Supergirl S04E05 Review: Parasite Redux

Supergirl, Season 4, Episode 5: Parasite Lost

A bit of a slightly confused episode, but one that somehow works relatively well. First up, I have to applaud the show for sneaking in "Agent Jensen" under my nose for nearly a month without me realizing who this was going to lead to. CW has mostly abandoned most foreshadowing to prominent characters and are content on doing their own spin with them, but it's neat.

The biggest problem that this episode has, I think, is having too many major storylines and not enough space to explore them. It's a problem that Supergirl has been having increasingly over the past couple of episodes, although considering how inane and bland some of the weaker third season episodes are, maybe they're compensating?

The main DEO storyline is obviously Supergirl hunting down the alien-killing Jensen-Parasite, and Supergirl herself ends up being a liability. It's a pretty standard storyline, intertwined with the General Haley one (which we'll talk later) and intersecting with the Amadei Derros one (also later), and eventually leads to our action scene. Jensen ended up being talked down from blowing up all the humans in the dome, although I really wished we had actually learned a bit more about Jensen as a person. Actor Anthony Konechny is pretty great in this episode when he's given the spotlight, but considering how much the climax of the episode hinges on Alex appealing to their old friendship and whatnot it fell kind of flat when Jensen was kind of a non-entity or a plot device.

The General Haley story is definitely very interesting. Alex (and the audience) goes in expecting her to be a hard-case like General Sam Lane or the many other obstructive military-men in the superhero genre, but turns out that Haley is nice to Alex, praising her reforms to the DEO, and her concerns about not sending Supergirl into the field against a power-draining opponent is extremely valid. Likewise, even when Alex inevitably breaks orders at the climax of the episode in order to have Supergirl evacuate civilians and to talk down Parasite, disobeying Haley's order to sacrifice a block  instead of allowing Parasite to rampage, Haley actually ends up commending Alex for her efforts.

Of course, the boot has to drop somewhere, and Haley ends up revealing that despite being a pretty competent and reasonable general, she's inevitably going to face some huge troubles against Alex when she reveals herself to be definitely extremely bigoted towards J'onn J'onzz, referring to him as a traitor scum. I mean, J'onn did sort of commit identity theft, and I really, really hope that Supergirl doesn't turn Haley into a one-dimensional "evil racist antagonist, rar" and actually have her be somewhat of a more complex person.

Meanwhile, Kara and J'onn end up meeting up with the alien healer called Amadei Derros... and it's honestly kind of a bland storyline. It's supposed to parallel how Alex views General Haley, except on the other way around -- Kara realizes that the seemingly saintly Amadei might not be squeaky-clean, being a deadbeat father and whatnot, but turns out that, hey, Amadei's all right after all. The storyline really doesn't work because Amadei spends nearly the entire episode unconscious, so the whole "is he a good guy or a bad guy" question isn't as complex as the General Haley one. Ultimately, the addition of an illegitimate child, a life-giving amulet (that can somehow stop the Parasite in an inelegant plot-smooshing bit) and an angry Child of Liberty wife ends up just feeling too much for such an under-developed sub-plot.

There's also a sub-plot about how mass media is going to influence the world, with Kara writing an article about aliens. It's... it's neat, I guess. I confess I don't particularly care about any of the CatCo stuff, though. Far more interesting is J'onn ending up with a fedora and going off to help solve crimes for aliens who don't feel safe going to the police. I love that!

The Lena/James stuff is... it's a bit more interesting, and I do like the fact that they immediately recognizes their previous encounters with Ben Lockwood, and when they do show up at a meeting of influential people, their dawning realization about how so many members there are actually starting to lean more towards Lockwood's hateful ideals is definitely well-delivered. Lockwood gets a pretty well-written debate with James about press and whatnot, and manages to rile the crowd to support James going off to become Guardian, a 'hero of mankind', which is... it's pretty well done, actually. It's not perfect, but I do like the idea of a supervillain using his civilian identity to politically assassinate the heroes and spread nice-sounding hate. Is it a bit too political? I don't particularly know, I'm not an American nor do I particularly care about current politics. I do know that I do like where they're taking James Olsen here, and it's definitely the most interesting the character's ever been in this show.

Overall, it's... it's kind of a confused episode that probably could've worked better with one of its subplots removed and the others expanded upon. Not a spectacular one, but not a bad one for sure!

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• I genuinely am surprised I didn't catch it earlier this season! Agent Jensen becomes the second Parasite. In the original comics, Raymond Maxwell Jensen was instead the first Parasite, introduced during the Golden Age before Crisis on Infinite Earths as a janitor who stumbled across space biohazard stored in storage containers, transforming him into an energy-absorbing creature. 
• Parasite obtaining shape-shifting powers was actually one of the powers that the Rudy Jones version (basically the most popular version of the Parasite, even though he's essentially the same as Raymond Jensen) of the Parasite had for a moment, using said shape-shifting powers to pose as Lois Lane after discovering Superman's real identity.
• In his original inception and before he basically became synonymous with the Justice League team, the Martian Manhunter does spend his time disguised as a fedora-wearing detective called John Jones.