Black Lightning Season 4 Review - Part 1

As I ever so slowly make my way through watching the conclusions of the CW Arrowverse shows -- many of which were produced and concluded during the years of the COVID-19, this time I cover the final season of Black Lighting. Had to take a bit to get a recap on what's been going on in this show, but happy to go through the relatively shorter season and see its conclusion. 

Just like my Supergirl final season coverage, this one is going to be a lot shorter and reactionary compared to my previous coverage of CW/DC shows. Again, this review was written over a rather long period of time as I go through the season slowly and write my comments and notes after watching each episode. 

S04E01: Collateral Damage

It is always a bit difficult to come back to a TV show you haven't watched for... god, time flies, half a decade since the last season. The recap doesn't really fill up all the gaps, but this episode is a neat one to set up the new status quo. After the Markovian invasion that happened in season 3's climax, Jefferson Pierce has hung up his mantle as Black Lightning, but has gone on a bit of a self-destructive vigilantism -- combining fights with his wife, still not getting over Chief Henderson's death, explosively attacking drug dealers and aggressive policemen. It's nice to go back to the more intimate setting of Freeland instead of the international metahuman weapons war that they did in the previous season. 

It's an interesting bit of realignment even if I'm not the most invested in the family wangst. There are also things moving along in the background. The newly-introduced police characters are suspicious of Jeff's attack on two policemen, and may be on to his secret identity. Tobias Whale has resurfaced and is now a major player as Lynn's boss -- and there's an argument that the Pierce family has about killing him preemptively. Lynn's been going around testing the metahuman serum as a vigilante. while being in denial about her addiction or something? Gambi's been going around helping clean up Jeff's mess. And lastly, Thunder and Lightning, whose confidence and wings are growing, are taking over as superheroes in the city but find themselves close to being outmaneuvered by La-La's gang. It's an all right season premiere, and hopefully the show will be able to capture some of its original magic before its end.

S04E02: Unacceptable Losses

We continue with the storylines established in the first episode, with Freeland getting caught up in all the chaos as the police are importing anti-metahuman DEG guns, the 100 and Kobra Kartel are warring in the streets, and Tobias Whale literally being untouchable as he makes it clear to Jefferson that his revenge for all of the previous seasons' conflicts are coming. All of this is going on as the Pierce family is falling apart. Jeff is split between 'I can't be Black Lightning again' while also going rogue and beating up gangsters that are evading justice; Lynn gets into a fight with her daughters when they find out that she's been recklessly following them around while shooting up with metahuman serums... and Gambi's just kind of caught between being a 'guy in a chair' and meeting up with his ex Lauren. The show does make it kind of obvious that he's never going to betray the Pierces for an ex-lover, since Lauren is working for the company producing the DEG's, but it's nice to see Gambi having a side-plot for once. 

Things are going quite slowly, although I do appreciate the death of a kid living in a car (his family was displaced by the war last season) ended up tying together the Jeffreson and Anissa plots -- Jeff ends up arguing with Gambi about his brand of vigilantism as he hunts down for the punk that shot the kid, and breaks his legs. Anissa, meanwhile, dons her Blackbird alter-ego to force Lala and Destiny to honour some neutral grounds. Meanwhile, there is a bit of a quasi-framing story of Jeff and Lynn's couples' therapy, but neither Jefferson nor Lynn are behaving particularly logically in this episode, both of them being erratic around Anissa, Jennifer and Gambi. There's also a bit of a side-plot about Anissa making a new friend while struggling with accepting Grace's condition. Seeing the Pierces fall apart as a team and family is an interesting hook to take the show, but it's not exactly the most fun to see over and over again. 

S04E03: Despite All My Rage

We're exploring more of Jefferson's... moping? Coping? He keeps insisting throughout the four-part "The Book of Reconstruction" arc that he is no longer Black Lightning, but as Gambi and other people points out, it's one thing to hang up the superhero suit. It's another to go around and beat up gangsters with his superpowers.. and in this episode, Jeff finds that Marcel -- the father of the boy killed in the previous episode -- is fighting in Lala's illegal fight club, Jeff ends up going in and fights anonymously to give Marcel the earnings. It's helping Marcel, sure, but it's also a surprising bit of brutality as Jefferson Pierce engages in something a bit darker than what a good principal is supposed to do. 

It's also a bit odd since the rest of the Pierce family is still active fighting crime... and each other. After the previous episode, Lynn confides in a therapy session that she has never felt like she belonged in her background as the only person in a military family that didn't fit in, and now as the only non-metahuman and a burden, a significant part of why she's doing so much is also a desire to fit in. The episode's cliffhanger has Tobias Whale manipulate events so that Lynn has dinner with him, ostensibly to discuss a research-funding project but with some creepy undertones as well. Not the biggest fan of the overly soap-opera-y bit of Jefferson arriving, eavesdropping and leaving without saying anything, which predictably ends up being a rather bland B-plot in the next episode. Tech-meta TC joins the supporting cast and continue to appear throughout the season, but he does really just feel like a plot device character and maybe bounces off some dialogue from Jen. 

And after two episode of Anissa's weird floundering around the comatose Grace, she's awake without much fanfare, and gets married with Anissa... also without much fanfare. It feels like this is just tying in last season's unresolved sub-plot, but ultimately isn't that interesting. Jennifer, meanwhile, ropes in T.C. to help her do a bit of a social media war against a reporter, going around to try and show the world 'the truth' about her. It's all right and something new for these characters, I suppose. Jen's bit of trying to get her own identity is understandable, at least. (All the while, there are subplots brewing about the minor gangsters, Chief Lopez and her increasingly anti-meta stance, and whatever Tobias is cooking in the background). 

S04E04: A Light in the Darkness

In the last episode of the first arc, 'The Book of Reconstruction', we get a lot of yelling and family drama about secrets. Through different ways, Jeff and Lynn end up finding out about each other's secrets and are at each other's throat about this. Jeff having going out (and enjoying way more than he should) Lala's cage matches, and Lynn's little meeting with Tobias. Having this take place four episodes in, however, and building up on Jeff and Lynn's own struggles with their respective traumas -- Jeff dealing with Henderson's death and Lynn's superhero drug addiction -- ends up with both Jeff and Lynn letting out some ugly things at each other in the confrontations. Jeff gets an actual good scene where he wanders into a bar and starts shit-talking Black Lightning, but we get other people in the bar (including detective Shakur, a minor recurring character) talking up all the good that Black Lightning's done. Lynn... doesn't really get a huge scene that changes her mind, a bit of a shame. 

Tobias continues to be fun with how much he's stringing Jeff along, setting up a meeting in a restaurant and clearly having fun trying to get a rise out of him. There's something going on with the DEG, with al parties trying to get to them. All of this culminates in Lala's gang attacking the buyback event. Lightning, Thunder and Grace intervene, but the mayor dies -- which ends up enforcing angry police Chief Lopez's hatred towards metahumans. All of this is later revealed to be part of Tobias's plan, who snuck in a metal-manipulating metahuman called 'Red' to kill the mayor in all the chaos. 

