Supergirl S03E14 Review: The Return of Toyman

Supergirl, Season 3, Episode 14: Schott Through the Heart

Yeah, all of this stuff was supposed to be reviewed last week or two weeks ago, but I got really sick and only managed to upload manga stuff and some pre-written Hearthstone and Pokemon stuff. Mea culpa. Anyway, have a review of Supergirl's return. And while I didn't quite have as long of a break as anyone following these episodes in real time, it was still some time since I last saw episode 13. We don't jump straight into the Worldkiller stuff, though, beyond a brief nod to the plotline with Lena Luthor's absence throughout the entire episode being explained by her standing guard over Samantha's comatose body in her L-Corp facility. 

No, the majority of the episode is carried by Winslow Schott, and it really makes me sad just how under-utilized Jeremy Jordan is as an actor. When was the last time Winn ever got to do anything beyond just being mission control or comedic relief? Was it the episodes with his kleptomaniac alien girlfriend or some shit? This one forces him to confront his past, though, when we get the sudden revelation (through a second-long news report while he's singing karaoke, no less) that Winslow Schott Senior, the Toyman, has died off-screen in jail. It's pretty sudden and honestly I've genuinely forgotten that Winn as a character was meant to be a tie-in with the classic Toyman villain. 

And Winn gets so many great scenes where Jeremy Jordan is allowed to show off his acting chops. From his conflicted conversation with James as he storms out of the karaoke bar only to admit he feels empty at his father's death, to his pissed-off reaction at the funeral, to his cold reunion with his mother Mary (played by the amazingly talented Laurie Metcalf), to his angry, angry rant to his mother for abandoning him as a child on the wake of the Toyman's rampage... to his eventual reunion and reconciliation with his mother, Winn is so amazingly scripted and acted this episode that I'm genuinely baffled why the CW doesn't use him more often. 

And the drama between Winn and Mary is portrayed so well, with Winn being rightfully angry for his mother essentially abandoning him to the elements -- not just the one night on the police station that broke him, but also the fact that she never really followed up in trying to save him by contacting the FBI or anything. Mary's anecdotes, meanwhile, paints a harrowing story of an abusive wife trying to protect herself and her son from an abusive husband... who also happens to be a megalomaniacal supervillain. The talk about how her attempt to get to a domestic abuse shelter (fooling little Winn by saying that they were going to Disneyland before it opens) and ended up getting run off the road by Toyman is extremely well-delivered, with both Jordan and Metcalf really selling the scene as two victims of Toyman senior's abuse. 

The ultimate revelation of who's been using Toyman's toys -- whether Schott Senior faked his death, or if he has allies, is revealed to be a new apprentice that Schott Senior had managed to woo in his time in the prison, to 'punish' his family. We did get a flamethrower tank, flying monkey robots, a shitty robotic T-rex and Supergirl being trapped in an action figure bubble wrap, giving us some insanely campy Golden Age hijinks and imagery to contrast with the heavy-handed family drama. Ultimately Toyman's protege, Jacqueline Nimball (a reference to the second Toyman in the comics) isn't very important. Hell, she doesn't even get named, and her motive rant was insanely banal -- but she does represent everything that Schott Senior was -- a destructive factor on Mary and Winn, even after his death. It's nowhere that poetic since, y'know, bad CGI dinosaur robots are involved, but eh. Ultimately it's a very fun episode with a very, very powerful emotional core for Winn's story. 

The B-plots are a bit more... hit-and-miss. There's a constant running gag of James trying to call Lena, which I thought was pretty silly -- James is far more underused than Winn. There's the whole bit with Mon-El trying to get the courage to talk to Kara about the mystery behind Irma and Brainiac's plans, namely that Pestilence is actually the Blight, the villain the Legion will face in the future, and that they want to pre-emptively stop Pestilence in 2018, which is... okay? Why keep that from Mon-El even? I'm not a big fan of the Kara/Mon-El plot, which just feels kind of just poorly-paced and needlessly drawn out... especially considering Irma and Brainiac keeps disappearing from the show for no real reason. 

The bit about M'yrnn having dementia is very well done. It's heartwrenching to deal with dementia, of course, and to see a lovable figure like M'yrnn dealing with it and ending up pushing away his surrogate granddaughter and it's a very well-written (if quickly-resolved) story of how trying to hide a disease from someone's family will cause even more conflict in the long run... but I dunno. It feels that it comes out of the left field, but the actors for J'onn, Alex and M'yrnn are extremely competent that despite the slower run-time for M'yrnn's story, it packs a pretty hefty punch. 

Overall, a pretty good episode despite my brief complaints. Pretty enjoyable.

DC Easter Eggs Corner

• The second Toyman (Toy-woman?) is identified by the credits as Jacqueline Nimball, a gender-flipped version of Jack Nimball, the second Toyman. This second Toyman essentially succeeded Winslow Schott in the comics when Schott was imprisoned, and was made particularly famous due to his more colourful costume being adapted as the Toyman in the Challenge of the Super-Friends Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Eventually, Schott would murder Nimball for usurping the Toyman mantle. 
• Mon-El notes that Imra is telekinetic and not telepathic. In the comics, Saturn Girl is actually far more notable for her telepathic powers and doesn't really exhibit telekinetic powers all that often... I'm not sure if this is cheeky acknowledgement from the creators for changing Saturn Girl's powers, or if it's actual foreshadowing.
• There have been many robotic T-Rexes used by toy-themed villains in the DC comics universe. Most notable is the robotic T-Rex Superman fought in the opening sequence of Superman: The Animated Series, and one that became the iconic trophy in the Batcave.