Supergirl S01E13 Review: Black Mercy

Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 13: For the Girl Who Has Everything

For The Man Who Has Everything is heralded as one of the classic Superman stories. In it, alien warlord Mongul used a parasitic plant called the Black Death to trap Superman in a dream-world where he wakes up in a world where Krypton did not get destroyed, trapping him in that sleep state, and the only way to wake up from the Black Mercy is to reject the dream world made up of his greatest desires. Meanwhile, Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman do battle against Mongul while simultaneously trying to find out if there is a way to bring Superman back. Eventually, of course, Superman does manage to break through the illusion, and the Black Mercy ends up trapping Mongul in a karma-guided punishment.

This episode only follows that classic storyline in broad strokes. The Black Mercy is replicated faithfully in an honestly awesome CGI design, and Kelex the Kryptonian robot butler appears in a short, minor role early in the episode which made me smile. I like Kelex, and he actually looks really good! But the execution isn't honestly as good as I was expecting. Kara Zor-El, who left Krypton where she was a teenager, would have far, far more reason to desire to return to a place where she belongs, but that doesn't really amount to much beyond "oh yeah I remembered this one bit that I did once as a kid". I think showing Kara actually interacting with her family instead of showing the confusion when her mind starts to forget Earth and time-skipping straight to her accepting the dream world would be a far more effective way to deal with the Black Mercy dream world. I wished we actually dealt with Kara exploring her emotions and all that character jazz instead of stringing in the stupid Maxwell Lord VR helmet bullshit. I mean, yeah, it does give a strong Alex/Kara moment and I can't fault the show for doing that even if the dialogue isn't as good as it could be... but honestly, I just felt that it would be a far stronger episode if Kara made the choice to leave happiness behind to fight the villains on her own. 

One of the biggest and strongest moments in the comic is that, well, we want Superman to be happy so badly in that dreamworld, whereas here the episode straight-up treats the dreamworld as what it is. An illusion. Other than that short dinner that Alex interrupts, all the other scenes with the dreamworld is either Kara being disoriented and confused, or Alex screaming at Kara to wake up. Obviously other scenes happened off-screen, but still I thought it would definitely be more effective to show how much happier Kara Zor-El would be in the dream world, and how she would be so pained to see it all go.

Still, that's just me being kinda nitpicky. Maxwell Lord is still annoying, though not quite to the level that he was in the previous episodes. He's been gang-pressed into the DEO's unwilling tech expert, though fighting Astra's band of aliens that fucked up Lord's company before is a bit of a compelling reason for his cooperation.

Alex gets a couple of great emotional scenes with Kara, obviously, as well as J'onn refusing to lose her and basically choosing Alex over the chance to get both girls back. Alex has been rather boring and to see her basically lose it when Kara might never return from her Black Mercy coma is well-done. The bit where Astra tells Alex how to save Kara is definitely odd, though, and honestly, couldn't she have done that after the big Myriad mission is accomplished? It just felt weird, and the interactions between Alex and Astra leave me confused. Yes, the two want to save Kara and I'll buy that, but why didn't Astra go for the kill in the climatic fight?

James and Winn... are around. Winn manages to help out with his uber main-character hacking skills that outshines a group of secretive secret agents to figure out Team Astra's plan, and gets an utterly sappy friendship speech. James gets to stop J'onn from pulling Alex out of the dreamworld too early.

One thing that didn't work for me -- though I recognize that it might be appealing to others -- is the bit with J'onn impersonating Kara in front of Cat Grant. It was amusing to see the first scene, but the second scene was hardly necessary and utterly irritating, and Alex acting as if Kara losing her job at CatCo would be a disaster of mighty proportions to Kara's life is just utterly stupid and hard to stomach. Something less overwrought and dramatic would've definitely worked better, something like "c'mon J'onn, it's Kara's outlet at living a normal life" instead of going all IT WILL DESTROY HER and shit. Because, come on, there are like a gajillion other ways for Kara to get a job that doesn't involve CatCo. Oh well. Stiff!J'onn is at least somewhat amusing even if it went on for too long, and Cat's slight stupidity can be chalked up with Adam being driven away by Kara's breakup.

Surprisingly, though, the bits with the Black Mercy aren't the ones that were the most interesting this episode, but rather Astra, Non and their alien buddies finally doing something instead of skulking in the background without any good reason not to invade and wipe out the DEO. And the big twist that Astra dies with Alex's kryptonite sword was awesome. I certainly was not expecting that, but yeah. Astra has been a badly-executed character, with none of the promise of drama and conflict regarding her dual status as a main villain and as someone Kara loves really amounting to anything really engaging. She ends up sabotaging her plans more than she should, doesn't really feel like a credible threat and I'm glad she got out of the show... while the show still giving her a modicum of respect as she goes out still conflicted about whether to choose the cause or to choose Kara.

There is a second twist that as Astra lies dying -- and pretty awesomely not divulging what Myriad is, since as much as she loves Kara she also believes in her cause -- J'onn took the blame for Alex dealing the wound that killed Astra. I imagine this would be The Secret(tm) that will take a long while and be dramatic when it comes out, but we shall see. It's a nice gesture on J'onn and a great moment for Alex when she didn't hesitate to kill Astra despite knowing what she meant to Kara.

Meanwhile Non is shaping up to be a villain that's definitely far more menacing than Astra, and far more effective than Lord. He's definitely got as much personality as a cardboard box, being your bog-standard generic evil alien mastermind, but that's effective as a proper, credible villain than whatever the hell they did with Maxwell Lord, and the mediocrity that is Astra.

Another Easter Egg that I didn't have a chance to sneak in on the review is her dream-world dismissing her twelve years on Earth as part of an 'Argo fever' is a nice touch. The incarnation of Supergirl in Superman: The Animated Series was from Krypton's neighbouring planet Argo instead of Krypton, and she did slumber for quite some time in a stasis pod. In the comics, this tidbit was retconned as Kara's family hailing from Argo City.

Overall, it's a pretty decent episode. I actually enjoyed myself in this, and while there are some moments where I rolled my eyes like the second Cat/J'onn scene, the VR goggles and the rather iffy choices that Astra makes, it's easily one of Supergirl's stronger entries, and one that I would say is actually sorta good. The show needs to improve on this quality, though, and we might see a turnaround in the second half of this show. We'll see.