Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 1]
Pilot
Shown 26 Oct 15
This is the newest TV show set in the DC universe.
It does not appear to be part of the Justice League crossover (
Arrow,
Flash
) and appears to be more of a stand-alone show like
Gotham
. Whether it is good enough to deserve the comparison has yet to be seen.
The story is simple. When planet Krypton exploded,
Kal-El’s thirteen year-old cousin Kara was sent to be his childhood guardian.
While his pod made it safely to Kansas,
hers took the scenic route via the Phantom Zone.
As a result, Kal-El was full-grown as Superman when Kara arrived.
She was fostered off to the Danvers family (Dean Cain –
Lois & Clark
and
Helen Slater
) and is now an office gopher working for Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
).
The Superman TV shows tend to do a lot of stunt casting.
Dean Cain, a former Superman, was a villain in
Smallville
and Helen Slater was both
Supergirl
in the 1980s movie and Kal-El’s mother in
Smallville
. So who did the Producers cast for the role of Jimmy Olsen,
a person instantly recognisable from his short stature,
pasty pale skin and bespectacled nerdy demeanour?
Only the tallest, darkest, clear-sighted and athletic person they could find
– Mechad Brooks (
True Blood
).
Supergirl seems happy being an office gopher
for the mean (well, competent) version of Ally McBeal.
However, she eventually has to go out and save the day.
The good news is, the presence of a local superhero is going
to boost sales of the local newspaper and save a few jobs.
The bad news is, it attracts the local MIB goon squad.
The government is okay with Superman being a national hero,
but want to oppress his cousin for doing the same thing.
The MIBs have worse things to worry about.
They have known for the last decade that there were hundreds of evil Kryptonians on Earth,
escapees from the Phantom Zone.
The alien crooks, despite having super-powers, have decided to blend in.
Presumably the presence of Superman was a deterrent to them.
However, now they have decided to make their presence felt.
The stage is now set of Supergirl to spend the next 20+ episodes fighting them.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 2]
Stronger Together
Shown 02 Nov 15
Supergirl has been a superhero for exactly one week.
She expects to be as good as Superman,
who has had over a decade's experience in the field.
Supergirl has a complete lack of skill, preferring brute force to solve her problems.
Her foster-sister is selected to teach her some finesse.
Naturally they are both resentful of the FBI SWAT leader (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) who orders them to get tested and to do some training together.
However, their arrogant sense of entitlement is smacked into place
when they discover that learning new things is useful.
Unfortunately Supergirl cannot exert her super-strength without the human-built infrastructure giving way.
Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
) points out that Metropolis' maintenance costs quadrupled since Superman appeared,
so he is against superheroes in general rather than just Supergirl.
But nobody points out how the Emergency Services budget must have been equally reduced.
Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) wants to champion Supergirl as National City's savior - especially since if she does not,
Perry and the Daily Planet will send a team from Metropolis to do it instead.
Yes, Cat has to keep the pressure up in order to save jobs at the local newspaper.
She demands an interview with Supergirl,
and pressures Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) to get her access to the subject.
It is only fair - after all, Jimmy boasts constantly about his friendship with Superman
so it is only fair that he should make good on his implied promises.
And if he fails to do his job (and guarantee the jobs of his fellow employees),
he will be the first one fired.
The freak of the week is an insect-man who kills a security guard who looks like Donald Glover (
The Martian
). Bug-man was imprisoned by the Kryptonians for unspecified crimes,
back when Kara's mother was in charge of Just-Us, AKA the will of the strong.
Kara's family motto is Stronger Together,
which is strangely reminiscent of the old Ubermensch slogans.
Perhaps the insect people are just the victims of Kryptonian racial prejudice.
On the other hand, perhaps we are just too cynical about Utopian civilisations these days.
The show has certain shades of grey which the main characters completely ignore.
Kara's aunt claims she was imprisoned for trying to save Krypton,
and that she wants to save Earth too.
Could she actually be telling the truth?
And the insect-man is not part of the Kryptonian civil war.
All he wanted was something to eat.
Yes, in the old days of the Bloody Code a person could be executed for stealing a loaf of bread.
The poor bug-man was only going through the city's industrial garbage!
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 3]
Fight or Flight
Shown 09 Nov 15
Supergirl gives her first public interview with Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
). She inadvertently reveals that she is Superman’s cousin,
which everyone takes as a major revelation.
However, since she has the same superpowers and S-logo costume as him
then it is hardly a leap of the imagination to assume they are closely linked.
One of Superman’s old foes decides that if Superman is too hard to kill,
Supergirl will be a good target instead.
Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
) gets kidnapped by the villain.
Supergirl saves him, but he is the same ungrateful idiot that he was portrayed as in his previous appearance.
Will he give her the public support that she has earned?
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 4]
Livewire
Shown 16 Nov 15
A female shock jock states a few obvious facts about Supergirl. Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) does not like it when her proteges fight,
so she transfers the Shock Jock to the traffic helicopter.
Next thing you know, the chopper needs Supergirl to save it.
The Shock Jock is touching Supergirl when she gets hit by lightning ...
Cat and Supergirl team up together to take down the new supervillain, Livewire.
The MIBs supply a device capable of capturing energy-based alien life forms.
Kara's foster-mother (
Helen Slater
) comes to stay for Thanksgiving. We get to find out why foster-father Dean Cain (
Lois & Clark
) is not around any more.
There is a lack of male authority figures in the show.
