Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 1: Pilot
Supergirl is a show that I was absolutely soured towards thanks to all the promotion. By rights it should be a show I enjoy -- it's another show about a DC superhero, one of the flashier ones even, and as a kid I really liked Supergirl from both the cartoons and the comic-books. This show should've really appealed to me. But the original trailers basically painted this show as something that's basically the most generic chick flick ever, but with superheroes. And while you can have superhero stories take place in various genres (Ant-Man is a heist movie, Jessica Jones is a noir detective show, Guardians of the Galaxy is a space opera, Agent Carter is a period piece) it's a different thing trying to shove in as many overtly-girly tropes and 'look at us being feminists' lines into a TV show. And, well, it's one thing to be feminist and to have gender equality in the show, but it's another thing to bludgeon viewers in the head with as much subtlety as an explosion in a Michael Bay movie.
Yes, granted, a show shouldn't be judged merely on the standards of whether it meets the criteria for being a satisfactorily feminist show. And it's unfair to judge an entire series after watching a pilot episode, which have generally been hit-and-miss as far as most TV shows go. But man, this pilot is absolutely underwhelming. They've shoved in so many cliches into this episode that I'm honestly not quite sure what to make of it.
It's one thing to have a character be treated unfairly due to her gender -- it's a fair topic to pursue, even if shows like Agent Carter are less than subtle about portraying it. It's another thing for Supergirl's first episode to have Kara whine about how she got into CatCo simply because the founder is the most powerful woman businessman or another. Or to have Kara go on a rant about how she should be called Superwoman because of -insert the most blase feminist speech-. Or to have Kara and/or Alex go "why, is it because I'm a WOMAN?" Or to have the villain come from a utterly cartoonishly stupid "in my world women bow to men" alien. Again, it's a pilot episode and I shouldn't be too hard on it, but man, there's lack of subtlety, and there's this.
In retrospect watching this pilot episode mere days after I finish Jessica Jones -- a superhero show also starring a woman and tackling mature topics with a female-dominant main cast yet doesn't stoop so low as to insult its viewers' intelligence by going all "so you think I can't take him because I'm a woman?" The fact that the writers think those lines exist to make viewers root for Supergirl really does the opposite job of trying to show a powerful female character and instead highlight what seems to be the character's subconscious feel of inadequacy... something that really shouldn't be.
Anyway, all that talk about handling feminism with the subtlety of a piledriver aside, the pilot episode itself... well, it's underwhelming, just like most pilot episodes.
The action scenes are cool, though, and other than my displeasure at colouring Supergirl's heat vision blue (what the actual fuck, visual effects people) most of it has been pretty cool. You've got Supergirl flying around in all the Superman poses, absolutely obliterating that truck by flying in front of it, and even saving a plane as the episode's highlight point. That plane rescue was pretty cool.
I also don't have much problems with Supergirl herself, or, well, Kara Danvers as she's known. Her backstory pilfers mostly from the post-Crisis Kara Zor-El version of the character (if I start discussing the many many women to have taken the mantle Supergirl we'll be here all day) though with the twist that Superman let her grow up with the Danvers family. Like the comics, though, despite departing Krypton at an older age than Kal-El, she arrived on Earth stuck at the same teenaged age while her cousin's grown into this icon and protector of the planet. It's just that all this backstory is delivered in gigantic chunks of exposition. And while it makes clear the whole concept behind how Supergirl is born before Kal-El but is younger, it does feel a bit inelegant how the show just drops all the backstory in one go.
The structure of the episode also suffers. While Kara's actress does an adequate job at portraying a cheerful young woman with self-worth and self-esteem issues -- her big conflict this episode is whether she's good enough to be a hero like her cousin, and everyone around her seems intent on putting her down. It's just that the way it's handled is so cliched. Kara gets discouraged, gives up, side character gives her a pep talk, she comes back. And it's done so rapidly without room to breathe.
The scenes in Cat Co. are also pretty much padding and if this is going to be the selling point and the location where most of the scenes take place, I don't really like it. Cat Grant, Jimmy Olsen and Winnslow Schott are all based on actual characters from Superman comics, but none of them behave anything at all like the characters they're based on, but rather fit the cookie-cutter moulds of characters from a girly romance show. Winnslow Schott, otherwise known as the gimmicky classic villain Toyman to DC fans, is the most generic awkward nice-guy in the friendzone ever. Cat Grant, who's a reporter and a close friend to Clark Kent, is the most stereotypical rich bitch ever, though this version of Cat is at least entertaining enough.
And Jimmy Olsen? Jimmy is one of the most iconic characters in Superman lore. Hell, in most adaptations Jimmy generally gets in before Supergirl does. And the core of his character is that he's this geeky nice guy, a sharp contrast from Superman being, well, Superman. Yet the two are best buddies. I don't mind the race lift... but really, they turn Jimmy Olsen into this... big handsome dude that's obviously the 'nice hot jock' foil to Winnslow's 'friendzoned nerd'? They really should've cast someone that fit to the mould of 'Jimmy Olsen, but black' instead of casting a random supermodel-level black dude. Honestly beyond the affirmations that, yes, Jimmy Olsen knew Superman and hails from Metropolis, you'd be hard-pressed to know that this is supposed to be Jimmy Olsen. None of the Cat Co. crew really interest me.
