinished chapter of Clark’s past to start a new one — where he reintroduces himself to the world as Superman.

This turn is anything but shocking after this season’s steady progression. 

Clark’s efforts to “put the genie back in the bottle” are extensive (The car door bit with Coach Gaines is too good) and noble. Thankfully, “A Regular Guy” also emphasizes how exhausting and isolating that is for Clark.

After all, like Lois tells the boys, Clark has kept this secret for his entire life.

Superman & Lois brings that point closer to Jonathan and Jordan’s life with Timmy, who loses a bit of an impact because he has a minimal presence on the show. Still, the brothers’ interactions with Timmy do the heavy lifting required for Jon and Jordan to realize the layered impacts of their and their father’s secrets.

This season soars in all-around quality, but it tends to lack with Jonathan and Jordan. It sometimes plays like the show pulls punches with them rather than giving them meaty stories that compare to Clark, Lois, and now Lex.

“A Regular Guy” breaks that cycle with this refreshing and relevant story for them. Instead of Jordan and Jonathan arguing over their superpowers, they reestablish themselves as a team, realizing they’re already not as alone as their father. 

Jonathan and Jordan have each other as brothers but also as friends.

In turn, they also realize that they want more than what Clark had — to play sports and have friends who aren’t each other. That desire threads nicely to Clark lying to Jimmy through an entire season for the Daily Planet’s baseball team.

“A Regular Guy” only has so much time to spend with Clark and Jimmy in the past. The script and Tyler Hoechlin and Douglas Smith’s performances pack so much into every scene. The two characters really come to life when they’re together, bouncing off each other’s adorable, dorky energy. 

Again, like learning more about Chrissy on Superman & Lois Season 4 Episode 4, “A Perfectly Good Wedding,” finally meeting Jimmy makes it all the more disappointing that this show only has three more episodes left.

Although it’s a testament to Superman & Lois that there is extensive, unexplored depth to every character — still — after four seasons. This show could run for more seasons, delving deep into all of it, which would greatly assist some dynamics. 

Case in point, the flashbacks on “A Regular Guy” do incredible work for Jimmy and Clark’s friendship. Unfortunately, even in their brevity, they do more than multiple seasons do for Clark and Kyle. Superman & Lois attempts to bridge that gap with Clark and Lois’s grand gesture for Chrissy and Kyle, but it’s not entirely successful.

This isn’t to say that Clark has to be friends with Kyle (and Chrissy) to do this act of kindness for them and their family — the opposite is true.

It’s only that their — perfectly interrupted — toast to friendship would land with more resonance if Clark and Kyle’s friendship was more of a consistent priority. Superman & Lois has to look no further than Lois and Chrissy to know that to be true. Everything on “A Regular Guy” (and seasons past) works with them!

The scene that works best on “A Regular Guy” comes just after that — when Emmitt Pergande, at Lex Luthor’s request (to put it lightly), returns to rival the scene from Superman & Lois Season 3 Episode 4, “Too Close to Home.” 

The show outdoes itself with a moving, slow-motion sequence of a bullet speeding directly toward Clark, marking the death of his Superman secret.

Hoechlin plays that beat with such quiet complexity. It’s incredible work that brings the audience (and Lois when time catches up) into his thought process without Clark ever saying a word. It’ll definitely leave Superman & Lois fans talking, just as Clark telling everyone he’s Superman leaves the world talking.

The best part of all of this, though, is that Clark is not alone. Not only does he rightfully ask his family’s advice about telling his secret to the world, lifting that burden from only his shoulders, Clark ends “A Regular Guy” with his friend Jimmy Olsen by his side. Even the world’s greatest hero needs people — needs friends.

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Superman & Lois airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW.

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