The C-plots in this episode isn't interesting. Gambi also has a rather bland continuation of the side-plot to delay the DEG production with his girlfriend... which mostly leads to Gambi discovering another sci-fi doohickey that's rather telegraphed to be commissioned by Tobias. Anissa also gets into a bit of a post-coma-recovery argument with his new wife Grace over... uh... wanting to cohabitate but not wanting Grace's stuff around because of the 'vibes' of their house? Anissa's a jerk, I'm sorry, and this C-plot was essentially handwaved very quickly.

Oh, and Jennifer has been going to the ionosphere to draw energy, but in this episode after Jeff's attempted apology, she... blows up! Whoops!

S04E05: Picking Up The Pieces

So this whole episode deals with an attempt to get the blown-up Jennifer back. Of course the show's not going to kill Jennifer, not in such an anticlimactic way. But there are some really great acting -- particularly from Cress Williams -- as the family struggles with the hectic race to gather all the ionosphere sci-fi-comic-book-y whatsits and reconstruct Jennifer Pierce. We get an oddly off-screen cameo from the Flash, who delivers the sci-fi plot device... and for most of the episode, we wait. Jeff and Lynn explode at each other again -- very understandably considering that their youngest daughter might be dead. Jefferson gets a really sad moment of confiding to Gambi how the most scared he had been in his life was when he thought he lost his daughter when she was younger. Lynn also gets a great moment when she calms down later on and bonds with Jeff over being two scared parents desperate on the hope that the sci-fi plot device works... but Lynn's brain tells her that it's impossible, and it's hurting her particularly because of that. 

Thanks to comic book magic, of course the STAR labs device works at the end of the episode, and Jennifer is back... but with a different actress! Dun dun dunn, I suppose. 

While all of this is going on, other stuff is going on. Anissa and Grace get a completely unnecessary and frankly very distracting sub-plot about boundaries (both of them come off as assholes this time) for very minimal payoff as Grace's integration to the family is essentially brushed under the rug. Jefferson suits up as Black Lightning to get Jen back, but keeps the suit and identity to confront Lala with the gangster stuff. Lala's role as the 'lesser evil' amongst all the criminals is an interesting one, for sure, especially considering what happens to him at the end of the episode. 

Oh, and Chief Lopez finally dips into the 'unreasonable police chief' role in full gusto, which isn't a surprise. She decides to pin the death of the 100 gangster that Jeff crippled (and Lala killed) on Lightning, without any real evidence and out of the vibes of the vigilantes interfering in her protecting the mayor. This makes Lightning Public Enemy #1. Sure. She also cracks down hard on the gangsters. Destiny and Lala appear to make a truce, but it ends up to be a Tobias-sponsored trap, and Lala's entire inner circle (no, Devonte!!!) gets arrested. Lala manages to escape with his Tattoo-Man powers, which continues the whole gang war storyline. 

S04E06: Theseus's Ship

So we get this whole episode devoted to the recasting of Jennifer Pierce/Lightning, as she gets magically aged up, Gotham Poison Ivy / Batwoman style, after being reconstructed through the magic electric 3D printer machine. It's an all right episode for what it is, which I felt kiiiinda tied into Jen's newfound identity-searching crisis? It does feel forced, not going to lie, although at least Jennifer (or 'JJ') being a relative unknown that gets caught in Tobias Whale and his minions' web relatively early promises to be something interesting. 

The main one who can't accept that this is Jennifer is surprisingly enough Jefferson, while Gambi, Anissa and Grace are all more quick to accept Jennifer's new form. Grace gets a nice bit of bonding by explaining her own shapeshifting powers, while Jennifer herself also goes through a whirlwind of emotions as she tries to figure her new body out. I don't necessarily feel that there's one huge big moment that shows off Jefferson and Jennifer's reconciliation, Jefferson just gets pressured (rightfully) by the rest of his family until the two of them team up and fight some dirty cops. That's all right, although I did feel like having a fake-out flash-forward to see what would happen if the civilian was caught in the crossfire was awkwardly handled. 

Oh, while all of this is going on, the C-plot of the 100 versus the Kobra Kartel kind of gets into a bit of a conclusion. With Lala's entire organization arrested by the police, he goes in and tries to kill Destiny, only for Destiny to sic an anti-metahuman assassin (from Arrow-native League of Shadows!) Ishmael who beats up Lala and then turns him into a Han Solo carbonite decoration to get past his quasi-immortality. Okay. 

S04E07: Painkiller

Right, Khalil Payne and Painkiller got split into two personalities or something in the last season. Thanks, helpful recap! 'Painkiller' is a bit of a weird episode in that it very abruptly goes off and takes a side-quest from most of the cast in Freeland, taking Grace and Anissa on a rather random honeymoon to the Akashic Valley. I must say that the Anissa/Grace 'secret marriage' thing felt very flat and unengaging, particularly since Grace is already interacting with the rest of the Pierces. But anyway, they go to a honeymoon and end up coming across a group of... they were originally presented (and mistaken by Khalil and Anissa) as human traffickers, but turns out they're a weird brain-mind cult or whatever. 

None of these is really explained as we're built to some vague villain, Maya (who turns out to be Odell's daughter -- a fact that has no bearing on the rest of the season), and most of this episode just revolves around Anissa being incapacitated while Khalil fights with his split personality Painkiller to go off and rescue Grace. There's a nice enough spotlight and conflict between the two personalities, and there's some nice discussion about the Painkiller split personality who is compulsively 'programmed' to kill the Pierces. Is it enough to carry the whole spotlight episode? Eh. We're introduced to Khalil's little support staff... who aren't colourful or memorable enough to mention. Khalil's arguments against his own dark side is a simple trope, but an effective one thanks to the backstory and to the conclusion of 'Painkiller' being able to befriend Khalil. 

and it's not until I finished and sat down that I realized (and confirmed after a quick search) that this is a random attempt at making a Painkiller spinoff. Just like the 'future Arrow babies' episode in their final season... it really didn't pan out all that well, with so many of the CW superhero shows going into a much-needed conclusion. 'Painkiller' doesn't even follow 'The Book of X' prefix that the rest of the series' episodes have, setting it apart as an episode. 

With Tobias Whale clearly being saved for the final arc, and Lala being reduced to a distraction, it is nice to focus on a former antagonist, particularly one who's actually developing as a character after all the trauma he's been through. Granted, I find it... questionable to think that Khalil somehow managed to set up a Mission Impossible team in the one year between season 3 and 4, but I suppose this is comic-book land. It is a bit of a shame that Jennifer doesn't get to participate in this episode, or even Jefferson, but it's a nice spotlight for Khalil. Other than the format, I don't have any real complaints.

CW's Supergirl - Season 6, Part 3

Supergirl, Season 6

The final stretch of Supergirl's episodes, and... I wouldn't say it 'stuck the landing' and was anywhere as good as the series was in its golden ages (which would be season 2-3, I would say?) but I did enjoy this last season, especially considering how much it was hampered in production due to scheduling conflicts. I'm unconvinced that all the characters got a nice chance to shine, or that all the plot threads are properly wrapped-up, but all in all I did find this season enjoyable. 

Again, as a note, these episodes were watched separately over the course of 2024-2025, and I did short notes and reviews that I turned into paragraphs, almost always not in the same writing session. It's more of a collection of 'reactions' than anything. 

