8 Questions Raised by the ‘Krypton’ Season Finale

Well, Krypton fans, that was one wild first season finale.

The hit Syfy series closed out its inaugural season with some intense action, serious emotional moments, and a jaw-dropping ending. Tonight’s season finale was so wild that we aren’t quite sure how we’re going to wait for next season to see how things play out. In the meantime we have some major questions about what happened during tonight’s “The Phantom Zone,” what it means for some of our favorite characters, and how the whole thing impacts Superman mythos as we thought we knew it.

Going into tonight’s episode we know Brainiac had arrived on Krypton, Zod is Seg’s son, Adam Strange lives, and no one knows where Doomsday is. Coming out we want to know so much more so here are our big questions following tonight’s season one finale of Krypton.

Oh, and if for some reason you’re reading this and haven’t yet seen the finale episode, there are spoilers beyond this point. Big ones.

What happened to Doomsday?

Last week, Zod wanted to use Doomsday to take down Brainiac while Seg did not. Both men were thwarted though when the Cythonnites decided to take Doomsday away for their own purposes — which involved putting him somewhere so that when his containment unit fails? He’ll get to break free and attack anything in his path. In theory that will include Brainiac, but it will also include regular Kryptonians as well. This is, as you might guess, a bad situation.

Yet in tonight’s finale Doomsday didn’t arrive and, to make matters worse, we found out that even the dreaded Doomsday can’t take down Brainiac. The Brainiac concern was made moot due to him being sent in the Phantom Zone (more on that in a bit) so with that threat out of the way — what happened to Doomsday? We’re betting that he’s out there somewhere in Kandor, his containment unit’s failure imminent, waiting for the perfect moment in season two to appear.

What’s next for Nyssa?

Tonight’s episode held a stunning reveal for Nyssa. With Brainiac in the process of bottling the city, the plan was to flee and that’s exactly what Nyssa aimed to do. She just had one important stop first. She went to collect the fetus of her future child with Seg and in the process runs into Jax-Ur who reveals a shocking truth.

As we discovered last episode, there was a secret cloning program used by members of the elite to remain immortal. Tonight, viewers and Nyssa found out that she isn’t the first Nyssa-Vex. Instead, when she was a child, she was gravely injured in the same accident that killed her mother. Her body was beyond repair, but she had enough neural function that they were able to use her clone and fuse the original Nyssa with the clone. Her whole life? It’s been a lie.

So how does Nyssa move forward from that? Discovering your dad is pretty much a terrible person as Nyssa has is one thing. Discovering that he orchestrated this lie of your life? Very different. Nyssa’s entire sense of identity is now up in the air, but at least it looks like she has someone to lean on. We see her and Jax-Ur arrive at the Fortress in the final moments of tonight’s episode where Val-El is waiting.

What does tonight’s episode mean for Superman?

Brainiac was defeated tonight, but at a cost. Before fully being sent to the Phantom Zone, Brainiac managed to drag Seg with him and the instant they both disappeared Superman’s cape was no longer Superman’s cape. Gone was the House of El. In its place? The crest of House Zod. You see, with Seg gone, Superman will never be born and there’s no one to stop Zod from taking control of Kandor and Krypton and that’s exactly what we see happen. A few weeks after Brainiac’s defeat and Zod has full authoritarian control. People have even been made to kneel.

So. What about Superman? Well, fans, right now it looks like there is no Superman and that doesn’t bode well for Earth.

Did Brainiac bottle Earth?

Remember when we saw Adam Strange interacting with some odd woman last week? Turns out, that was on Earth and as we find out tonight she wasn’t moving because Brainiac had bottled where she was, locking her and everyone else into place. Does that mean Brainiac has taken Earth?

No, Brainiac has not taken Earth. He has, however, apparently bottled Detroit which is where Adam was sent back to. And if that wasn’t a terrifying enough realization for our space and time traveller the next thing he sees certainly is. There’s a big statue of Zod in Detroit, presumably where one to Superman may have stood.

Say it with me: this is not good.

What’s next for Adam?

As it appears that Adam was sent back to a bottled Detroit it kind of puts him in a position where he isn’t able to help sort things out on Krypton or deal with the lack of Superman situation. So waht now?

Realistically anything is possible. As we “met” Sardath and Alanna this season they might have the ability to intervene. It’s also possible that the changes to the timeline now that Zod is in power on Krypton may result in other characters showing up. We know, thanks to Geoff John’s comments at San Diego Comic-Con last year that other DC characters such as Hawkwoman will be showing up on the show. Maybe one of those characters will play a role in bringing Adam back into the action.

How will they get Seg back?

The Phantom Zone plays a key role in tonight’s episode. First, we discover that Val-El did not die but instead went into the Phantom Zone during his “execution” during the season premiere. Why hadn’t he come back? Well, Zod stole the device he needed to get home for his own selfish aims. When Zod realized they needed Val, though, he went to get him and that’s when they discovered the horrible truth: there is no way to defeat Brainiac.

Except, Seg figured out a way. When Zod decided he would simply trade Val to Brainiac for total control of Krypton, Zod brought the alien to the Fortress. Seg said that he would rather shoot his grandfather than let Brainiac have him and Brainiac, thinking himself pretty smart said that Seg was lying and, oh, by the way, he knows a hologram when he sees one. But despite being a twelfth level intellect he doesn’t seem to be able to see a trap. Brainiac stepped right into the center of the room and Seg sent him to the Phantom Zone. Unfortunately, Brainiac took Seg with him.

What’s next? As we’ve seen, Seg isn’t going down without a fight. We expect that he will either find a way out of the Phantom Zone or make an alliance that will restore him to Krypton to fight Zod.

What other characters might we see in the Phantom Zone?

Now that Seg is trapped in the Phantom Zone it’s likely that we’ll get a peek inside next season. But who will we see? As we’ve seen with Zod and Val being in the Zone at the same time time doesn’t really work the same way there that it does outside of it so we could, theoretically see villains and others from almost any point in the timeline — and the mythos. That’s a large swath of characters, but there’s one possibility that we think could be very intriguing: Cor-Vex.

Tonight, we saw Nyssa desperately trying to save her unborn child, Cor-Vex. In Man of Steel, the character Car-Vex served under General Zod and was eventually placed in the Phantom Zone. As the series did, at one time, have a bit of connective tissue to Man of Steel, it’s not impossible that Seg could encounter a variant version of his future child in the Phantom Zone. Considering that Zod is also his son, that itself could be very interesting.

What about the New Gods?

When Zod confronts Braniac, he mentions that the next planet Brainiac has his sights set on is Cygnus 4019. In comics, Cygnus 4019 is better known as Planet Salvation, a distant planet full of deadly tech, creatures, and one that is used by the New Gods of Apokolips as a training planet of sorts.

That’s right, we said New Gods.

If Brainiac is after Planet Salvation, does this mean we might end up seeing the New Gods on Krypton? It’s not impossible, though with the New Gods movie in the works how that would play out in terms of character usage is anyone’s guess. One thing that we do know is that bringing Cygnus 4019 into the equation opens up a ton of possibilities — not only is it the New Gods’ training planet of sorts, but in comics Amanda Waller and Checkmate have both used it as a prison for metahuman villains.

Krypton airs on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. ET/PT on SYFY. New episodes return in 2019.