Yeah, I'll go with what the show does and call him James instead. He's clearly not meant to be the same character.
The main plot of this episode is Kara breaks out her superpowers to save the crashing plane with her foster sister, Alexandra Danvers, on it... and ends up being thrust into the spotlight. This ends up to her being hunted down by two parties, namely your standard MIB-expy DEO (Department of Extranormal Operations) and by a group of alien criminals who just happens to have it out for Kara's mother. Apparently when Kara's ship went out of the Phantom Zone, it dragged along a Kryptonian prison with it, unleashing the alien criminals contained within it onto Earth.
And while it's cool that they're incorporating pieces from DC lore so early in the game like the Phantom Zone and the Kryptonian criminals trapped there, it also doesn't really hold up to inspection. Why hasn't these alien criminals been active from the moment of Kara's crash-landing and chose only to be active now? Why are there aliens that aren't Kryptonians in a Kryptionian prison? Why hasn't Superman hunted down these criminals?
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It's an easy way to provide Kara with a steady supply of villains, though, and it's apparently being commanded by Kara's aunt so there's some kind of organization and hierarchy. There's also some semblance of a far-reaching plot with them apparently having a mysterious plan or some shit going on. It's fine. The throwaway starter villain, Vartox, who's just an alien villain who comes from an culture where MEN RULE (-groan-) with a Star Trek prosthetic head protrusion. Vartox's absolutely generic, has generic powers to let him go toe-to-toe with Supergirl, although at least he doesn't dress or look anything like his comic counterpart, pictured here. Seeing
that shit in live action... ugh.
The DEO is headed by Hank Henshaw, better known to DC fans as Cyborg Superman (or sometimes just the Cyborg, but that'll confuse you with the Victor Stone version of Cyborg). Who's a gigantic psychopath that blew up Hal Jordan's city. And, well, Hank Henshaw here... is your generic authoritative figure that initially seems like an asshole that hits all the asshole tropes. "Go back to fetching coffee!" Man, the quality of scripting in this show is atrocious.
Alexandra Danvers (who as far as I know isn't based on a character from the comics) is a fun character, Supergirl's foster sister and the two bounce dialogue off each other pretty well, and it's a nice plot twist that Alex ends up being apparently a kickass superspy as part of the DEO. We get another juvenile "am I in this organization because my sister is an alien" self-worth plotline, but it's handled with more elegance and resolves itself more subtly at the end of the episode.
Also the DEO has access to Kryptonite dart-guns and clamps, enough to hold Supergirl down. Yeah, they're going hard and fast at establishing elements of the lore, which is a point in its direction.
I'm also pleased with the amount of Superman references here. Obviously they can't show Superman's face, and the shots are angled to make sure that the glare of the sun obscures the Man of Steel, or we only see part of his body or the picture is too zoomed-out to make his features, but Supergirl's takeoff-from-Krypton truly incorporates all the elements with Kal-El, which is nice. We also get references to Superman being an icon in Metropolis, being best buddies with Jimmy Olsen, his first outing as Superman being a plane rescue, we get references to the Daily Planet and all that. Superman, by virtue of being, y'know, Superman, also casts a pretty long shadow.
I think I'd be remiss not to mention that they try their very best to avoid naming Superman and use strange euphemisms... but I'm told it's just for the duration of the pilot. Good, because they handle 'not saying Superman's name' with the subtlety of a brick to the face, and it gets absolutely annoying.
Also apparently Superman asks Jimmy James to keep an eye out for Kara Danvers if she should decide to be a hero, which is kind of a dick move on Superman to Kara, revealing her identity like that, and to James, basically forcing him to change where he work just in case Kara decides to go super-heroing... awfully convenient that Vartox decides to attack a plane around the same time that James moves into National City, yeah?
National City. Ugh. I hate typing that name. Yes, they have to set this away from Metropolis to have Supergirl have her own city, but bullshit like Star City, Central City and Coast City get leeway because they were named like, in the 60's or something. National City has no such excuse.
Overall, though, it's more of a cliche storm than anything, with a lot of the burden falling squarely on shitty scripting and an over-reliance on cliches and girly-show tropes. I can't deny that I absolutely appreciate all the comic book nods, though that does not immediately make a show good. The episode definitely lost my attention several times when it's just blathering about random stuff which is the opposite of what a pilot episode should do. It definitely doesn't deserve the rave reviews that the internet seems to give it -- just because a show stars a woman doesn't mean every single feminist in the world needs to be fan dumb and go 'rah rah awesome show'. That goes to the people that think every single superhero show is good, too. It's not unwatchable and has decent moments, in no small part helped by the fact that Kara's actress is a genuinely fun lead, but it has a long, long way to go before it becomes a properly good TV show.
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Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 2: Stronger Together
Yeah, this is kinda still going on for the moment, though unlike the other superhero TV shows I review I don't promise to catch up fully with the season. It'll all depend on the quality of the following episodes. I'll say it for this show, though -- it's better on my heart and my sleeping hours than Constantine. I just can't do horror.
