Welcome back all you Supergirl fans! We’re at the third to last episode but the second to last week of this strange, sometimes great, most of the time pretty average, and less often but not-as-less-as-one-would-like quite bad show. Where does this one fit in the grand Supergirl tradition? Well…all three, actually.
And as always, spoilers ahead.
1. The Good
I’m going to open with this point, and it’s a pretty big one for those who usually wait for me to talk about the big things at the bottom, so…be warned if my usual warning didn’t do it.
…Is everyone gone?
…You all know what you’re getting into?
…OK.
I cannot believe they seem to be committing to killing off William Day. What a ballsy move. Kudos all around to the team because hot damn was I not expecting him to actually die. I was expecting a last minute save and him simply being shot to be the catalyst. These kinds of stakes are rare on a CW superhero show and are usually reversed almost right away, so maybe he’ll be resurrected by 31st century tech or something but holee shit. If this sticks through the end of the finale? Damn.
Am I sad he’s been written out? Yes. Does this feel like cheap drama? Ehhhhh kinda but, like, he got the video, he basically gave Rojas a guilt complex for the rest of her life, and since Supergirl is pretty mealy-mouthed about a lot of its plot resolutions, it’s nice to see some real consequences for people’s actions. And really, that’s where this episode shines. Showing the consequences of actions, even if some of those actions, and consequences, are pretty silly.
2. The Bad
This episode should be tailor-made for me to throw all my criticisms about this half out the window.
We get a Lex “I was behind it all along” plan feels plausible and actually exciting. We got a confrontation of Rojas and an acknowledgment that her approach to journalism is, well, an ethical and moral nightmare built on a foundation of sand. We get good relationship drama and the totems coming back in a quick manner. We even got Nxyly to acknowledge to herself that her quest really isn’t about justice or even revenge, it’s about finding trust again after being hurt so many times. It’s why she hates Kara so much; not because Kara stopped her from executing her plans in the phantom zone but because she trusted Kara to understand and help her, which Kara did not do.
But it’s all in the execution. My main issue with Supergirl is often the same problem with 90% of the DCW shows: they fail to properly develop characters across a season, forcing such growth into single episode moments, sometimes acting as a retcon to the intentions of past episodes. It’s like how they smooshed Kelly & Alex together before properly developing Kelly as a character in and of herself, let alone their romance on screen. The end result was what I wanted, but the path to getting there was forced, painful, and empty.
Nyxly has her revelation, but she doesn’t really grapple with her self-delusions, be it embracing them or rejecting them and changing. She just trusts Lex more. The totems reforming and never having gone away is great but for all the hand wringing about what might happen to a world without love or hope, no one seemed all that concerned about it in the moments after or relieved that love & hope WEREN’T destroyed.
With Rojas, rather than having her single minded focus slowly balloon out of control, it was out of control from day 1 and thus this escalation by William NOW seems long overdue rather than coming at the climax of a real betrayal. Kara quitting CatCo two episodes ago wasn’t because Rojas was abusing her position or improperly running the company, two things which are TEXT that the show refuses to even gesture towards. No, she quits for herself and because she has to refocus on being Supergirl.
It’s this disconnect that leaves me cold on all these moments that, otherwise, would be slam-dunk narrative caps or twists. Season 6 lost a lot by spending its first half stuck with the phantoms but spinning its wheels with a monster-of-the-week totem hunt in the second half instead of properly developing its underlying plots and characters either externally or THROUGH the lens of the totems was it’s major failing.
Continued belowThe Lex thing is fine, though. It can stay. I’ve said my piece.
3. The Supergirl
You know, this could’ve been under the bad but it’s separate because I wanted to mention how weird and weirdly offensive it was to see Kara have to apologize to Alex for deigning to suggest Esme might want to use some form of power dampener. Alex’s anger at being told how to mother and the implication that Esme should be ashamed/hide who she is because she doesn’t fit into the cultural boxes created for people is consistent with her character and makes sense.
She doesn’t want to re-traumatized Esme nor does she want Esme to feel shame for who she is, something Alex has felt before and thought Kara would understand. I get that. But when KARA has to apologize to ALEX for not understanding, I’m floored. Maybe I misread the scene. Maybe I zonked out for the first half of the CW’s usual apology trade. But damn if this felt like it missed the mark hard.
There are a lot of potential critiques to throw at Kara re: lacking understanding of discrimination. She grew up in a middle-class, white family and could easily pass for human, one which ticks many boxes of traditional, American beauty (with all its implications.) Her adoptive family is supportive and, as Supergirl, enjoyed association with Superman and thus easy acceptance. She is textually straight, cis, and as a human, has not face the same kinds of structural issues other women do. She’s had, for all intents and purposes, a relatively charmed life on Earth.
