Welcome back all you Supergirl fans! Six years and two weeks ago, the pilot episode of Supergirl aired on CBS, bringing us a brand new superhero to grace the small screen. It was the third DC show of the modern era – fourth if you count the woefully short-lived Constantine on NBC – helping cement the CW’s reputation as the home of DC superheroes, once CBS decided 6 million watchers a week was too few. It was also the show that proved that not only could there be a new kryptonian show post Smallville, but that it didn’t need Kal-El to succeed.
For six seasons, across 126 episodes, she has flown in and out of our lives and for the last four of those, I have been here to chronicle them. But…all things must one day come to an end. These are the final two episodes of Supergirl and thus, my final few thoughts. Join me in saying goodbye the only way I know how – with wonder, and heart, and just a pinch of vicious critique.
As always, and for the last time, spoilers ahead.
1. Goodbye, Sweet Prince
While I appreciate how the death of William isn’t the sole focus of this episode, and the few scenes focused on his death are effective, upon reflection, I got some serious Black Widow in Endgame vibes. I know why they didn’t use his death as a secondary motivator within the larger plot. The threats of the all-stone and Esme’s kidnapping was more than enough to focus on but when you make such a monumental choice, you had best follow it up with the appropriate story weight.
Characters get kidnapped left and right in these superhero shows but a death at the hands of a villain? That shit should get more than a sad bedsheet and a few tears before being forgotten for the rest of the episode. His death becomes perfunctory and meaningless, affecting little besides giving Andrea Rojas an actual reason to do some rather fast soul-searching and complete her face turn. “The Last Gauntlet” did a good job of distracting me from this fact in the moment, but I should never have had to be distracted from that considering this is the finale of the entire show.
What a waste.
2. Sadly, There Was No Aimlessness Totem
This was actually a feeling I had during much of “The Last Gauntlet.” Despite being the big confrontation, the culmination of a half-season’s worth of storyline, and despite spilling over into the finale, “Kara,” most of the resolutions were underbaked and overly rushed. I’m not even talking about the character stuff. Things like the destiny totem gauntlet or Lillian Luthor’s sudden appearance just to throw a wrench in Lex’s love life which, honestly, didn’t need her interference to implode, are what I’m talking about. It felt like the writers had a set of index cards with big events but weren’t sure how to get from point A to point B. (If you want a perfect example of this feeling, check out the first season of Aldnoah.Zero.)
Lex needed to be willing to fight Nyxly so she continues to fail to trust him for no reason until he actually breaks her trust but, like, not in the way the show seems to think he did. Kara needs to feel desperate and have a moment where she rejects the temptation to be like her enemies, but without all that pesky inner conflict, so here’s a magic space laser that will MURDER THE SUN FOR 6 MONTHS to give her the power to overcome a tech & power dead zone that has never once been mentioned before but is a call-back to season 1. There needs to be inter-team drama so Alex steals all the totems even though I thought Kara was planning on giving them up anyway?
We need an excuse for all the past Supergirl heroes but NOT SUPERMAN or any other Arrowverse hero to appear so the all-stone had to break into three after a game of hot-potato despite being, well, all-powerful. They also conjured up a weak smorgasbord of past CGI villains and some nonsense about phantom zone portals not being able to be closed. Oh, and Myx’s only role here is to fuck off to the 5th dimension after his energy gives Lex & Nyxly a tiny bit more time to get the love totem or something. It’s not great and not what I want to be thinking about while watching the (second to) last episode of a show.
Continued below3. Sorry. Not Quite Done Ranting Yet.
In addition to the plot problems, the character’s usage here left me screaming. Rojas is given little to do but sit there. Nia’s mostly there for support. Kelly, same deal. J’onn fares better because of his role as a mentor figure but Lena’s magic stuff continues to be fun but wildly out of place. Lex is Lex and I broke down my frustration with the handling of Nyxly’s fatal flaws last time. Mitch is barely here too, having been shoved to the side for Lex.
And Alex. Ugh, I’m just so done with this show’s approach to Alex’s motherhood because that’s all she is for the majority of “The Last Gauntlet:” the worried mother. It’s an active role, sure, but that’s literally all she can talk about or think about until they get Esme back. It’s intense without the buy-in created by a well-developed season. and that’s what all of the above developments and expressions lack.
We’ve reached the end of the final season of a show that knew it was ending prior to production. That should have afforded the creators the chance to button up character arcs, fine tune them knowing there was an endpoint, and make big swings. Instead, we got none of that and this finale ends up reflecting this wasted potential and lack of proper development across the season. It’s truly heartbreaking to see because there was potential in all of these characters for real, meaningful development and drama but we get none of it, or at least none that feels earned.
