SPOILER WARNING: A major element from the June 8 episode of Superman & Lois titled “Loyal Subjekts” is being discussed in this article. Please do not read if you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to be spoiled.
Now that “Loyal Subjekts” has aired on both coasts, we’d like to share what Erik Valdez (Kyle Cushing) had to say about the big reveal near the episode’s end, as Kyle has taken Morgan Edge’s offer of “improvement” and has found himself…. well, hosting a loyal Subjekt.
“I had talked to to Todd [Helbing] and to a couple of our writers earlier on in the season about where things were going, and how stuff was going to unfold, but I literally didn’t read this final draft until just a few days before we started filming it,” Erik recalled when we asked him about this in an interview last week. “First of all, I was like ‘whoa, okay. Do I have a job next year? Let’s talk about this, because this could go really bad really quickly,’ and he pitched me on where this is going beyond this.”
“At the end of the day, I love how it came out, and I love how it’s written because this is a great opportunity for the audience to finally be like, ‘man, Kyle just cannot catch a break’,” he continued. “But Jonathan Kent even alludes to the fact that in one of their scenes, that this is not them. That wasn’t Mr. Cushing. That wasn’t Emily. This is not them. So you kind of get that idea of like, ‘oh, geez, maybe we should feel for him a little bit more now.’ He’s been trying to get better. He’s not succeeded. And now all of a sudden, this looks like it may be the point of no return. When is Kyle going to catch a break? That was my reaction overall.”
Ultimately, Kyle did what he did thinking it would improve his situation with his family. “He tried to take this on his own, and do everything on his own accord to be a better dad and a better husband, and here was this false prophet, essentially claiming that he could make everything better,” he explained.
What’s next for Kyle?
“I think we’re going to see that it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” Erik said. “That’s how things always kind of work out, whether it’s in television or in real life. But I am excited to see where things go. It’s going to be a rough road.”
Superman & Lois airs new episodes Tuesdays on The CW.