If Kara was trying to tell Kelly about what she should be doing or feeling as Black woman in America, by all means take her to town, because Kara has not experienced anything Kelly has and so her perspective is not helpful. It doesn’t mean there isn’t common ground between their two life experiences but it holds far less weight.
However, that’s not what the issue is here. Here, Kara is telling Alex what helped her as an alien kid with new powers she struggled to control, which is a situation Alex has NEVER had to deal with, and Alex just blows her off for the above reasons, trying to make it about fitting in rather than helping Esme, and then the show expects us to side with Alex’s indignation? I’m sorry but that’s bad writing.
4. The Supergirl, Part II
OK. I have more to say about the Alex/Kara apology thing here because it’s so getting under my skin I need two thoughts to fully express it. Partially this is because I don’t have much to say about the rest of the episode, save for the final thought, but also because there are two things going on with those scenes. There are two questions being asked: “Is Kara drawing from her experience as an alien kid on Earth useful here?” and “Should one feel they have to hide an aspect of themselves in a society that is ostensibly accepting but is still fraught with danger?” The show fails to adequately answer the first or ask the second. I’ve already explored the first. Let’s do the second.
Using the twin axis of fantasy (aliens/superheroes) and reality (sexuality, gender, race, etc.) to explore the question of whether or not one should subsume themselves in order to not draw attention from a culture that hates, belittles, or even disapproves of them is good. It’s not really what is at issue here but it is what this episode should be focused on. We’ve seen it before with image inducers in season 4, after all. The problem here is, rather than treat powers as a distinct thing, the episode codes the discussion as analogous to having to hide one’s sexuality, religion, ethnic background, etc. in order to “fit into” society.
Alex treat’s Esme’s power problems as analogous to Alex having to hide her own sexuality, which she didn’t REALLY do but that’s besides the point. She, and the show, sees a power dampener as the same as dating boys when you actually only want to date girls or having to lighten one’s skin to pass for white. These are WILDLY different things and to swap one for the other misses the point and paves over meaningful questions; even my two examples are not great as substitutes for each other in an analogy.
Continued belowEsme’s issue is that she has powers she doesn’t quite know how to control yet, which means there is a chance others could get hurt or she could hurt herself. These powers have no good analog, even using, say, anger management. If Esme has trouble managing and working with her powers safely, then Kara’s suggestion of a power dampener like her former glasses is a good one not because it helps her “fit in” but because it can help reduce danger.
It doesn’t negate the need to ask the question of whether or not this action is necessary – it is a question I wrestle with often when I travel or even day to day – and if the “fitting in” is or should be a factor in the decision but it fails to ask that question. Alex focuses in on the “fitting in” part but ignores that her issue isn’t her powers generally but the unpredictability of them and Esme’s USE of said powers. This is because powers are, for the writers, a stand-in rather than a thing on their own.
It also neglects to address how Kara’s solution is both voluntary AND removable. Unlike what Esme had in the foster home, something like the glasses puts the agency with Esme and gives her another tool to help her navigate this period in her life. We don’t even get that concession from Alex, or a discussion of how the problem with the foster home wasn’t the power dampeners, it was how they were a means of control wielded punitively.
Supergirl lost me with this because it wants me to take the existence of powers seriously but then fails to properly explore their *consequences* as their own thing. A fantastical problem requires fantastical solutions that are consistent with that fantasy world. Instead, it’s treated like another social problem with an easy answer, and we all know those don’t exist, even in the more idealized world of Supergirl.
5. Brainy Tears
I wanted to end on a positive note which is why I saved this for last. Hands down the best part of this episode was Jesse Rath’s Brainy. No ifs, ands, or buts, he pulled off the emotional gamut needed to sell his grief over having to go back to the 31st century, the dilemma of losing it all in order to save it all, and of having to leave Nia behind. Nia, unfortunately, is once again not given a lot beyond supporting Brainy. We get some glorious melodrama when she wants to join him in the future, and some even better drama when the two are just talking at the bar near the end, but that’s about all from her role.
There’s also not a lot of him this week, and by dropping it all in one episode, we really don’t have the space to explore it, but the scene of Brainy talking to one of the other Brainy broke my cold, jaded Supergirl reviewing heart and showed that every time I think the show has no way back, it finds a way to give me scenes like that.
That about does it for now! Thank you for putting up with my big soapbox this week. I know you all expect it from me by now but I also know it can be a bit much. What did you all think of this semi-penultimate episode? Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you all next week for a two-part finale and thus, the final 5 thoughts on this show.
Best Line of the Night:
William: “You, Andrea Rojas, stand for nothing.”