Still, having the first scene be another banal "it's not because you're a woman, Ms. Danvers" scene immediately soured me off the episode. Representing equality and anti-sexism and female empowerment is all fine and dandy. Delivering it with utterly child-like level of intelligence and writing subtlety is a wholly different matter. It's honestly an insult to the viewers watching, and an insult to Hank Henshaw's intelligence that she thinks Kara is complaining because the DEO thinks she's a woman and not because she's, y'know, fucking Supergirl, a Kryptonian godlike alien with super-strength, flight, super-speed, invulnerability, heat vision, arctic breath and super ventriloquism. No. We need to get that "it's not because you're a woman" line thrown in.
Speaking of atrocious writing, don't get me started on the totally random "he he he him him him every woman needs to work twice as hard as a man" generic feminist spiel that Cat Grant randomly goes on a tirade apropos of nothing. They were talking about Supergirl causing problems for the city whilst doing her big, spectacular rescues , and Kara is just pissed that Cat is (technically rightfully) criticizing her alter ego... which isn't the most exciting scene, but it certainly didn't need the most cliched feminist rant thrown into there.
Obligatory but necessary "subtlety of a brick" rant over, now let's talk about the episode proper.
Because, well, it's definitely better than the pilot. There are a fair amount of weaker parts, though -- several of the scenes and sub-plots don't really work that well, and General Astra, the apparent big bad of this season revealing her identity by the second episode ends up being... pretty underwhelming. But I did like the amount of content and themes explored in this episode.
The main part of this episode for Kara's development is that, well, she's learning that she kinda sucks at this whole hero-ing thing. We see her royally fuck up the oil tanker rescue -- twice -- and this ends up being the big headlines that paints Supergirl as this inexperienced hero. Alex tries to get her to train with her in a Kryptonite-lined room where her strength is brought down to approximately human level (which mirrors a scene from the comics where Supergirl received a similar training from the Outsiders) and Alex does have a point. If she's going to be facing other aliens with the same level of power as her, only, y'know, far better trained, she's going to have to train her fighting skills! So naturally she leaves off in a huff. Yes, it's the logically stupid thing to do, but it's a decision that actually makes sense considering Supergirl's mental state at that time.
Her exploding at Cat Grant leading to that awful speech and Cat Grant randomly going into an introdump and apparently humouring Kara with what she thinks Supergirl needs to do ends up having Supergirl recruit Jimmy James and Winnslow to help her 'start small'. Because public opinion is priority over learning how to control her skills? I dunno, that just sounds like a total reversal in priorities.
I do like the nice subtle critique of Superman's solo act, with Kara talking to James about how the S symbol on their chest stands for the El family motto of being stronger together. An absolutely cliched superhero 'we need to team up' speech, but one that perhaps rings true as a criticism against Superman, and definitely fits Supergirl's ensemble team. The talk about how Clark Kent hides his identity from the public by simply wearing glasses and behaving differently is something that's explored many times in the comics -- how it's not just the glasses, but the sheer change in behaviour and attitude and being mostly invisible in his civilian identity. It's nice to see it done in live-action form, though.
The two main plots running throughout the episode -- Supergirl learning to be a proper hero, and the hunt for the dangerous alien Hellgrammite, himself sent by the mysterious Kryptonian conspiracy, ends up coming to a head in, well, what amounts to a coincidence as Hellgrammite chooses to abduct Alex and not kill her like he did the other DEO agents. And despite Alex's speech about training and whatnot, Kara gives her aunt Astra a pretty decent fight up until the arctic breath that necessitates Hank Henshaw going in with that Kryptonite shiv. Which kind of defeats the purpose of Supergirl needing to train. It kinda goes against the moral of the episode, especially when you consider that Astra's far, far more likely to have received combat training while all Supergirl did as far as tactics go is do that spinning judo throw. Supergirl absolutely disregards Alex's talk about training to fight bigger threats and while focusing on maintaining good public image is something she needs to work on, disregarding the arguably live-saving training offers ends up being rewarded with her... basically able to fight on par with an experienced Kryptonian fighter. Um. Yeah.
Let's talk a bit about the side characters, yeah? Cat Grant flip-flops between being hilariously entertaining or extremely annoying. On one hand, her criticism against Supergirl is a pretty well-deserved wake-up call for the aspiring hero, and her insane boss rants are at least hammily delivered. On the other hand, beyond forcing James to use his connection to Superman to try and get an 'in' with Supergirl within a set amount of time is not only a dick thing to do, it's borderline moronic. And having Cat be the super-convenient plot device to administer random plot points is just rather silly.
James Olsen apparently has his own subplot where his move to National City is him trying to outgrow Superman's own shadow and trying to be known more than 'that dude who's buddies with Superman'. Really it's just a cheap excuse to have him stay in the setting and not return to the Daily Planet (like Cat threatens to do), and the subplot with him having to deliver a Supergirl interview to Cat while Kara is initially unwilling is easily the weakest point of the episode. Winslow doesn't do much and hasn't outgrown the "awkward friendzoned nice guy" mould. He meets James and pathetically tries to outshine his perceived competitor, but Winslow has like two minutes of screentime in the entire episode.
The DEO scenes are pretty bland, beyond the nice special effects in the initial missile test run and the highway chase with the Hellgrammite. Alex is also pretty bland, just showing up to deliver what the plot requires of her, be it initiating physical training from Supergirl or showing up to be a (bland) supportive sister figure or simply be a damsel in distress. She gets progressively awesome near the end when she kicks Hellgrammite in the balls and stabs the bug alien with his own stinger, and the scripting for her near the end becomes more tolerable.
