Welcome back all you Supergirl fans! Flying onto your screens after nearly an entire year away, we’re back for the sixth and final season of the Girl of Steel’s adventures in National City. It seems fitting, somehow, that Supergirl has taken over the time slot of Superman and Lois for the next six or so weeks, as former Supergirl reviewer August (in the wake of) Dawn has been covering that show with her usual excellence. Go read those, and this, and then come back for the start to what is likely to be a long season.
And as always, spoilers ahead.
1. How To Kick Off A Final Season Without Really Trying
A lot has happened in the world since the final episode of last season aired so I would be remiss if I didn’t do a recap like the show did.
Last time, Brainy was dying of radiation after getting “curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal”-ed by Lex, who stole the bottled Leviathan gods who went out like the chumps they were, while the rest of the Super crew did…something. Lena apologizes for an entire season of being The Worst™ and it’s all good because who needs real conflict & resolution. Obsidian North’s VR program to unite the world was stopped because it was gonna be used for evil because of course it was and Andrea Rojas had ~no idea it could turn out like that~, completing her inexplicable face turn that was less compelling than her being generic tech billionaire who buys up a news corporation for their portfolio so that the “good reporters” could have someone to rage against without actually delving into the thorny problems of the modern media ecosphere in an honest and complex manner.
I’m not still salty about that whole thing being wasted at all. Not at all.
Now, at the end of “Immortal Kombat,” it was clear there was still a little more to go to wrap everything up and that the opening episodes of season six, much like the rest of the CW, was going to do this. Well, we certainly got a wrap up. In fact, I think this was the fastest wrap up that any of the CW shows got and hooboy does it show in the episode’s breakneck pace, heavy reliance on infodumps, and general sense of it being a bit of a nothingburger of an opener. It really feels like we got the leftovers of a finale crammed into a premiere and that’s not the way you want to end your final season, especially not the final season of the third longest running Arrowverse show (even on CBS it felt like an Arrowverse show.)
2. Macguffin and Company
Look. I get it. They needed to cram in a lot of information into this episode since it’s their last season and they only have 20 episodes. You don’t want to waste the episode count on wrapping up plotlines that barely had the juice to last one season, let alone one and change. But did you have to introduce 3 brand new Lex based complications and about 300 new macguffins and secret techniques and technologies to stop him? The Beholding, reversing the Leviathan energies to counteract the Leviathan energies Lex injected into himself via the The Fly pod, Lex’s murder satelites & the I Love Lexy code? It was exhausting to follow.
I found myself absolutely lost for the first 20 minutes trying to remember if any of this was mentioned in the last season, how much was and was not, and how any of the new ass pulls were supposed to work. The truncated nature of the episode’s plots only served to highlight the cracks in the writing too, where moments that should have been emotional fell flat instead since the stakes were created from thin air and resolved with minimal effort so that we could move onto the next big moment. Much like Lena’s apology last time, forgiveness happens fast, we get a lot of telling not showing feelings, and somehow we’re letting Andrea off the hook but not Brainy? Fine. Sure. Whatever. Just goes to show how much they botched Andrea’s arc last season.
Continued belowI can’t be too mad at Supergirl however. There wasn’t really anything else they could do with 3 episodes worth of end of season material that needed to be crafted into a functional conclusion. I mean, why else would Gemma go out like a chump in the first five minutes? It’s not great storytelling, and was almost certainly way more bloated than necessary, but it was functional and we can move on from here.
3. Direct Me to the Nearest Carnival Ride
I don’t know what was up with the directing in this week’s episode but it was all over the place. Some scenes were good but others, like the fight scene at the top, were utter chaos. The scene composition was hot garbage. Like, I knew what was happening but the angles kept shifting for no reason, the fight wasn’t engaging at all, and characters bopped back and forth with all the franticness of a child on a sugar rush. Other times we get these super close ups that I guess are supposed to make us feel closer to the characters but instead ratchets up the tension rather than the heart to hearts. It’s shoddy and probably due to having to shorten the fight so…see above.
All that said, the scene with Lex dancing to “We Are the Champions” with all the fortresses weapons was pure gold and perhaps the only completely perfect scene in the episode.
4. A Sentinel in the Darkness
I’m taking an entire thought for Alex’s new codename because I really dig it. I don’t know the history of the name, if there is one, but I’m so glad Alex is able to come into her own now, independent of the DEO. The new costume, the new haircut, that killer blue eyeshadow, and now a new codename? I hope we see more of this Alex in the coming season. It’s exciting in a way
5. Phantom Zone Syndrome
Was anyone else wondering why Kara, after five seasons, felt the need to bring up being trapped in the Phantom Zone for ten years? The line struck me because it reminded me that we have never really dealt with that specific trauma. There’s all the regular teenage drama of growing up on Earth as someone with powers as well as the added tension of her younger cousin now being older than her but nothing related to her time trapped between Krypton and Earth. She talks about it here as if it had a major impact when she was younger and I would have loved to see that explored before now.
How did I never think about that detail before? I know the show hasn’t reminded me of it but that feels central to Kara’s past and yet it’s been constantly glossed over until now. Well, I guess we’ll be seeing the effects of that trauma resurface in the coming weeks (or maybe just one week if I know my CW shows.) Hopefully it’s more interesting than the designs of the Negative Zone ghouls in that final scene; those things look duller than a butter knife.
That about does it for now! What did you all think of the return of Supergirl? Were you more enthused about it than me? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you again in a week for Supergirl’s adventures in the negative zone. Until then, stay super y’all.
Best Line of the Night:
Lillian: “Your sister, you can’t kill her too.”
Lex: “Why not? She killed me first.”