Just like explaining how Superman is never around to save the day,
we have no Commissioner Gordon or any other civic leader.
The MIB leader (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) is a suspicious character, heavily foreshadowed as a potential villain
the same way the Creepy Professor was in the first Season on
The Flash
.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 5]
How Does She Do It?
Shown 23 Nov 15
Supergirl discovers that a hi-tech drone is following her.
She assumes it is property of the US Government,
paid for by taxpayers' hard-earned dollars,
so she instantly blows it up with her laser-vision.
However, the MIBs deny all knowledge of it.
Who has the technology to keep her under surveillance?
A mad bomber blows up a lab owned by Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
). He is evidently being targeted by the villain, a former employee.
Kara and her sister are called in to protect the target, and to defuse several bombs.
The big target is Lord's new automated super-fast transcontinental bullet train.
Kara cannot be in two places at the same time,
but at least she has her sister and the MIBs
to cover for her when she cannot make it in time.
Kara also tries multi-tasking in her day-job too.
She volunteers to look after the schoolboy son of her boss, Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
). Unfortunately this means leaving him with her boy friday,
a nerdy fellow from the office.
Luckily for the plot, the nerd is as bad a babysitter as she is and allows the boy to get put in jeopardy.
All the male characters are idiots who need an average woman to sort things out for them.
Kara's dating life also gets a mention.
She still has her eyes on Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
), who has been blackwashed to look like an NBA star athlete.
Can a nerd like her ever date above her status?
Well, she would never dream of dating someone who was equal status,
like the boy friday who looks after the schoolboy.
But Jimmy has a hot ex-GF, military JAG lawyer Lucy Lane (
Jenna Dewan tatum
), the sister of Lois Lane.
Will Kara friendzone herself and get Jimmy and Lucy back together?
Maxwell Lord comes in for more examination this episode.
He gives some background to Kara's sister,
explaining how his mistruct of the Government comes from the deaths of his parents
due to inefficient Government bureaucracy.
Now he wants to do the same thing they did, saving lives and making the world a better place -
but using his own money and bypassing all the Government red tape.
All well and good, but such altruism is rare among Billionaires and their investors.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 6]
Red Faced
Shown 30 Nov 15
General Lane, father of Lois and Lucy Lane (
Jenna Dewan tatum
), is in town.
He meets Lucy and Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) for a Relationship talk.
His objection is that Jimmy is basically just a hanger-on.
After all, if Lois is good enough for Superman
then Lucy must also be good enough for a super-human too.
The General and Lucy have a military mission too.
They want Supergirl to test a new military robot.
She defeats it easily, and the scientist who built it is not pleased.
Next thing you know, the robot is after Supergirl and it wants revenge.
Ironic that something she defeated so easily soon became her greatest threat so far.
Kara's sister goes to her friendly boffin - Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
). Will he give advice that can save the day, or is he part of the problem again?
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 7]
Human For A Day
Shown 7th Dec 2015
Supergirl has not gotten her powers back after the big battle last episode.
Now she has to live as a normal human,
which involves taking the bus to work and getting infected with the common cold.
This would be a great opportunity to establish a hospital record,
as an alibi if she was ever unmasked as the indestructible Supergirl,
or maybe learn some human skills like martial arts.
And since she can now feel pain, presumably her sense of pleasure is likewise increased.
The city is hit by a massive Earthquake.
Since the exterior shots tend to include the Library Tower in Los Angeles,
one can assume that the city is meant to be in California.
Kara must save people without relying on her powers.
She lacks basic skills such as First Aid, so she is of no use at saving lives.
However, she can bluff a gun-toting robber who tries to loot a convenience store.
Surely there is insurance for events such as theft?
Under the Bloody Code, stealing a loaf of bread was punishable by death.
Do Kryptonians really believe that petty theft is a good reason to deploy a super-human's powers?
Well, why not? After all, in episode
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 2] Stronger Together
the bug-man ended up getting killed for the crime of eating poisonous garbage!
The MIB underground base is also hit by the quake.
When the power goes out, the worst prisoner escapes.
He is Clancy Brown (
Highlander
), a telepathic alien with a grudge.
Kara's sister is left in charge while her boss (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) abandons his post and takes a couple of goons to hunt the escapee.
However, she does not trust him so she abandons her post as well.
Her behaviour gets even more mutinous when she finds him.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 8]
Hostile Takeover
Shown 14th Dec 2015
Kara's aunt, General Zor-El (
Laura Benanti
) tries to talk with her.
Supergirl prefers to use violence, perhaps because she is unarmed in a battle of wits.
Luckily, in a few flashbacks we discover the truth.
Auntie was a Krypton-Firster, trying to save her planet from global catastrophe.
Mommy was a jobs-worth who would rather protect her career than prevent genocide.
Yes, Kara's mother was a banal Eichman figure
who arrested her twin sister and allowed Krypton, her own homeworld, to be destroyed!
Supergirl's other mother figure (okay, her OTHER other mother), Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) is in trouble.
Yes, someone hacked her emails and is now exposing her secrets to the world.
It is amazing that someone would go to all the trouble of cracking corporate security
and only target the CEO.
The only explanation, which Kara cannot deduce but instead stumbles across,
is that it is an inside job by a rival on the Board of Management.
Technically the episode's title is a misnomer -
this would be a coup d'etat rather than a hostile takeover.
Cat has an internal security crackdown -
consisting of Kara, Jimmy and the hobbit with the cardigans.
