Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 6: Red Faced
Well, this episode is going to certainly be polarizing. On one hand, it easily has the best scenes and most well-written character development for Supergirl's character. There are also several great sub-plots, exploring Cat's mother (which has been foreshadowed over several episodes), the introduction of the military, more exploration into the Hank Henshaw mystery and a great anger management theme tying them all together. On the other hand, the plot-of-the-week and all the problems that I've been talking about for the past few episodes rear their ugly head with a huge vengeance.
First up, before we get to me lambasting this unbelievably ugly Red Tornado, let's talk about, again, the whole feminism topic. I actually don't mind the speech that Cat Grant gave to Supergirl about how women are judged differently if they throw a tantrum. It was absolutely preachy, but it kinda makes sense in context and works for the whole anger management theme of this episode. But there's a fair amount of other unnecessary lines like "because he's a MAN!" or "only MEN will drive recklessly"... from Supergirl herself, to boot. Also, Cat Grant's mother's point has been her disapproving of her daughter's life choices and career and generally makes her feel shit despite Cat's attempts to reach out to her. You'd think that would be good enough to make her a shitty parent in anyone's eyes -- all you have to do is add some more hurtful lines. Having her spout "I prefer MALE doctors" out of nowhere just seemed tacky and juvenile. Does the show really think a villain is only hateable when they are sexist?
Not to mention, for all the potential that General Sam Lane brings to the table as this hardass xenophobic general (played by Glenn Morshower to boot!) that is absolutely true to his comic book origins... he ends up feeling like a villain straight out of a Sunday morning cartoon. "Fight this robot! You don't have a choice! Government orders!" "It went wild, it's your fault! It's ALL your fault! Even though I said you didn't have a choice!" The big twist that, oh, surprise, surprise, he hates Kryptonians and the Red Tornado is meant to be a weapon to take down Kryptonians isn't even a twist so much as it's just confirmation of what we thought when he acts like a gigantic ass.
Red Tornado... as much as I appreciate them bringing in Professor T.O. Morrow (though they only ever called him Morrow in the show, sadly) they might as well as have cast any of the twenty gajillion evil killer robots in DC lore. Red Tornado might not be the most complex of characters, but he's a C-lister hero that I like. His backstory is simple -- android weapon with tornado powers gains sentience and doesn't want to work under his evil scientist 'father'. Here? Red Tornado is just this random killer robot that runs amok. The tornadoes look impressive, that's for sure, especially the big one that menaces National City streets, but Red Tornado himself? Hah. I generally don't like talking shit about visuals, but holy shit, Red Tornado looked like he walked off from the cast of that old Wizard of Oz movie. Yes, most of the details are pretty okay, right down to the yellow T on his chest, but he just looks so stupid. I don't expect movie-quality level of CGI making him look like Vision or Ultron, but come on. He doesn't even look like a robot -- everything below his neck looks like it's made up of felt. It's hard to imagine him being threatening even when he's summoning giant tornadoes when he looks like he flopped out of a Halloween costume.
It's just as well that Supergirl blows him up with a super heat vision. Which is still blue, despite the cracks around Supergirl's eyes being red. And it's still annoying.
Also, yes, I realize that the love triangle-square thing needs to be in this show, but holy shit, couldn't they have been more subtle about it? The game night scene really felt out of place, and the overly long Lucy and James being in sync while Kara and Winslow stumbles is just bland and uninteresting. And of course Lucy has to throw in a little barb against Supergirl and how she's not James's type because subtlety ain't this show's strong suit.
Which is a pity, because the scenes with James, Lucy and General Sam are pretty decent. Sam hates James for being a glorified paparazzi and doesn't want him anywhere near his daughter, and while Lucy abandoning her high military rank to stay with her man seems kinda contradictory to the whole female empowerment theme, it's a nice, decent little mini-arc for James as he dealt with his own frustrations against Sam. He doesn't get much screen time other than that and the cringe-inducing game night scene, but hey.
Winslow is still so deep in the friendzone and still utterly uninteresting.
Cat gets some great scenes too, especially with her cartoonishly evil mother. The scenes are overtly exaggerated, with Cat's mother basically having all of the 'bitchmom' tropes you can think of thrown in. Sexist. Disapproving of her daughter's career. Arrogant. Prioritizes career over daughter. Hypocritical. Talks shit about a career path that doesn't align with hers. Doesn't care about her grandson. Generally a horrible person. No real motivation beyond being arrogantly punchable. Wow, I wouldn't have imagined she is hateable! Even cartoons aimed at ten year olds have more subtlety than this. A lesson to all writers -- use too many of these tropes and your villainous character just ends up being little more than a joke. Use some and subvert others, and you can get excellent evil parents -- Trish Walker's mother from Jessica Jones comes to mind.
