Supergirl S02E06 Review: Parasite

Supergirl, Season 2, Episode 6: Changing

A very solid episode that... I didn't really like that much? I mean, I guess it's just that it's super-predictable. There are lots of things to get excited about in this episode. Parasite's debut, Alex coming out, Mon-El struggling with his selfishness, James becoming Guardian, M'gann having to give blood to J'onn... but otherwise it's honestly kind of predictable.

The M'gann/J'onn plot point was honestly very minor and hardly worth talking about. It just adds to the relationship between the two and the fact that there's something that M'gann seems to be hiding. The blood loss is also a cheap way to take out J'onn J'onzz out of commission after the first act so there's no real excuse for anyone to stand in Mon-El and Guardian's way for their spotlight.

The rest, though? It's very obvious that Mon-El is going to eventually become heroic, so there's honestly no tension to that. There is an excellent point that Mon-El is making that simply because he has powers, he doesn't have to feel obliged to go around superheroing, because, well, man's gotta eat. I mean, being an enforcer that beats people up for money is principally wrong, but what if Mon-El is working like, as a construction worker or something? There's also no answer to the debate that Kara is also arguably being Supergirl because she likes the attention, and whether this is true or partially true, it's glossed under the table. Mon-El has a decent fight scene against the Parasite, before he gets kidnapped by Cadmus at the end of the episode, and eh.

James becoming Guardian was... inevitable. The collapsible shield was cool, but otherwise the episode seemed to just force this on happening. There are way more elegant ways to get James in the suit in time for the Parasite showdown, and this isn't it. It's not exactly bad or annoying, it just could've been good.

Alex's plotline about coming out kind of is one of the two big plotlines throughout the episode, 

Parasite's origin story, as widely revised as it is, is of course a treat. Parasite has been one of Superman's biggest enemies throughout the years, and introducing a classic Superman villain into the mix is a nice threat. One has to wonder if all Superman does is fight Luthor since one by one dudes like Metallo, Toyman, Silver Banshee and Parasite are all being transplanted as Supergirl enemies in the CW-verse, but eh. The Parasite is no longer a random janitor being exposed to LexCorp radiation, but instead he's a very staunch global activitionist that gets thrown into the set of The Thing and gets possessed/infected/corrupted by a bunch of alien leeches. The design of the Parasite is pretty cool. He loses his classic silver-bangle things, but he's still a big purple muscle man with a lamprey mouth, complete with an Alien mouth-tongue in this incarnation. 

And while the Parasite's talk about parasitic humans leeching off the Earth gets a bit one-dimensional, at least he's not throwaway like, say, Shade was over in the Flash. He gives a pretty cool showing for himself taking on both Supergirl and J'onn and winning, and later on taking on Guardian and Mon-El. It's a bit of a shame that Kara takes out Parasite with a simple 'overload him with energy!' trick, and honestly as an episode meant to debut both Mon-El and Guardian as superheroes, the Parasite steals both their thunder in just being so much more cool-looking. 

And I think that particular bit is a problem in the episode. The episode might better suited to just handling either Mon-El's transformation from a 'who cares, not my business' dude into someone who's trying to be a hero, or James' poorly-defined desire to go out there in a suit of armour fighting crime. James really feels like just a petulant child who's pissed off that his friends got to play with the big boys and he doesn't, instead of someone who genuinely wants to help. Adding Parasite and Alex's stories into the mix and the two superhero coming-out stories just felt rushed. 

The big B-plot, of course, is Alex's struggles with coming out as gay. Those scenes really could've been super-preachy and irritating, and if it was written by the season one team I would probably have to carefully choose my words to criticize the writing and not the LGBT community, and that would be a pain. Thankfully, it isn't. It might have gone on for too long, but the scenes between Kara and Alex work pretty well at showing the struggles of someone who comes out, about the fear that their family won't be accepting, about their own self-loathing and general confusion that comes along with it... there really isn't much to be said about it other than, well, it might not be the most necessary subplot in all of this, but it at least is written well, and miles and miles more interesting than the soulless Alex/Maxwell Lord plot from season one.

Overall, the Parasite and the Alex parts were great. The rest of the episode... not so much. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Parasite is a classic Superman enemy. With a secret identity that's either Raymond Jensen (pre-Crisis) or Rudy Jones (post-Crisis), the Parasite used to be a lowly janitor working in a scientific facility who's trying to make a buck by pilfering from the company. He was accidentally exposed to experimental radiations which changed him into a purple-skinned monster who has the ability to drain energy from other people. This later extended to superpowers, and a power upgrade later allowed Parasite to also obtain the memories of those whose power he drained. 
• Guardian is actually not affiliated with Jimmy Olsen at all in the comics, but was rather James "Jim" Harper. The original Jim Harper was a vigilante that hung out with kids during the Golden Age of comics, running around with a golden shield and generally being a cheesy nice hero. The modern interpretation of Guardian is a clone of the original Jim Harper created by Project: Cadmus, created as security for the morally ambiguous project, but Guardian eventually developed his original counterpart's heroic tendencies and became a vigilante in Metropolis.
• Guardian's reply, "a friend", when asked who he is, is, of course, a reference to the old Christopher Reeve Superman movie. 
• When Mon-El catches a car thrown by the Parasite, it's framed in a way that mimics Action Comics #1's iconic cover, which introduced the world to Superman.
• Super Friends is briefly mentioned by James and Winn as their little team-up. As everyone probably knows, Super Friends is the title of the old Hanna-Barbera adaptation of DC comics that's more preachy than superhero-y.