Hank Henshaw is also extremely generic, just your usual hardcase tough-love military unit leader who in the end knows which side he stands for, proven by the Kryptonite shiv rescue. His eyes also glow red, implying something more sinister. Anyone who knows Hank Henshaw's identity in the comics can probably take a hint just what's going on, because unlike Caitlin Snow, it appears that Hank already has his Cyborg Superman powers. (Or clever foreshadowing for something else that I've been spoiled about, which I'll try not to bring up until when/if we reach the episode where things are revealed.)
The villains of this piece is pretty generic. The Hellgrammite is very loosely based on a minor yet awesomely-named Superman enemy, a scientist turned bug-monster. Here it's been reimagined into a race of aliens called the Hellgrammites (now why a race of aliens has the same name as a species of insect on Earth is an odd question, but I guess it's the same reason why a race of aliens has the same name of a certain noble gas from Earth). The Hellgrammites here are these bug-people with mouths that can open wide and gross all Predator-like, and it basically confirms that non-Kryptonian aliens were stuck in Fort Rozz as well. And they can sprout these cool giant wasp stinger things from their palms all Terraformars style. Also despite being alien bugs they eat DDT. Just 'cause. The Hellgrammite doesn't really get to fight Supergirl, though, and it's just treated as another alien for the DEO to hunt down. And it's Alex that takes him out, by kicking Hellgrammite in the balls and then stabbing him with his own stinger.
Can I just say how absolutely hilarious it was for Alex to win against the scary bug alien by kicking his balls? Because that was hilarious. Also equally hilarious is the scene where Kara goes to save a cat from a tree... only for Fluffy to turn out to be a snake.
Hellgrammite doesn't want anything to do with the whole Kryptonian conspiracy, though, and is gang-pressed into it by Astra's people. And, well, Astra... is extremely generic and unimpressive. Revealing your main villain's identity as the main character's aunt by the second episode might be a bold move, a nice inversion to how most shows hide or merely only hint at the main villain's identity from the protagonists and/or the audience... but Astra's arrival is extremely flat. Yes, that action scene is absolutely impressive, but Astra herself is extremely generic. There was a bit when Kara remembers Astra from her childhood and a bit of family angst going on, but any interest ends up being shut down as Astra goes for the generic doomsday villain route and just rants about mysterious plans for taking control of National City for unclear reasons. Like Alex and Cat, Astra suffers really badly from shitty stereotypical dialogue and lines, and perhaps is the one that suffers the most.
Also, Kryptonite is apparently something discovered relatively recently, because Supergirl is only aware of it a week ago, whereas the mere existence of something that can hurt her causes Astra to freak the fuck out.
We get allusions to Kara's life on Krypton, which is fun. There's the whole speech about the S symbol, there's the nice flashback to Kara remembering her mother catching criminals (including the Hellgrammite), and there's, of course, the whole thing in the end where Kara gets her own interactive Space Mom AI, a staple of any Superman-related fiction. It's cool.
We get a lot of references to Superman this episode. He gets called by name a couple of times, Cat Grant name-drops Lois Lane and Clark Kent specifically, as well as Perry White. Alex mentions Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Maxwell Lord of all people gets a cameo, and apparently he's going to get a bigger role in this season. Now which version of Maxwell Lord we'll get, and whether he'll be a shifty good guy or flat-out a villain remains to be seen.
It's still not the best of episodes. I don't mind the formulaic villain-of-the-week format, nor do I mind the two interlocking plots of Kara getting her feet wet and trying to work on both her actual fighting skills (as oddly handled as it was) and her public standings. But the weak James subplot, the weak performance and underwhelming reveal of Astra, and relatively bad scripted lines from Cat, Alex and especially Astra makes me not enjoy this episode quite as much.
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Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 3: Fight or Flight
Now I know I have been bashing Supergirl for a fair bit for the past two episodes about its rather slipshod writing and its poor handling of sexism or feminism or what have you. And it's a fair criticism, in my opinion -- because this episode shows how you can properly do commentary on sexism during the interview between Supergirl and Cat Grant, with Cat going all "are you planning on starting a family?" and Supergirl just delivers a simple, damning answer with "nobody ever asks my cousin these questions." No need for a full rant that lasts a minute, no need for obvious 'is it because I'm A WOMAN' line with punctuated emphasis. Just well-crafted, well-timed dialogue that's not in my face all the time. Granted it's not the best way to throw in another feminist line a minute into the episode, but it's subtle enough not to be annoying. Baby steps, people.
This episode is easily the strongest of the three episodes I've watched so far. Scripting has improved, and trimming away some of the weaker points from the previous episode -- Astra in general, one-dimensional gimmick villains, boring DEO scenes and obligatory feminist rants -- have certainly improved this episode to be, well, relatively enjoyable and up to the par set by other superhero shows.
That doesn't mean that this episode isn't without its flaws, of course, but those annoy me a fair bit less than the ones from the first two episodes and are far more tolerable. The whole girl flick complicated romance web thing is definitely being set up and I have no interest in shit like that, but it appeals to someone (and more importantly, the main intended demographic of this show) and so far it's not distracting enough, so I don't mind too much.
