Supergirl S04E03 Review: Surprise Flashback

Supergirl, Season 4, Episode 3: Man of Steel

Wow, I definitely did not expect this. The episode is told almost entirely in flashback. We have a framing story of J'onn rescuing Supergirl from her near-fatal fall from the sky at the end of the previous episode, as well as Alex and J'onn basically recapping the pretty idiot plot contrivance of the DEO assigning the single xenophobic agent in their payroll to guard the Graves (which, as much as I do love this show, is a stupid decision). And at the end of the episode, we get a scene of Lena and the DEO working together to basically cover Supergirl up in some anti-Kryptonite space armour until they can figure out a more permanent cure. (In reality, it's actually because actress Melissa Benoist isn't going to be available for a couple of episodes, which necessitates a bit of a rewrite)

And the framing story basically goes through a pretty simple bare-bones requirement of the DEO's response to the Graves/Agent Liberty attack against Supergirl, but god damn if I wasn't utterly blown away by how well-done the flashback episode is.

See, most writers tend to really not get the balance when writing "tragic villain". Sometimes they just emphasize way too much on the tragic part, like most portrayals of Mr. Freeze, that our hero really comes off as an asshole when they beat the villain. Sometimes, they emphasize a bit too much on the villain part that the 'tragedy' in their life feels like a flimsy handwave, at odds with everything the character is doing and attempt to inject a backstory, like Arrow's Prometheus or Flash's Thinker. Written well, as with Benjamin Lockwood in this episode, you get a character who you genuinely empathize with and understand why he ended up being so xenophobic... while also not excusing any of his hate-driven villainy.

And so the story of Ben Lockwood isn't making a villain that we sympathize with, unlike your Mr. Freezes and Lokis and Harvey Dents. It's showing us the insane amount of bad hands that poor Ben Lockwood is dealt by fate, but at the same time also shows the man's unwillingness to accept aid, and his own transformation into a hateful, unsympathetic villain. It's a surprisingly complex and layered villain for something that could've been so easily "racist alien hater, grr", and kudos for Supergirl in handling this character, making him so much more than a caricature and not making him feel any more heroic than what he is.

And as a geek, I do so, so enjoy the sheer amount of attention given to continuity, with the entire episode having records and references to events that took place within the first three seasons, intertwining Lockwood's story as this schmuck who gets dealt some really bad luck by fate and eventually getting radicalized into xenophobia due to his own hatred at the world and some really, really toxic influences from his asshat father and the people around him. While at first Ben defends and argues against his father's openly-racist views and asks his father if they couldn't move on with their life and go from being a steel company to a Nth metal company instead, events end up causing Ben to feel like, well, the government is protecting aliens more than humans.

And never mind the fact that Ben's workers were rioting and trying to kill that poor spiky alien out of racism (and the whole "aliens are taking our jobs" deal throws in some understandable, if not justifiable, reasons)... all Ben ended up seeing is Supergirl showing up and beating down the rioters and his workers, and later on Ben's attempts to save his father's company is turned down by Lena Luthor -- marching forwards into progress, and, well, basically the same sort of  complaints that people working for an outdated technology has talked about over the years. This ends up causing Ben to become really bitter, and it's reflected in his class lessons as he talks about how people will always pay for the price of progress. It's obviously not a perfect analogy for the real-world equivalent of these issues (since these aliens are actually super-powered), but it's pretty well-done regardless.

And then events continue to spiral out of control -- the Daxamite invasion in season three causes them to be trapped in their house while aliens are straight-up invading the world, and in their frightened attempt to escape, a battle between J'onn and a Daxamite crashes down in their house, and with a mere "you're safe now", J'onn rockets off, leaving the Lockwood family house in flames. We get an argument where Lockwood tries to get James to print his story, and later on he ends up preaching about "nativists" and insulting the complexion of his alien students in his class, which is probably the point where the audience will go "yeah, bad things happened to you, but there's no excuse for being a fuckhead". No wonder he gets kicked out of his job! Also, the show ends up really showing off something that feels pretty real, with Lockwood apparently ignoring multiple previous warnings and dismissing it as "sensitive millennials".

And this spirals out of control as Ben Lockwood continues to blame other people, trying to assault his former student in the alien bar (pretty dumb move, honestly), he ends up really snapping when his father gets killed during the Reign battle... although, to be fair, Peter Lockwood was a hateful moron who refused to get on with the times, and apparently decided he wanted to die in the factory, so that death was definitely on him. The episode shows a lot of reasons why Ben decided to go full-on radical and out for alien blood, setting a factory and fire and killing an alien worker, leading to his eventual recruitment by the Graves siblings, but it also is never really on Ben Lockwood's side, showing just how selective Lockwood's view on life is, and how he is so intent on painting himself as a victim.

Overall, it's a great, great episode that ends up with far more nuance than I had expected from this clearly political-allegory villain, and a combination of great writing, a great format and Sam Witwer's amazing performance ends up with what is hands-down easily my favourite villain in Supergirl. Definitely an unexpectedly amazing episode in what has been a glut of sub-par episodes throughout all of CW's output. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Benjamin Lockwood is, of course, the civilian identity of Agent Liberty from the comics. The comics version of Lockwood is not a giant xenophobe, though.
• Nth Metal, which appeared in the CW-verse in Legends of Tomorrow, makes its debut in Earth-19. Nth Metal is a metal native to the planet of Thanagar, where some incarnations of Hawkman and Hawkgirl hail from. Nth Metal tends to have anti-magic and anti-gravity properties, among other.
• The flashback shows a huge continuity avalanche of previous Supergirl episodes.
• Supergirl's hope speech at the end of the first season is the one on the television in the first scene.
• After dealing with the riot, Supergirl deals with criminals with alien weapons, which happened in the early season two episode "Crossfire". 
• Lena rebranding LexCorp into L-Corp happened offscreen prior to her official debut in season two.
• Biomax Industries, which was a major plot point of the season two episode "Ace Reporter", is briefly mentioned in a news report. 
• The Lockwood family is trapped during the Daxamite invasion, which is the crisis at the end of the second season. Rhea's "we come in peace" speech is seen on television. We also get to see J'onn battling a Daxamite soldier, which causes the destruction of the Lockwood home. 
• Lena taking over CatCo happened at the beginning of the third season's debut.
• Lockwood's students at the bar discuss an "emo chick" attacking a prison, which was one of the first things Reign did. Kara's karaoke night, meanwhile, was seen in "Schott Through The Heart". 
• The attempt at terraforming the earth and the huge collateral damage happening all  over the Earth happened at the climax of the third season. We also get to briefly see Supergirl and Alura fly around. 
• The Maaldorians, one of the species that Lockwood off-handedly mentions, is a Supergirl-original alien species that starred as the villains of the Slavers Moon episode.
• There has been a lot of anti-Kryptonite Superman (and Supergirl, and Superboy) armours over the years in the comics, so I'm not even going to try to note which specific armour this one homages.