____________________________________________________

Episode 15: Hope For Tomorrow

I am actually a huge fan of this episode's non-superheroic plot, with the bulk of that side of the episode dealing with Alex adopting little girl Esme. It's your typical Supergirl sugary-sweet stuff, but I thought the usage of alien superpowers and the fear of rejection as a metaphor for the fears of being rejected for adoption is probably one of the better 'social drama' storylines we've had in the series. From Kara and J'onn being excited in the beginning of the episode, to Alex's fuck-ups when she defaults to 'drill sergeant' instead of being a mom, and the great acting of the child actor showing how frustrated and unable to communicate and how fearful she was at potentially losing another foster family and not even daring to hope... it's all well done, even if, again, it's a bit too feel-good-y. 

I enjoyed it much more than everything else to do with William last episode anyway, or the Totem plot. Which kind of merge together as Nyxly and Supergirl both hunt the Totem of Hope... which refuses to be moved, Mjolnir-style, until someone displays that they can inspire a huge amount of hope. Coincidentally (and apparently next-door to the museum) is a UN negotiations that went south between Kazina and Corto Maltese, amplified by the effects of the totem. And the conflict seems to be just forced to homage Superman IV: Quest for Peace, because Supergirl angsts a bit that she's 'forbidden to interfere in human history', and then decides that it's okay because the totem is affecting people's mind, so she and her allies pull off a, well, Quest for Peace by gathering all the nukes and launching it into the sun. There could've been some kind of an actual discussion about the degree of how much a superhero is allowed to interfere in geopolitics, but just like last episode's Lena angst, it's just handwaved.  

This, apparently, is a big enough of a 'hopeful gesture' that the Totem accepts Kara's solution, which is extremely rushed compared to the past couple of totems. The underwhelming hostage situation in CatCo was also very rushed and disappointing, and only serves to get our heroes to steal the totem in Nyxly's possession. And then they decide to just deny Nyxly the All-Stone altogether, and Supergirl chucks the Totem of Hope into the sun. Which I guess is an attempt to shake up the already iffy 'totem' formula. Nyxly gets pissed, but gets a LexCorp suit from her 'secret admirer', hinting at a Lex Luthor return. Again, this episode was a bit all-over-the-place with its plot developments. 

Episode 16: Nightmare in National City

We get a fair bit more progression in this episode, which focuses on the Dream Totem. As the chase for the plot coupons continue, the cast is neatly split into two with Nia and Nyxly going off to hunt for the Dream Totem, while Supergirl and the rest of the Super-Friends have to deal with a giant CGI whirling-metal dream monster unleashed upon the world. The former is a particularly strong bit of character-centric episode (and one that, as befitting a final season, wraps up some plot threads!) while the latter is... not the best.

In her attempt to figure out the specifics of the Dream Totem, Nia ends up bumping into her older sister Maeve, who is estranged from her from what we learned about Nia all the way back in season 4. Unlike the brand-new characters that I have no real attachment to, or the absurd shoehorning of Lena's magical background, I was a lot more invested with Nia's drama in this episode. The acting and writing between Nia and Maeve are a nice balance of the two being cautious while also hopeful, which fits the two sisters' heavy history... and the fact that it looks like things are going to get better between them makes Maeve's eventual betrayal even more hurtful. Yes, Nia showing off her dream powers and rescuing Maeve from Nyxly is enough for Maeve to get the episode-finale apologies, but I really do like that while Nia is willing to give Maeve a second (and last) chance, she's not going to forgive all the bullshit and grief her sister put her through. For a show that tends to lean towards optimistic, convenient solutions, this was a surprisingly satisfying one. 

Nyxly, meanwhile, follows the strange voice in the obviously-Lex-Luthor gauntlets given to her, which claims to be her from the future. It turns out to just be Lex, showing up at the end of the episode to finally participate in the last couple of episodes. 

The Kara stuff... is all right. It's the cumulative build-up of all of the anxiety of Kara Danvers' double life, which we've been building up throughout various episode sin the season. It's some nice acting as Supergirl has to struggle with the ever-anxiety-inducing time management as she zips back and forth in attending her duties as Supergirl and participating as a reporter to mediate the peace treaty... but it's also a bit tiresome to see, since neither the reporter stuff nor the superheroing stuff are particularly exciting. (The CGI monster was cool, but it also spends 80% of its screentime invisible). I also think that the episode doesn't do a particularly good job at showing why the Super-Friends need Supergirl since J'onn and the others seem to have things down pat. Ultimately while I like the concept of having a relatable protagonist pulled in all directions, it's also nothing particularly new and I felt like the conclusion of Kara quitting CatCo feels extremely muted.

Episode 17: I Believe in a Thing Called Love

We now get the Love Totem episode, and... I have rather strong opinions about this. At this point we're essentially racing towards the finale of the season and the series, and episode 17 pushes a narrative about our two primary villains -- season-long threat Nyxly and series-long threat Lex Luthor -- that I'm not the biggest fan of. The acting for both actors are pretty great, in particular Jon Cryer, but the huge twist to make these two villains work together? "True love". Apparently, Luthor is in love with Nyxly, except this Luthor that showed up is actually a Lex Luthor from the future... because Luthor time-traveled earlier this season. I kind of... forgot about it, since it wasn't properly mentioned or built up. It's a bamboozling plot twist that had minimal foreshadowing, but so much of the final batch of episodes hinge on this twist that honestly feels like it came out of nowhere. It is admittedly some nice streamlining, and I'm not saying that a character like Lex Luthor shouldn't be explored in a way where he genuinely feels love. But it feels cheap, sudden and frankly other than streamlining the season's two Big Bads, I felt like it was not handled particularly well.

Speaking of love overtaking everything, our good guys plot focus on Alex and Kelly's mutual attempt at trying to do a surprise engagement party for each other. Which... it's a pretty neat fluff scene in a vacuum, but it is quite grating that after six seasons of liking Alex as a character, every scene she's in this season is just romance-related. It's similar to the confusing manner they're handling Lena, who gets saddled with this 'controlling magic' stuff that really doesn't go anywhere. (Oh, and Andrea dons her Acrata costume for some misguided villainy related to CatCo and William, which is... inoffensive.) 

This is in stark contrast to Nia and Brainy, both of whom get storylines that tie in to their history as characters in the show. J'onn, too, gets a great episode here as we remember that he's more than just Team Dad but actually the Martian Manhunter, and he goes through the Courage Totem's gauntlet and faces his tragic backstory where he sees his family killed. The moral of the episode -- true strength comes from facing your fears with your family and friends -- is simple but effectively done with both J'onn and Kara's respective traumas. 

Episode 18: Truth and Consequences

So we get a death. It's a final season, and even with Supergirl as a show being relatively happy-go-lucky, it is a good narrative tool that there are actual stakes with people dying and stuff. It's just that... you can't really kill a major character like Nia or J'onn or Alex without the series ending in a downer, so the solution is William Dey. Who, admittedly, did get a bit more screentime in this episode and the last couple. It's just... not handled the best. William still feels cookie-cutter as a 'nice guy', and even feels shoehorned in as part of the engagement friend group in the previous episode. But despite my negativity about William's character throughout the season, this is a very effective episode for what it does.

