Welcome back all you Supergirl fans! After last week’s rocky but OK episode, we get a return to the somewhat more focused episodes of the first half of the season (of which this technically is a part of but shhhhhh, don’t tell The CW.) It’s a Nia-centric episode, continuing her journey, with a few other elements mixed in to remind us that this season has a lot going on. For all my griping, the packed nature of this episode is a boon.
Why? Well, I’m not going to spoil that in the intro, am I? Read on to find out. Oh, and as always, spoilers ahead.
1. Too Much Pink Energy
I’m very glad they listened to me last week and actually tied in the happenings with Kaznian Supergirl into the main story of the episode. At first, I thought it was going to be another toothless tease but it ended up being the best so far. What’s up with that chest lightening? What IS her relation to Supergirl? Also, why did it take this long for them to reveal it was Kaznia and not Russia or some other state that uses a cyrillic alphabet?
That last one is a bit of an annoyance for me because the chyron made it seem like this was some big reveal but we haven’t heard hide nor hair of Kaznia in this show. It’s like this mysterious Supergirl. There’s no foreshadowing or aspects of the rest of the show that allude to anything that has to do with her. The set-up is missing and while it really doesn’t matter where she’s located, it is a gripe that gnawed at me.
2. Tammany Hall
Jimmy. Buddy. I hope you know what you’re doing and that you’ve covered your ass well. You had a reporter come to you with a story about your girlfriend’s hidden illegal experimentation budget and you covered for her because. . .you played some board games? Most likely, this has to do with the conversation they had last week about trust and about James accepting Lena’s work, something he started to stew on at the end of last week.
I think that all came to a conclusion too neatly for now. There was very little indication that he was still thinking on the events of last episode, instead thinking about his earlier storm out and mistakes. It’s not an out of character moment and, if they play this right, can be really interesting if Jimmy continues to doubt if he did the right thing. There were not enough scenes to really do it justice and, considering what else was going on in the episode, that’s OK with me.
Side note: I’m so glad season four is giving us more of CatCo being an actual newsroom again. This was sorely missed. Plus, more side characters!
3. Oh, Sister, Where Art Thou?
While I was wrong about the ways they were going to play Alex’s memory loss, in that it would be a much bigger crisis during the episode and that she would see holes via her decision to join the DEO, I was right that the fallout from that decision would be much more far reaching than anticipated in-universe. I’m so glad they went with the, she’s losing her empathy and compassion for the other, route because those are the core values that Kara being an alien brought to her life. It thematically ties in the Elseworlds crossover, making that final speech all the more gut wrenching.
Chyler Leigh knocked it out of the park during that scene, and the whole episode, really stretching her acting muscles again. Her military fury was reserved but biting and watching Melissa act off that, and the later scene at the house with Kara and Alex, was golden. I didn’t care much for the “where did my memory go” stuff and, honestly, I didn’t expect to. But it was kept minimal without hand waving it away, allowing for, *gasp* consequences, to take root. Those will continue to wreak havoc and I cannot wait.
4. Dream Me a Dream
In fact, the consequences of that story spilled over into Nia Nahl’s origin. Her whole plot revolved around guilt, family, and obligation and the precarious card tower one creates because of the intersection of those feelings and ideas. Her sister is a giant butt right from the get go but we understand her frustration. She believes that her powers aren’t manifesting, powers she always believed were there, and is devastated when she finds out that they never were. However, the underlying assumption that drove her, and her mom’s, refusal to acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t her that got the powers, was because of Nia’s being Trans.
Continued belowThat was something I totally missed until the sister threw her, possibly until that point unconscious, prejudice at Nia, and then the whole episode clicked into place. I couldn’t understand why everyone was so adamant that it had to be the sister who inherited the powers if they were both able to receive the matrilineal powers. It deepens the tragedy while also making her sister’s anger feel all the more unacceptable because not only was it born out of ego and entitlement, it was also born from prejudice. It shows the hidden assumptions people make and the harm that it does, even in supportive environments.
That’s the kind of thought-through storytelling that I wish was more apparent in other aspects of the show.
5. Rage, Rage, Against the Dying of the Light
I really didn’t care for the rage storyline. It was dull, the characters involved were highly underdeveloped, even for one-offs in Supergirl, and it was mostly there to provide action into an episode that could have thrived simply on the drama of Nia struggling with the tension of having the powers her sister so desperately wants and has trained for and her own lack of understanding of the dreams that tell of her mother’s imminent demise. I know its purpose, to remind us of the many other stories that are moving forwards, but I found myself tuning out every time they cut to the dude-bros in the cage or the pill sellers.
What made it all the more egregious is that so much of the dialogue sounds manufactured. This is the case for the whole of the episode but it’s very, very apparent in these scenes. On the nose exposition and lines that are crazy unnatural plague us at every turn. I don’t know why this episode had such a high concentration of it. I just don’t.
I’m going to chalk it up to them trying to use those scenes to tie together the many different plots going on and having to move the action somehow.
That about does it for now! Did you all find the episode to be as conflicting as I did? Are you all excited to see Nia start stepping into her own as a superhero now that Kara has entrusted her with her secret? Let me know in the comments and join me in three weeks!
That’s right. There’s no episode next week because who wants to compete with the Superb Owl and no episode the week after because. . . the CW realized they need to stretch these episodes just a hair more. They just want to make sure we’re prepped for whatever comes next, which probably has something to do with Kaznian Supergirl and the return of a jailed Agent Liberty. Until next time, stay super y’all.
Best Line of the Night:
Brainy: “Oh no. Not just human. Frat boys.
