Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 20: Better Angels
And so Supergirl ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. Where most superhero shows at least attempt to make their finales be memorable -- and despite the quality variance of, say, Gotham, Arrow, Agents of SHIELD et cetera, indeed, their finales are at least somewhat memorable -- Supergirl eschews all of this in favour of... well, mere mediocrity. Maybe it's simply because Non was never a really threatening villain, maybe it's because of the bad scripting and pacing, maybe it's because of all the plot holes, and maybe it's because of the maddeningly inane television speech of hope that, oh so conveniently breaks every single person's mind control... but this is easily one of the worst episodes of Supergirl. It barely beats out the last episode by virtue of not spending 80% of its screentime in Cat Grant's stupid office, but it's still pretty terrible.
I know the point of Supergirl is to be bright and cheery and optimistic. That's fine! But there are ways to make bright, cheery and optimistic instead of spending a full fifteen minutes just having her give a badly-written hope hope hope hope speech. Did we not already have that last episode? This kind of bullshit is what made Naruto's finale so horrifyingly craptastic, because what use is all the buildup if you're just going to talk your villains to death? They are going for the 'no one has to die' thing, which is fine! But sucking out any tension and sensibility from your season finale isn't the way to do it.
Having Supergirl talk Alex out from mind control because, y'know, she's her sister, makes a whole lot of sense! That bit was cheesy and sickeningly-sweet but ultimately heartwarming. Having Supergirl's big plan to repeat the same thing on a city-wide scale... ends up feeling utterly nonsensical, especially when it works. And then Non randomly causes Myriad to give everyone headaches instead of mind-controlling them (wouldn't it be far more efficient to mind-control everyone again and have them all commit suicide?) which honestly is just odd. And honestly, Non's motivations are so foggy. He goes from 'Astra would want this' to 'hell yeah, let's blow Earth up and conquer the universe' after two lines of encouragement from Indigo. What the fuck?
We get a nice little battle sequence with Kara fighting Non, blinding the cardboard villain straight in the eyes, while J'onn rips Indigo in half and causes her to disintegrate. Before she shows up in the next scene randomly in pieces on the ground. Wait what?
And then we get Supergirl's oh-so-dramatic sacrifice pushing Fort Rozz out of orbit and being knocked out by the lack of oxygen before being saved by the Chekov's Gun that is her spaceship, which couldn't be more obvious was going to be the solution if they tried. I think the writers resolving Myriad in ten minutes was so they can waste the finale with a goddamned clip show of flashbacks showing what Supergirl meant to all the members of the cast. Holy shit, it really is just like Naruto!
Let's talk about the rest of the plot holes in this episode, shall we? Last episode had Superman be mind-controlled, but where every single person have recovered from Myriad in this episode, Superman is nowhere to be seen. I mean, yeah, the dude's face is like off-limits, but couldn't they have given us a throwaway line about how, oh, Non made sure to take Superman out with a Krypto-tranquilizer drug? How the fuck do the super-paranoid military not put explosives or guards around Fort Rozz with all the Krytonian fugitives running around? Apparently all the DEO members are still under control of Non... so why hadn't he freed the alien prisoners after Kara left post-Maxima last episode?
Some bullshit about Cat giving Kara a promotion. Oh, and speaking of CatCo, how utterly stupid is it for Supergirl to still think of her work and wandering around delivering lattes and shit when Non and Indigo are still running around on the loose? I mean, yeah, she's dedicated to this job for no real good reason but it's just utterly stupid! Some token romance scene with James who I don't give two shits about, and the final cliffhanger has Kara and J'onn investigating another kryptonian escape pod that has crash-landed.
It's a bad, bad finale, with so many things working against it. The fact that it came off the disappointing episode 19 doesn't help either. I don't doubt Supergirl has enough supporters and is popular enough to warrant a season 2, and I do agree that at least half of the cast is charismatic enough for me to want to see them in a second outing... but honestly, can Diana come over from the WB-world and please just kill Maxwell Lord already. That fucker's annoying.
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