4. Taste the Power of the Sun
I have been harsh on “The Last Gauntlet,” and will probably be a bit harsh again soon enough, but considering what this episode had to work with, it did an admirable job of paying off on the totem hunt and providing everything one would expect from a finale. It’s like a stew that’s been hastily thrown together from alright ingredients. It does the job and while I can kvetch all I want, it’s still edible.
OK, that sounds worse than it is. I enjoyed “Kara” far more than “The Last Gauntlet” but there were plenty of moments that stood out as either moving, tense, or unintentionally hilarious. Look, you cannot tell me that the sudden appearance of a satellite that will drain the sun so Kara can be given super-special-awesome anti-fifth-dimensional energy powers isn’t ludicrous on the face of it. The lack of set-up, which did have me going “why didn’t you set this shit up earlier as foreshadowing!,” was also a boon cause of how ridiculous it made the whole thing.
I dunno. I was laughing the entire time, even though I know it was supposed to be a serious and dangerous choice. It’s just…so silly but is presented so earnestly and without the usual “wink and nod” these Arrowverse shows love to do to show how self-aware they are. I would have liked to see her commit fully though. That would have been BOLD, though quite out of character.
At least she’s not absorbing plants again.
5. Brainy Gets the Best Lines
There’s nothing more to say about this because it’s an objective fact. Of all the characters, Brainy consistently gets the best lines, dramatic, humorous, and everywhere in-between. You can’t deny it and I challenge you to pick another character who has as many as he does. He’s my favorite character and I’m very happy he got to show off his dance moves one last time.
6. The Power of the People
One aspect of “Kara” I did not expect to see was the return of Orlando. He was in the “previously on” but I wasn’t sure how he’d play into the episode, seeing as everything else was very superhero shenanigans focused. I’m very glad to see that he was used in a meaningful way AND in a way that’s true to his character last we left him. He’s seen giving a speech about not losing hope, humanity, etc. in the face of terrible things and helps to rekindle the aspects of the all-stone that are being taken from everyone.
What I like about it being Orlando who does this, and ends up inspiring Kara, is that it’s more honest. He knows what it’s like to live a life where things like hope are in short supply because the world has created an environment where one has to fight to merely reach the usual baseline. It sets up the framing of these aspects as renewable and additive, like how sharing a flame from a candle does not diminish the original flame, but also with the potential to be exploited, as Nyxly and Lex are doing. It’s good shit and while the scene’s only a brief couple minutes, it stood out to me.
Continued below7. One Last Negative Thought
I’m condensing two thoughts into one so I can save the rest for positives. Supergirl has always been a show about hope during adversity and finding the light in the darkness. While it may not have always lived up to it, and my reviews certainly have been more negative than positive of late, I wanted to try to emulate that aspect in the back half.
First up, I wasn’t enamored with how Nyxly and Lex are taken out. It felt too clean and anti-climactic in a deeply unsatisfying way. The line about hubris hiding fear rang false, even if it was accurate, and I just got the sense that we needed to wrap things up without getting into a more complicated resolution. I can’t believe I’m saying this but Nyxly (and Lex I guess) got done dirty and that’s not great.
Next, and finally, I wanted to air my grievances at how this season failed to live up to its place as a final season. Season six could, and should, have been a celebration of the legacy of Supergirl; a final send off that was both a culmination and an examination of the series as a whole and Supergirl as a character. The second half of “Kara” does this to some extent but it just brings the season’s lack of those traits into relief.
When we end “Kara,” she is struggling with what it means to be Supergirl in a world that doesn’t need her in the same way as well as what it means to be KARA in the world as well. It’s no secret that I love this conflict and think it should be explored in a myriad of ways. I’ve griped and groused and ranted in past seasons about Supergirl failure to understand and develop these two sides of her so I won’t again. Suffice it to say, imagine if this moment was the culmination of a season’s worth of struggle.
Kara and Supergirl being in conflict with each other should have been the core of this season, with the thesis being how can she reconcile the needs of each with her actual life. Does she have to give one up to be the other? Can they live in concert with each other? What has being Kara cost her? What has being Supergirl?
The actions and gauntlets and character conversations should have revolved around this idea. Her failure of the courage totem should have weighed more heavily on her and that should have been followed up on. Her time in the phantom zone should have been a time of self-reflection and examination. Work conditions and her growing awareness of systemic issues should have gotten her to consider the value of her life as Kara. We didn’t get that. We barely got characters outside of their major plots.