Cat refers to her business rival as the personification of White Male privilege.
This is a bit rich coming from a spoilt brat who has as much white privilege as anyone,
and who only has one female (who is also the only person of colour) on the management board.
Her rival is skilled enough to earn a place on the Board,
so he is an embodiment of White Male ABILITY.
And he would have gotten away with it,
if it were not for Kara cheating by using her superpowers for personal gain (AKA her day job).
Meanwhile, Auntie has a husband who has never been mentioned until this episode.
His target is the lab of Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
). The MIBs protect it - after all, the only time the local Police get involved in anything
is when they enforcing Cat Grant's control of her huge cash cow.
No wonder the city needs Supergirl so badly - the local government is non-existent,
the cops and courts are institutionally corrupt,
and the only branch of Federal government that does anything useful
is a secret branch of the Military-Industrial complex!
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 9]
Blood Bonds
Shown 4th January 2016 [Monday]
Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
) kicks the MIBs out of his facility.
This may seem ungrateful, since they took losses while saving his ass,
but he actually has a good reason.
The MIBs may trust Supergirl, but he has no reason to do so.
The Evil Kryptonians have captured Hank, boss of the MIBs.
He has left a sealed order that Supergirl's sister is Acting Director in his absence.
However, the US Military-Industrial Complex has ordered General Lane to take over.
Unfortunately Lane is willing to use torture to get what he wants,
and he has a stockpile of kryptonite for that very task.
Kara may be bulletproof, but her sister should be wearing a helmet when she goes on SWAT missions.
Likewise, many men in the military unit that Lane sends to rescue Hank are only wearing forage caps.
When they are up against an enemy who have military training,
only a fool would discount the possibility that they are walking into a trap.
Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) tries to infiltrate Max Lord's secret lab.
He ends up in the same position as Hank, just with different captors.
All this does is convince Kara that Max is evil,
and as a result she swears vengeance upon him.
She does not regard General Lane in the same light,
even though he is blatantly a much worse excuse for a human being.
And as for Auntie Villainess ...
It turns out that Kara's mother knew that Krypton was about to explode,
but refused to side with her own sister because you killed people.
Her sister was a General in the planetary Military,
like the excusable General lane on Earth,
so killing people was in her job description.
But rather than ignore a bit of collateral damage,
Kara's mother sentanced her OWN HOMEWORLD to certain death.
Yes, she deliberately and with depraved indifference
contributed to the near-extinction of her own species!
Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) believes that Kara and Supergirl are the same person.
After all, they look identical (when Kara takes off her glasses)
and have never been seen before in the same place at the same time.
By this logic, of course, she should have deduced who her old co-worker Clark Kent was too.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 10]
Childish Things
Shown 18th January 2016 [Monday]
Cat interviews Lucy Lane (
Jenna Dewan tatum
) for a job vacancy.
They have a shared distaste for Lois,
and they both like Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
), so they have a few things in common.
Lucy wants a job at CatCo, and it certainly seems to be in her interest to do so.
She has discovered that nine out of ten CatCo companies are run by women -
a clear example of the Glass Dancefloor, AKA gender-biased promotion.
Unfortunately for Jimmy, it looks like he will have his girlfriend on top of him 24/7.
Worse, she is an apologist for her father -
a man who takes a personal hand in torturing prisoners.
Yes, Lucy refers to Wall Street Bankers as White Collar Criminals
while ignoring the fact her own father is a war criminal!
The Toymaker (Henry Czerny -
Mission: Impossible
) breaks out of prison, leaving a trail of dead guards behind him.
It turns out that he is the father of Kara's nerdy co-worker.
The nerd resents his father because you killed people.
This is ironic because of the murderous nature of Kara and Lucy's respective parents.
Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
) gets targeted by the MIBs again.
They should concentrate on the Kryptonian threat,
but instead they single out the one man who might be able to save the planet!
Kara's sister takes Lord out on a date, which might be a good idea if she was sincere about it.
Meanwhile, Shawn Shones uses his shape-shifting powers to pose as Lord
and infiltrate the secret lab complex.
Of course, he deliberately does a half-assed job
so anyone paying attention would know it was not the real man himself.
Then he does something he promised himself he would never do again -
he mind-rapes a security guard by deleting all info in the man's brain.
The purpose is to conceal the fact that a shape-shifter posing as Lord infiltrated the lab.
But since there are lots of other witnesses, this is hardly a secret.
No wonder Lord is paranoid about both the MIBs and the alien invaders!
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 11]
Stranger From Another Planet
Shown 25th January 2016 [Monday]
The city is visited by a rabble-rousing US Senator
who wants to build a dome to keep out illegal aliens.
This is obviously a reference to the xenophobic rantings of US Presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The MIBs provide security, which is just as well because the Senator's entourage is attacked by an alien.
It turns out that Shawn Shones is not the last son of Mars.
He is only the last Green Martian.
He now reveals that there are other Martians - the White Martians -
and the Greens have fought a race-war against them for centuries.
According to Shones, the Whites enslaved the Greens and drove them to extinction.
Shones wants to return the favour by murdering as many Whites as he can.
In the subplot, Cat Grant's tweenage son Adam Foster
(Blake Jenner - Benoist's real-life husband)
pays her a visit.
She agrees to have dinner with him,
but naturally spends the whole time name-dropping her famous friends like Bill Gates and Maxwell Lord.
