Supergirl S01E10 Review: Toyman's Spiky Yoyo

Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 10: Childish Things

Full disclaimer, though, because I got an angry email because of my review of episode 9 -- I don't hate Supergirl because I judge the show more harshly than Flash or Arrow or Daredevil or whatever the fuck ever simply because it stars a woman. I don't even hate Supergirl. I think I stated in one of my earlier reviews that Supergirl was one of my favourite DC characters from the comics and cartoons (and still is), and I am just utterly upset at the lack of quality in this show. When you review something, you can't just be singing praises about everything. Things that are genuinely bad, things that could be improved... they must be pointed out. Honestly, you can't just hide every single bad quality that Supergirl did behind a wall of "well it stars a woman so it must be okay". No, simply starring a woman does not automatically make Supergirl a great show. It is still a TV show and a work of fiction that must be judged on merits of storytelling, acting and characterization and all the rest, and I would've written more of the same if it was Flash or Gotham or any other show having the same crap-ton of problems that Supergirl's ninth episode had, be it uninteresting villains, stupid decisions that aren't even justified, piss-poor attempts at characterization and generally messy storytelling. That's the point of a review, you know -- actually intelligent people can discuss and point out the things they liked and disliked about a particular work, and I would like to think that I try to do so in all my reviews. 

That said, though, this episode is better than the previous episode. Which isn't saying much, granted. I did enjoy the bit about J'onn insisting that he can't blend in well with humankind the way Supergirl can, a good part of his comic/cartoon counterpart's characterization. And honestly it's a nice enough thing to adapt to the show, considering a good chunk of Supergirl deals with Kara, well, accepting who she is -- a Kryptonian, a superhero, etc. It gets explored when Alex calls J'onn out for hiding his immense martian power when it could be channeled for good, but J'onn counters that he's tried to be the Martian Manhunter for 50 years and all it did was spread panic. J'onn's self-loathing yet his indomitable good intentions is one of my favourite things about the character, and for all the crap I throw at Supergirl I have to say that this is one part that I really think the show did well.

Also nice is seeing J'onn and Kara just fly around and shit. I guess Clark is too much of an invisible man to teach her cousin how to fly properly? Man, this show makes Clark look like an utter dick. 

Anyway, the general twin plots of the episode is decent enough, with Kara and Winslow tackling the breakout of Winslow's father, the Toyman, whereas J'onn and Alex go off to investigate Maxwell Lord. Granted, Alex and Lord still have crappy chemistry together, but seeing her and J'onn do stuff together is at least fun. The concept of both plot lines are great, and the execution is decent, even if seeing Supergirl trapped in quicksand is like the least threatening thing you could do to Supergirl yet the show still treats it seriously with Supergirl needing to struggle and everything. Also Alexander Danvers, secret agent, lets an extremely obvious-looking bug be tagged on her bag. Seriously, show-writers, treat your superhuman and secret agent protagonist with some respect!

Other than those two parts, though, both the Toyman and Maxwell Lord threads were dealt with relatively succinctly. Not particularly good, no... the Lord thread is just boring since Lord is such a dull villain, and Winslow Schott Sr. (thereafter referred to as just the Toyman) ends up just being another bland crazy villain, though the connection to Winn does make him somewhat more interesting. We get a nice little moment where Winn worries that he will end up being as crazy as his father, and Toyman basically threatening to blow up the Toy Convention if Winn doesn't kill Toyman's old boss is an overused trope, if one that worked relatively well.

My opinion of Toyman is... well, he's definitely never posed a threat to Superman or Supergirl in the comics, being, y'know, a dude that attacks with toys. Comics and cartoons generally found a workaround by having Toyman build giant toy robots (obviously not something you would do in a live-action series) or threatening civilians, which is exactly what he did here. And to that end I guess he is a pretty great adaptation of the character with the added bonus of daddy issues... far better than what poor Red Tornado got in this show, anyway. And he did get that awesome spiky yo-yo. But ultimately I don't think he impressed me enough as a villain.