Andrea's Acrata-ing last episode ends up with her using William's byline to expose Lex Luthor's love diary (??????) to "prove" that Luthor is back and working with Nyxly. It does tie into some nice themes about Andrea's function throughout a season as a 'sensionalism-first' journalist, which... hasn't been the most interesting thing to watch, but it's at least building up towards something. While not exactly driven out of spite, it is definitely done well that someone as spiteful as Luthor would take the extra time to murder William in the midst of doing his "I've been two steps ahead of you, mwahaha" plans. It is an actual bit of a shocker to have William basically succeed in his recording of Luthor's plans, for Luthor to stroll out... and then come back in and shoot William in the gut. 

The episode really does try to push the Luthor/Nyxly love story with some genuinely well-acted scenes. And it's basically as good as it can get with the rushed amount of screentime we have. We also have some nice action scenes with Luthor, Nyxly, Otis and alien henchman guy dressing up in LexCorp space-suits. I particularly like the scene where the Martian Manhunter shows off his badass phasing powers. 

Some of the other scenes with the main characters of the show, at least, are a lot more relevant. Kara and Alex have an argument about how to raise Esme, with Kara noting that Esme could use 'power suppressors' like her own experience in the past, while Alex is projecting a bit about having to repress who she is. The argument of two well-meaning sisters, and Alex putting her foot down as a mom, is well-done, and sneakily ties into Esme's role as the damsel in distress this episode. The Love Totem migrated to her, and Luthor and Nyxly manage to kidnap her at the end of the episode. 

Another great sub-plot is the surprising addition of an extra wrinkle to Brainy and Nia's storyline. Brainy being also from the 31st century is kind of a handwaved thing throughout the series. We get a surprise cameo from Winn (who I completely forgot went to the future to join the Legion!) who informs Brainy that the entire fate of the Coluan race hinges on him returning and merging with the hivemind of their technological race. It's a nice bit of drama, and both Jesse Rath and Nicole Maines play this story arc well -- a far more weighty romantic storyline than the Luthor/Nyxly one for sure. 

Episode 19: The Last Gauntlet

The bulk of the climax happens in this episode, 'The Last Gauntlet', and... it feels surprisingly... episodic? For a series finale fight, at least? A good chunk of my problem is simply the lack of buildup for almost anything other than the fact that we need to protect the little girl. The action scene on the field itself is perfectly serviceable CW superhero stuff, with our heroes all getting a chance to shine, with the later episodes of the season being particularly generous with green makeup for J'onn J'onnz and Brainiac.

Unfortunately, I really do feel like two huge plotlines in this episode really do fall flat for me. Supergirl and friends utilizing some super-powered solar satellite which no one has ever mentioned before, but coincidentally can give Kara the power to fight fifth-dimensional magic, is a gigantic and frankly clumsy deus ex machina that comes out of nowhere. Sure, the Super Friends end up chickening out at the last minute because using screwing up the sun is not a very superhero-thing to do, but the choice feels like it comes out of nowhere and doesn't really fit with the rest of the season. Isn't the vague throughline supposed to be accountability or transparency or something? This doesn't really jive with it, no.

What's much worse is the handling of the Luthor/Nyxly storyline. It's already hard enough to have to take at face value the fact that Luthor is doing everything 'for love', but it could lead to some interesting characterization for him. But surely there has to be a better way to drive a wedge between the two villains than to have Mama Lilian (who's barely a presence in this season) show up and do some in-law trash talk in front of Nyxly? It feels so banal and poorly done, and at this point I really did wish Luthor was planning to backstab Nyxly all the while. All of the Fifth-Dimensional worldbuilding we had to endure in the middle part of the season? None of that comes to fruition, by the way -- we don't even get to see Mxyzptlk back, let alone Nyxly's dad and brother, who keeps being brought up but end up being completely irrelevant. The two villains are reduced to just angry spiteful hateful strawman villains, which is kind of makes me wonder what the effort of building them up over the past season is.

Episode 20: Kara

And the first half of the final episode is to very quickly and unceremoniously wrap up the two-part climax. I do think it's appropriate that Supergirl finishes its final season with another motivational speech. Is that the reason for this season's muddled Lena Luthor the Teenage Witch storyline? For Lena to help broadcast Supegirl's speech to everyone in the world? Because that sure happens in order for the world to generate positive emotions. 

We get a final fight as Luthor and Nyxly summon quite literally Supergirl's stable of available CGI villain models, including Red Tornado and Metallo, while the Super Friends summon their own stable of guest stars. Mon-El, Jimmy Olsen, Winn Schott, Acrata, even Eliza Danvers show up to help blast the CGI monsters. (No Zor-El, making that whole storyline in the beginning of this season even more pointless) And then Luthor and Nyxly try to summon the creepy Phantoms from the Phantom Zone, only for the power of good emotions to overwhelm them and the phantoms very anticlimactically just drag the two villains back to the Phantom Zone. The cameos are cool. The exit of the villains is, how do we say? Bad. Very very, very bad. Not even for not having any payoff for the Fifth Dimension Civil War thing, or even the death of William Dey, but the way they are dispatched -- especially for Lex Luthor, who's been quite a long running villain? Yeah. It's particularly disappointing that neither Kara nor Lena had a proper face-off with Lex that doesn't feel generic. 

And we have the second half of the episode, which is mostly centered around Alex and Kelly's wedding. Some moments are there. We get the original CatCo power trio of Kara, Jimmy and Winn. Lena and Andrea get some closure. Lena and Kara get a cute moment. We get Jimmy bonding with Kelly. We get the five-second farewell between Brainy and Nia, which... at least was an okay if predictable and seemingly no-stakes payoff (even if it's obvious Brainy's going to come back, I felt that just handwaving the stakes they set up feels anticlimactic). We get a nice Eliza/Kara/Alex family moment. 

I do like the final arc for Kara Danvers/Supergirl. In a world where everyone is empowered by her Big Speech, she's a bit lost on what to do especially since she now realizes that people don't quite need her to be their babysitting guardian 24/7. The answer comes in a much more welcome cameo by Cat Grant, who has her typical devil-may-care mentor attitude, giving Kara an advice to stop trying to hide who she is and very casually dropping the bombshell that she knew Kara is Supegirl all along. Which, by the way, makes 100% sense, and it's a powerful moment as Kara takes off her glasses and places it on a table and walks away. The episode, season and series finally end with a broadcast revealing Kara Danvers' identity as Supergirl. A nice, open-ended 'the adventure continues' ending. 

And... that's it. Again, not the best ending to the show with a great potential and a great cast. I understand the problems that a lot of the CW/DC shows are facing during the year this show was filmed and released, with COVID and mass cancellation of shows, but I really did feel like grading this season as its own thing, they were building up multiple things and then reneging on it in favour for things that are hastily built up and discarded within single episodes. It's a bit maddening, really, because I could really see Supergirl ending the way that it should -- like Arrow did, where Arrow perhaps didn't have the best ending based on the potential of the show, but its final season was one that was good. I like the emotional parts of this show, which admittedly is what Supergirl tends to focus on. It's just a shame we didn't get a tidier ending. 