The reunion was Kara's idea, so she gets the blame.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 12]
Bizarro
Shown 1st February 2016 [Monday]
Kara tries to juggle a private life with her day job and her hobby of being Supergirl.
Unfortunately, dating the boss's son is not easy -
especially when there is an evil Supergirl imposter in town.
It turns out that the comatose girl who Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
) had in his secret lab a few episodes ago
was part of an experiment to create a super-soldier with Kara's DNA.
Kara's sister goes back to Max, but not for a second date.
She decides to ignore the saying You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
Instead she uses brute force and ignorance.
Lord has always pulled his punches, but all the sister understands is force.
Her attitude to indefinite imprisonment without arrest, charge or trial
is reminiscent of General Lane's attitude to torture.
Can we really blame Lord for mistrusting the US Federal Government?
Will Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) realise that it is entirely possible that the Supergirl she saw with Kara
was just another impersonator, thus negating the confirmation of them being two different people.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 13]
For The Girl Who Has Everything
Shown 8th February 2016 [Monday]
Kara has been immobilised by an alien parasite.
It puts her into a halucination
which makes her believe she never left Krypton.
When Kara does not turn up for work, Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) sends Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) and the Nerd out to look for her.
The Nerd claims that Kara is ill with a terrible allergy.
Cat refuses to accept excuses, perhaps because she has worked it out that Kara is Supergirl.
No doubt she is only pretending to go along with Kara's lies.
Anyway, Shawn Shones must pose as Kara to stall for time.
Kara's sister blames Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
). However, he is just another victim and wants to help save the world.
Jimmy and the Nerd are also part of the team,
so the MIBs' security is now officially non-existent.
Everyone except Cat Grant has now seen the inside of their secret lair!
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 14]
Truth, Justice and the American Way
Shown 22nd February 2016 [Monday]
Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
) is still being held prisoner by the MIBs, without trial or conviction.
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) is the only one who speaks in his defence.
Everyone else is happy to see the MIBs make up the law as they go along.
Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) has worked out that Lord has been secretly abducted by persons unknown.
After all, there is no way that he would willingly let a PR person do his announcements for him.
She has also hired a spare assistant, so in theory Kara should have more time to get things done.
However, the new assistant is an ambitious over-achiever.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 15]
Solitude
Shown 29th February 2016 [Monday]
Someone hacks an adulterous dating website
and sends the database of members to Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
). Strangely, she refuses to name and shame the cheaters.
The hacker is Indigo (
Laura Vandevoort
), a female Brainiac from Fort Roz.
She has a bigger plan, one that makes Kara's Aunt's plan look positively rosy in comparison.
Even the leader of the rogue Kryptonians is opposed to her.
Kara needs more info on the alien threat, and she refuses to work with the MIBs.
After all, she finds it impossible to forgive Shawn for killing her aunt.
Presumably she would also find her sister equally unforgivable.
Anyway, she gets Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) to take her to her cousin's Fortress of Solitude.
Superman leaves the key under the mat, so it is easy to get in.
The key weighs a million tons, according to Jimmy,
but Supergirl lifts it without any visible effort.
With a super-hacker on the loose, the best person to ask for help is Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
). Strangely he is never even mentioned this week.
Instead, the go-to guy is Kara's nerdy friend from CatCo.
The MIBs recruit him as their top computer expert,
which is makes one curious as to why he is earning a living as tech support in CatCo.
Not only does he save the day, he also gets the girl.
Indigo's plan is to use a nuclear missile from a nearby silo.
This storyline was used earlier (and better) in
Smallville
- where Vandervoort played Supergirl.
In all fairness, Vandervoort is a better villain than she ever was a Kara,
and Benoit is likewise a better Supergirl.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 16]
Falling
Shown 14th March 2016 [Monday]
Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) goes on a TV chat show with Mrs Osbourne,
and declares herself to be the most powerful person in National City
- rather than just the most powerful woman.
At least she chooses to ignore gender politics, if only for the moment.
She completely forgets about Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
), although everyone else in this show seems to have done so too.
He actually invents things and provides public services like mass transportation,
while Cat is merely a media moghul.
Meanwhile, Supergirl flies around helping the hopeless
and unwittingly stands near some red Kryptonite.
The MIBs later call Supergirl in to help with an arrest.
Kara gets stroppy with her boss, Shawn Shones,
and points out that he is just as powerful as her.
In fact, since he is a shapeshifter he can turn into Supergirl and fight crime disguised as her,
rather than reveal himself publicly as the Martian Manhunter.
The mission is to catch a Fort Roz escapee.
For some reason he has decided to become an armed robber
- well, unarmed, because he has superhuman strength.
Anyway, he spends his time stealing human money unlike the other escapees,
who seem to have no need for such things.
Kara defeats him easily, but then lets him go.
This is no big deal, because the MIBs can easily catch him without her help.
Kara starts power-dressing in the office,
and actually seems to be good at her job for a change.
The disinhibiting effect of the red Kryptonite has had a positive effect,
making her more mature and confident.
Unfortunately it also makes her cold-hearted.
The nerd's new girlfriend Siobhan Smythe,
who is also Kara's new rival in the workplace,
finds this out to her detriment.
The rival discovers a scoop that will be detrimental to Supergirl,
and Cat Grant orders her to keep quiet about it.
Unfortunately the rival is stupid enough to conspire against Cat,
using a computer in the CatCo office - the same mistake Cat's rival did in
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 8] Hostile Takeover.
