Supergirl S02E01 Review: Cousins of Steel

Supergirl, Season 2, Episode 1: The Adventures of Supergirl

Supergirl is trying to find her footing in the premiere to the second season, and it's true for both the show and the character herself. There's a significant sense of a change of tone as Supergirl migrates into the CW universe (but they're not using the very convenient Flashpoint to actually weave Supergirl into the Arrow/Flash/Legends universe why exactly) and we have several things that are distinctly changed around. The cave base is abandoned in favour for a swanky office building, Kara and James Olsen break up, both Winn and Kara is sent away from CatCo (because Cat Grant's actress didn't move to the new shooting grounds, so she won't be a regular), the scripting is a lot better and less preachy...

Oh, and mother-fucking Superman shows up as a guest star, not a mysterious figure we barely see. I like to think that it's because of how Batman v Superman kind of was ripped apart by the critics, allowing TV shows to start to get some leeway with the DC characters that were under embargo thanks to WB's cocksure assurance that their movies will be super-smash hits. With the KGBeast returning to Arrow after two seasons of disappearance, I really wish this is the case.

And, wow, I have nothing against Henry Cavill -- I personally liked Man of Steel, even if I won't rate it as the highest among superhero movies -- but his performance in BvS, doubtless not helped by a pretty crappy script that gave him like a grand total of thirty lines over three hours, and his general angsty saviour thing really didn't work for Superman. Supergirl's version of Superman dialed things back to the fun days of the Silver Age, of old Christopher Reeve movies, where Superman is just this big blue friendly boy scout who smiles a lot and says hi to random kids in the street. 

After the first season tried to deftly to skirt around Superman's existence, saying that, yes, he exists, but he can't make appearances even if it makes sense for him to do so. Just because. And Superman here is just this fun bloke that just screams Superman. He's so hilariously awesome in the first scene we see him in, as awkward bumbling reporter Clark Kent, trying to deal with an angry overbearing boss like Perry White. Alternating from Clark Kent to Superman, and still keeping the exuberant cheer and energy that comes with being a superhero is absolutely fun, and I am absolutely optimistic about Superman's addition to the show. I don't really like to compare and shit on BvS because lord knows the poor movie has had it rough, but man, seeing a very optimistic and smiling Superman is just so refreshing after the dour grim emo Superman from that movie.



And if there's one thing that the casting department got right when crafting Supergirl is that Supergirl herself is very charming and bubbly, and she and J'onn are honestly the two consistently well-acted characters throughout the entirety of the season, where the rest of the supporting cast has irritated me at one point or another. Superman and Supergirl just play off very well with each other, having a chemistry that really sells them as family. Whereas Supergirl is hopelessly awkward in season one and have only gained some confidence as her character grows throughout the first season, she carries herself very well and treats Superman as, well, her cousin. The fact that she changed his diapers as a kid probably helped to see Superman as 'my cousin' instead of this holy-fuck-Superman-is-in-our-base-how-do-we-act like how practically the rest of the cast reacted. From Winn's fanboying, to Alex commenting how hot Superman is, to J'onn's stiffness due to their shared history, to the entirety of the DEO parting like the red sea when Superman arrived on the base... and Supergirl's just like "yo guys, this is my cousin!"

I absolutely love the strange timey-wimey difference where Superman's so much older, has his life with Lois Lane, the Daily Planet and as Superman established, how he's succeeded in even taking down great Lex Luthor... but at the same time, Supergirl's also technically older and is able to tell Superman about the time she changed his diapers or anecdotes of their time in Krypton. What else did I love? How, in their team-up, neither outshines the other. Superman and Supergirl both trust the other to do their jobs properly, whether it's saving an exploding space shuttle or preventing a building from collapsing or splitting up the duties of tackling an army of flying drones. It's just pretty awesome all around, okay?

Mind you, Superman's arrival, while cementing him as a major player in this episode, did not distract from Supergirl as the main character, and she went through a bit of a self-crisis as Cat Grant tells her to pick a career to go with her promotion. There's a bit of an awkward (but mostly inoffensive) moment where Kara decides to break up with James because that's not what's right for the two of them at the moment. Kara's dilemma isn't too ansgty or drawn-out like it would be if it was in season one, and while we did get a bit of a groan-worthy mission statement that basically went "back then I was trying to define Supergirl, now I need to define Kara Danvers." It's a bit of an abrupt move after spending an entire season building this romance up, but on the other hand, I agree with Kara -- it probably wouldn't work out mostly because the two of them feel forced together.


