Welcome back all you Supergirl fans! While I’m glad we didn’t get an entire episode dedicated to watching a courtroom drama that would have left me livid and stressed the entire hour, I also am disappointed Supergirl didn’t decide to take a risk and structure this episode like a 1-plot stage play. Or set it entirely in the phantom zone in a similar way to the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode “4,722 Hours.” You’d think knowing this was your final season would allow you to swing for the fences instead of playing things safe but what do I know?
As always, spoilers ahead.
1. Dementors? White Walkers? Wavy Arm Car Things? YOU DECIDE
I snarked last week that the Phantoms of the titular Phantom Zone looked real boring and after seeing them in action, I can safely say that I was more right than I knew. They’re an addition I think the show really, really didn’t need. What purpose do they serve because from where I’m sitting, they’re a waste of a CGI budget and a waste of a C-plot.
The idea that the Phantom Zone plays on your deepest fears is a sound and fascinating one. Why not just leave it at that?! Why introduce the most overplayed and boring looking type of antagonist as the vessel for these fears? It’s baffling to me and even more baffling is that it’s not even some obscure comics thing as far as I know. This was made up wholesale for the series! Instead of using the isolation of the zone or the effects of the place itself to drive the conflict & tie back into Kara being trapped for ten years in a pod there, we get…ghosts who yell and look almost as fake as the birds from Birdemic. What were they thinking?!
I’ve been reviewing this series for three (now four) seasons and in all that time, it has never ceased to baffle me as to how the show has managed to take good ideas and interesting concepts and completely waste them by going the predictable and well-trodden route. I had high hopes here but it seems they were dashed before they flew very far. At least it wasn’t solved in a single episode.
2. And Now For Some Positives
I’ve just ragged on the Negative Zone stuff for a while but I gotta give Melissa Benoist this: her speech to her father Zor-El – oh, yeah, Zor-El is here – was excellent and the kind of thing I expected more of this week. Was the directing not my favorite? Yes, but I see why the choice to go shaky handheld rather than a more traditional static slow-zoom was made; it felt deliberate and considered and I appreciate it. Benoist doesn’t often get to show off her dramatic acting chops since, well, the scripts give her some real stinkers of a line, which is par for the DCWverse course but still, it always feels like a treat when she can. Now if only they could give those lines to Kelly as well.
3. BAT
Did anyone else find the sudden inclusion of this Not A Vampire from planet Transyl incongruous to the rest of the episode? I could not stop thinking about it. Why did this bother me so much? I think it’s the dismissiveness towards one fantastical element (vampires) by using another, EVEN MORE fantastical element (alien species that shares a name with the Ur-vampire myth in modern conception.) Like, did we need three minutes of exposition about how Silas is not actually a vampire and have some dull banter about it?
The answer is no. No we did not.
The DC Universe has honest to goodness vampires and demons and what not. They introduced magic to this world, why not just have him be a fucking vampire? Whatever. This is literally the least important part of the episode but considering Silas played a big part in the C plot, with his percussive maintenance and death laser portal, and will continue to play a big part in future Negative Zone matters since he became an unwitting vessel for a Phantom, I’m allowed to be frustrated at this stupid cold opening explanation.
Continued belowThat and his characterization literally being the Do It For Him meme.
4. Hard Truths
I gotta say, Andrea continues to be a deeply frustrating character. It’s hard for me to tell how much is intentional and how much are the writers trying to course correct from last season. Andrea began as a straight up villain and at some point was meant to be a sympathetic antagonist before going enemies to friends (to lovers?) Unfortunately, at some point they decided to skip the enemies part and change “sympathetic villain” to “misunderstood tragic hero” and I never bought that, partially because it seems like Supergirl isn’t interested in taking her to task for her actions and instead want to talk about taking her to task for her actions and forgiving her at the first opportunity.
I want to see consequences for her actions and not to see them swept under the rug! She was a garbage boss and had no concern for CatCo as a journalistic endeavor. She continues to lead like this and while I think the show is aware of this, I’m not sure it’s going to do anything with it. Andrea is treating the company as a tool for her vendetta against Lex who hijacked her program. A program, I should remind you since it’s been over a year, she didn’t feel the need to properly vet for safety nor privacy concerns, something everyone conveniently forgot and shuffled onto Lex, which…I mean fair but this would be a much more powerful show if they wrestled with these thorny questions!
Like, William brings up how he’s losing faith in journalism or, more specifically, the way it works in the 21st century, a piece of which is Andrea’s “Get Me Pieces on Luthor” crusade, much as he might agree that Luthor needs to be taken down. That’s good! That’s meaty stuff right there but instead of sitting with that idea and really reckoned with the very real problems plaguing the media’s relationship with its readership, fraught practices that undermine their purpose, and disingenuous arguments against investigative journalism, we get a short speech by Nia and it’s all peachy keen.
Let William be the voice of concern and have the conversations! Highlight the good and the bad and don’t just conjure up some platonic ideal of journalism that stands against the straw man of the kind of garbage fear mongering propaganda masquerading as “journalism” peddled by the Newscorps of the world. If you’re going to name an episode after an Aaron Sorkin play, at the very least don’t brush those questions away.
5. What’s in a Name? A Luthor by Any Other Name Would Be Just As Arrogant
If anyone out there genuinely thought Lex would be found guilty after the Andrea “we pre-write obituaries” scene, I would like some of your boundless optimism. God, that scene couldn’t have been more of a red-flag than if Andrea turned to the camera and winked. No shit Lex would get off. He’s Lex fucking Luthor and this show has a pathalogical love of him for some god forsaken reason. Is it because Jon Cryer is so good at his job, and so perfect a Lex, that they want to keep him around? That’s honestly the only explanation I have.
As for Lex getting off, clearly the writers wanted to make a larger point about the criminal justice system’s failings when it comes to powerful white men, the way women’s stories are dismissed and belittled and twisted against them, and how a little bit of fear-mongering about how “cancel culture is coming for you next” can sway people’s minds. Shades of Kavanaugh’s sickening confirmation hearings were present in this plot, along with us coming full circle on the “there’s no way Lex would even be elected President” discourse and art mirroring reality which influences the art. It was quite effective, even if the verdict was ham-fistedly telegraphed from the start.
Perhaps that was the point, where expectations ping-pong back and forth based on the optimism or cynicism of the person talking. Where you allow yourself to think, “maybe I was wrong. Maybe this time will be different” before reality crashes back into you like a stomach dropping tsunami. There weren’t many wins in this week’s episode but there is the promise that the fight isn’t over and, sometimes, that’s the best lesson there can be.
Continued belowThat about does it for now! Things got a little heavy, and I didn’t even get to discuss Dreamer getting 4 minutes of training or Kelly literally being reduced to support via speech but hey, there’s always next week. What did you think of the episode? Was I too harsh again? Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you all again in a week for Phantom on the Run. Until then, stay super y’all.
Best Lines of the Night:
1. Brainy (to Dreamer): “You are not a liability to this mission. You are the reason it will succeed.”
2. Brainy: “These 21st century keyboards SUCK.”
