Superman & Lois Season 4 Episode 10 Review: It Went By So Fast

Superman & Lois Season 4 Episode 10, “It Went By So Fast,” sticks the (superhero) landing with the same good-hearted intention with which the show debuted three years ago. All the while, this episode — and this show — leave a legacy as recognizable as the “S” on Superman’s chest.

Written by Brent Fletcher and Todd Helbing and directed by Gregory Smith, this series finale stumbles at times, but Superman & Lois‘s heart quickly steadies it, holding strong until the bittersweet end.

“It Went by So Fast” can’t exist without the magnitude of its context. 

This series finale feels massive — from start to finish. With huge action sequences and down-to-earth character beats, Superman & Lois goes out swinging with literal and emotional punches that leave a mark. 

Understandably, “It Went By So Fast” spends more than half of its runtime in the throes of the action that this season (and the series) anticipates. 

Even within that narrative context, it’s challenging not to zoom out and recognize what Superman & Lois accomplishes with these feats. Superman & Lois Season 4 Episode 9, “To Live and Die Again,” reintroduces Bizarro Doomsday as a comics-accurate Doomsday. “It Went By So Fast” takes that baton and flies away.

This episode sees Superman and Lex Luthor — in his Lexosuit — face off in the sky. Everything, specifically this 10-episode season, leads to this clash.

It’s difficult to imagine when Superman fans will see something on this scale and with this level of build-up again, whether on the big or small screen.

The same is true with Jonathan and Jordan going from Fraternals to their respective superhero counterparts — suits and all. That eventual shot of the Super Family, including Nat and John Henry Irons with the House of El crest on their suits, feels seismic for fans of this show and the source material in general.

Superman & Lois, even on its final outing, is crossing off bucket list items. 

Imperatively, “It Went By So Fast” also provides closure. Despite the restrictions with the larger ensemble, Superman & Lois spends much of this season weaving those key players in and out, progressing their stories to their respective happy endings. It’s a relief that this series finale finally reunites Lana and John Henry.

This season, their relationship develops through off-screen interactions and on-screen exposition — until this episode. With just one scene before they participate in the action, “It Went By So Fast” has to quickly fill in the gaps, show the characters’ chemistry, and reinvest audiences in their relationship.

The series finale successfully does so through a mundane conversation crashed by a man-turned-monster. It’s the perfect encapsulation of Superman & Lois and its stakes. That scene also does the necessary heavy lifting to make Lana and John Henry’s wedding post-one-year time jump believable. 

It’s not jarring to flash forward to that event because these two characters are in a place to choose each other before it, and they do. 

Likewise, the last four seasons support Lois’s speech about friendship, Lana Lang being the best of Smallville, and John Henry Irons being the Man of Steel. Elizabeth Tulloch’s delivery and Emmanuelle Chriqui and Wolé Parks’s reactions bring real weight to that exchange. The emotions feel real at every point.

“It Went By So Fast” embraces the finality of every frame in every scene.

Superman & Lois hones in on that “This is it” frenzy when Lois leans over Clark’s nearly-dead body, begging him to wake up, only to hold him accountable for how selfish he’s being by not accepting help. Not only does that exchange capture Lois and Clark’s wonderful dynamic, but it also feels critical now more than ever. 

Clark has no more time to debate this; he must work with his sons. Without Jonathan and Jordan getting more involved, “It Went By So Fast” wouldn’t have the heartfelt moment when Jordan begs his brother back to life before jump-starting his heart. Alexander Garfin and Michael Bishop are too good there.

Those emotional checkpoints give the action sequences weight. The Superman vs. Doomsday and Superman vs. Lex Luthor set pieces will be impressive no matter what. It’s never been done before in live-action DC TV. 

But “It Went By So Fast” finds a more engaging route by involving all the characters in the fight. Superman & Lois‘s series finale stands with its 52 other episodes as a reminder that everyone can help save the day. That truth stands even for Doomsday, who sacrifices himself in a humanizing final moment.

That overall message makes it less gratuitous when Clark and Lois say they hope their legacy will, hopefully, be “truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.” 

It’s rewarding to hear those words eight years since Tyler Hoechlin made his heroic debut as Clark Kent/Superman on Supergirl Season 2 Episode 1, “The Adventures of Supergirl,” and six years since Elizabeth Tulloch brought Lois Lane to life on Supergirl Season 4 Episode 9, “Elseworlds Part 3.”

Even though Superman & Lois‘s iterations are different from the Earth-Prime ones, Arrowverse and DCTV fans have known Hoechlin and Tulloch’s takes on the titular characters since 2016 and 2018, respectively. “It Went By So Fast” acknowledges that in Clark’s voiceover scoring the rest of the characters’ lives.

That 10-minute montage (Clark adopts a dog and names it Krypto!) is as satisfying (beyond the odd moment when Clark’s ghost rises from his body) as Lex Luthor returning to Stryker’s to find that Bruno Mannheim is in charge now.

That montage inspires such an emotional reaction because it wraps up Superman & Lois and a DC TV journey that began on the network (The WB and then The CW) 23 years ago with Smallville and Tom Welling as Clark Kent, Erica Durance as Lois Lane, and Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor.

Since then, the network has become home to six Arrowverse series — one of which delivered Hoehclin and Tulloch — that led to Superman & Lois. “It Went By So Fast” marks the end of a super era of TV history. Is it too late to go back to Superman & Lois Season 1 Episode 1, “Pilot?”

For now, there is no better way to end this than Clark’s parting words: “I came to this world alone. And when I left it, I had so much. And it was all because of love. It’s the thing that makes life worth living. Do everything you can to find love, to give it, to hold on to it, because life, it goes by so fast.”

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Superman & Lois is streaming on The CW and Max.

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