WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Krypton, “The Phantom Zone,” which aired Wednesday on Syfy.
Virtually from the moment Colin Salmon's mystery man was formally introduced on Krypton as the Man of Steel's classic foe General Zod, the Syfy drama has given winks and nods to the line made famous by Terence Stamp in Superman II, with the declaration, "Kneel before the House of Zod" and the insistence that a Zod kneels to no one. There was even that eye-rolling moment when Dru-Zod knelt to help unlock the vault containing Doomsday, and sheepishly admitted he was unaccustomed to that position. But in its Season 1 finale, the series threw off the shackles and embraced that moment fans have been waiting for.
It arrives at the end of "The Phantom Zone," of course, an episode in which Kandor's doom appears imminent: Brainiac walks among a panicked populace left unprotected by either the city's dome or the decimated Sagitari as the Collector of Worlds' gargantuan ship casts its long shadow. With Doomsday secreted away by the Cythonnites, Zod is convinced Krypton's only hope is Val-El (Ian McElhinney), who's spent the past 14 years within the Phantom Zone. Luckily for everyone on the planet, the time-traveling General Zod knows his way around that dimension.
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But while Zod succeeds in retrieving Val, the scientist possesses no secret knowledge to ensure Brainiac's defeat. Like Doctor Strange in Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War, he's viewed a multitude of futures, all of which end the same -- with Brainiac's victory. While Zod quickly surmises that Val holds no strategic value, he possesses something useful to the Collector of Worlds: knowledge of the future. So, he offers an exchange, Val-El for a guarantee from Brainiac that he'll leave Krypton alone and go on to his next target.
Intrigued by the lengths Zod is willing to go to ensure the planet's survival, Brainiac accompanies him back to Val-El's Fortress of Solitude to assess the tribute. However, unknown to either Zod or Brainiac, it was part of a scheme by Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe) to lure the Collector of Worlds to the portal to the Phantom Zone. It's a terrific plan, except that Brainiac isn't willing to go without a fight; his tentacles drag Seg into the Phantom Zone with him.
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Seg's sacrifice saves Krypton, accomplishing his greatest hope, but it also alters the timeline. Brainiac's enormous skull ship shuts down, Kandor's protective dome reactivates, and Superman's slowly disintegrating cape re-forms, but when Zod destroys the Phantom Zone projector to ensure their enemy can't escape, the Man of Steel's iconic emblem is replaced by the sigil of the House of Zod.
In the final moments of "The Phantom Zone," time jumps ahead one month to reveal that General Zod has achieved his goal: rule over Krypton. Flanked by his mother Lyta-Zod (Georgina Campbell) and Dev-Em (Aaron Pierre), a black leather-clad Dru-Zod addresses the citizens of Kandor in a speech that will undoubtedly draw comparisons to one of Hitler's rallies. He proclaims Kandor victorious, the rankless conscripted into military service, and a united Krypton as the jewel in the crown of a new intergalactic empire.
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"We will seek out civilizations beyond our system," Zod declares," and we will conquer them! If they submit peacefully, they will fall under my protection, and shall never know fear again. But if they do not, then like the recalcitrant leaders of Krypton's other city-states we see before us, eventually they will all ... kneel before Zod!"
And there it is, punctuated, by the submission of other Kryptonian leaders, and the applause of approving Kandorians. Although it's difficult to out-Zod Terrence Stamp, Salmon certainly comes close, due in large part to the backdrop. This isn't a vanquished criminal seeking to conquer Planet Houston with the aid of a bumbling Lex Luthor, but the architect of a new, dystopian timeline. That's saying a lot, considering that, before the arrival of Brainiac, Krypton was a theocracy with a rigid caste system in which every person's life is mapped out before birth.
It's also a timeline without Superman, as signified by the changing emblem on his cape, and by the appearance of a Zod statue wherever Adam Strange is (we have our theories, elsewhere). That makes sense, of course, because Seg-El's imprisonment within the Phantom Zone would mean the El line ends with is grandfather, and doesn't continue on to the Man of Steel. What plays out, logically, is a future in which a Kryptonian doesn't arrive on Earth, with its yellow sun, as a refugee but instead as its super-powered conqueror.
And what began in Krypton's pilot as a quest by the time-traveling Adam Strange to save the greatest hero in the universe ends in the finale by introducing its greatest tyrant.
Airing Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Syfy, Krypton stars Cameron Cuffe as Seg-El, Shaun Sipos as Adam Strange, Georgina Campbell as Lyta-Zod, Elliot Cowan as Daron-Vex, Ann Ogbomo as Jayna-Zod, Rasmus Hardiker as Kem, Wallis Day as Nyssa-Vex, Aaron Pierre as Dev-Em, Ian McElhinney as Val-El and Blake Ritson as Brainiac.