Now the main theme of this episode is Supergirl trying to be her own person, be her own hero, without needing help from Superman... so ironically the villain of the week is someone who has had encounters with Superman before. Superman himself makes an appearance later down the episode to further bruise Kara's ego, despite her insistence that she needs to strike out on her own and just be Supergirl without being beholden under her cousin's shadow.
Now, granted, logically speaking it's a completely moronic move as why would you intentionally cripple yourself for a sense of self-gratification? What if, say, because Supergirl flies in half-cocked like she did, Reactron kills her or a bunch of civilians? Why not have Superman and Supergirl work together until, well, Supergirl irons out her inexperience? Of course it can't really work in context of a show that's only limited to showing Superman from the back or obscured with lens flare or via text messages, but I really thought the rather petulant 'I need to do this on by own because I'm independent' seems to generally go against the grain of the message of teamwork that these superhero shows generally teach.
Especially since, what do you know, Supergirl only ends up defeating Reactron with teamwork and the help of James, Alex and Henshaw.
I get it, Supergirl wants to be the hero the way his cousin is, and that she wants to build up a sense of self-esteem especially since Cat Grant's bitchiness seems to be focused on tearing her confidence down and comparing her to Superman, but really it kind of undermines the whole 'I am independent' bit of Supergirl when she can't, y'know, handle Cat Grant's massive amounts of criticism.
Also, whatever the fuck happened to the 'accepting help on Krypton' speech that Kara herself gave last episode? It's not too far of a stretch that Kara's just being bullheaded in her attempt to prove herself, but still.
Yet it ends up being all right, because of Main Character Syndrome and by the end of the episode she proves that, well, she can too be an adult and beat up psychotic nuclear-powered armoured men. It's just that the way the show goes about it is pretty roundabout and kinda hypocritical.
Reactron is a fun, appropriate villain for this episode, too. Vartox and Hellgrammite are just generic monsters, and Astra is just bland all around. By giving Reactron a backstory, it really puts him way above just another villain of the week. Sure, he's still flat, but the fact that he's actively hunting Supergirl for personal reasons -- to hurt her cousin -- really works well thematically with Supergirl trying to strike out independently from Superman. The fact that Superman apparently couldn't beat him is rather on-the-nose, but hey, whatever works.
The action scenes are still good, too, with Reactron's nuclear blasts and whatnot making him a somewhat credible threat against Supergirl. Reactron is a pretty significant character thanks to certain actions concerning New Krypton in the more modern Supergirl comics, so it's nice to see him around here, showing that they're not just going to randomly pick obscure Superman villains.
Speaking of visuals, despite the nice action scenes and nuclear blasts and flight and whatnot, the bit with the molten lead just kinda looked really bad.
Also holy crap I try not to be annoyed by it, but the blue heat vision really pisses me off.
Superman, of course, ends up rescuing Kara during the midway point. Which, while the show makes a point to cause Kara to explode at James and have James apologize so badly and admit that he's a coward... isn't a bad thing. Because if Superman hadn't intervened at that point, Kara would be super-duper independent... and also fucking dead. Yes, it's a dick move for sure for James to not have faith in Kara and press the big red button on his watch (which, I have to note, delightfully looks so retro) to summon big cousin. But doing it because she's inexperienced and fighting a villain that's implied to have defeated or at least escaped Superman before is a pretty good reason.
Thankfully the show doesn't really try to villify Superman for his rescue of Kara, and just pops in to add the self-esteem drama. I do like the show cheekily explaining his lack of concern and hanging around after Kara's been nuclear-blasted to the face by having him go deal with a volcano or some shit, and I definitely like how Superman, or, well, Clark ends up still being able to have lines via text-messages. It's a nice and welcome cheat, if you may, to allow Clark to interact with Kara while still following the show's mandate of never giving him a single spoken line or show his face. Because, well, without this short scene of interaction and a nice gesture of faith (and smileys!) Clark really ends up looking like a douche who doesn't even care enough to give his cousin the time of the day and tells his best friend to do it for him. Good show, that small texting scene.
Cat is still insane and treads the line between entertaining and irritating with such grace. She leans a lot more towards the former mostly because the show dials down more on her insane brand of bitchiness and has her just make unreasonable demands like moving that poor ginger out of the way, and the whole 'I am a writer' and subsequent coffee scenes are quite funny.
James is a bit better, but still uneven. The ship tease with Kara oh-so-obviously reacting to every single person that mentions Jimmy Olsen is an obvious indication that they're going to milk this love-triangle-square for all it's worth. James summoning Superman, again, really shouldn't be villified, and balls for him running around to distract Reactron, but right now he doesn't really have much going on for him other than look handsome and be, well, the Superman substitute. His position as Superman's best friend makes him kinda like this middle-man and he says all the things that Superman should probably say to her, while taking all the blame because James is the one that presses the button. He's the experienced one of the CatCo team, though for whatever moronic reason spills Clark's identity to Winslow all by accident. All the while we've got James's own self-worth problems to deal with and how he's so scared all the time and it ends up being kinda cluttered and messy.