But where her mother was written without any effort thrown in, Cat Grant's crushed expression when she kept her entire evening free -- not an easy task because she's Cat Grant -- and her mother just cancels dinner out of a whim to go with her friends. Cat even offers to join their dinner, but her mother's cartoonish dismissal about how she can't have any topics to talk about just absolutely crushes Cat and her dejected expression afterwards really sells the scene.
Both Kara and Cat kinda explode a bit at each other, then they drink to talk about anger management. It's... not done as well as it could have been, but compared to everything else that was shit in this episode it's definitely decent in comparison. It also brings to head all the anger that Kara has been suppressing throughout the episode (even if we do get the rather blah "women need to be more delicate than men because of society" line) and she ends up admitting to herself the source of her anger and whatnot.
Alex doesn't get to do much this episode other than having a tsun-tsun act with Maxwell Lord that is still as dry as their original interaction. I think the show is trying to ship them together, but wow, a show's that's obvious about romantic interests, the two of them really don't have any good chemistry between them and their scenes are wooden.
Lucy Lane is apparently a major in the military. Who knew? Sadly she serves under the equally-bland daddy-General Sam Lane. And while Sam Lane is written a lot better than Cat's mother it's still not really well done. Lucy herself ends up pretty generic too this episode, just being a generic supportive girlfriend to James and being obliviously jerk-y towards Supergirl.
While offscreen, Winslow apparently hacked into the DEO database and found out that Jeremiah Danvers went missing with his partner while hunting an alien... and said partner is Hank Henshaw. Who showed up alive later on, and redacted that document. It's rather odd for Alex to be jumping to conclusions that Henshaw killed Jeremiah and they could've gone through some logical loops before reaching that conclusion, but hey. At least we get progression.
We also get a cliffhanger, because apparently Kara lost her powers and is now bleeding. Do the plot twist dance!
Overall, though, the messiest and my second-least favourite episode of Supergirl so far (the fourth is still the worst by far), which is surprising considering how many of the themes and scenes in this episode are actually pretty damn interesting and would've been great on paper, but generally shoddy writing got in the way and a lot of those scenes fell flat, dragging the better scenes down with them. Also, this version of Red Tornado is poop.
__________________________________________________________
Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 7: Human For A Day
(I know, I know, I missed out several of the weekly manga. Real life got in the way. They'll show up tomorrow or the day after. It's just that the longer manga reviews like Tokyo Ghoul and Akame Ga Kill, well, take longer to write.)
Well, I think this is the first Supergirl episode I can call solid. Mind you, it’s still got a fair bit to go before it is good, but the only really bad thing that irked me in this episode was the crappy love triangle, but this time it’s at least executed somewhat well with misunderstandings and whatnot. And knowing that Winslow Schott’s asshole lines at Kara is definitely working him to be a version of Toyman certainly makes his character and his asshole “if I can’t have you no one can” lines.
But other than that? It’s a solid episode. Yes, it’s still pretty on-the-nose and it is borderline moronic for Maxwell Lord and Cat Grant to take potshots at each other just because one wants to bring down Supergirl and the other wants to paint her as a symbol of truth, but it could be a lot cheesier. And I watched Supergirl episodes one through six, I know this.
We’ve got two big plots running throughout the episode, and I do like how the DEO plot can’t possibly have gone along if Supergirl hadn’t lost her powers. The Supergirl side of things, well, as the title implies, has her lose her powers after using the Solar Flare attack last episode (which is a thing New 52 Superman does) and is left powerless right at the same time when a mysterious earthquake causes a gigantic disaster in National City. In the DEO side of things, tensions come to a head when Alex and Henshaw has to deal with the breakout of a telepathic alien, Jemm, and it leads to revelation that Hank Henshaw is, in fact, J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter.
I have been spoiled about Henshaw’s true identity before watching the show, and it is honestly one of the things that actually motivated me to start watching this trainwreck. So it’s rather appropriate that the first episode that features J’onn is the first episode that was actually good – and it’s not just J’onn appearing in the end in a costume that almost makes me forgive bad-cosplay Tornado last episode. Almost. The episode was, again, pretty decent.
