Superman & Lois: Here’s Everything You Missed in “Holding the Wrench”

The episode opens on Lois talking with a psychiatrist, telling her that while she hasn’t seen her in years, she needs to talk about something she did, which hurt someone she loves.

After a brief moment alone with the family, in which Jon feels useless holding the wrench while Clark fixes the truck by hand, Clark heads off to the DoD to see John Henry Irons with Sam, Jon asks Lois if he can come with her to the RV.

In the RV, John Henry Irons’s computer recognizes Lois’s voice, and she asks it to give her all the information it can on John Henry Irons.

At the Cushing house, Kyle tells Lana that he wants to be part of Edge’s leadership program if any new openings come up, and then Sarah reveals that an old friend asked her to be part of a musical revue at school. When she gets there to sign up, Jordan sees her, and she says that she has not been able to do music since stage fright started bothering her as a kid. Jordan reveals that he used to play the piano until his anxiety took over, and says that if she decides to take to the stage, he’ll be there to support her.

At the DoD, soldiers handcuff John Henry Irons and bring him into an interrogation room, where Superman tries to question him, noting that our world’s John Henry Irons died six years ago under mysterious circumstances. He asks how The Stranger got here, and John Henry flashes back to his Earth, as he was in a ship, being attacked by his world’s Superman. Back in the present, he tells Superman that he’s going to kill him, accusing him of being no different to the one on his world, and then he says that he won’t talk until they bring him Lois Lane.

In the RV, Jon and Lois have figured out that John is from another Earth, and realize that he was married to Lois on his world, and that they had a daughter named Natalie there. Jon tells Superman that he won’t let Superman murder her again.

Back in the psychiatrist’s office, Lois confesses that she was enraged and lashed out at someone, and she’s worried that they won’t see her the same way again.

On the phone with Clark, Lois tells him that John Henry is going to have to deal with the reality that this isn’t his Earth and Clark isn’t his Superman. She wants to come see John Henry, but Clark says not yet, that he thinks he has a new angle now that he knows what John’s motivation is.

Back at the RV Lois tells Jon she needs to take a break from it, and that she will let him know when they are ready to go back in.

At the Cushing house, Kyle brings his guitar out to pressure Sarah into rehearsing a song. She reveals to him that if she’s doing a solo, her stage fright is out of control, although she’s fine when she has people with her. He offers to come play with her onstage so that she isn’t alone, and they start practicing.

At the DoD, Sam is planning to have a torture expert try to extract information from John Henry.

Jon wanders into the RV, and is rattled to discover the video of Lois being murdered by that Earth’s Superman. He opens a door to find John Henry’s arsenal, and the AI kicks in, locking him in and counting down 20 seconds to when he will be blasted to pieces.

Jon slams on the door, and when Lois can’t verbally override John’s computers, she calls out to Clark, who speeds in at the last second to throw himself on top of Jon. He blasts the weapons system with his heat vision, and pulls Jon out of the RV.

Later, at home, Lois loses it with Jonathan for taking a risk like that without her. He admits that he was looking for weapons, to help protect him and Lois. She tells him that she can’t trust him if he’s going to be that irresponsible, and that if he had been killed, it would have been his own fault.

After Jon leaves, Clark tells Lois to consider seeing the doctor if he can’t be what she needs right now, and leaves to check on Jonathan.

At Edge’s company, Leslie tells Kyle that Edge was interested in him, and that Lana turned down the offer. At her desk, Lana is helping a local business with a grant, when Kyle comes and confronts her with this information. She tells him that Larr doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and that while he likes Kyle, he doesn’t think Kyle is management material. Kyle leaves, upset.

Sam comes in to tell John Henry that they plan to use drugs and torture to get through to him. John calls him on it, saying that’s not the kind of person Sam Lane is, and asking if he really believes that Superman won’t turn against humanity if there were more Kryptonians who he could side with.