Not to mention, well, the whole love triangle thing. Oh, who would've known that James has an old girlfriend that drove all the way from Metropolis to see him? The role of James' old squeeze is taken by Lucy Lane, who, in fact, was the general go-to romantic interest for Jimmy Olsen in the old Silver Age stories. She ends up marrying Ron Troupe (who, rather hilariously, is a black Daily Planet reporter) in the comics, but we'll see how it'll go here.
Winslow ends up building this secret monitor base in an abandoned room in CatCo and just keeps trying so hard to get out of the friendzone while James just so effortlessly cuts in dances and interrupts his explanations. Fucking Winslow is really what Jimmy Olsen should act like, not this James Olsen fellow. It's bad enough when you rewrite a relatively iconic character to be the exact opposite of what he traditionally is, but you're just being moronic when you include another character with basically the same personality as what you just written out.
I really have no interest in the pairings at all, in no small part because of how the characters' behaviour are just cliched caricatures of the friendzoned nice friend, the pretty nice girl and the handsome confident awesome dude. Very trope-y.
Alex gets some cute sister-y moments, but the show dials down on the flat DEO scenes and lines and makes her a lot more interesting. Hank Henshaw still is mysterious with his sinister glowing red eyes but ends up helping Supergirl. Nothing too exciting to write home about.
Maxwell Lord's introduction is... underwhelming. It's clear that they just want to establish Maxwell Lord as this billionaire first before delving into whatever sinister plan he may have cooked up, and they seem to go for a more jackass-y version of Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne. Sure, he's rich and he's super-brilliant and he's smarter than the scientists he employs and he's altruistic enough to let Reactron kidnap him instead of his employees, but he also fires people randomly and generally acts like such a smarmy tit especially with the big reveal that, hey, he says Superman saves him! How freaking childish. Also, Cat Grant totally owns him in being a smarmy tit department, so he ends up being underwhelming.
Also there's that future train thing that's probably going to help turn National City to resemble the City of Tomorrow that's associated with Superman in the comics. Even though that title belongs to Metropolis and not the awfully named National City.
All in all there's a lot of things going on against this episode, but they're nowhere in the quantity or severity that hurt the first two episodes. And, yes, it is just the third episode. It's far more palatable and interesting than the first two, that's for sure, and I do really hope the show improves beyond this. Because the really childish 'Supergirl is bummed out because no one gives her credit' plotline is really wearing thin after three episodes, and honestly don't you want to break the stereotypical mould that women only care about how the world perceives them? This is a step backward from that. But hey, credit where credit's due... it's a decent episode. I wasn't pissed off like how I was while watching the first two.
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Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 4: How Does She Do It
I have the luxury of binge-watching Supergirl without suffering through the little switch-up of episode ordering thanks to the Paris bombing, so we're reviewing this one before the Livewire one as it's meant to be watched.
Yeah, this episode... is one of those wacky hijinks episode that would have been perfect in one of those slice-of-life shows. The character tries to juggle so many things and forgets stuff and babysits her boss's child and gets overwhelmed, especially when some love triangle comes in to complicate things up, and the guy he likes only views her as a friend that he can talk to... in a superhero show? Bah. The Black Widow parody trailer with basically the same premise is, y'know, a fucking parody.
And maybe if done elegantly it might actually be good, but the plot just suffers from ADD as we jump from the myriad of mostly-uninteresting plot points. We've got someone spying on Supergirl. We've got Kara having to babysit little Carter Grant or risk losing her job. We've got James and Lucy's little love drama, we've got Kara wanting to get out of James' friendzone. We've got a serial bomber. We've got the train thing. We've got Maxwell Lord being implicated in it. None of this really get time to breathe as we jump from one scene to another... appropriate, perhaps, for the theme of the episode about Kara trying to juggle the two aspects of her life. It also makes the episode utterly uninteresting to watch, since none of the plot threads are interesting to watch at all bar the short scenes with Maxwell Lord.
Kara is frazzled throughout the episode, but her arc in this episode seems to be a very banal 'how do I multi-task' with the point made being... really, that Kara shot herself in the foot when she offered to babysit. Or at least when she left the kid with Winslow Schott. She otherwise really doesn't learn to do much. There's the whole friendzone thing, of course, but that is so obvious the moment that, hey, Lucy Lane turns out to be a good person to Kara.
Carter Grant himself isn't annoying, at least not moreso than his comic book counterpart. We get to see a nice, more human side from Cat Grant as despite her obvious frustrations and her bitchiness and her power-career woman attitude and her desire to stick it in Lois Lane's face for winning an award, she still prioritizes her motherhood above everything and is fully prepared to receive this super-big award via mail if she can't be a mother for a day. It speaks volumes about Cat Grant's character, that she is an awesome mother... one that is the sole thing I remembered from her character in the comics, so it's great that it gets represented here..
Carter's a bit fun in some scenes, like when he tells his mother that the best thing about Supergirl is 'her legs' before brushing it as a joke, but ultimately ends up being one among many, many distractions in this episode to both Kara and the audience.
Honestly though after the whole stunt with Carter somehow getting into the train with a bomb (while Lucy's in the other location with the bomb for maximum drama) it's honestly a huge suspension of belief that Cat didn't fire Kara. Kara didn't even do anything to really appease Cat -- she could've been responsible for 'introducing Supergirl' or some shit like that that would work to the wacky hijinks theme of the episode, but not only does Kara royally fuck up Cat's task, she also gets rewarded for it by not being fired. Yeah. Doesn't make sense.
