Supergirl, Season 2, Episode 10: We Can Be Heroes
Well, they can't all be winners. Last episode was relatively episodic, but had the awesome "yay, space travel!" vibe to it. This one... not so much. There are some really good parts, mostly, y'know, all the J'onn/M'gann parts, but the rest of the episode is a mismash of inconsistent pacing and a mixture of a good chunk of practically every other subplot that's been running in Supergirl this season, and it's not very consistent or well-displayed in my opinion.
Out of the non-J'onn plotlines, the Mon-El one I felt was the one that was handled the best. He basically graduates training, a.k.a. superhero kindergarten, and goes on his first outing as a superhero with Supergirl to fight Livewire. And, well, he's just basically being this very nice guy who's along for the ride and trying to impress Kara. Yes, his motivations might be more 'shit, save Kara!' instinctively because he likes her, but he's free from all the nasty drama and he's just chill with most of what's going on and I think I really like that about him. We get a pretty awkward feelings-revelation between Mon-El and Kara at the end, which was perfunctory. I guess it's the simple chemistry and charisma that Mon-El's actor has, and the excellent chemistry that he has with the rest of the cast. It is cool to see Mon-El fight the Livewire bootlegs alongside Supergirl and Guardian, that's for sure... though he really needs to get a better costume than 'last minute Cyclops cosplay'.
Guardian is easily the weakest part of the plot. It's the strongest Guardian story so far, but that's not saying much. James is basically nosing in on Supergirl's superheroing yet again, after failing to reveal his true identity to Supergirl, only to get fucked up by the knockoff Livewires and having Supergirl unmask him dramatically. There... really honestly isn't any reason why Kara and James really needed to have that conflict that they did. Yes, I get that Kara is angry that James and Winn were keeping such a huge secret from her, but honestly, her super-power elitism is a bit hypocritical considering we have Alex, who is as human as James is, and Kara has no problem fighting alongside Alex in literally every episode, and we just came off an episode that crossed over with Kara teaming up with people like Green Arrow, Spartan, Wild Dog and Heat Wave, all of whom are normal humans. And besides, why not just simply recruit James into the DEO as an agent fighting alongside Alex and the rest of the humans there? There really is no reason for Kara and James to have the conflict they had, and Winn's sudden change of mind to being a reluctant supporter of James to his number one cheerleader near the end of the episode also felt absolutely weak.
Moreover, Kara herself really felt... off in this episode. Threatening to shut James down for playing vigilante? That feels like something that Arrow or Batman would do, not Supergirl. And her sheer disgust and instantly-assuming-the-worst about Livewire all felt out of character. Like, I know she hates Livewire, but really? Assuming she's not working with anyone and she's murdered the people who appeared to be her friends breaking her out? That felt really out of nowhere and a very immature way to build up the eventual 'accept Livewire as a not-so-bad villain'.
Livewire herself felt off in her second reapparance in the show. This is her first appearance as an independent villain without Cat Grant around for her to exact her revenge on, and, well, she's quickly overshadowed by this nameless mad scientist (seriously, we couldn't have gotten a name?) who's captured and abducted her to make a couple of knockoff Livewires to fight Supergirl, Mon-El and Guardian. While Livewire makes the best use out of the times where she's allowed to ham it up, the ending scene with Supergirl felt not quite right. She ends up being 'let go' by Supergirl after agreeing to spare the mad scientist, and apparently Supergirl thinks that Livewire is not so bad because... she got tortured a little by an even worse human being? That's not good logic, just because someone had bad things happen to her doesn't automatically make her, y'know, not bad. Supergirl's just lucky that Livewire is feeling thankful for the rescue.
So, yeah, every single main character (other than the gloriously charming Mon-El) in the episode's main plot doesn't have a solid motivation for what they're doing. Which is a good thing the J'onn subplot is around to bring this episode up to something resembling decency, because without the J'onn subplot we're approaching Supergirl season one levels of mediocrity.
M'gann suddenly collapses into a near-death seizure quite randomly, and J'onn has to fight his own hatred and refusal to forgive the White Martians with the fact that, y'know, he has to forgive just this one. J'onn's anger might be unreasonable, but it is definitely far more realistic than Kara, Livewire or James's motivations this episode, and his conversation with Alex is well done. The actor really delivers, whether it's J'onn's anger at the White Martians in general or the conflict between him when he refuses to allow himself to feel any kind of kinship towards this member of a race he knows he's supposed to hate. We get to see more of M'gann's backstory, how she turned against her own white martian race by killing a bunch of white martians about to kill a green martian boy, and M'gann's own huge well of guilt. J'onn's forgiveness means loads not just to M'gann, but to J'onn himself. It's not the best-executed scene thanks to the relatively truncated runtime but it's hell a lot better than everything else running in this episode.
Oh, and at the end of the episode M'gann tells J'onn that her convulsions and sudden near-death experience aren't just random. The White Martians are coming for her, and, well, J'onn has to deal with his demons in a far more literal fashion. Yay for a properly foreshadowed alien invasion!
Still, though, other than the J'onn subplot and some of the funnier Mon-El scenes, this episode was hugely disappointing.
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