The lovey-dovey bit with Winn and Kara doesn't work quite as well. It started off nice enough with Kara supporting Winn with the same amount of support Winn provided Kara, but of course the bad writing meant that Kara sounds like she's outright confessing her love to Winn, and it's not hard to blame the poor frustrated due for getting false signals. What we can blame, though, is the writers for stringing along this exhausting friendzoned pathetic nice guy thread for so long and not giving us any payoff and instead just giving us... whatever the hell this was. Blah.

What I did like, though, was the subtlety that Kara has improved with her arctic breath, freezing the quicksand (again, really?) and later the entire toy aisle at the toy convention and generally being awesome with it. See, Supergirl can too do subtlety. Shame it's wasted on something like arctic breath instead of actual themes and character growth. 

Oh, and I do like how two of Toyman's dolls referred to the various looks over the years, a nice show of respect to the comics lore that they pissed on when they did Dead Tornado a while back. Winslow Schott Sr. is based on the first and traditional Toyman as a mostly-unassuming old man with glasses. The grinning doll with a suit is how the version of Toyman looked in the Superman: The Animated Series cartoon where the Toyman dressed inside a suit shaped like a porcelain doll, whereas the yellow-and-black jester toy that Winn got is based on Jack Nimball, a.k.a. Toyman II from the comics, more well-known for being the Toyman featured in Super-Friends.  We also get a cameo from Cameron Chase as a generic FBI agent, rather ironic since Cameron Chase's role in the comics is, well, with the DEO. She doesn't do much and could've been replaced with a generic, but, eh, it's the thought that counts.

Also, it's revealed here that J'onn has his phasing powers, so while I didn't mention it on top of all the stupid things that happened last episode... why didn't he use it to break free? In all the confusion I doubt anyone would've cared if Hank Henshaw made a miraculous rescue. Also, this version of J'onn has less control over his mind reading/memory altering powers, basically wiping a good chunk of the security guard's memory when he does his mindwipe thing, and J'onn himself treats it like a last resort that he was sorry to have used. A nice wrinkle in the Martian Manhunter, showing that in some ways, he's still unpolished the way Supergirl is. 

The Lucy/James/Cat subplot was undeniably boring, though. There's absolutely no point of having that extended sequence of Lucy promoting feminism and her own choices and her working at CatCo other than to have Kara give longing, sad glances at the pair.

Oh, oh, let me rant a bit about the stupid dialogue in this episode...

"I want to work for a cool powerful kickass woman instead of a bunch of old white men" is one of the examples of the show's attempts to promote feminism, yet uses the subtlety of a wrecking ball. You don't promote gender equality by shitting on the opposite gender. Jeez. This is what makes the show lose so much respect -- by acting like the most stereotypical and the most stupid of the feminist movement. Having Lucy go to James and talk about Cat offering her a job, James being more or less happy and "it's your career, you make that decision" and having Lucy walk out and be all "I'm not asking for your permission" in the most prissy tone ever is also equally moronic.

Throwing in "are you feeling threatened because she's a woman" from Alex is also yet another idiotic line shoved in, and doesn't really fit in the context of their conversation, be it the preceding lines (Alex teasing Lord for being jealous and/or in love with Supergirl) or the succeeding ones (Lord asking Alex about what connection she has with Supergirl). Seriously, at least have the decency to know that your audience aren't utter morons and put some effort into actually inserting your pro-feminist messages in ways that actually, y'know work for the story. Your story is falling apart already as it is, don't add to the damage already done. 

To be fair, though, that rant ultimately ended up concentrated in two forgettable scenes, and the rest of the episode is still pretty decent. Pacing could stand to be better, and Lord is still uninteresting, but we got a fair amount of nice scenes and some well-done moments for J'onn, Alex, Winn and Kara.