No downtime. No small moments of contemplation. No changes to be people and when we did get carefree scenes, they were usually self-congratulatory and unearned or meant to contrast a twist or upcoming tragedy. They were focused so hard on the WHAT of the season that it neglected the why and the whole suffered for it. The writers managed to bring it all together in the end but it lacked the oomph necessary to make it truly sing.
Metaphorically speaking.
8. Schmaltz It Up
Look. My heart may sometimes be a calcified, ossified, shriveled-up husk but even it loved the wedding. Was it so saccharine and schmaltzy that I had trouble not laughing or going “ugghhhh?” Yes but weddings get a pass because they’re meant to be those things. As opposed to the Esme adoption scene, this was the appropriate amount of over-the-top and sobbing and unabashed speeches about what people mean to each other. I am glad this wedding happened and while I would have loved for the preceding season to have better set us up for this – seriously, the engagement happened two episodes ago – I will put that aside so we can bask in the glory of Winn & Kara singing a lovely rendition of “We Belong.”
If only Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa had returned to write and it would’ve been a full Supergirl/Glee reunion.
Continued below9. Why Did Lena Never Get A Costume?
I am in LOVE with the outfits Lena & Alex wore to the wedding. The purple?! The eyeshadow & black lipstick? Alex’s crown hat that compliments her stark white suit that’s just so gorgeous AH. I want to be able to pull off outfits like those. Also, now I wish Lena had worn more of that deep purple throughout the show because Katie McGrath pulls the whole ensemble off perfectly.
It’s a weird thing to focus on, I know, but as soon as I saw them I couldn’t stop thinking about how rad they look. In a world where most of the costumes on superhero shows are, well, pretty militaristic, seeing characters in outfits that stand out and express character is really nice. Actually, I love all the outfits in that scene but those two are S-tier and none others compete.
10. Special Guest Stars
I knew we’d be getting some special guest stars this week from the history of Supergirl but I was surprised by how effectively they were used. I expected them to mostly just kinda be there as background characters and, yeah, that’s what they mostly are but the scene with Mon-El after the fight is really touching, James & Kelly’s short scene is a great bit of understated drama, and every moment with Winn is a delight. Sad we didn’t get to see Livewire or, like, Reign but honestly, I think those core three coming back for the finale did right by the show’s legacy. But you know who kicked the doors to “Kara” down, announcing that the party could begin, and instantly raising this to the best episode in the season bar none?
CAT. FUCKING. GRANT.
That’s right. Calista Flockhart returned for a few scenes from the beaches of Columbia aka an LA soundstage to kick Kara’s ass into gear and be the voice that has been missing for years. I mentioned the lack of Cat Grant in “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” and her return here has simply reinforced my love of the character. I am so happy they were able to bring her back for this episode, especially if Wikipedia is to be believed and this marks her return to any acting role since last appearing as Cat Grant in season 3 in 2017. Every second she is on screen is a joy and a delight, made even better by confirming a long held fan theory that she knew Kara was Supergirl the whole time.
Had the show not moved to the CW, and therefore Vancouver, maybe this theory wouldn’t have borne out or maybe it would have manifested in a different way, but in the show we got, it’s now canon that she knew the whole time. I love it and I even love Kara becoming E.I.C. of a brand new CatCo because, even if we won’t see it, I think that role fits her. While the show may have never done quite enough to sell her as a reporter, her instincts and eye for what constitutes a good story worth following was well established.
Starting your tenure by revealing your secret identity on live TV is a good start too.
That about does it for now and, well, forever. Supergirl has reached its end and, now, so have I. Thank you all for following along with me (and occasionally Chris) for these last four years, and for those who’ve been around for the full six too. It’s been a wild ride to chart this year after year. It’s strange to know it’s over and it’s even stranger to see how much the landscape of TV, specifically superhero TV, has changed since it first aired. Heck, it’s even strange to know that it’s not in its own separate universe anymore, even if it seemed to treat Superman & Lois like it is.
Supergirl was a show about many things but at its core, it was about hope in the fundamental goodness in humanity and fighting to bring that to the fore. It was a show about empowerment and love. It was a show with plenty of reasons to critique it but plenty to celebrate as well. It was, as with most things, complicated and undeniably itself. So thank you, Supergirl, and thank you, dear readers.
Continued belowUntil the next time we meet, though it will not be in this column, stay super.
Best Lines of the Night:
1. Esme: “Nothing good has ever lasted for me.”
2. Brainy: “Like Cinderella…but without the gender inequality and sexual objectification.”
3. The way David Harewood says “Wife and Wife”
4. Literally every line by Cat Grant