Supergirl dresses in a black jumpsuit like her aunt did,
so presumably this is the female equivalent of a goatee beard.
She hangs out in a bar where everybody knows her name,
but instead of drinking alcohol she flicks peanuts (like Clark in
Superman 3
). Ironically, General Lane gave a speech to Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) ten episodes ago about not trusting anyone who would not drink alcohol.
It is a disinhibitor, just like Red K.
Max Lord does make an appearance, and volunteers to help the MIBs.
Kara's sister does not trust him, although he has given her no reason not to.
Likewise the female politician who was formerly anti-alien is now an ally of the MIB.
She has taken a liking to Hank Henshaw, although he has done nothing to deserve her trust.
The third ally of the week is Cat Grant herself.
She is willing to cover up Supergirl's strange behaviour
when it comes to letting a dangerous alien criminal roam the streets,
but when Supergirl scares the wits out of her she lets it get personal.
Cat Grant delivers a personal broadcast, as if she is literally the Queen of the city's media.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 17]
Manhunter
Shown 21st March 2016 [Monday]
Shawn Shones is under arrest for lying about his name.
USMC Colonel Jim Harper (Eddie McClintock -
Warehouse 13
) takes over the MIB Agency.
Please note, it is deemed acceptable for him to use different names -
either Jim or James is acceptable.
Also, the behind-the-scenes irony is that the actor
currently hunting aliens disguised as humans was last seen in
Agents of SHIELD
where he was an alien disguised as a human, himself being hunted by the MIBs.
Lucy Lane (
Jenna Dewan tatum
) is back in uniform.
Presumably she was still on the US Military reserves list,
since she only quit the JAG Corps a few months ago.
It must have been easy to get her old job back,
and she is now the Colonel's second-in-command.
She even runs the lie-detector while the Colonel interrogates the suspect.
The interrogation gives us flashbacks
to Shawn's first meeting with Kara's foster-father Dean Cain (
Lois & Clark
). Then Kara's sister is interrogated, and tells of her first meeting with Shawn.
With Shawn an outlaw at the MIB,
and the Hobbit's hot girlfriend blacklisted by Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
), it seems like everyone needs a powerful ally.
Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
) is the name that springs to the mind of viewers,
if not to any of the characters in the episode.
Also, he would seem to be a perfect pairing for Lucy Lane.
After all, the person they were originally paired with is obsessed with Supergirl,
so at least they have that much in common.
There is a soap opera subplot about the Hobbit's hot GF, Siobhan Smythe.
She decides to take revenge on Kara by framing her for sending a poison-pen email to Cat Grant.
Strangely, Cat Grant does not bother to check the CCTV tapes
to see who was using Kara's computer when Kara was taking the day off sick.
No, she went to all the trouble of getting a key-stroke analysis of the e-mail.
And the Hobbit, despite now having a girlfriend (who is not imaginary),
does not bother to be a very supportive boyfriend.
All this may seem irrelevant time-filling fluff,
but the epilogue sequence shows that it might actually cross over with the main storyline.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 18]
Worlds Finest
Shown 28th March 2016 [Monday]
Kara is attacked by a super-villain, but gets saved by
The Flash
! Yes, Barry Allen has run so fast he accidentally crossed over into an alternate universe.
It is nice to see Kara's interaction with Barry.
They do not flirt, but they have amazing chemistry together.
A super-hero team-up works best when they have a tag-team of villains to fight.
This week Kara's new foe, Silver Banshee, busts an old foe - Livewire - out of MIB custody.
A few things spring to mind.
Firstly, this show has a lot more female villains than the shows on the CW network.
Secondly, since both villains have a well-founded grudge against Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) we must consider that CatCo is the equivalent of OsCorp or Stark Enterprises.
Every reality has a MegaCorp that seems to breed super-villains,
even if it does so unintentionally.
Barry's stop-over in National City has a couple of positive side-effects.
Firstly, he can help the local police upgrade their prison so it can safely contain supervillains.
At least now they can get a fair trial, rather than just indefinite incarceration without arrest.
Secondly, Barry's non-flirting with Kara makes Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) jealous.
Perhaps this will kick-start her love-life.
Cat Grant seems very observant in some respects, yet oblivious in others.
She refers to the youngsters standing in her office as looking like
the racially diverse cast of a CW show,
an obvious reference to Barry's own TV show.
She also works out Barry's true identity,
although she still plays ignorant about Kara's.
However, when she is confronted by the villains she does not take responsibility for creating them.
Instead she begs for mercy on behalf of her sons,
because she claims she is the most important thing in their lives.
Unfortunately she is a workaholic power-freak and her sons might be better off without her.
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 19]
Myriad
Shown 11th April 2016 [Monday]
Kara's uncle has teamed up with Indigo (
Laura Vandevoort
). Together they activate Myriad, a mind-control ray that brainwashes all humans in the city.
The plan is to get all humans to work together to find the answer to human problems.
Yes, that truly is eeevil!
Superman tries to intervene, but he falls victim to the mind-control too.
The villains also have a plan to prevent Supergirl from getting involved.
They get three of Kara's co-workers to jump out of windows.
Two of them are regular cast members, while the third one has never been seen before.
Guess which one she cannot save in time?
Well, the victim's family can always sue Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) for running an unsafe work environment.
Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
) is humanity's only hope.
After all, he has developed a headband that can defeat the brainwashing.
He even gives Cat Grant a pair of earrings that have the same effect.