_______________________________________________________

And speaking of which, as I close the book on Supergirl, I'll continue with the rest of the CW/DC material. Some of them I have these 'episode-by-episode' seasonal stuff partly done, but depending on how much I have to say about any given season I might do just a big, short review of the whole season. Not sure what I'll go with next. Black Lightning or Stargirl seem likely, though. 

Wonder Man S01E08 Review: Lights Camera Action

Wonder Man S01E08 Review: Yucca Valley

And so, Wonder Man ends with a conclusion that, for once, doesn't force itself to have a big bad CGI battle with random bits of property damage and a 'final villain'. These sorts of 'final villain' fights have been the bane of many Disney+/MCU shows and movies, and I am very happy that the atypical, unconventional Wonder Man is allowed to end in its own terms -- with drama related to moviemaking. 

The ending is still an interesting one. With Simon Williams unleashing a huge ionic explosion at the end of the previous episode, the Department of Damage Control finally arrives on scene with damnable evidence to arrest Simon Williams as a metahuman. A depressed Simon just returns to his apartment, getting ready to be arrested. He calls up his mother and has a great heartwarming moment as his mother tells him how proud she is of him. However, the next call is from Trevor, who has a plan to make everything right. 

And showing how genuinely he is sorry for Simon and how much he values his brand-new best friend, Trevor dresses up again as the Fake Mandarin, releasing (with rapid editing speed, I must say) a video of him claiming credit for the explosion on the Wonder Man set, spinning a yarn about infiltrating Hollywood, America's seat of propaganda and whatnot. Agent Cleary, desperate for a win, ends up zipping in to arrest Trevor -- who plays up his capture for the camera by hamming it up. "Trevor Slattery was the mask all along!" 

Mind you, Cleary is a mighty idiot, and I think other than the vague handwave of the court of public opinion, there's no reason for him not to investigate the potential metahuman that is Simon Williams. I guess they took Trevor's bomb story at face value? 

Whatever the case, though, Simon is shocked and touched, but Von Kovak calls Simon back in immediately for shooting because Von Kovak never misses a day of shooting -- and tells Simon to channel all his grief into whatever he is feeling. And of course, the Wonder Man TV show goes on well. The role for Barnaby is recast to Joe Pantoliano (which we met earlier in the season) and we get to see Simon dress up as Wonder Man, inspired by the modern comic-book costume with goggles and whatnot. The movie is the Best Thing Ever(tm), and Simon and Von Kovak are made stars. 

I particularly love the shot of Simon and the people close to him watching the movie. Simon's mother reacting in shock over the third-act betrayal by Barnaby, and Eric and Simon sharing a quiet moment as brothers celebrating his success. Turns out Trevor's career advice from the previous episode worked well for him too, as Simon's agent congratulates him for having his pick of the roles in Hollywood. 

That's where the first half of the episode essentially ends. Simon gets his victory, and we get to see him climb his way up and get that role he always wanted. 

But then we slow down, and we get to see Simon arrive incognito in the Yucca Flats. He meets up with a doctor, under pretense that he's doing homework in shadowing and getting into character for another role. This actually goes on for quite a bit even in screentime that it felt a bit odd -- even if it's something that does also feel like a scene from a 'how actors work' show. I actually get the feeling that this is building up to a 'Simon Williams is moonlighting as a superhero' reveal, which wouldn't be bad but wouldn't match anything in the rest of the movie. 

Thankfully, it is a much more involved sequence than that. The dude that Simon shadows turns out to moonlight for Damage Control, and Simon manages to charm his way (Trevor's methods, charming people!) in as an intern to enter a Damage Control holding site. Having found out that this is where Trevor is being held, Simon walks up, uses his much-more-in-control ionic powers to short out the cameras, walk up to Trevor, and do the same 'taking the fall' thing that Trevor did to him -- and break his buddy out of jail by flying out surrounded in an ionic field. 

(Oh, he also gives the guard he shadowed -- who likely will be losing his job -- enough money to retire several times over, so that's nice)

End scene. 

That is a much more satisfying buddy-cop movie ending than what I thought the second half of the episode was building up to, and I am quite glad for it. Again, both Ben Kingsley and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II were both fantastic in their roles, really embodying Trevor and Simon perfectly. The writing is spot-on in conveying the difficulties of showbiz and character writing in general, and I can't believe just how much I enjoyed this very unconventional show. It's easily one of the most delightful Marvel experience I've had in a long, long while, as much as it doesn't actually feel like a superhero show. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Wonder Man's 'modernized movie' costume is based on his more well-known modern look, based on his most well-known appearance debuting in the 60's Avengers run. 
• At the end of the episode, Agent Cleary describes Wonder Man's powers in the same terms that the comic does -- he can transform his body into sentient ionic energy and manipulate it. 
• The logo that appears in Trevor's fake Mandarin video is the one from Iron Man 3, identified as a fake one by Wenwu in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. 
• Trevor quotes himself from Iron Man 3, namely the 'you never see me coming' line at Agent Cleary. 

Wonder Man S01E07 Review: Secrets Revealed

Wonder Man S01E07 Review: Kathy Friedman

Yeah, again, while this isn't really a typical superhero show, I do find myself quite invested in the acting storyline for Simon Williams and Trevor Slattery. I do still think that the two episodes in the middle could've been cut with little fanfare and would've done the show wonders in terms of pacing and focus. But that's besides the point. 

After the trials and tribulations of the callbacks on the previous episode, Von Kovak has offered Simon and Trevor the roles that they want. And we do spend a chunk of this episode showing the two of them enjoying stardom and the Hollywood life, and Von Kovak's team is even receptive to Simon's extremely in-depth reading of scripts and character. It's probably an underappreciated part of this episode that I truly love, where instead of yelling at Simon for being so hyperfocused and autistic about the character that he is supposed to embody, Von Kovak instead entertains him fully and goes into a discussion about maybe rethinking the main theme of the movie. 

Trevor is also basically become Simon's sidekick, even being allowed to sit in on important business deals and making decisions for him -- with one decision in this episode turning down a Netflix role for Simon. 

The titular 'Kathy Friedman' shows up, however, and she is a harsh, biting Hollywood journalist. Friedman is a journalist that has been so scathing and biting on her pieces on other Hollywood stars that they have essentially become character assassination. For whatever reason, they decide to go through with it, and Simon bends over backwards to change his behaviour on set and learn about the crew and whatnot. That isn't super interesting, to be fair. More interesting, however, is the revelation that Kathy Friedman has interviewed Simon's family -- people who we've seen earlier in the show. Simon panics, but as we find out one by one, neither Simon's mother, his ex-girlfriend, or even the asshole brother Eric sold Simon out. Eric in fact gives nothing but glowing accounts of Simon, which actually tracks -- Eric's problem with Simon in this show has been that Simon's wasting his life, and now that he's actually doing something with his unconventional career choice, Eric's fully on his side. 

Unfortunately for Trevor, however, it is him that Kathy digs up dirt on. While Trevor has been nothing but transparent about his whole gig as the Mandarin back in the events of Iron Man 3, he has been keeping on a lid the fact that he got arrested in the airport by Damage Control. Now I feel that there is a world where Trevor could've kept his cool and tried to at least charm his way out of that, but Trevor ends up blowing up on Kathy, walks out of the interview... and this finally gets gears in Simon's brain clicking. Particularly the stuff about Kathy talking about a 'plea deal'. 

