WARNING: Spoilery events from the October 14 episode of Superman & Lois titled “Always My Hero” are being discussed in this article. If you haven’t watched yet, bookmark this page, wait until you’ve seen it, and come read after you’ve screened the episode!

It went by so fast… and with those words, we say goodbye to General Sam Lane (Dylan Walsh) who sacrificed himself to Doomsday with a final plan to save the life of Superman. He literally gave his heart for the man whose heart is shared with Sam’s daughter — Lois’ husband, Superman, who appears to be able to recover in the Fortress of Solitude.

Leading into the fourth season, KryptonSite spoke with Showrunners Brent Fletcher and Todd Helbing about what Dylan Walsh brought to General Lane over these four seasons of Superman & Lois. [According to a social media post by his wife, Dylan Walsh only appears in two episodes for this final season, so this is it.]

“Dylan brought everything, ” Brent Fletcher said. “He’s such an incredible actor, and couldn’t have knocked it out of the park more than he did with his performance in Episode 3.”

“Just the idea of Sam making the ultimate sacrifice to bring Superman back, we felt, was really the only way to do it and justify him coming back, because it’s such a big thing. When you kill Superman, you have to live with it for a while, and if you’re going to bring him back, it needs to have consequences and stakes. It shouldn’t just be something simple and easy and everybody lives happily thereafter. We wanted everything to feel real and lived in,” he continued. “Death is a big thing, and we didn’t want our audience to think that we were playing lightly with it just because it had been done in comics before. We felt having Sam make that sacrifice was a way to earn it, because people love him so much, and we love him so much.”

The characters of the show recently went through losing Superman, and now, they will be saying goodbye to a father figure and grandfather who touched them all. Only seven episodes of Superman & Lois remain, but Sam Lane’s impact and sacrifice will surely reverberate for weeks to come.

Superman & Lois airs Mondays at 8PM ET/PT on The CW.

If you think killing off Superman in Superman & Lois Season 4 was already emotional, you need to prepare for more challenges for the Lane-Kent family with the October 14 episode of the series which is titled “Always My Hero.” There are some surely unexpected turns and choices made that will reverberate for the rest of the series leading to its conclusion at the end of the fourth season. To preview this episode and beyond, KryptonSite’s Craig Byrne had the opportunity to interview Elizabeth “Bitsie” Tulloch, a.k.a. Lois Lane, who was directed in the third episode this season by a very familiar face — her husband and Grimm co-star David Giuntoli. Note: This interview has been slightly edited to remove big spoilers!

KRYPTONSITE’S CRAIG BYRNE: Right off the bat: Can you talk about what it was like having your husband David Giuntoli directing the third episode of the season?

BITSIE TULLOCH: One thing that I think he had going for him is that the cast obviously already knew him really well, because we would have Superman & Lois cast parties at our house. So they had met him a bunch of times already and felt really comfortable with him. One thing he had that was extraordinarily tough was that we dropped from shooting 10 to 11 shooting days, which was quite a lot, to basically eight shooting days, which is a big cut. The crew can really feel it, and there’s just such added pressure. And David only had seven days to shoot! Not only did he only have seven days to shoot, he had such an emotionally impactful episode, and the stakes were so high.

I find a lot of actors really love the actors-turned-directors. There’s sort of an unspoken understanding of what you go through, and his episode was just so extremely emotional. There’s so much going on. She’s a mom, and her priority is the mental health of her boys, taking care of her boys, finding her dad, Lex Luthor’s still out there, and wants to kill her, and Doomsday still out there and is a massive threat.

You’ve had several seasons now where you had to carry a lot of dramatic weight. Is there ever a time that you wish you had the kinds of storylines that, say, Chrissy has?

Yeah. Tyler and I talk a lot about how our favorite stuff to shoot, honestly, is the flashback stuff, because it’s so much more lighthearted. It’s kind of fun, and goofy, and playful. It’s them at the Daily Planet, and it’s pre-kids, so the stakes aren’t quite as high.

Season 1 Episode 8 was the first time I really had quite heavy stuff to do. It was when Lois is talking about the late term miscarriage that she had had. I felt like, after that, Todd and Brent were like, “oh, great, she can bring it! All right! Here we go, every episode!” And then I’m like, “oh, man, should I not have gone there quite as much, because now I’m doing this a lot!” It’s exhausting, but I’m a professional, and that is my job. My job is to show up and do the very best job I can do as an actor.

The writers do a fantastic job, and even with the cancer storyline, Tyler and I both had some reservations about it, like “wait a minute, are we going too dark?” This is a superhero show, after all. And the fans loved it, for the most part. They really did. Cancer is, unfortunately, such a pervasive disease in people’s lives. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t know someone who’s had it, whether it’s a friend, or a colleague or [anything else]. When Tyler and I are doing Comic Cons, meeting fans and having so many people come up to me and often literally weeping, “thank you for that. My mom died of breast cancer.” Or “thank you for that, my my wife is fighting breast cancer right now.” Or “my aunt had ovarian cancer, and it was so great to see a really accurate portrayal on screen.” The reality is Todd Helbing and Brent Fletcher were were right to do that.