Yes, some of the lines and acting are overblown and don’t really make sense given the situation – Maxwell Lord and Cat Grant’s speeches definitely take the cake on this, and Alex has some points where I really want to whack her in the head and tell her to do all this daddy drama after they catch the evil telepathic alien monster. But hey.
Let’s talk about the Supergirl side of things. There is always a time in nearly every single show about people with superpowers or whatever when the hero loses their powers – or, if not applicable, when they are thrust into a situation where they are rendered powerless either by situation or simply being fired from whatever organization that’s hiring them. It’s pretty great, and Kara gets some character development that actually makes sense instead of being the product of some convoluted speech that Cat gives to Kara that somehow applies to Supergirl’s big problem. Having her run around, mortal for a day, really brings her down to human level in how helpless she is, how vulnerable she is… and how her status as National City’s symbol of hope ends up getting destroyed when a big earthquake happens and she’s nowhere to be found.
Except the focus of the plot isn’t on Supergirl’s public image like fucking High School Musical or something – Cat and Maxwell Lord have a bit of a spat on that, and Kara and James confront Maxwell Lord on that, sure, but the focus of Kara’s development isn’t on her public image and I can definitely appreciate that. Kara’s big character moment in this story is how they find a dude tying of tension pneumothorax and there’s absolutely nothing she can do about it – not fly her to safety, not even use her X-Ray vision to find the bleeding vein. And she can’t save him! That’s the real kicker, and it’s a wonderful scene. She just feels so helpless and raw and it visibly hurt her so much, and I do like the development there.
And the little gambit where she, sans powers, walks into that armed robbery in costume and just poker-faces her way through it, earning James a photograph of a robber surrendering the gun to Supergirl? That was an actually pretty great scene. Yes, juxtaposing it against Cat Grant’s inspirational speech was, again, too on-the-nose, but I don’t mind this particular instance.
There's also the nice, short scene where Kara tries to seek help from the A.I. hologram Space Mom, who gives some inspirational speeches but is ultimately useless. But no doubt seeing her mother speak to her does wonders for Kara's mental state. I do like how Alex and Henshaw actually consulted with A.I. Alura as well, only finding her answers useless and boiling down to 'get my daughter to handle this'.
James is okay in this episode. He’s mostly consistent in just being a good friend, and his little backstory about why he became a photographer – and ending up capturing That One Picture™ is decent. The lift action scene is a nice little bonus for him, and he’s consistently good in this episode. since the other second-stringers end up a mixed bag of good and bad.
Maxwell Lord gets a nice speech about how people need to believe in themselves and not rely wholly on a superhero, which is an actually pretty valid point to make, but his cartoonish and petty jabs at Supergirl just makes it hard to take his valid points seriously. Cat’s basically devolved down to this super-nice authority figure (“if you need to go home to be with your families, go”) that says the odd bitch thing every now and then (“you have a cold GTFO my building”), and that seems to be the mould the show is settling her in. okay then. It just feels oxymoronic is all. Winn gets his time to shine creating a life feed for Cat Grant’s little sub-plot of media war against Maxwell Lord, but are bogged down by the nonsensical ‘you are not allowed happiness’ bullshit speech. I don’t care enough of their stupid love triangle to write a paragraph on it – and besides, it’s Supergirl’s first real decent episode! Let’s not have entire sections ranting about its shoddy writing.
The DEO scene is a more conventional action sequence against Jemm, Son of Saturn, who, appropriately enough is an occasional J’onn J’onzz antagonist... except, well, Jemm is nominally a hero and only used as a villain when mind-controlled. The character was originally designed as a blatant Expy of J'onn J'onzz himself (and ended up being an actual plot point later on) way back during the Silver Age when J'onn hasn't appeared in comics for a couple of years. Another strike, though not quite as bad as Red Dead Tornado (I hate this incarnation of Red Tornado so much that I refuse to call him that) last episode. The treatment of Jemm here actually resembles that of DC villain Despero, actually, with the pink skin and mental powers and third eye on the forehead and his big hammy conqueror of worlds line... though I guess Despero is big enough of a name (y'know, relatively) for them not to waste on a shitty one-shot villain. This version of Jemm is a generic telepathic monster here who controls mind and is an extremely generic and forgettable monster of the week.