Simon confronts Trevor, and Trevor is torn between his actual initial meeting as someone sent to betray Simon and his newfound friendship with Simon. He ends up confessing and blabbering all about his deal with Damage Control, and this causes Simon to simply... walk out of the trailer. As we've seen before, Simon loses control over his ill-defined powers (in the show, at least, I know Wonder Man's deal in the comics) and blows up the thankfully empty movie set of Wonder Man. End episode. 

This is a great break-up that the show has been building up to. And I do like how it was presented to us, how everything seems to be going well. There was even a sense that Trevor has gained enough pull with his situation next to Simon that he could do what he wanted -- finish filming this movie with his new best friend -- before having to deal with Damage Control. But conflict inevitably arises, and I do like that it's Trevor that ends up being the crack between the two characters. I also love that Simon actually gets closure with so many things in his life here. His method as an actor is validated, his brother and ex-girlfriend actually sees good in him, and everything seems to be on the up-and-up until the one person he keeps closest to him ends up betraying him. Great conflict setup, and it builds things up nicely for the finale. 

CW's Supergirl - Season 6, Part 2

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. 

_______________________________

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. 

CW's Supergirl - Season 6, Part 1

Supergirl, Season 6

So a couple years back, the CW's DC comics superhero shows made up the bulk of the reviews on this blog. During the huge pandemic thing, however, a lot of those shows went on hiatus, before half of them got either cancelled or turned into their last seasons. And... I think it's quite fair to say that a lot of them have essentially 'jumped the shark', so to speak. 

It's just that I never got to really watching any of them when the TV shows came back due to real life and other interests getting in the way. I did, eventually, watch some of the shows, but it was pretty slow going. For your reference, the first of these was done in early 2024... and was left in incomplete limbo for almost two years now. Since I'm going to disappear for a couple of months, I guess it's about time that these articles see the light of day. I'm not sure how much interest that these CW superhero shows -- particularly the later seasons -- will get. But since I'm not writing anything new for May/June of this year, you guys get to see what I wrote and shelved a while back. 

I guess it is somewhat appropriate timing, because there's a live-action Supergirl movie coming up this year? I don't think I've even reviewed the new Superman movie. Very behind on these things! 

______________________________________________

I decided to go with Supergirl first, with its final season. I really don't think there's much content to really deep-dive in a lot of these episodes, so I'm going to do what I did with the last Legends of Tomorrow season I watched, and do a 'partial season' review like this.

And... I'll probably have to explain how I do these reviews; I didn't write all of this article in one go, but rather watched an episode and wrote a couple of paragraphs for each episode, so on and so forth. I don't think I had the encyclopedic knowledge of the CW-verse that I used to have, nor do I want the pressure of having to maintain that standard, and honestly, nor did I have the time or interest to do so again. But if you see some minor inconsistencies in the reviews, that is what to blame. These TV episode reviews are also tricky to write because sometimes there's a natural mid-season cutoff point, but sometimes I just talk more in certain episodes compared to others. 

But I still do want to talk about these shows. So while it will probably take some time, you'll probably see me do The Flash, Black Lightning, Legends of Tomorrow, Stargirl and Batwoman. At the very least, the TV shows that I have covered here. I know there are a lot of other DC TV shows -- Pennyworth, Peacemaker, the Penguin, Lois and Clark... those, I think, I'll reserve for much later, and I'll have to see if I like them enough to talk episode-per-episode. (I'd much rather talk about the new Batman or Superman cartoons). This has nothing to do with the soon-to-be-released Superman movie, since I've been doing this rewatch since early last year, but it's a nice little coincidence that I could post the first of these close to the release date of that movie.

Anyway, Supergirl time! Last we left off, we had some storyline about Lex Luthor finally becoming a villain with the power of a VR Metaverse, Lena and Kara have a bit of a BFF spat, and also Brainiac was pretending to be evil and ended up getting caught up in the whole thing...

___________________________________________

Episode 1: Rebirth

And, well, 'Rebirth'... it's less of a season six premiere, but the final episode of the previous season. And I really can't be too mean to the previous season since it was haphazardly put together during the zenith of the COVID-19 restrictions. And... it's a okay ending, I suppose, with the caveat that I really have no memory of a lot of the supporting characters when I watched this episode. I know the big names like J'onn, Alex, Lena, Lex, Lilian, Nia and Brainy well enough, but I really find myself having to look up a lot of the other characters (particularly the CatCo plot). And since we jump from one character to the next a lot as we establish the sheer scope of Lex Luthor's latest ego-driven plot, we then go straight into dismantling it. It doesn't help that the whole Leviathan / Obsidian North / Lex plot is kind of convoluted, although I do think that around 10 minutes in, the show does the rather understandable decision of just focusing entirely on Lex. The, uh, robot lady from Leviathan ends up getting blown up in the opening act, and then we focus on Lex's plan to make everyone uploaded to the VR-world agree with him, and then kill everyone else with satellites.

And then the episode just... barrels through moments that's probably meant to be a bit more emotional, but everything just kind of feels perfunctory even among CW standards. J'onn and M'gann have this whole talk about the significance of the mind-meld, which... leads to zero payoff other than a big CGI explosion scene. Brainy trying to be evil because of logic, which was one of the few plot points that I remember from the previous season (certainly not because it's good) is just handwaved aside with a uwu-I-love-you handwave. Lena and Kara also just basically kind of shrug and return to being good friends with an apology. I'm also not entirely sure why Supergirl went through all the grandiosity of having to record some memoirs of her time on Earth, was it something I missed in season 5?

Anyway, Lex shows up with his hypocritical 'humans shouldn't be forced to bow down to alien ideals' while being perfectly happy to enforce his own ideals on him. We get a rather bland fight, Supergirl dies for five seconds before some deus ex machina brings her back to life. Lex... very randomly dances in the Fortress which is quite cringey, before the rather haphazard editing of the climax leads to Lex losing his powers, Supergirl shunted away to the Phantom Zone, and also Lena uses Myriad to wipe Lex and Lilian's memories of Kara's identity. Ultimately the whole episode feels like it's just really trying to clean slate in the neatest possible way while also dealing with all the scheduling issues. It is... functional, but I can't say it's a particularly good watch regardless. 

Episode 2: A Few Good Women

So this kickstarts the first half of Supergirl's sixth season, where... thanks to the lead actress being on maternity leave, the titular Supergirl had to film all of her scenes separately from the rest of the cast, leading to her showing up only in Phantom Zone sequences separate from the rest of the regular cast. Which, under better writers, might perhaps lead to something poignant about how the world is coping without Supergirl. Which is a nice thread to pull! Under CW, it's just a lot of angst. In other words, we're back to normalcy for these shows. 

The Earth storyline has our heroes deal with the fallout of the season premiere, with Lex Luthor being put to stand on trial. It's... it's okay. Jon Cryer is entertaining enough to hold his own in the proceedings, particularly when he pulls off the 'arrogant self-assured politician' card that ends up getting to charm the faceless jury, and his genuine surprise at the fact that he won the trial by being honest. Lex re-framing Eve and Lena as being jilted or hysterical women is probably one of the actually well-done Supergirl takes at feminism in that it's not shoved in our face so much but it just... plays out. 