Back in the psychiatrist’s office, Lois admits to being scared by the near-miss with Jon, and the doctor asks her if it’s tied to a miscarriage she had years ago, the last time she saw a therapist. Lois rationalizes that miscarriages are pretty common, but the doctor tries not to let her off the hook, leading Lois to reveal that they were going to name the child after her granddaughter, Natalie.

At the DoD, a soldier for Rosetti gets into a conflict with Trask, the torturer. Even though Trask is much bigger, Rosetti slams him around, and then reveals that he has heat vision, and tells John that his problems are just getting started.

Back in therapy, Lois tells the doctor that she feels like she functions better when she is under pressure, but the doctor tells her that she thinks Lois hasn’t given herself time to process. She tells her that her miscarriage wasn’t her fault, no matter how guilty she feels, and that she has to allow herself to go through the grieving process, or she’s likely to keep having issues with the boys.

At school, Jordan shows up in the music room to support Sarah. Jon follows him in, needing to talk to him about family stuff, and Jordan tells him that whatever happened, they’re in it together. Before Jon gets into it, though, he notices flowers that Jordan brought for Sarah and calls him on it. Sarah hasn’t seen Kyle, and says she can’t do the performance without him, so Jordan offers to back her on piano.

Rosetti takes John Henry to an R&D lab, where he says that he can stop Superman with what’s in the lab. John reveals that the lab has about a dozen prototypes for Kryptonite weapons, and going down there is a huge risk, but Clark goes anyway.

In the R&D lab, Superman squares off against Rosetti, who keeps bombarding him with Kryptonite attacks. Superman tells John Henry to get out and save himself, as Rosetti hits him with Kryptonite gas grenades while wearing a gas mask. Superman tears the gas mask off, evening the fight significantly, but Rosetti starts to get the upper hand. He turns to leave, though, and John Henry stabs him throught he heart with a Kryptontie spear.

He tells Superman that back on his Earth, the spear was his favorite weapon for killing Kryptonians. He is ready to kill Superman when Lois and Sam come in, with Lois telling him that she knows about Natalie, which stops him in his tracks. She tells him that the loss of his family isn’t his fault, and that it isn’t Superman’s fault, either, and that our worlds are different. She says that she doesn’t think John has it in him to kill an innocent man, and John reluctantly abandons the spear, and is taken into custody.

After it’s all done, Superman is recuperating with Sam, who tells Clark that he has to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, even when it comes to Superman. Clark tells him that trust goes both ways, and asks about Rosetti. Lane says there’s no indication that he was Kryptonian at all. Clark says that when Derek Powell killed himself, he implied that he was someone else and told Superman that he wasn’t alone anymore. Lois, he says, thinks that Edge is putting Kryptonian souls into human hosts to build his army.

At the Cushing’s house the next morning, Kyle is cleaning up after a night of binge drinking. Sarah comes in, and he tries to apologize, but she tells him that he does this all the time and she isn’t interested in his excuses or his promises, because she can’t keep getting her hopes up.

At the Kent farmhouse, Jordan is playing piano while Jon looks out the window at John Henry Irons, who is in his RV. Jon asks what someone who tried to kill Clark is doing there, and Jordan says Lois trusts him. Jon asks if Jordan really trusts Lois’s judgment after what she saw in the RV. She walks in, and asks to be alone with Jon, and admits to him that she lost a baby when he and Jordan were toddlers. She apologizes for exploding at her, and the two tearfully make up. She tells him she knows what it’s like to be standing there with Superman, feeling useless, but she wants him to know that they’re on the same team.

Outside, Superman visits John Henry Irons, who has been cleared of charges, because he used nonlethal means in all his crimes, and the DoD thinks he can be useful if something really does come of his fears about Edge and the Kryptonians. John is getting in the RV and take to the road, saying that while he let Superman live, it doesn’t mean he’s ready to fight by his side. Superman says he understands and leaves, and Lois approaches him. He tells her that he has a lot to say, but that she isn’t the woman he wants to say it to — she just looks like her — and he leaves. As he gets ready to go on the road, he tells the AI to erase the profile for Captain Luthor and start a new one for John Henry Irons. Then he tells it to shut down for a while so that he can just drive for a while.