Supergirl S04E07 Review: Manchester's Loyalties

Supergirl, Season 4, Episode 7: Rather the Fallen Angel

Yep, kinda trying to get catch up before the Elseworlds crossover comes along, which is why the CW shows have been mostly getting priority! Anyway, "Rather the Fallen Angel" is... it honsetly kind of feels like more of the same, with the exception of the Lena subplot. We finally get Manchester Black's anti-hero deal right at the center of the episode as we have the Children of Liberty go through a plan to murder Supergirl. Again.

And the plot of this story goes through two main storylines -- Supergirl and J'onn's separate attempts to figure Manchester Black out, while James Olsen gets his stupid ass kidnapped by the Children of Liberty. And the James Olsen storyline sadly just doesn't work out at all. Mehcad Brooks isn't a particularly bad actor, but he's consistently given pretty poor material and uninteresting storylines, and this is sadly another one of them. The basic story behind Agent Liberty's plan is kinda simple -- he wants Guardian to be the symbol of humanity, blowing up a statue containing a weakened Supergirl (James doesn't know the latter) in front of all media while putting his vocal support behind the Children of Liberty.

And yeah, there's one thing to apparently do it all so the Children of Liberty don't kill Tom Whatshisface, but after spending entire seasons trying to make the CatCo part of the plot matter, with multiple episodes emphasizing on neutral news reporting, it seems bizarre to have James quite literally just throw it away and just sort of resign himself to support the Liberty dudes in front of television without much resistance until he sees Supergirl's heat vision Morse code. Honestly, I am just so uninterested in James Olsen's story, or his piss-poor attempt to make up with Lena at the end of this.

The Supergirl/Manchester storyline is a lot better, although that's only because Manchester's character development makes a wee bit more sense. I saw 'a wee bit', because there's one thing to go from trying to manipulate everyone as long as he gets to Ben Lockwood, and another to just straight-up believe a group of golden-masked fanatics will honour their deal when he brings a depowered Supergirl in... and without even making sure he has a proper backup plan, or filling Supergirl in on what he's trying to do. Was there an actual reason Manchester believes that the Children of Liberty's going to honour their deal?

See, the whole deal is that Manchester set Supergirl up with clues and whatnot, and manages to goad her to go hunt down the Children of Liberty with just the two of them. And yeah, duping Supergirl probably isn't super-hard since she's very trusting, but the rest of Manchester's plan really fall apart when you think about it. And while I get why the show needs Manchester to be quasi-evil, this episode makes him feel stupid more than actually evil.

And mean. Like, there's no reason to be such a dick to Supergirl, and certainly no reason to stick J'onn with an empathy amplifier to make him feel extra pain when Manchester forces him to share in the memory of murdering the Children of Liberty. There's him being driven by revenge and rage and anger, and there's him just being a douchebag.

And... yeah, that's mostly what I feel about this episode, honestly. There are some interesting ideas with the characters, but they're not executed particularly well. The show moves Manchester from "killing racist murderers behind the backs of the heroes" to "Starscream" levels of treachery without any real development, and I really feel like we're missing an episode between the previous one and this one where the superheroes disappoint Manchester Black with their methods or something.


Lena, meanwhile, has her own little world as she goes on with the whole project to cure cancer, and she struggles with morality as she talks to Subject 0331, a.k.a. "Adam". And... and it's well-written, for sure, and a neat character analysis for Lena, but it's kind of... weird in this episode? It's easily far more memorable than the Children of Liberty storyline in this episode, though, with Lena talking about heroes, morality, her past and watching her biological mother die, and how she felt like she belonged with the Luthors, and ending up "moving the spider" and having the trial with 0331 commence. It's nowhere as dramatic as the episode wants it to be, and they probably could've made 0331 be more interesting than quite literally a sob backstory stapled to a half-decent actor. Still, it's one of the better moments Lena has showcased in a long, long time, and I guess Lena has ceased to be interesting a while back when a lot of her screentime revolved around her romance with James.

Overall, though, kind of a bland episode of Supergirl.