Our heroes attempt to rescue Kara from the Phantom Zone, and we get a decent discussion between J'onn and M'gann, as well as Alex, about whether to put on the 'soldier mode' or 'empathy mode', which... really isn't that black-and-white in real life, but I appreciate them showing our heroes -- the two that view Kara as family instead of having a hero-worship of her like Nia and Brainiac -- being super-stressed in response to Kara's disappearance. There is some technobabble about why they can't access the Phantom Zone properly (something about the Crisis breaking it up) and some of the Game of Thrones wight-cosplayer Phantoms broke out, but the action scenes are clearly playing second-fiddle in this season. 

The Phantom Zone plot is... it's there, and probably the weakest part of the episode. (Second-weakest, I guess, since I have no investment at all with the the Z-list CatCo plot) Supergirl wakes up and fights the Phantoms on her end, and meets... her dad, Zor-El! I really do think they burned this 'the parent is actually alive' plot point to the death with Kara's mom, though, and I really didn't care about Zor-El showing up here. Again, it's obviously just there to have Supergirl have a plot in a Supergirl show, but it feels like some of Arrow's more uninspired island outings. 

Episode 3: Phantom Menaces

This episode feels very much like a 'connective tissue' episode, going through the same ground as the previous episode without the novelty of being the episode that introduces these concepts to us. The Supergirl-in-Phantom-Zone plot has Zor-El be abducted and Supergirl meet a brand-new characer, the banished fifth-dimensional imp princess Nyxlygsptlnz, based on Mxy's girlfriend in the original comics. She's lost her powers after being banished by her dad, but she gets them back by a literal motivational speech from Supergirl, which does feel kind of unearned? The Phantom Zone scenes generally happen so fast that it's a bit hard to feel emotionally invested. 

J'onn and Alex continue a bit of their storyline from the previous episode -- J'onn gets a nice scene with M'gann that puts into context the whole 'emotional bond' thing they did in the season premiere. The 'A-plot', such as it is, has our heroes del with the fact that the Phantoms that hitched a ride on the not-vampire alien last episode wreak some havoc, with M'gann being one of the victims. It's a pretty all right action scene, for what it is. 

But it's Brainy and Lena that ends up having the best emotional moment here. There's a very great scene where Brainiac, who has activated his emotional circuits or whatever, gets very excited at the suggestion of killing Lex Luthor and lists the many, many different ways that he could do it. This leads to a discussion with Lena where Jesse Rath delivers a great 'explosion of emotion' moment as Brainy just breaks stuff out of frustration. Lena, meanwhile, is all set on being cheeky and stealing funds from Lex to fund hospitals... until Lex does the rather darkly-hilarious "what did you expect was going to happen" thing and blows up the hospital. This is honestly the sort of thing that would make a harder stance like what Brainy is suggesting (or even Phantom Zoning him, no?) more palatable? But the show decides to spin it into a "cut off the toxic friends/family" with Lena deciding to step away from LexCorp and refuse to engage in the sibling rivalry that Lex has been stringing her along for her entire life. It's neat, for what it is. 

Episode 4: Lost Souls

And this episode very clearly splits the story into two parts -- the Phantom Zone part and the real-world part. I probably have the least to say about this, other than the fact that our heroes dealing with Kara and going through a "What Would Supergirl Do" mentality feel a bit more strongly shown in this episode. It's just that the plotline is not quite as interesting. The Prime Phantom or whatever starts reproducing more and more, there's something about M'gann having a sliver of a phantom's soul in her, and there's a huge, dramatic moment where Lena and Alex have to make a choice on whether to use the episode's MacGuffin (which can only work once!) to create a portal to save Supergirl, or to revert the psychic aliens back to their human forms. Oh, and random Ghostbusters ripoff machines are also utilized. There's a scene of the party dwindling as they charge into the Phantom lair in the sewers. 

It's all right stuff, and I felt like the arguments were a bit more genuine than the last two episodes. I felt like Lena's struggle about 'thinking differently' than the other heroes, and finding that it's okay, is a much better "real-world emotional problems translated into a superhero crimefighting setting" than the Lena/Lex sequence in the previous episode. 

The Phantom Zone stuff is... also a bit better, if predictable, mostly because Nyxly is a bit less of a cipher. I really didn't care about her introduction last week, but seeing her as a trickster that projects her own problems with her dad towards Kara is quite interesting, giving us an antagonist for that half of the story. Nyxly stabs Zor-El and tries to get her and Kara to go back to the third dimension, but when Kara rebuffs Nyxly's offer, she gets vengeful, forcing Kara to smash the portal back home. Nyxly appears to have been vaporized, but it's honestly rather obvious that it's one of those fake-out superhero deaths. The Kara/Nyxly stuff is all right, but one problem I still have is Zor-El. Who, despite being the father of our main character, feels less of a character and more of a plot device. 

Episode 5: Prom Night

As another cheeky way to get around Melissa Benoist's pregnancy, we now start off with a two-parter where our heroes time-travel to the past, so that Supergirl can still show up in the Supergirl show, but played by a different, younger actress. Admittedly, the handwave-y excuse to all of this is kind of bullshit. I highly doubt that the only Supergirl DNA that they have lying around requires them to travel back to 2009, and if time travel is required, why they didn't call on their sister-show time-travelers, the Legends of Tomorrow, for help. But hey, an excuse plot is an excuse plot.

The episode itself is just a bunch of fun. Brainy and Nia get to explore a bit more of their character arc this season, with Nia struggling with impostor syndrome and wanting to ask her mom (who's living in 2009) for advice, while Brainy is struggling to deal with his mission imploding around him and is stress-eating. Throw young Kara and young Alex into the mix -- Alex comes off as a control-freak but is also struggling with so much that her family's sacrificed for her sister; while Kara wants to prove herself but isn't as independent as she thinks she is. Oh, and thanks to Crisis retconning, Kenny Li is back alive again, though I had to wiki him to remember who Kara's old boyfriend is.

There's a fair amount of genre comedy here with Brainy being dragged into clubs and whatnot -- which I don't care for, but the actor sells the reaction so well that I don't mind. We have two antagonists -- a young Cat Grant (played by a different actress, which is genuinely impressive) trying to investigate the 'miracles' of this small town, while two generic alien bounty hunters called Mitch and Naxim Tork act as the obligatory threat that's preventing Brainy and Nia from doing a quick zip-in, zip-out mission. The excuse plot is just pretty hammy time travel shenanigans, but I do appreciate them trying to tie into the season's "who is Supergirl to you" overarching plot by having a young Kara and a young Alex be the ones to ask it. 

Episode 6: Prom, Again!

The second part of the prom two-parter is... it's there. I must admit that I wasn't particularly invested on any of the actual storylines. The zoo-menagerie aliens are such flat episodic villains that I didn't even bother to remember their names, and I ended up remembering why I found Cat Grant kind of insufferable in the first season of Supergirl. Even without the poorly-handled feminist rants in season one (this episode has a much better female-empowerment side with Kara, Nia and Cat), I really didn't find Cat's "fuck everyone, my career comes first" personality to be particularly endearing. Her origin story at the end is nice enough, but I found her to be quite irritating when her role is to wander around and break everyone's plans and extend the episode to fit its runtime... and the whole 'let's rewind time a couple of hours' solution was nowhere as engaging enough to be worth the screentime the episode dedicates to it.