While Alex’s decisions here is a bit questionable it’s still decent character work as her suspicions in J’onn get the better of her and the two end up confronting each other. Of course, the distrust in J’onn is unfounded as she reveals his true identity. It’s a great scene, and a nice little backstory for J’onn where Jeremiah Danvers sacrificed himself to stop the xenophobic REAL Hank Henshaw from killing J’onn. A reverse of CW Reverse-Flash’s backstory? Probably. Less epic? Definitely. But fuck you, we’ve got a J’onn J’onzz!
The DEO scenes are pretty decent enough if you assume J’onn/Henshaw is an alien monster himself, and honestly who saw that J’onn J’onzz twist coming without being spoiled about it? Even with awkwardly-written teases like "I WILL EXPOSE YOU TRUE IDENTITY as a coward" it's still a pretty decent episode that seemed set to showcase Hank Henshaw as Cyborg Superman. Granted it makes J'onn look a bit like a dick in hindsight that he disappeared (presumably phased through the walls) when DEO Mook #1 and DEO Mook #2 were killed, and why didn't he just barge in in full Martian Manhunter getup and bring Jemm down in one go? Or stuff like lying about the neural thingies. It's questionable, certainly, and no wonder Alex distrusts him. A bit harsh in hindsight, perhaps, but I dunno. Maybe it'll play into J'onn's character somehow?
Oh, and boring auntie Astra returns to do a mid-season finale plot or whatever. Maybe she's the one that caused the oh-so-conveniently-timed earthquake? Bah.
Overall, though, it’s the first episode of Supergirl that I can say is actually decent and well-written. And it only took seven episodes!
__________________________________________________________
Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 8: Hostile Takeover
So finally we reach the mid-season finale. We have Supergirl facing off against both her past and nominal Big Bad of the season, Astra, while Kara has to deal with someone hacking Cat Grant's emails. Which... compared to all the bullshit slice-of-life tropey girl-show plot is actually not a disagreeable choice. We even get some espionage moments from the Kara/James/Winnslow trio and a bit of a resolution to the friendzone love triangle dilemma that doesn't involve unnecessary drama.
The Cat Grant email bit is a fair bit more appealing than most, if not all, of the CatCo scenes that they did this season. Which is a shame because, well, the villain turned out to be a gigantic douchebag called "walking personification of white male privilege". Holy
fuck, show. Just what.
We get a couple of decent, if uninteresting, series of fun-ish scenes with the CatCo trio, and by the end of this Cat Grant deduces that Kara is Supergirl. Because anyone in Cat Grant's position with half a brain would've figured it out, especially after her truly obvious slip near the end of this episode. Cat's pretty cool in this episode, with some pretty awesome lines that make the groan-worthy extended screentime in CatCo almost worth it.
We also discover that among Cat's many mysterious emails is sending funds to a certain Adam Foster... who, it appears, is adapted from Cat's comic-canon son, Adam Morgan/Grant. I thought it was weird that they changed the name when Cat's kid showed up in episode 4, but hey. Adam Grant is well known for... being a rich bratty twat. That's the extent of his characterization before the original Toyman (Winslow Schott Sr.) kidnaps and ends up killing him, a story during that period when DC Comics is trying to be edgy and shit and Toyman goes from a toy-gimmick villain who doesn't hurt children to... a creepy child-serial-killer using toys. Yeah. Not the best move there. And hopefully this show's Winslow can avoid that.
Winslow is still boring, by the way, being passive-aggressive at James, who is also boring. The two make up at the end and James tells Winslow to grow some balls and ask Supergirl out. Lucy does... stuff.
Astra is honestly still a boring villain, though we peel back a bit more of her backstory with flashbacks. Apparently Astra found out that Krypton was dying and tried to warn everyone with, well, eco-terrorism or something. Alura uses innocent little Kara to lure her sister and arrest her. It does paint Astra in a bit of a nicer light, making her honestly not quite as flat, but the sheer lack of subtlety in both the acting and scripting really makes it more surprising if Astra actually
didn't have ulterior motives. And there really doesn't seem to be any love left between Astra and present-day Kara, which doesn't really jive with how the two are all like "I love you" in Krypton. Supergirl spends more time going all "I won't
talk to you" and getting angry at her mother for apparently using Kara to arrest Astra more than, well, anything involving Astra herself. It's something, though, and compared to the boring DESTROY KILL MAIM villains like Jemm and Dead Tornado we had before, it's definitely a bit of an improvement.
