Can we just give poor Lois a break?
Everyone seemed to turn on Lois in this week’s episode of MAWS SO FAST.
And everyone is saying it’s bad writing when the writers actually did a beautiful job setting up Lois’ reaction. They just assumed we, the audience were smart and that we would weave together the threads they left us.
Lois says multiple times she hates liars
She says at one point that people aren’t nice and that Superman has to want something because people aren’t that good
Then in episode four in the staircase she tells Clark, “My Dad and I, we don’t talk. My whole life Dad always kept things close to his chest. His job, where we were moving next as a kid, how sick my mom really was…and even after she passed, he wasn’t someone you would go to with your problems.”
So picture kid Lois. Her mom dies and she discovers afterwards that her Dad knew the whole time she was terminal when he kept telling her it wasn’t that bad. She feels angry and betrayed. She asks if they have to move again and her dad promises no and yet six months later they’re changing bases. Her dad says he works in a military office and he actually works for a top secret project (pretty sure he’s on the task force for taking out Superman, which is why her Dad tried to call her in the first place).
Lois is traumatized by lies and to protect herself automatically assumes everyone, including Superman, is a liar. It’s why she’s dedicated herself to a career focused on exposing the truth.
And while she tells this to Clark in the staircase, we get a deliberate shot of her foot jiggling. Lois is super UNCOMFORTABLE and nervous. She doesn’t trust easily but she’s confiding in Clark because she’s come to trust him—in part because Clark also hates lies and has such a strong reaction when Lois lied to him in episode three. She thinks he GETS IT.
So when she discovers that he’s Superman, she’s not mad that he’s Superman, she’s angry because she feels betrayed. Clark also said he hated liars, but he’s been lying to her constantly. And of course, having a man she trusted lying to her is triggering to Lois. It sits right in that childhood trauma with her dad and she is full on having a trauma response which is why it feels disproportionate to what Clark has actually done.
She also gives Clark several easy openings to tell her the truth, but he takes none of them, which escalates things further.
I liked this scene because it felt so real because both sides are partially right and that’s what makes it heartbreaking…which in turn makes it better when they reconcile.
So give poor Lois a break and have faith the writers know where they’re going…
