Supergirl, Season 6
So yeah, continuing on with our coverage of the final season of Supergirl. I'm not sure how regular these reviews will be, I'm just doing them as the drafts are ready to be edited. We've finished the first batch of Supergirl season 6 episodes a bit earlier and that batch was a bit messy due to main actress Melissa Benoist's scheduling conflicts for the first seven episodes. Now that the cast are reunited, let's see how they handle the final season!
Episode 9: Dream Weaver
"Dream Weaver" is a standalone episode that's more or less self-contained. The titular 'Dream Weaving' plot barely takes up much screentime as Nia tries to figure out the prophetic dreams she's been having, which gets continually interrupted by Nyxly -- who wants Nia's help in bringing her to the 'real world' in exchange for 24 hours with her mother. It's really the bare minimum you'd expect from a temptation-themed storyline like this, and I don't have much to say here.
The main storyline, such as it is, tries to tell a story that once more relates to the CatCo storyline. I'm still not very excited about it, although it is quite clear where it's going to conclude. Andrea and William are just kind of flat characters who I find hard to really get invested in. The main storyline has Kara and Kelly separately investigate different corrupt parts of the system, which ties in with some of the allegories of aliens being minorities that are often treated poorly due to biases. The action scenes and powers are on the very back seat, where our heroes discover that the prison staff has been forcing the superpowered prisoners to do robberies for them, while the social services system taking care of the children related to them is abusing them. It ties in to an Intergang plot, so we still have some traditional Superman/Supergirl plot going on, but it's otherwise about Kara and friends exposing the hypocrisy within this organization that's supposed to represent and help these oppressed people. It's an all right standalone story, if a bit strawman-ned.
Episode 10: Still, I Rise
Kind of forming a follow-up to the previous episode is "Still I Rise", which isn't quite a two-parter in the traditional sense... but we follow the storyline of Orlando, who is freed from the evil prison warden that makes him rob stuff, but ends up now having to contend with another social system that shuts down an affordable housing system. It's something that more or less resolved by the end of the episode (at least until named villains show up) and while the nasty councilwoman is still very classist/racist at the end of it, "Still I Rise" is, again, a pretty nice, standalone episode as Supergirl tries to figure out how the best way to interact with her public is and how to utilize her voice. It's a bit of an odd topic to tackle six seasons into this show, and the broccoli PSA's that Supergirl and Brainy recorded in this episode kind of is comparable to how these episodes have been sounding.
There is somewhat more action in this episode, with the return of Mitch, one of the aliens from the time travel two-parter who ends up kidnapping a depowered Nyxly. Nyxly tricks Mitch and then does something with a freeze bomb to threaten Supergirl and end up absorbing the energies to restore her magic... somehow. It gives the Super Friends some tension and some superheroing moments, including a rather interesting kick-the-dog moment as Nyxly blows up the building that Kara has been fighting for all throughout the episode.
Oh, and Nyxly is out and about to cause some havoc, because Nia let her out. I really did think that the previous episode could've used a bit more of this, because as the dream-spirit of Nia's mother pointed out, she was kind of stupid in the previous episode. Her mother gives Nia a whole pep-talk about not running away from her problems. While the setup was unconvincing, the moments she has this episode is pretty well-done.
Episode 11: Mxy In The Middle
The Nyxly storyline finally goes on in full swing as after two relatively social commentary heavy episodes, we go into something more superhero-y. Mr. Mxyzptlk gets summoned to the third dimension by Supergirl, and after escaping Nyxly, ends up delivering a literal exposition dump via a random musical cover of "I Will Survive". Compared to CW's previous attempts at musicals, this one... isn't the best, which I think was on purpose. But Mxy tells us that Nyxly has apparently been betrayed by the patriarchy, particularly her brother and father... and she also needs both Mxy (who's descended from some important Imp) and seven magical Infinity Stones Totems to take over the Fifth Dimension. Which... okay. That honestly feels quite random, and I really did wish that Nyxly's story was better communicated in her many previous scenes, particularly the Phantom Zone episodes. The Totem stuff is obviously just there to fill up more episodes, and the Forces from The Flash still give me pretty bad PTSD on how badly they can be handled.