We get another cliched "oh no, main villain wanted to be caught" plot, though it's honestly not the worst thing about Astra. Also apparently Astra has developed technology to shield herself from Kryptonite, rendering the whole weakness thing moot. I am honestly confused why J'onn was so flustered over Astra having a Kryptonite dagger when they clearly have enough Kryptonite to power up Kara's training room.
Speaking of training room, let's talk about the action scenes in this episode, because they alternate very quickly between being impressive and horrible. Some scenes are really obviously just the actresses for Supergirl and Astra being hung with wires photoshopped out while a fan blows their hair around. Some scenes look like they belong in a high-budget movie. And it's just jarring how the effects are just really good in one scene and horrible in the next. The battle does get a couple of nice shot-for-shot homages to
Man of Steel, with explody buildings (why didn't we get the media-hate-Supergirl plot here?)
right up to the end... though Supergirl doesn't go for the same neck-snap that MoS!Superman did.
The whole Astra thing, of course, is a distraction for the more militant Non (who is a prominent Phantom Zone villain you might recognize from one of the earlier
Superman movies... whose role is basically similar to what Astra's is in the flashbacks), who also happens to be Astra's husband and second-in-command, to charge into Lord Industries and do some shifty villain stuff. Maxwell Lord gets to be a dick and melt some poor dude's face with a plastic grenade blob launcher, but Non zips in, threatens to snap Lord's neck.. and proceeds to throw the dude non-fatally when DEO troopers come in. Yeah. Non, you dumb.
We get a couple of cool-looking non-Kryptonian aliens while the Kryptonians zip around like annoying little mosquitoes. We've got this girl that can breathe out acidic gas, and this dude that has this cool 'rip apart and create a clone of myself' power. J'onn battles against a Kryptonian while displaying his Martian strength. Non faces off against Supergirl before the end. Hopefully Non makes good on his promise to actually deliver a fight, maybe forcing Supergirl to get help from J'onn? Also, J'onn in this universe can't mind-read Kryptonians, a problem he doesn't really have in the comics.
Maxwell Lord is still a tool. I honestly hoped Non kills him. He's got nothing on Luthor.
We get a couple of other nice shout-outs to Opal City, Rao, as well as characters like Non, Dirk Armstrong and Adam Morgan.
This episode and the previous one really shows that
Supergirl can actually try to be a decent superhero show starring a woman instead of this uncomfortable niche where it tries to be ultra-super-duper-girl-power-feminist but really isn't.
Supergirl otherwise really is a sub-par show, and I stand by that decision. It's not even so hilariously bad that it's fun to plop in and watch like
Gotham is, and it certainly has what is easily the worst set of starting episodes among the modern superhero shows. But it's definitely improving. We get some pretty decent backstory, a confrontation, some plot development on the alien front, Cat's character development and... well, we needed something to fill a crapton of airtime, so you have the hacking nonsense. Well. I did say '
try to be a decent show'...
__________________________________________________________
Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 9: Blood Bonds
Wow, this feels like a badly-written episode of an anime. I mean, yes, I get that Superman is on the idealist side of the spectrum, but honestly there has been ways to make idealism not look like utter stupidity. I mean, yes, General Sam Lane attempts to get his information through torturing Astra and is clearly somewhat xenophobic, but it's not like Kara was any better, throwing a tantrum the first time she went to talk to Astra and generally just being unhelpful until she saw there's really no other way. Add that to the utterly stupid notion of counting merely upon Astra's honour for her to call off the Kryptonian army, something that would obviously come to that prisoner exchange... even if Astra is honourable enough to keep her word and is touched enough by Kara's story, there's really nothing in-universe to prove that -- for all Kara knows, Astra's sympathetic story are just lies, something she points out earlier on... and honestly there's nothing in-universe that Astra does that really makes her more believable to Kara. And even if Astra is honourable enough, Non clearly wants to murder Kara as he shows last episode.