Cat Grant continues to be Kara's mentor and has basically dropped all pretense of being a bitch to her (she's a gloriously fearmongering boss to her new assistant, though) and speaks to her like a mentor. Also she's got a fun scene where she's hopelessly awkward around Clark Kent. Cat's a character that I really have problems with from the first season. The actress is talented and brings a fun character that is easy to love and hate, but multiple points in the series, she just falls into the role of being an ultra-preachy character, or just repeating the 'I'm saying something to Kara that accidentally suits Supergirl's current crisis' plotline ad nauseam (the revelation in this episode that she, oh, pointed Kara out as a reporter from day one made me roll my eyes), or simply being overtly protected by plot armour. Also, I absolutely loathe 90% of the Cat Co scenes, and the thought of not visiting that fillerific setting every week fills me with joy.

Now one of the biggest problems that Supergirl had as a show are weak antagonists. Maxwell Lord, Non, Astra and Indigo are all horribly bland and uninteresting. Now, this season goes back to more classic roots. We don't get Lex Luthor (though his off-screen arrest is felt by multiple characters), but instead his sister Lena Luthor. Instead of just repeating the Maxwell Lord plotline, though, she's presented as misunderstood, trying to wash away the stigma of the Luthor name. And honestly? As a viewer, who knew comics!Lena was not a villain, I was waiting for the shoe to drop that she was the one who hired John Corben and shot him to eliminate him as a witness, all to gain Supergirl's trust. But nope!

Corben (a.k.a. Metallo to Superman fans) is a huge, huge dickwad of a villain and I love him. It's a straightforward role, but in like five minutes John Corben delivered far more menace than an entire season of Non and Maxwell Lord ever did. And he's quickly turned into Metallo in the episode's stinger by Project Cadmus, which is very welcome.

We get some short conflict points with J'onn and Superman, where the two of them have a problem between them because J'onn keeps kryptonite in the basement, which is an interesting thing, but nothing really came out of it. J'onn had a minimal role, but I must admit I squeed a little when I saw J'onn and Supergirl fly through National City's skyline and rescuing people from the aftermath of the crashed UFO.

Speaking of which, apparently the season has a lower budget than the first season? You could've fooled me. Either the CW team is just so used at working with a small budget (and after a half-dozen seasons of other superhero shows, they probably are) or CBS is just shit. The flying scenes with Supergirl, Superman and J'onn all feel fluid and realistic, unlike the stiffness that all the kryptonians have in the first season, or the horrendously ugly Red Tornado they did.

Oh, and before wrapping up, the cliffhanger last episode of a Kryptonian pod with a young Kryptonian man inside is only addressed very briefly. The mystery Kryptonian spend most of the episode comatose, and other than a brief acknowledgement by Superman, Supergirl and Winn that they have no idea how to wake him up, he's left in the wayside in favour of the Lena/Corben plot. Which is probably a result of the channel-switch and the sudden ability to include Superman in season two. But hey, I don't particularly care for this particular cliffhanger, and having a third Kryptonian definitely would distract from Superman's grand return to the small screen.

So yeah, this is actually a very optimistic season pilot. I'm not sure how well they'll be able to carry this quality going forward, but considering how harsh I have been on Supergirl in its first season (deservedly so) it's actually very nice to see them learning from their mistakes and retooling their show, without losing the parts that made it great.


DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• John Corben is far better known as the classic Superman villain Metallo, who, after an injury, his body was transferred into an indestructible robotic body with a Kryptonite heart. Also sharing something common with literally every incarnation of Metallo out there, even before being turned into Metallo, John Corben is a ruthless dickwad of a villain.
• Lena Luthor in the comics is Lex Luthor's sister, and was for a period of time retconned to be his daughter, before being retconned yet again to become Lex Luthor's sister. Her most prominent appearances as an actual character and not a damsel-in-distress/plot device is in the Smallville TV series, however.
• Project: Cadmus is a government-sanctioned group of scientists working to develop powerful metahumans, theoretically to fight threats like "if Superman went bad". It generally fell under villainous management more times than not, though.
• Cat's assistant, Ms. Teschmacher, is based on Luthor's assistant in Superman and Superman II.
• Cat Grant, in the comics, was actually a brief love interest (mostly a one-sided one) of Clark Kent, which explains her attraction to him here.
• Superman supporting characters Lex Luthor, Perry White and Lois Lane, while not physically appearing, are mentioned multiple times.
• We get mentions of the cities of Gotham City and Corto Maltese, as well as the old Superman catchphrase of "up, up and away" and Perry's catchphrase of "Great Caesar's Ghost".