It doesn't help that the random mad bomber whose name I don't even remember is extremely bland compared to the already sub-par quality of villains in this show. The show tries to be artistic and withhold details about the bomber's backstory and how it relates to the sick girl back home, with only the briefest allusions to being (obviously) employed by Maxwell Lord, but the explanation we get isn't only inadequate, it's also downright confusing.
Maxwell Lord, at least, is interesting. In between hamming it up, Lord gets a nice scene with Kara at the end that's absolutely reminiscent of Lex Luthor. Yeah, they're not going to play with the nice-but-jackass businessman angle for too long as Lord reveals his hand to Supergirl while the Girl of Steel isn't able to prove jack shit, which is Luthor's M.O. in most modern incarnations, most notably for me Superman: the Animated Series where Luthor and Superman's first meeting is relatively similar. The idea that Lord is using the high-tech drones and mad bomber to 'test' Supergirl's powers is a bit suspect, and he has the dignity to (at least try to) look distraught at his employee blowing himself up. Time will tell if Lord will actually be a threatening villain on the level of Luthor or even Lord's comic-book counterpart, but so far he's easily the best thing in this episode. Not that there's much competition.
But as awesome as Lord's plans are, it's really filled with holes and a crapton of insane coincidences. The two trains bomb thing kinda makes sense if Lord is trying to judge Supergirl's priorities or whatever, and the failsafe kind of justifies Lord's person being at risk for two of the three bomb incidents. But his reasons for doing so -- and being so obvious as to use his own specially manufactured bomb -- ends up not really holding up to notch, though maybe we might learn that he's as big an egomaniac as Luthor is and wants Supergirl to know that it was him that did it? The bit with the train doesn't make sense either, Supergirl only finds out about the bomber getting on the train because James was following Carter. How was Lord supposed to test Supergirl out, then?
Alex is only around to defuse bombs, apparently. She's got an awkward little scene talking about government with Lord that I kinda tuned out. Lord did manage to divulge his sad backstory -- that his parents were killed thanks to the government being dicks about safety requirements -- which is something, but Alex and Lord's scene was pretty stilted and doesn't flow well. All Alex does, really, is just watch when people deal with bombs.
Henshaw is still being mysterious. Kara catches the glowy red eyes at one point when she's a bit delirious, and Henshaw uses his presumably-Cyborg Superman powers to rip apart the bomb casing and stick his hand in to defuse it. Still being cryptic and creepy, but ultimately accomplishes nothing.
James and Lucy... yeah, they fought because James prioritizes Superman over Lucy. Um. They make up at the end of the episode. Somewhere in between we find out that Lucy is a decent human being that struck up a friendship with Kara, and something about friendzones and moving on and speaking out your mind and being a good friend and stapler destruction that kind of go around and around itself. In any case, though, Kara basically encourages James to, well, admit that he's not quite moved on yet at the risk of being thrown back into the friendzone. Yay relationship complications -- I don't really care.
Winslow... ends up being an idiot who can't even do his job of playing games with a kid properly. We get a nice, extremely subtle hint of his eventual Toyman identity when Kara comments on the toys on his desk, but he's otherwise just Mr Nice Friendzone Guy. Who can't even distract a kid with videogames right.
Overall easily the weakest episode thanks to a crap plot (well, a series of crap plots) and crappy handling of said crap plots. It's banal and dull, with a shitty cliched romance subplot that only serves to bog it down even further. Only the pretty fun performances from Maxwell Lord and Kara, and the short but fun Cat Grant scene, really makes this episode not a total disaster. Talking about the two genres without me sounding like an anti-chick-flick show is going to take a metaphor. It is kinda like cooking, really. Some things are pretty great separately. Like, say, creamy pasta and hot chili sauce. Both are individually great, as much as I hate chili I know a lot of people love that. Mix them together? Unless you've got the taste sensibilities of a sow, it doesn't work. Alien superhero action quasi-sci-fi stories and wacky hijinks chick flicks are kinda like that -- the addition of two together ends up making this icky paste that just doesn't work as well as they do individually.
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Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 5: Livewire
Happy New Year, y'all. I actually watched this episode (and really the rest of Supergirl) before 2015 ended, but haven't done the reviews yet. So, yeah, let's start this new year off with Livewire.
It’s a mostly solid, if unspectacular, episode. There’s a nice theme of mothers and daughters running along the episode, and while it could’ve been done better at least they tried. There’s the obvious Eliza and Alex, Eliza and Kara, plus Cat and Leslie and/or Supergirl, because she’s taken a hard love mentality towards them. It all kinda falls apart rather messily because when you put some thought into it Cat’s methods really aren’t beneficial to either one of them at all – Leslie’s too much of an ass, really, whereas Supergirl improves thanks to Cat simply only because Cat happens to like ranting about Supergirl in front of Kara. Cat does get rather likeable this episode during her interactions in treating Kara Danvers more like a proper human being… but that comes at the cost of some rather random character growth that don’t make sense.
