Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 19: Myriad
While Supergirl has had its ups and downs (and I've ranted about the latter quite extensively), I don't think anyone could argue against the fact that the two-episode finale was, well, quite honestly crappy. And after coming off a string of genuinely fun episodes (the J'onn trial and the Flash crossover), we get this clusterfuck of a finale.
See, I know the budget of a TV series isn't as large as a movie, but after the cliffhanger from last episode that Myriad has taken control of every single human in National City... nothing really comes of it. Almost the entirety of the episode is spent in Cat Grant's office, having Supergirl, Cat and Maxwell Lord talk and talk and talk and talk and repeat their discussion from a different angle and talk and talk and talk. The stakes never really felt that high, really, especially since the random Kelly lady who died was not someone we've seen before. It's a display of Non's control over humanity, of course, but a combination of the lack of any action throughout the majority of the episode and generally how vague Non's plans is ends up being kind of detrimental to the tension of the episode.
The fact that Maxwell Lord and Cat Grant are the only two humans in National City not to be affected by Myriad also doesn't really help the episode either. Lord makes sense from a storytelling point of view. He is a paranoid, super-pragmatic son of a bitch who hates aliens, after all. Makes sense that he would be wearing protection from mind-control. The fact that he sent anti-mind-control earrings to Cat Grant? It doesn't make sense. The two never interacted in a friendly manner throughout the past 18 episodes, and having Cat Grant show up just to continue giving inconsistently-scripted lines doesn't do her any favour, really. And honestly the writing quality in this episode... just kinda plummeted, didn't it? Not only do they keep repeating the same discussion on whether effectively nuking the city is good or not, Kara's long speeches about hope seemed long-winded and unnecessary. All she has to do is just go 'no, nuking a city is wrong, you psychopath!'
Also, they could've gone with the 'Superman is off in space' excuse which they made earlier this episode instead of having him zoom in just to be mind-controlled and almost forgotten for the duration of this episode and the next. The explanation to why Myriad affected Superman because he was raised on Earth was also dumb. Was Supergirl not raised on Earth as well? Hell, if anything, she has been embracing Earth life moreso than Superman, being content to work in CatCo for the rest of her life if Alex hadn't been on that unfortunate plane. Also the fact that neither Non nor Indigo really made use of the fact that, hey, they have motherfucking Superman under their thrall! Why not have the excuse be Non's randomly-disappeared army of Kryptonians be fighting Superman elsewhere?
We could've had Maxima (who was a pretty major character in Superman lore!) actually break free and wreak havoc to give Supergirl a distraction instead of, y'know, being trapped in Cat Grant's office and yapping like a goldfish. She shows up, I realized who she is and had a happy fan smile, and then she gets re-incarcerated almost immediately.
Non's a very weak villain, too. In addition to the show's hilariously bad allegory that having everyone mind-controlled into a hive-mind would solve all the problems because oh the world keeps thinking of celebrities and sex and shit instead of solving global warming blah blah blah... which would be great if it was, like, for a single line and not so on-the-nose. Maybe a simple "your society would benefit so much more if they weren't obsessed with trivialities and individuality" or some shit like that, instead of being on-the-nose. And Non shows up, tells three of Supergirl's friends to jump off the roof... and just buggers off? Really? No taking Supergirl captive, no forcing Lord and Cat under his control? And despite Indigo telling him how sensible it would be to kill Kara, nah, let's just stand around in this room.
J'onn and Alex show up again, and bring Alex's mom up to speed about what's going on. Alex's bullheaded idiocy to charge straight into the city even though it's made clear that all humans are affected by Myriad is... well, nothing short of moronic. Even a five-year-old knows that sending J'onn in is the only really sane move. What do you think you can do in National City, Alex, honestly? All you did is fuck J'onn's concentration up, get mind-controlled and forced to fight Kara for extra drama. J'onn tried his best to fight Indigo, but gets stabbed for his troubles. Seriously, Alex, you're better off, like, trying to dig for information or help the military out or... hell, something that doesn't involve you walking straight into the lion's den.
Yeah, the more I talk about this episode's plot, the more it falls apart. And that's not counting the insane annoyance factor of the whole 'greater good versus hope' speech. It's just an utterly dumb episode, really. Even if this was the plot of a Saturday morning cartoon, I would still call it dumb.
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