Episode 4 focuses primarily on Chloe, the daughter of the Utopian. Chloe makes for an interesting character as she’s the only person with powers that the series has shown who has no interest in being a part of the official rank of heroes. She’s desperate to carve an identity of her own, but will probably never be able to do so while she lives in the shadow of her father. In many ways, she’s the complete polar opposite of her brother. He tries his best to please their father in order to please him and take up his mantle one day. She on the other hand has pursued a career in modeling and has apparently been involved in shoots that are more promiscuous than her family would like. While she has been successful, there’s no denying that a large part of her success and fame comes down to who she is. No matter what she does she will never be able to separate herself entirely from her family’s fame.
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The episode opens with Chloe getting down on the dance floor of a night club. She’s hit on by a random guy named Nick who grabs her interest by asking her why she gave up on being a hero. Chloe listens to the new acquaintance because she’s desperate to be seen on her own without her family and he’s expressed an interest in her personal decisions and motives. They’re interrupted when one of Chloe’s friends sees her and invites her to come over and see their hero friends. Chloe doesn’t want to go at first but Nick suggests that they drink all of the drinks her friends have and then bail without chipping in. Things go slightly awkwardly but the tension comes to a boil when one friend in the group confronts Chloe for not being there when their friends died fighting against Blackstar. A fight is about to break out when it is revealed that Nick actually has the ability to slow time. He even jokingly calls himself, “The Nick of Time,” much to the disappointment of Chloe. The two leave and head back to Chloe’s place.
Chloe and Nick sleep together. She awakens to a call that she is late to her photoshoot. She wakes Nick up so she can get ready quickly and leave. Nick reveals that he was hoping Chloe could help him get a recommendation with the Union of Justice as he was going to apply to join soon. She’s clearly upset that this was Nick’s aim all along and punches him through her apartment wall into the street below.
While it actually does seem like Nick may have had a legitimate interest in Chloe outside of the Union of Justice, her current lifestyle and constant turning to drugs like cocaine don’t make her a great listener. She’s clearly too damaged at this point by her own familial relationships that she has been unable to start any meaningful relationships of her own. Her interactions with her old friends who did join the Union of Justice has essentially alienated her from those she was closest to in her youth. The unifying factor here is that all of her relationship are dependent on her dad and who he is and this is seen once again later in the episode.
Chloe attends the photoshoot that she is late for. She’s entirely too hungover to complete the shoot without the help of cocaine. When it comes to the last pose that her employers want to have Chloe do, it turns out that they want a “classic hero pose” of Chloe holding up a car with one hand. Chloe gets angry and throws the car instead of posing, losing her the job. Again, she’s lashed out once her identity is overtaken by that of her father’s. Her powers mean that even in her own job outside of being a superhero, she’ll always be seen as “The Utopian’s Daughter” instead of just as Chloe.
The next scene shows Chloe on her phone learning that after walking out on that job she’s fresh out of endorsement deals. She’s then struck by a van, bringing the audience back to the events of the third episode in which Hutch’s team crashes into Chloe. This time it’s seen that after Hutch and friends escape, Chloe takes the bag of crystal-looking drugs that she found in the briefcase Hutch’s team stole.
Chloe takes the drugs back at her house, snorting and having a euphoric, giggling reaction. She then calls her friends over to do the drugs with her. Chloe’s landlord comes up during the party to complain about the hole in the wall that Chloe made when she punched Nick earlier in the episode. After everyone leaves the party, she does more of the drugs and appears to start overdosing. Hutch appears at the last minute and the episode ends.
On the other timeline, the story is still centered on a younger Sheldon trying to locate the windmill from his drawings. He struggles to find directions from locals and is essentially homeless, wandering in search of visions that may not even be real. He eventually is led to the windmill by a local girl and runs into a farmer who also had visions like his own. The farmer kills himself, and in the basement of his home Sheldon sees a vision of himself and 5 others sitting around a table together. The episode ends with him getting a ride home from his brother Walt.
Overall, the 4th episode provides a deeper look into the very damaged character of Chloe. It does a good job of exploring the opposite effect of being raised by the Utopian in comparison to her brother and how her choices have alienated her from her family and friends. While both timelines are not moving at a quick speed, the amount of character work and the ways in which the show displays the interactions between characters feels authentic in a way that many superhero series do not. While not an action-heavy series, there’s a meditative, reflective quality to Jupiter’s Legacy that helps to differentiate it from other franchises.
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