However, nobody thinks of giving a spare headband to Superman
so there would be TWO Kryptonians on the good team for a change.
Max Lord has a plan for a kryptonite-powered dirty nuke that he wants to airburst over the city.
Of course, this is assuming that all the evil Kryptonians are within the blast radius at the time.
Also, Superman would be a victim too unless he was saved in time.
General Lane gets permission from the female President
- presumably this is a plug for Hilary Clinton, since this episode was made in an election year.
Max Lord goes one better by referring to God as a female.
Well, no wonder many people call this show feminist propaganda!
Supergirl [Season 1, Episode 20]
Better Angels
Shown 18th April 2016 [Monday]
Supergirl has a plan to defeat the brainwashing with hope.
All she has to do is use Max Lord's tech and Cat Grant's network
to broadcast a message of wishful thinking across the city.
After all, this is basically what religions do.
Faith and prayer are basically words for Hope,
which means Supergirl is the city's Messiah.
The villains have a Plan B.
If they increase the power in their mind-control ray, it will make everyone's brain explode like in
Scanners
. Presumably Superman will suffer the same fate, since he was so easily brainwashed.
Again, they could just give him Max Lord's headband but everyone has forgotten it even existed.
Superman does not even get a mention in this episode until the very end, when he texts Kara.
This is a bit reminiscent of the early seasons of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, when the token adult was always knocked unconscious
and the High School kids had to save the world.
Supergirl and the Martian Manhunter face off against the villains.
Shawn Shones is in a weakened state, and Indigo (
Laura Vandevoort
) has previously defeated him in combat.
Can he win in the rematch?
Supergirl can lift a billion tons, but can she fly outside the Earth's atmosphere?
Her sister states that without air to breath or a means of propulsion,
she will die in the cold of space.
Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) gives Kara a Working Girl homage,
the second reference she has made to Harrison Ford in as many episodes.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 1]
The Adventures of Supergirl
Shown 10th October 2016 [Monday]
Supergirl and her friends have survived the great transition.
They transferred from their founder Network, CBS, to the CW Network - home of
Arrow
and the other DC/JLA comic-book shows.
As a result, the show has been slightly re-tooled.
However, the changes are minor -
presumably the new owners did not want to change anything.
The DEO/MIB group has moved to a new secret headquarters.
Their old building was a military bunker in the middle of a desert,
and the new one is a shiny big skyscraper in the middle of a city.
Shawn Shones has come out of the closet as an illegal alien,
but is still allowed to run the department.
Winn the handsome hobbit is now a DEO technician rather than just Kara's buddy at CatCo,
which makes a lot more sense plot-wise.
Superman's objection to working with the DEO is that they stockpile kryptonite
in case they need to fight an army of Kandorians.
No mention is made of the secret torture camp the US Government holds aliens in.
Nor is there mention of the army of Kandorians that Kara and the DEO had to fight last year.
Even Maxwell Lord goes unmentioned, although there is another mysterious billionaire in town.
Kara has been offered a job as a CatCo executive,
but she has yet to decide what she will specialise in.
Luckily her cousin Clark Kent (Tyler Hoechlin -
Teen Wolf
) is in town, to show her the ropes at journalism.
Their long-awaited team-up is reminiscent of the crossover with
The Flash
, which was easily the best episode of Season One.
Kara has great chemistry with her male co-star,
which makes this episode incredibly watchable.
There is no reference to the events of the previous Season.
Instead, we are given fragments of Superman's recent backstory.
Lex Luthor has been imprisoned for setting off an earthquake in California -
possibly a reference to the plot he used in
Superman (1978)
. Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) is the heir to LuthorCorp, and has decided to call it L-Corp.
Unfortunately someone has hired an assassin named John Corben to disrupt things.
If the name sounds familiar,
it is because he is a long-time superman villain who is a cyborg.
However, because this is an origin story he does not necessarily have his superpowers yet.
And is Lena a villain or a victim?
With Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli –
Hollow Man 2
) apparently erased from existence,
the show needs a recurring trouble-maker to stir things up.
Also, as a strong independent woman Kara needs a female villain,
because it would be inappropriate to see her menaced by a male.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 2]
The Last Children of Krypton
Shown 17 Oct 16
The previous episode ended on a high note,
setting up a new super-villain that might be this Season's Big Bad.
The cyborg is being controlled by a secret anti-alien organisation known as Cadmus.
In Season One it was part of the US Government's defence system.
Now it is an illegal, well-organised group of vigilantes
who want to Earth for the Earthlings ... like a sci-fi Brexit.
Metallo the kryptonite-powered cyborg defeats both of the Els.
Since the Kryptonians are clearly unable to win in a fair fight, they decide to cheat.
Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) has decided to move on, so she promotes Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) to run CatCo for her.
Yes, if the hetero male from Season One had held off on his takeover bid for a few months
he could have positioned himself as her heir apparent and achieved a bloodless coup.
Since he already had the clues about Cat's son,
he could have manipulated her into realising that her high-stress job was destroying her life.
Instead he set himself up for a big fall by making the risky move of a full frontal assault.
Superman (Tyler Hoechlin -
Teen Wolf
) insists that Kryptonite is too dangerous to be left in the hands of mere humans.
Shawn Shones acknowledges that it was vital in Season One,
when they needed to fight off Astra and her army of Kryptonians.
However, Cadmus has been stealing the stuff from the MIBs' supplies.
Did nobody think of using Max Lord's old plan and just manufacturing the stuff?