This episode is fun, though. Nyxly rampages around with a giant magic cat (Kara uses her heat vision as a laser pointer!) and later on a hostage situation (she can't track Mxy unless he uses his magic), promising to make good on her desire to get vengeance on everyone who wronged her. This leads into a confrontation with Mxy, who betrayed Nyxly when giving testimony in the past. However, with the power of friendship, Mxy ends up teleporting and surrendering himself to Nyxly in exchange for his friends' lives. Nyxly seems a bit conflicted by this, particularly since Kara is at least trying to empathize with the wrongful imprisonment that Nyxly was faced with.
This episode is extremely busy and I wonder if some of it could've been transplanted to one of the two previous episodes. Lena goes to her mother's village, and, in another random revelation, finds out that her mother is a witch? With a bad reputation, but turns out she's actually nice and the murder she did was an accident? The acting is nice but it also feels super-random. Nia gets a bit of a character arc trying to keep the secret and guilt of releasing Nyxly; while Mxy also has a mini-arc of realizing how useless he is without his magic. There is also a C-plot about a kidnapped alien scientist which just adds to the clutter of this episode, which I didn't even remember. Another C-plot is Mitch the alien kind of trying to get into Nyxly's good graces. Bit of a packed episode, and I do wish that some of the content bled into the previous, slower episodes.
Episode 12: Blind Spots
And just like that, we decompress almost immediately. 'Big Bad' Nyxly spends this episode off-grid while she waits for her powers to recover, while the main bulk of this story has Kelly Olsen finally do something a bit more superhero-related. It is honestly quite heavy-handed in its treatment of systemic racism and how certain races are seen as a bit invisible in times of crisis. Kelly, J'onn and surprise guest star John Diggle (from Arrow) all give very impassioned speeches to explore the topic. And I really do like J'onn's speech in particular, especially since he comes from a shapeshifting race. I'm also a bit happy that minor recurring character Orlando has a bit of a character arc that ends here, and that Nyxly's petty destruction of the building is addressed. The episodes work the best whenever it portrays Kelly's frustration about her problems constantly being brushed aside by her allies. And that's a very strong, emotional part of this episode.
It's just that the execution and the framing of the episode isn't the best. Trying to insist that the Fifth-Dimensional Imp that could just as easily snap her fingers and do the same thing a millionfold is less of a priority feels insanely short-sighted, regardless of what Kelly insists. The Super-Friends ignoring her a bit is a valid argument, but I do find it hard to see what the Super Friends could've done really differently... especially since the episode also frames Brainiac and Kelly taking time to doll up her Guardian costume in gold to be a good thing. But hey, nice outfit, right?
We also have a super straw-woman villain in the evil councilwoman from the past couple of episodes being somehow magically empowered with fifth-dimensional debris that drains the strength of the sick people of colour in the hospital, which also just feels a bit too heavy-handed even by the standards of this show. Ultimately, Kara and Alex realize a bit about how they've been ignoring Kelly throughout the episode and apologize, while the Super Friends very quickly and easily defeat the evil councilwoman. John Diggle's cameo in this episode... is a bit weird, and I guess was just a way to have a cameo while David Ramsey directs the episode. I felt like the episode was setting up more for a James Olsen cameo that didn't materialize, but I'm a huge Diggle fan so I'm never going to be unhappy to see him.
Episode 13: The Gauntlet
So yeah, this episode kick-starts what seems to be the theme for the final stretch of this season... the hunt for the plot coupons. In this case, our theme of the week is the Totem of Courage. What initially seemed like a groan-worthy exposition about fifth-dimensional magic and totem doodads end up becoming a surprisingly good episode for both Supergirl and Nyxly, which more than makes up for the weaker aspects of this episode. After a string of heavy, borderline-PSA plots, the Totem of Courage gives us a neatly simple superhero plot -- the Totem of Courage causes a lot of people to become abnormally courageous... and also risk-taking, leading to a scientist guest star, Dr. Lahr, unleashing a lightning storm machine upon National City. Seeing characters like Alex and J'onn in particular showcase just how dangerous suicidal courage could be are also fun. I'm not too big on the very dragged-out "Lena is a skeptic and refuses to acknowledge her random magic heritage" subplot, or the cameo of one of the Kryptonian witches who I don't even remember (the actress is fun, though). I also really don't care about William as a character.