Except Non doesn't. He just picks Hank Henshaw up and leaves. Not get one of his other Kryptonian goons to do it while he finishes off Kara (though that can be chalked up to not wanting to hurt Astra, at least). But Hank/J'onn doesn't fight back, or try to escape, which is just dumb. Non kills off that random multi-eyed telepathic alien, while sparing every single person of the enemy forces he meets, which is also equally dumb. Sam Lane uses comparisons to 'the Day the Earth Stood Still' to gain Astra's respect, which actually works, making both of them dumb. That soldier who let Kara past who we're supposed to think 'oh that's nice he's grateful' has probably signed a death warrant on his career, so he's dumb as well. Those other soldiers who blindly follow into a crate with a bomb even though Supergirl is bulletproof are dumb and it's no surprise they die in the most moronic way a redshirt can die. Kara, while dealing with J'onn captured by a bunch of psychotic aliens and the DEO and military basically waging a wartime operation against Non, elicits to go back and forth from CatCo and the DEO just to talk about Cat's suspicions and James Olsen being suspicious about Maxwell Lord. Maxwell Lord can apparently just shoo the DEO from securing the facility just because it belongs to him, making the DEO the most pathetic secret organization ever in fiction. Alex apparently complies, making her equally insipid. And Maxwell Lord joins the idiot squad by catching James Olsen able to sneak into the DEO facility -- he knows James has a friend... and lets James off after slapping him a few times. Not even a busted kneecap for all his troubles? Not even a 'big brother is watching' demonstration? Yeah, Maxwell Lord, I think a third-grade bully is more menacing than you. Granted, it also is utterly idiotic for James and Winn to go with 'let's make James Olsen into a super spy' when they have a friend who can see through walls and has super-hearing.
Also, to add to utterly stupid things that people do, Kara heats up Cat's latte with her (ugly blue) heat vision in what appears to be an office where anyone looking their way could see what is happening. And it's utter stupidity on both Kara, everyone present, and the person who wrote the scene.
Honestly coming back from that slight surge of quality that was episode 8, this one just comes crashing down because of bad writing... and for once the dialogue isn't quite as atrocious (still bland, but not outright bad), but the storytelling is just nonsensical. Everyone does utterly stupid things and the logic leaps that Kara takes throughout the episode honestly just don't make sense, and you really can't fault General Sam Lane for being suspicious about Kara because she just does her own things, basically intimidates Sam Lane to letting her undergo the prisoner transaction -- General Lane had every right to be suspicious and wary about Kara making the decision on her own without even the courtesy to inform the good General just why she is doing it.
Of course, the show itself doesn't really do much to convince us that Astra is an anti-villain or anything of the sort other than her letting herself be captured and Sam Lane being tortured, which totally makes her less evil... no, wait, I don't think it works that way. What the fuck was the point of Astra getting captured, actually? That ends up achieving nothing at all.
The big point of the episode, the whole talk about blood and whatnot, ends up being muddled, confusing and ends up with something that really should've been revised multiple times on the scripting process. The concept, again, is decent -- Kara struggling with whether her mother ignored Astra's warnings and condemned her aunt and uncle to lifetime imprisonment... except it's not executed well at all, is not compelling at all, the flashback is confusing as fuck because neither Astra nor Allura are easy to tell apart since they're played by the same actress and both wear similar clothes, and honestly the payoff that Allura is a mega saint ends up being utterly boring. I mean, shit, having Allura the slightest bit morally ambiguous would be interesting to explore, but nooooo Kara's mother has to be this super-awesome saint who can do no wrong.
Add that to the fact that this episode undermined one of the stronger moments for Cat Grant from last episode -- that she figured out that Kara = Supergirl all on her own, ends up being reduced to a laughingstock of a B-plot that's only saved because the two actresses in the scene are at least half-decent enough to drag the dying corpse of a subplot... which isn't even entertaining at all. Oh, yes, office hijinks intercut in-between a prisoner exchange and Kara's soul-searching is totally necessary. No, what is apparently interesting to the makers of this show is the utterly banal interchange of Cat going "you're totally Supergirl" and Kara going "nope you must be joking hahaumhaha"which the audience is probably supposed to find hilarious.
The show also never really makes it clear just why Kara needs to hang on that CatCo job so much. If it's literally just for Cat Grant's sarcastic-but-coincidentally-appropriate retorts, then, um, wow, add yet another to the 'this is dumb' clutter.
Also, Maxwell Lord is evil and up to no-good stuff involving corpses and Dead Tornado and shit, but he has so little class to him and has so little menace that I'm flabbergasted that big scary secret agent Alex just kowtows to him throwing a short tantrum and going all "this is my property take your pet alien and go!" Being a big hammy manipulative villain should really be the easiest thing to do -- all you have to do is ham it up and act like an entertaining asshat, but Lord fails at even doing that, and ends up just being a douchehole. Though honestly, Astra, Non, Lord, Sam Lane... none of the antagonists really are anything beyond two-dimensional characters and I'm just waiting for any one of them to be remotely entertaining.