After all, it would be bad enough to do a Marvel and privatize Earth's security,
but can an illegal alien vigilante like Superman be any more trustworthy
than a parasite like Tony Stark?
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 3]
Welcome to Earth
Shown 24 Oct 16
The mysterious humanoid alien in the Kryptonian starship (Chris Wood -
Containment
) wakes up and escapes.
As Shawn Shones admits, the MIBs picked a hell of a time to get rid of their Kryptonite.
This newcomer, stranded on a strange world
where he does not even speak the language,
is the main antagonist for most of the story.
The US President (
Lynda Carter
) is in town to promote the signing of a new law.
It is basically a complete blanket amnesty for all illegal immigrants
- as long as the illegal aliens are from outer space.
A few things should be noted.
Firstly, she takes full responsibility for signing it into law,
so presumably it is just a presidential decree
rather than proper legislation passed by Congress.
Secondly, a lot of humans are unhappy about it
and want to buy alien-detector machines.
Thirdly, many aliens are also unhappy about it
and see it as the first step towards registration (see movies like
X-Men 2, Captain America: Civil War
, etc. for other stories on that theme).
Even Shawn Shones realises that aliens
will not all want to enter the USA's melting pot.
As a result, nobody should be surprised
when someone starts throwing fireballs at the President.
To catch the attempted assassin,
Kara's butch brunette Federal Agent sister
teams up with a butch brunette Police Detective.
The detective takes her to a secret dive bar with a counter-culture clientele.
No, it is not a lesbian bar -
although the barmaid and the detective were lesbian lovers.
The bar is a hangout for closet-case aliens who wound up on Earth.
There are a lot of regulars, which begs the question -
were they unaffected by the Kryptonian mind-control last Season?
It is like Willie's Bar in
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- the butch sister even beats information out of a snitch,
but at least it is a male snitch so the show's gender-equality hypocrisy is exposed.
Kara wants a high prestige journalism assignment,
but is sent to interview her old buddy Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) who is about to start distributing her company's new cash-cow.
It is a scanner that can detect human DNA -
and thus, if a person is not confirmed as human they must be an alien immigrant.
In keeping with the girl-power theme of the episode, the director is a woman -
Rachael Talalay
. Her biggest project, twenty years ago, was
Tank Girl
- based on a comic-book character that was created as the antithesis of
Supergirl (1985)
!
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 4]
Survivors
Shown 31 Oct 16
An alien from the local immigrant community has been killed.
The butch detective calls in Kara's sister.
It seems evident that they are intended as love interests.
Kara does not have a love interest of her own,
although the alien man (Chris Wood -
Containment
) from the pod may be able to keep up with her.
As she knows from her school formal dance,
superhuman strength is a bad thing when you lose control.
However, pod-man is under house arrest in the DEO HQ
while the nerdy guy runs tests on his superpowers.
Kara's boss wants her to cover an important environmental story
about dead pelicans.
She would rather pursue the case of the dead alien,
who was apparently killed by other non-humans.
Yes, she wishes to stir up interracial hatred and mistrust.
Worse, she is not willing to declare the existence of a reliable source for her story.
Does she really think that a respectable newspaper will print rumours and gossip?
Kara's other boss, Shawn Shones of the DEO,
has problems of his own.
He has a new love interest, but she is reluctant to mind-meld with him.
In all fairness, they have only just met.
Also, she has spent three hundred years posing as a human
so she must have a lot of memories (especially the inter-species lesbian sex)
that she does not feel comfortable sharing with a man she barely knows.
The alien brawlers are being employed as cage-fighters
in a bare-knuckle boxing game.
Despite the hype, this is NOT a
Fight Club
. It is more like the gambling ring in A.W.O.L. (AKA Lionheart), and the
Deborah Renard
character in charge of it all is
Dichen Lachman
. She gives the aliens a place they can belong,
while all the US Government does is persecute them.
Supergirl is the biggest hypocrite of all.
She objects to the aliens getting paid to fight,
while she will happily beat them all up for free.
She objects to people paying to watch -
but CatCo Media (and the CW Network) gets impressive viewing figures
by televising her fights.
Basically, all she wants to do is drive down the alien fighters' wages
by enforcing CatCo's monopoly on audience access to alien fights!
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 5]
Crossfire
Shown 07 Nov 16
Kara has gotten her new alien friend (Chris Wood -
Containment
) a fake name - Mike Matthews.
His real name is Mon-El, which would imply that he is from the Kryptonian house of El
and thus a distant relative of Kara and Kal-El.
None of this makes sense, but this show rarely does.
Kara also gets Mon-El a job as an intern at CatCo.
He tries to blend in with the humans,
but he does not seem to be very good at it.
Back on his home-world he was one of the Royal Guard,
so he is not cut out to be a mindless office drone.
However, we do learn something about his weaknesses.
Eve Teschmacher, Jimmy's assistant,
does not end up as a woman of Kleenex to match Mon-El's Man Of Steel.
The show's soap opera aspect takes a new dimension.
Kara's human sister tries to comfort her new buddy, the butch detective girl,
who has just been dumped by her lesbian lover.
The sister's own butchness somehow escaped the detective's gaydar,
even though a casual viewer would catch the obvious relationship set-up
from day one.
Is she merely a frigid straight or a closet lesbian?
More likely she is an asexual who has no sexual desires, straight or other,
but just feels desperate to get a label and categorise herself.