The unsubtlety of the show returns again in full force, however, in a cheap attempt to make Livewire even more hateable. Instead of just talking trash about Supergirl, she had to go and cross all the lines and insult Supergirl’s feminity and costume and adorkableness.. and honestly not much else. Unlike Livewire’s debut as a character in Superman: The Animated Series, Livewire doesn’t (rather justifiably) talk shit about Superman’s methods or goodiness. It would be something if all the wince-inducing Chastity Belt of Steel lines are just thrown in as part of Livewire’s rant, but no, Livewire’s rant is literally just talking shit about those three girly topics and not criticizing Supergirl for grandstanding or whatever.
So of course Cat Grant fires her, in no small part being a gigantic hypocrite as Livewire points out. Granted, Cat has probably warmed up to Supergirl thanks to saving her son last episode, and she is shown to have feminist standards (of course, considering the tone of the show) but honestly the change is so jarring and the speech so patronizing that I can only shake my head at how badly written the scripting for that scene is. Though the episode had Supergirl calling out “you mean girl!” as a freaking insult and that probably takes the cake for the worst line of dialogue in this episode.
And while being a huge jackass is definitely appropriate for Livewire’s character, the sudden change for Cat Grant to support Supergirl ends up coming a bit of the left field. Cat justifies her earlier disparaging articles simply as a form of ‘tough love’, which I call bullshit. Though Cat criticizes genuine parts of Supergirl’s blundering around, the random change to Cat wanting to take a mentoring role to Supergirl really feels tacked on and random. Ditto for her suddenly developing a conscience and doing that utterly overlong and eye-roll inducing “let’s ignore all the celebrity gossip and sell stories about soup kitchens because Thanksgiving!” Bah. I definitely understand the sentiment, but for it to come out of nowhere from Cat Grant’s mouth without anything really providing her with the impetus for this sudden character change. When honestly simply reporting some nice stuff about Supergirl for a change would feel a lot more sensible. The show tries to be deep and explore the different ways to be a mother or mother-figure but ultimately it all doesn’t hold up that well under closer inspection.
Ahem. Anyway, Livewire. Supergirl took down some random alien She-Beast earlier this episode, and the rest of the episode is basically an adaptation of the Superman: TAS episode where Livewire debuted. Basically, anyway, because that episode didn’t have all the random family drama between Alex and Eliza, or Cat Grant’s nonsensical ‘hard love’ plot. Livewire… really isn’t entertaining at all because the dialogue makes her even more cartoonish than her cartoon counterpart, and I do agree with Cat Grant that Livewire has ‘as much wit as a YouTube comment’. She’s awesome visually, of course, with all the lightning teleportation and the lightning whips and the giant face in Cat’s TV screen shrine thing, and the origin story’s faithful enough, but she ends up feeling very basic and undeveloped. It’s a shame. Maybe if she had cameoed in earlier episodes as one of Cat Grant’s people criticizing Supergirl, she would have much more of an impact.
That’s not to say that the shock jock isn’t fun, though. Her bad puns did make me chuckle a couple of times, and random poking-fun-at-feminity thing aside she’s a decent adaptation of her traditional depiction. She certainly had a lot more personality than every other villain that Supergirl has faced before.
Alas, how stupid was it for Supergirl to do the whole ‘take my hand’ thing? That was a poorly choreographed scene, honestly, since unless Supergirl was willing to drop the helicopter on the street, why couldn’t she just fly the helicopter down and land it on a building or some shit? It felt like an oddly convoluted way for Supergirl to lean in, go all ‘take my hand’ and… er, um, origin story! Yes, they wanted to have Supergirl be the ‘conduit’ so the struck-by-lightning cliché superhero origin makes more sense, but it comes at sacrificing, well, common sense.
Oh, and of course, we’re still getting more love triangle shit even if it isn’t as bad as the previous episode. Winslow gets to share a bit of his backstory – his father (the first Toyman, I assume) is in prison and he’s basically family-less for Thanksgiving. And then any attempts to share his story or capitalize on the cheek kiss naturally gets interrupted by James Olsen, who’s totally nice and supportive and stuff despite going on holidays with his ex. Which would probably be totally confusing to people who watch episode 4 and 5 out of order.
Still, the nice little development for the DEO story with the revelation that Jeremiah Danvers is working (and probably died) for the DEO, and the whole mystery behind Hank Henshaw, and how seamlessly it integrated itself into the Danvers’ family drama, is a nice bit of writing that I must applaud. Honestly who would think that Alex coming out as a DEO agent to her mother would be highly relevant to the main plot of the story?
Apparently the DEO has captured an energy-based alien, a Zaloratt, before. Zaloratts are a rather obscure DC alien race that the superhero named ‘The Weird’ (no, really), a Blue Beetle supporting character, hails from. No idea who the big alien manly-lady that Supergirl beat up is supposed to be, though.
Overall, it’s quite an enjoyable episode simply because of the nice backstory revelations, Livewire being hammy and crazy, the actually-not-very-sappy family moments and the minimal amount of stupid love triangle friendzone ex-girlfriend romance. It still isn’t quite enough to make Supergirl live up to her hype as this ultra-awesome superhero show, especially compared to all its counterparts (and, yes, despite what the tagline might have you believe, there are superhero shows starring girls out there). It’s starting to get there, but it’s not quite up to that quality yet, with way too many little writing flaws that really make it difficult for me to recommend this show earnestly.
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