Oh, and for all the interest that introducing the damned Martian Manhunter into the show, all he does in this episode is to transform into Supergirl to fool Cat Grant about secret identities and stuff. Totally inspired usage of a character. [/sarcasm] At least Kara discovers J'onn's identity, which is a needless amount of drama that's glossed over quickly.
Other than that, though, this episode, I think, tops the 'Supergirl has to multi-task golly gee' episode as the worst Supergirl episode ever. It's just badly written on all fronts, nothing in this episode works, Non is yet another in a slew of uninspired and uninteresting villains, any attempt at clever emotional storytelling fell flat on their face and I'm just thankful we didn't get any of that stupid love triangle inanity thrown in. With bullshit like this all piled up on each other this just exemplifies all the problems that this show has, and honestly I can see why some people view this as a parody of general Superman movies or cartoons.
I honestly could rant more, or think about the whole 'blood bonds' bullshit to actually give a proper analysis on it, but this shit episode deserves so little of my (or really, any half-intelligent viewer's) respect I'm actually slightly ashamed to talk so much about it already.
__________________________________________________________
Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 10: Childish Things
Full disclaimer, though, because I got an angry email because of my review of episode 9 -- I don't hate Supergirl because I judge the show more harshly than Flash or Arrow or Daredevil or whatever the fuck ever simply because it stars a woman. I don't even hate Supergirl. I think I stated in one of my earlier reviews that Supergirl was one of my favourite DC characters from the comics and cartoons (and still is), and I am just utterly upset at the lack of quality in this show. When you review something, you can't just be singing praises about everything. Things that are genuinely bad, things that could be improved... they must be pointed out. Honestly, you can't just hide every single bad quality that Supergirl did behind a wall of "well it stars a woman so it must be okay". No, simply starring a woman does not automatically make Supergirl a great show. It is still a TV show and a work of fiction that must be judged on merits of storytelling, acting and characterization and all the rest, and I would've written more of the same if it was Flash or Gotham or any other show having the same crap-ton of problems that Supergirl's ninth episode had, be it uninteresting villains, stupid decisions that aren't even justified, piss-poor attempts at characterization and generally messy storytelling. That's the point of a review, you know -- actually intelligent people can discuss and point out the things they liked and disliked about a particular work, and I would like to think that I try to do so in all my reviews.
That said, though, this episode is better than the previous episode. Which isn't saying much, granted. I did enjoy the bit about J'onn insisting that he can't blend in well with humankind the way Supergirl can, a good part of his comic/cartoon counterpart's characterization. And honestly it's a nice enough thing to adapt to the show, considering a good chunk of Supergirl deals with Kara, well, accepting who she is -- a Kryptonian, a superhero, etc. It gets explored when Alex calls J'onn out for hiding his immense martian power when it could be channeled for good, but J'onn counters that he's tried to be the Martian Manhunter for 50 years and all it did was spread panic. J'onn's self-loathing yet his indomitable good intentions is one of my favourite things about the character, and for all the crap I throw at Supergirl I have to say that this is one part that I really think the show did well.
Also nice is seeing J'onn and Kara just fly around and shit. I guess Clark is too much of an invisible man to teach her cousin how to fly properly? Man, this show makes Clark look like an utter dick.
Anyway, the general twin plots of the episode is decent enough, with Kara and Winslow tackling the breakout of Winslow's father, the Toyman, whereas J'onn and Alex go off to investigate Maxwell Lord. Granted, Alex and Lord still have crappy chemistry together, but seeing her and J'onn do stuff together is at least fun. The concept of both plot lines are great, and the execution is decent, even if seeing Supergirl trapped in quicksand is like the least threatening thing you could do to Supergirl yet the show still treats it seriously with Supergirl needing to struggle and everything. Also Alexander Danvers, secret agent, lets an extremely obvious-looking bug be tagged on her bag. Seriously, show-writers, treat your superhuman and secret agent protagonist with some respect!
Other than those two parts, though, both the Toyman and Maxwell Lord threads were dealt with relatively succinctly. Not particularly good, no... the Lord thread is just boring since Lord is such a dull villain, and Winslow Schott Sr. (thereafter referred to as just the Toyman) ends up just being another bland crazy villain, though the connection to Winn does make him somewhat more interesting. We get a nice little moment where Winn worries that he will end up being as crazy as his father, and Toyman basically threatening to blow up the Toy Convention if Winn doesn't kill Toyman's old boss is an overused trope, if one that worked relatively well.
