Welcome friends to Multiversity’s coverage of Naomi. This is an interesting show, as it is focused on a relatively new and unknown DC character, as well as being executive produced by Ava DuVernay, who appears to be slumming it at the CW. The show is not immediately connected to any other CW/DC shows, and so it is a relatively easy place for a new viewer to step in. Let’s dig in and see if the pilot episode presents a good case for doing just that.
1. Naomi is a delight
While the show is a standard CW product in so many ways, Naomi herself, played by Kaci Walfall, is instantly likable. Walfall plays her as the perfect teenager: popular, kind, nice to her parents, good student. Obviously, the show is going to be playing with that characterization over the course of the season, but five minutes into the pilot and you’re already rooting for her. Walfall’s performance is very different than Brec Bassinger’s on Stargirl, for instance, which has kindness that is obfuscated by a layer of teen angst at all times. Naomi doesn’t appear to have angst over anything, instead focusing on being optimistic and hopeful at every turn.
Now, this may sound too sickly sweet for a show like this, but Walfall plays it just right, allowing Naomi to be near-perfect without being over the top. If nothing else, this show did a fantastic job in casting its lead.
2. The Superman Connection
Naomi makes a strange decision that instantly separates it from its comic source material. “Naomi” takes place in the DC Universe proper, and so Naomi’s obsession with Superman is with a guy that she knows exists in her world. Here, Naomi is a huge fan of Superman comics, which could be a fine way to establish her powers and motivations as separate from DC tradition, but then Superman shows up like ten minutes into the episode. So we, along with the characters on the show, are wondering if superheroes are real in this world, if there’s some interdimensional travel going on, are comics coming to life, or what?
This isn’t necessarily a bad choice, it is just one that seems entirely too complicated. If this just takes place in the Arrowverse, it would make things much, much easier. But the CW/DC loves to put these shows on different Earths and then still make them crossover.
3. Uh, what?
We meet Naomi’s adoptive parents, and they seem like absolutely lovely and dorky. I mean, they mention ‘getting their groove on’ at a Coldplay concert. How mom and dad is that, amirite? But then there is a really uncomfortable conversation that happens at the dinner table involving the ‘rents talking about Naomi’s friends. The conversation is a little too open for a secretive weirdo like me, anyway, with parents and teen talking about dating without a hefty dose of shame, teasing, and embarrassment that accompanied my talks about who I was dating at Naomi’s age.
But that’s not the uncomfortable part. They are talking about how Naomi is being crushed on by her comics-loving friend Lourdes, and also how she recently broke up with fellow military brat Nathan, and how her dad thought she was dating ‘townie’ Anthony. All of this is fine, until her dad tells her that, at some point, “you have to choose.” Now, this comes right after Naomi says that she likes all three of them for different reasons. The implication here is that Naomi is bisexual, and the further implication here is that her dad is rejecting that for a binary choice of dating men or women. That’s never confirmed in the text, but it was so implied that I had to rewind and watch the scene again to make sure I wasn’t putting something there that wasn’t. But no, that is absolutely how it reads.
If that was intentional, it’s fucked up, and if it wasn’t, it was sloppy. Let’s hope it’s the latter.
4. A really dumb plan
So, Naomi both runs a Superman fansite (I’ve never felt more seen on television) and fancies herself a detective of sorts, and tries to get to the bottom of the Superman sighting in town. She and Nathan stitch together cell phone footage into one ‘scene,’ and notice some weird things that lead Naomi down a path of discovery. In addition, Naomi has had two fainting spells, one when at the site of the Superman incident, and one on a military base while on a school trip. While at that base, Naomi uses her first noticeable ‘superpower,’ which is enhanced vision, to read a note about Superman and the woods, and so she goes out there herself.
Continued belowThis is where she meets the local used car dealer, Zumbado, who seems to know too much about her, and wants the artifact she’s found, and takes it by force, using some sort of powers of his own. She also meets up with Dee, the local tattoo artist, who is both acting weird in the cell phone footage, and also knows way too much shit about Naomi.
Naomi eventually decides to steal back the artifact from Zumbado, and brings in half the fucking town to help her break into Zumbado’s car dealership. This should be, max, a two-person job, but it turns into a six person job and almost gets them found out. It also gives her more questions than answers, and leads her back to Dee (where she should’ve gone in the first place).
All of this is to say that, for a character that has been shown to be smart and resourceful, this is an incredibly dumb plan. No one is wearing gloves, no one is doing recon on Zumbado, and there are three times as many people as there should be there. This also shows Naomi, for the first time, not as very smart or cautious, and doesn’t give us enough of a reason to buy this character change in her. It’s a lazy bit of writing in an episode that works really hard to ensure that you like/care about Naomi, and then undoes a lot of that through this dumb plan.
5. Mystery
While this is a superhero show, no doubt about it, the first episode also acts as the first step in the show appearing as a mystery. Who is Naomi? Why does Dee have wings? How does Zumbado know so much about her? A lot of this is seeded in the comic, but with the added detail of Superman being fictional in this world, it just creates more and more questions. That’s a fun hook for the show, and potentially a reason to keep watching.
Hopefully, next week’s episode has less bi erasure and dumb plans, and more of what makes the show so engaging, which are the performances from the young stars.