This is the final seasons, and we had fewer episodes to wrap it up, so I understand why they had to give me such emotional scenes where the stakes were just so incredibly high. Episode three in particular is going to be something that people are talking about, and you can’t raise the stakes that high without having to ask someone to really go there… and again, that’s my job.

I asked Erica Durance this same question last week: Does your daughter realize that her Mommy is Lois Lane, and what does she think of that?

She does, and it’s cute… there’s a bookstore near our house, and she’s understood from a very young age that that’s a character that I play, and David had taken her down to this bookstore, and there were Lois Lane comics. I think she was, like, two and a half… she was really young, and to the person who worked at the bookstore, she pointed at the comic and said, “that’s my mommy! That’s my mommy!” They probably were thinking “this two year old is nuts.”

It was a bummer that we started shooting at the height of COVID and and we were all in Canada… we weren’t able to leave because of the strict quarantine and whatnot, so I didn’t see a lot of my kid the first few seasons. And in fact, the first time she actually came onto set was Season 4, Episode 3, when David was directing, because it wasn’t until Season 4 where some of the COVID protocols were relaxed. Even in Season 3, she was able to finally come visit me at base camp and be in my trailer. David was shooting on A Million Little Things, so it was usually our nanny who would bring her to set to visit me, but it was a lot of being away from her.

When I was shooting on Arrow with Stephen Amell, his daughter Mavi was apparently there quite often, and I would be a little envious of that while I was shooting, like “oh, it would have been so fun for Vivian to yell out ‘action’ and ‘cut’ like Mavi did on Arrow the day I was shooting on Arrow!”

She definitely gets that her mama’s Lois Lane. I get gifted comics a lot, and one day, one of the writers on a show gave me a Lois Lane street sign that is now in my daughter’s playroom. Also, when I first booked the role, one of my managers had one of the older comics framed. That was really cool, and that’s also on the wall in her playroom. So she kind of gets that I play a fun character that’s also in comic books and also live action.

There was a scene the day she was on set with me and Tyler where we’re explaining the situation to General Lane of [Clark being Superan], and Vivian’s just kind of used to it. It didn’t really seem to throw her that David was directing, and then I was holding hands with Tyler in a scene. She’s just kind of rolled with it.

If someone, someday comes to you and asks you to play Lois Lane again, would you do it?

Of course I would. It’s been such an honor. It really has been, and I hope I’ve made the fans proud. I think the level of respect I have for the character… I pointedly sought out [information] for myself, because I understood getting into this that this isn’t just a character on a TV show that’s going to go a few seasons; this is a very beloved, iconic character for a reason, and I have to do some research into understanding why. What are the qualities about Lois Lane? The grit, the determination, the fierceness, the pursuit of truth at all costs, the the work ethic… and then to bring that to my performance and on some level, it felt like a bit of a love letter to the character and also a love letter to genres.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: After this interview was conducted, Bitsie expressed gratitude to S&L writer Adam Mallinger who was frequently available to share Superman and Lois Lane lore!]

You can see some photos including some previously-unreleased stills from “Always My Hero” below. Look for the episode to air October 14 on The CW.

Superman & Lois

Image 1 of 7

Superman & Lois -- “Always My Hero” -- Image Number: SML403a_0790r -- Pictured (L-R): Alexander Garfin as Jordan Kent -- Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW -- © 2024 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Creation Entertainment’s “Salute to Smallville” convention is happening this weekend in Parsnippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey (read more about it here), and KryptonSite’s Craig Byrne will be there and a part of it, joining a variety of guests from the series including Tom Welling, Kristin Kreuk, Erica Durance, Michael Rosenbaum, John Glover, Laura Vandervoort, and Aaron Ashmore. In anticipation of the October 5-6 event, we were able to interview Erica – our first time talking since Smallville was on the air! – to find out about the convention experience, her return to playing Lois Lane in Crisis, the Smallville animated project, and more. Enjoy!

KRYPTONSITE’S CRAIG BYRNE: I know you’ve done conventions before, but how does it feel to be doing the first completely dedicated to Smallville convention?

ERICA DURANCE: A little nerve wracking, and also fantastic. I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to spending more time with the fans. Creation runs these really great events. They have a good schedule, and they have such good ideas of what we can do and how we can interact. I’m really looking forward to being able to be a part of it and see everybody.

What can fans look forward to seeing at this event?

I know that we will be doing panels. I know that the boys do their “Smallville Nights” which are super, super fun. I think the fans really enjoy when we’re at the table and we chit chat. A lot of us spend a lot of time talking to people there. And photo ops! I’m not sure what else they’re throwing at us, but I do know that there’s a lot more time spent with fans, which is why we’re doing it!