Despite that, though, I did find that the actual emotional bits to be pretty well-acted, which is what the season seems to aim to do. Nia finding her confidence was kind of expected, although her conjuring a bad CGI pink cougar from her dreams is unexpected. I did find the short bits of resolution to young Kara and young Alex about Alex's control-freak big sister tendencies; as well as young Kara showing that she has bigger plans for her life to young Kenny to both be done well, but I also felt like all of these scenes could've been very easily integrated to the previous episode. (I felt like I would've given more of a shit about Kenny Li if he's an actual character instead of being just that one guy from an older flashback). There are some bits and bytes of your typical rom-com tropes, but not quite enough to justify all of it being stretched to a full episode, I feel. 

Episode 7: Fear Knot

The last episode in this initial batch of "Melissa Benoist is unavailable" batch is... an interesting one. I like it a bit better than the high school two-parter, although it does admittedly get a bit repetitive. After getting the plot device from the past to track down Kara's location in the Phantom Zone, J'onn reveals that their headquarters is actually a secret spaceship and they travel into the Phantom Zone. With one last hurrah for the whole 'phantom' concept, J'onn warns everyone that the Phantoms might cause hallucinations... and that's what the episode leads to. Admittedly, I wasn't paying full attention and was rolling my eyes at how utterly stupid-for-the-sake-of-being-stupid Alex Danvers was when she got into an argument with J'onn and locks him in a cage, but turns out that we keep zipping back to this time period two minutes ago and showing the hallucinations everyone is having. 

It all relates to their fears in some way -- Alex is afraid of being the reason that their situation is fucked up, Lena deals with a 'Kelpie' which also ties to her mother's death, Nia deals with a situation where the time she take to interpret her dreams is too long and leads to their doom (which is probably the one plot thread here that flows smoothly from previous episodes)... it's all nice and well and good, but it honestly is a bit too repetitive and I really do wonder if the ideas of these characters being subjected to fear visions wouldn't have been done better for the first five or so Supergirl-less episodes dealing with the Phantoms. As it is, by the time the third vision rolls in it just feels like we're burning screentime. The conclusion of this episode also feels rushed and leads to a bit of a 'so what' with the fear visions, as some of our heroes just... get over it. They beat the visions and manage to rescue Kara and Zor-El. Oh, and there's also a subplot of Zor-El giving Kara a whole hope speech... which is also a huge miss in my opinion because of the sheer lack of time that we've spent with Zor-El throughout the season.

Still, this is technically the 'midseason finale' of Supergirl's sixth season, with Supergirl and Zor-El rescued from the Phantom Zone and Nyxly hitching a ride. And... I don't think it's anywhere as messy as the previous season was, but it was definitely quite strangely structured.

Episode 8: Welcome Back, Kara

After the Phantom Zone plot and with Melissa Benoist finally rejoining the main cast, we get a bit of a breather episode to settle back in before Nyxly or Luthor comes back as a villainous force. And for a good part of this episode it deals with Kara's PTSD and a "it's okay not to be okay" moral, where she finally breaks down and admits that the Phantom Zone wasn't a nice fun trip and she's feeling a lot of weight from all the trouble that her disappearance has caused. Thus is mirrored, albeit less heavily, by a similar sentiment from Lena and Nia discussing their motherly woes.

Zor-El's return and introduction to human society becomes a bit of a catalyst of this episode's superheroic plot. There was a brief moment where he shows up as 'Uncle Archie' in CatCo which disappointingly does not lead to any actual hijinks. Zor-El tries to rush headlong into helping Earth -- in the way that he failed to help Krypton. Finding Earth's polluted seas to be the thing to obsess about, he reprograms the robot Kelex to clean the ocean. The plot is pretty standard 'good intentions marred by a lack of care', as Kelex gets infected by DEO alien trash, goes nuts, and morphs into a giant trash golem -- a far cooler CGI effort than the previous 7 episodes. They beat the robot with some teamwork, and we get a Superman IV: Quest for Peace homage with Supergirl chucking the giant trash golem into the sun.

Zor-El then decides to go to Argo City to meet his wife and confront his past, which... I honestly can say that while the events of this episode is nice enough for him, I really am uninvested with Zor-El as a character and I'm genuinely not sure what reviving him brings. Oh, there's also a CatCo subplot with them trying to make an expose about Luthor. Kara clashes with her boss, and her love interest (?) has moved on in the intervening time. I like the threads being built up that CatCo is going to matter to the Super Friends' legacy, but I also don't particularly find it delivered in a particularly interesting way.

_________________________________________

And I think that's a nice place to stop for now. Tune in next time for the next batch of episodes!

Wonder Man S01E06 Review: Auditions

Wonder Man S01E06 Review: Call Back

I liked this a lot more than the previous two episodes. Granted, I like it because it actually explores the roles of being an actor rather than the superhero stuff, which I really do feel is the strength of Wonder Man as a show... and it's something that's going to be a take-it-or-leave-it in terms of this particular Marvel project. When the superhero plotline came back as Agent Cleary came to try and get Trevor to continue his spying job, I was actively groaning. 

Which I suppose does speak to the strength of this show in being such an atypical piece of superhero fiction. It's a really fun little exploration about acting and writing and embodying a character, and I enjoyed it because of that. But anyone who's expecting a lot more 'Marvel' and a lot more 'superhero' probably won't enjoy these episodes. 

I did really like it. The episode just has Simon, Trevor and a bunch of other actors who don't really matter show up in the house of director Von Kovak, who is a wacky director who wants to get into the heart of what the actors are. None of Simon's super-meticulous practice mattered, because Von Kovak tosses out the audition callback script and just gets them to improvise scenes. Simon, trying to hold things back about who he really is, ends up subconsciously gimping himself in his performances; something that isn't helped by his fatigue from the filler episode. 

Again, Trevor is brilliant in these scenes, and so does Simon. There is a 'dream' sequence where Simon punches an actor through the head with his superpowers after being pushed too hard in a scene. I felt it was a bit overindulgent and could've worked better if it was adapted into part of the real audition showing Simon's true emotions or something? 

Regardless, the episode ends with Von Kovak praising Simon's rapid improvement during the impromptu acting coaching-cum-audition, and hires Simon and Trevor as the lead roles for the Wonder Man movie. This is great for the acting sub-plot... but not so much for the aforementioned superhero subplot. Trevor gets a bit cocky and drags things out a bit longer with Damage Control, saying that he's got confirmation, but he needs time to get the proof.

With two more episodes left, I am absolutely far more invested in the acting storyline than anything involving superheroics or the little spy stuff. Replace Simon's 'superpowers' with something else that could get you fired in the Hollywood industry -- drug addiction, sexual orientation, political leanings, etc etc, and Wonder Man would still stand up quite well as a story about acting. Episodes 4-5 were very strange diversions that I felt didn't add much to the show, but I am quite interested to see how this strange little Marvel project is going to end. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Trevor's audition, of course, is for his lines as the fake Mandarin from Iron Man 3.