My opinion of Toyman is... well, he's definitely never posed a threat to Superman or Supergirl in the comics, being, y'know, a dude that attacks with toys. Comics and cartoons generally found a workaround by having Toyman build giant toy robots (obviously not something you would do in a live-action series) or threatening civilians, which is exactly what he did here. And to that end I guess he is a pretty great adaptation of the character with the added bonus of daddy issues... far better than what poor Red Tornado got in this show, anyway. And he did get that awesome spiky yo-yo. But ultimately I don't think he impressed me enough as a villain.
The lovey-dovey bit with Winn and Kara doesn't work quite as well. It started off nice enough with Kara supporting Winn with the same amount of support Winn provided Kara, but of course the bad writing meant that Kara sounds like she's outright confessing her love to Winn, and it's not hard to blame the poor frustrated due for getting false signals. What we can blame, though, is the writers for stringing along this exhausting friendzoned pathetic nice guy thread for so long and not giving us any payoff and instead just giving us... whatever the hell this was. Blah.
What I did like, though, was the subtlety that Kara has improved with her arctic breath, freezing the quicksand (again, really?) and later the entire toy aisle at the toy convention and generally being awesome with it. See, Supergirl can too do subtlety. Shame it's wasted on something like arctic breath instead of actual themes and character growth.
Oh, and I do like how two of Toyman's dolls referred to the various looks over the years, a nice show of respect to the comics lore that they pissed on when they did Dead Tornado a while back. Winslow Schott Sr. is based on the first and traditional Toyman as a mostly-unassuming old man with glasses. The grinning doll with a suit is how the version of Toyman looked in the Superman: The Animated Series cartoon where the Toyman dressed inside a suit shaped like a porcelain doll, whereas the yellow-and-black jester toy that Winn got is based on Jack Nimball, a.k.a. Toyman II from the comics, more well-known for being the Toyman featured in Super-Friends. We also get a cameo from Cameron Chase as a generic FBI agent, rather ironic since Cameron Chase's role in the comics is, well, with the DEO. She doesn't do much and could've been replaced with a generic, but, eh, it's the thought that counts.
Also, it's revealed here that J'onn has his phasing powers, so while I didn't mention it on top of all the stupid things that happened last episode... why didn't he use it to break free? In all the confusion I doubt anyone would've cared if Hank Henshaw made a miraculous rescue. Also, this version of J'onn has less control over his mind reading/memory altering powers, basically wiping a good chunk of the security guard's memory when he does his mindwipe thing, and J'onn himself treats it like a last resort that he was sorry to have used. A nice wrinkle in the Martian Manhunter, showing that in some ways, he's still unpolished the way Supergirl is.
The Lucy/James/Cat subplot was undeniably boring, though. There's absolutely no point of having that extended sequence of Lucy promoting feminism and her own choices and her working at CatCo other than to have Kara give longing, sad glances at the pair.
Oh, oh, let me rant a bit about the stupid dialogue in this episode...
"I want to work for a cool powerful kickass woman instead of a bunch of old white men" is one of the examples of the show's attempts to promote feminism, yet uses the subtlety of a wrecking ball. You don't promote gender equality by shitting on the opposite gender. Jeez. This is what makes the show lose so much respect -- by acting like the most stereotypical and the most stupid of the feminist movement. Having Lucy go to James and talk about Cat offering her a job, James being more or less happy and "it's your career, you make that decision" and having Lucy walk out and be all "I'm not asking for your permission" in the most prissy tone ever is also equally moronic.
Throwing in "are you feeling threatened because she's a woman" from Alex is also yet another idiotic line shoved in, and doesn't really fit in the context of their conversation, be it the preceding lines (Alex teasing Lord for being jealous and/or in love with Supergirl) or the succeeding ones (Lord asking Alex about what connection she has with Supergirl). Seriously, at least have the decency to know that your audience aren't utter morons and put some effort into actually inserting your pro-feminist messages in ways that actually, y'know work for the story. Your story is falling apart already as it is, don't add to the damage already done.
To be fair, though, that rant ultimately ended up concentrated in two forgettable scenes, and the rest of the episode is still pretty decent. Pacing could stand to be better, and Lord is still uninteresting, but we got a fair amount of nice scenes and some well-done moments for J'onn, Alex, Winn and Kara.
__________________________________________________________