When you got to the call to play Lois Lane again in the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, was that something you had ever expected to do, or did you just figure you were Alura already and that was it?

I just figured I was Alura, and that was that, and I was moving on to other things. Then I was working on a movie for a friend of mine, and I got a text partway through the show, and I just got so excited. I couldn’t believe it! I was really thrilled. I was very excited.

They wrote a really fun little scene for me, and it’s so easy to work with Welling. We have a really good repartee, and I felt like it was just as if we had seen each other the day before, and I hadn’t seen him for 10 years. It was great.

Would you have liked to have gotten to spend more time seeing what Lois was up to these days?

Oh, sure! I liked playing her. I felt very lucky to do it. II always know that the people that are behind all this, that write these different versions and these different scenes and these different shows, are so good, so I don’t really particularly worry about that part so much. I know I’ll be doing something fun and different, and every scene is unique. So, yeah, I would have been fine with doing a little more.

You’re reuniting with several of your castmates at this convention, but also you have an episode of Murder in a Small Town that you did with Kristin. Did you have any scenes together, ad did you know it was Kristin’s show when you booked it?

Oh, yeah. She called me! And we had quite a few things together, and it was great fun. You know, other than a couple of times we worked together on Smallville, we haven’t worked that much [together] professionally. We’ve been really good friends for years and done other things, but not work together.

I remember feeling like I was about 20 years old again. I started to look at her, and we’re in the circus, and I looked down, and we just both shriek. People don’t know that we’ve known each other for so long, right? It was so cool.

Fans have also loved it whenever you’ve shown up on Tom and Michael’s podcast. Might you be showing up on it more in the future?

I don’t know. It depends on schedule, and timing, and what they’re doing and what I’m doing, but it’s always nice to get back and chat about certain episodes and how we felt about doing different things.

Did your impression of Smallville change after you started doing conventions?

I would say not so much, because I came into that show knowing it was successful. I knew it was special. I was excited to be a part of it. I wasn’t so fully entrenched in it as Welling was in the sense that he was there all the time, and I had a little bit of that objective bird’s eye view of ‘hey, you know, I know what the fans are thinking. I know that I’m excited, because I know they’re gonna like it. And I would say I’m surprised at how long it’s been that we’re going back around and talking about it, but not negatively. It’s wonderful.

What do you think is the magic chemistry between Lois and Clark, whether it’s on Smallville or other projects? What makes them work so well?

I think they balance each other’s strengths and weaknesses, regardless of the incarnation you see. There are moments that Clark’s very, very strong, and he’s a hero, and he can do everything that he needs to do, and is able to help Lois, who’s this strong woman, but needs help. And then you’ll see the flip side of it, where it’s in her humanity that he feels a level of connection. I think it’s that balance between both sides of parts of themselves, and it just seems to work.

I know you had a memorable experience meeting Margot Kidder at a convention, but is there any other Lois Lane actor that you would love to meet someday?

I’d love to meet Teri Hatcher. I’ve never met her!

What other projects do you have coming up?

I did the show for Kristin [Murder in a Small Town], and then I have two two Christmas movies coming out on Hallmark. They’re a little bit of a departure for me, and I’m excited about them. In one I play a 1960s housewife, and in the next one that I’m currently shooting right now, I’m the Queen Mother of — it’s not a fantasy land, but it’s not a real land [either]. She’s taking care of her daughter and trying to get her on the right path. They’re really different roles for me, but I really enjoy them because they’re quite far away from the person that I really am. It actually felt quite good.

Would you like to do the animated project that Tom and Michael are trying to get off the ground?

Absolutely. I think it would be great. Especially if they have Al and Miles [Gough and Millar, the creators of Smallville] behind it, which they seem to be talking about… then you know that there’s going to be a level of consistency with the characters, and the dialogue, and all that kind of stuff.

Have your kids found out yet that you played Lois Lane?

They don’t quite know what that means yet. They don’t think it’s that cool. They think Superman is pretty cool, but I think I’m just so different in real life to what they see up there, that it’s really hard for them to gel that like in any way their mom played a character that was somewhat cool.

They just think I’m the biggest nerd, so they find it weird that Mommy would be considered cool.

There was one time when they didn’t think I was tough, so I was like “let me show you some things.” I just YouTubed a lot of my fights [as Lois], and they were like, “Mommy, you were angry!” And I was like, “don’t mess with me, is all I’m saying.” Now they call me Big Mama. “Don’t mess with Big Mama!”

What do you hope the fans get from this convention experience?

I hope their interactions are positive enough for them, and they’re able to say the things they had wanted to say for a really long time. I know a lot of people travel with family and friends. I just hope it’s a really fun, good, positive weekend for them.

Tickets to “Salute to Smallville” are still available! Get your photo opps, autographs, and event tickets HERE! Big thanks to Erica Durance for taking the time to talk to us.