The Totem of Courage, in addition to giving us its excuse plot, also forces Supergirl and Nyxly to confront moments in their life where they should've showed courage, but didn't. In Supergirl's case, she goes back to the very first episode of the show where she rescued that plane, and the 'trial' given by the Totem asks her to do something courageous that she didn't do back then. Which she fails... while Nyxly passes her trial, eventually, after some pep-talk from her bounty hunter minion. Nyxly has been such a cipher throughout the previous batch of episodes, and seeing the rebellion play out from her side does help to ground the otherwise nonsensical 5th-Dimensional royalty plot in actual characters. Turns out, though, the courage that the Totem is looking out of Nyxly isn't the courage to murder or confront her treacherous relatives, but to admit her vulnerability. After her terrible first episode in the Phantom Zone and her streak in the past couple of episodes being not the most complex, I like seeing her confronted with how she views her brother's betrayal as being more damaging than anything that her father could do. Also like the conclusion, which is very Superman/Supergirl-y by having Kara prioritize stopping the storm instead of getting the Totem, which IMO is a much better "focus on who you can save" story than what we got in the previous episode.
Episode 14: Magical Thinking
"Magical Thinking" goes into a focus on William Dey, which... again, isn't a character or a plotline I'm particularly enthused about. Neither am I about Andrea Rojas, who has none of the personality that she had before. Admittedly she was never the most exciting character in the older seasons, but being reduced to the most basic 'reporter boss that's only as obstructive as the plot needs' isn't a particularly flattering look. But William finally gets his wish of a closer look into the inner workings of the Super Friends, and rather predictably, we get a story that's been told a million times in Supergirl -- the superheroes bring hope, free press is good, but not so free that secret identities are revealed. Supergirl has done it several times in its run, and I just came out of this episode shrugging -- I think I would've had a bigger response if it was Kara or Nia, someone I actually care about in the show, being in the spotlight... but William's a rather flatly written character and I find it hard to really care about this plot. The explanation of why the news are good for the public in this specific case and why Lena agrees also doesn't make sense to me either.
The Totem plot this episode is also a rehash of the previous one, swapping in 'Humanity' (or, rather, empathy) in the place of Courage. The population, once more, now goes through a lack of empathy and starts to fight each other. Nyxly and Kara are still emotionally linked, and this allows for some fun overacting on both actresses. Nyxly ends up feeling so much empathy for the rest of the world that her alien goon had to step in. Lena struggles a bit with her newfound magical abilities (still IMO a really weird and random direction to take the character) and is frustrated when her spellcasting seems to only able to help by hurting people even more. And, as I mentioned before, I am very unconvinced that throwing in 'but we let the press cover it' is an actual justification for Lena to use her magic to amplify the Totem of Humanity.
That said, after several episodes of not having it (and a notable weak part from my end for later Supergirl seasons) is that Supergirl actually does some Supergirl-ing and the team zips around the city stopping all the crimes, with a pretty great sequence of Supergirl stopping bullets. There's also a rather nice, if short, C-plot of Alex and Kelly adopting a young alien girl from a foster home. It's a variation of the Orlando storyline, but seeing the little girl's original foster parents basically pushing her our of their house and treating her as a human (or, well, alien) flamethrower was actually quite horrifying.
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That's all the time we have in this article! I know -- and can guess -- that these CW reviews are not going to get the most views. It wouldn't be, even if I had done them when it was timely. But I really did respect these shows enough to want to talk about them, and I'm happy for any of you who stuck around and read it to the end.
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