The token men get a bit of screen time as well.
The nerdy guy Winn bonds with Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
), who is sick of being a sidekick and intends to become a superhero himself.
How he intends to do this,
in a world where villains are tough enough to beat up Supergirl herself,
is not explained.
Also, Winn gets a potential new love interest - Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
). She seems helpful, but is she a secret villain?
After all, remember how his last relationship ended.
In all truth, that was his fault for being the worst boyfriend ever.
The episode also has a thriller plot as well.
Some violent bank-robbers are using hi-tech alien weapons.
This is a natural progression of the arms race,
considering the vast number of aliens (both illegal ones and listed ones)
who have formed their own underworld community.
Actually these particular crooks are working as pawns for Cadmus, led by
Brenda Strong
.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 6]
Changing
Shown 14 Nov 16
Rent-a-villain William Maprother (
Lost
) is a climate change scientist investigating global warming.
Unfortunately a sample in melting arctic ice turns out to be infected with an alien parasite.
Not unlike the events in
The Thing
, but this parasite sucks the power out of its victims.
Supergirl should just throw things at it or use her heat-vision,
but she only uses heat-vision to cook food at family events these days.
Mon-El (Chris Wood -
Containment
) has a new job, working as hired muscle for an alien bookie.
Kara is unhappy about this, but it is unclear why.
Well, it is very clear why - she is a self-richeous busy-body.
But her logic is severly flawed.
As an underworld enforcer her will merely keep order among the alien community.
Kara does this in her capacity as a DEO operative,
although she will always claim to uphold the No Personal Gain clause.
This is a blatant lie - she uses info gained as Supergirl
to help earn a living at her day-job as a reporter.
And although she may claim to do violence as a hobby,
not for profit, her butch sister Alex definitely gets a big salary from the DEO.
Meanwhile, Alex has convinced herself that she is a full-on Lesbian
and decides to come out to her family.
Not to her mother, who is not even mentioned, but definitely to Kara.
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) has his own secret - he is now a super-hero with his own super-suit.
This is a bit like Shaq O'Neill in the movie
Steel
, but he uses the nickname Guardian instead.
His sidekick Winn designed and built the suit,
and since Winn's day-job is now DEO rather than CatCo
it is possible that he used illegal tech - the same way Cadmus does.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 7]
The Darkest Place
Shown 21 Nov 16
Mon-El (Chris Wood -
Containment
) has been kidnapped by Cadmus Leader (
Brenda Strong
). He is just bait to lure Supergirl in.
The bad news is, Mon-El is allergic to lead so bullets are his kryptonite.
the good news is, Kara finds out what happened to her human foster-father (Dean Cain –
Lois & Clark
).
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) has another problem.
Guardian, his armoured vigilante alter-ego, has a murderous copy-cat.
The lesbian cop is in charge of the investigation,
because she is probably the only police detective in town.
Alex and the DEO also join the investigation,
although there is no proof of alien involvement.
Since Alex and the cop had their heart-to-heart,
she is in a bad mood and has no reason to play nice with Winn.
Yes, violence in the workplace is an everyday thing at the DEO.
Can anyone imagine Hank Henshaw or Shawn Shones using violence against a female cow-orker?
Shawn Shones is actually doing much worse things.
He has discovered his girlfriend's secret.
It turns out that their inter-species love-making was just good-old bestiality.
As a result of him racially profiling her,
he lets his own racism take over.
Will he kill her in a brutal act of domestic violence?
Or will he just lock her up in an illegal case of detention without trial?
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 8]
Medusa
Shown 28 Nov 16
Cyborg Hank and his Cadmus buddies have developed a virus that kills non-humans.
They plan to launch a rocket into the atmosphere.
What side will Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) choose?
As a subplot, a mysterious portal keeps trying to open near Kara.
Is someone trying to cross over from another universe?
This is the show's part of the big DC Universe crossover,
to fight a race of alien invaders.
Yes, the villains' super-weapon would have been useful.
This story is to be continued in
The Flash
.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 9]
Supergirl Lives
Shown 23 Jan 17
Supergirl has run out of alien invaders to fight.
She is slumming it, beating up armed robbers.
In all fairness, they have upgraded from shotguns to a shoulder-fired rocket launcher.
It must have a soft launch option,
because they fire it from inside a van.
Supergirl blows up the van,
nearly incinerating the suspects (and anyone else nearby).
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) does the rest, beating them up while he hides in his impenetrable super-suit.
Only Winn, the weaselly little tech nerd, is at any risk of injury.
A teenage girl (
Harley Quinn Smith
) has gone missing, and Snapper Carr forbids Kara from investigating.
He must be using reverse psychology,
because as always she does the opposite of whatever he says.
Mon-El (Chris Wood -
Containment
) tags along while she investigates the abduction.
Kara and Mon-El end up on Slavers' Moon, a world with a red sun.
Not only can they not use their superpowers,
they have no weapons and minimal combat skills.
Shawn Shones cannot go to rescue them,
because the atmosphere is toxic to Martians.
Apparently nobody ever bothered to build an armoured EVA suit in his size,
although he is a shape-shifter with full access to the MIBs' hardware.
Winn could have built him a suit, since he built Jimmy Olsen's super-suit.
In fact, he could now build super-suits for the MIBs' entire SWAT team.
Instead, Kara's sister takes her grunts, using normal SWAT armour.
Winn is dragged along, reluctant to risk his life in battle again.
It turns out that
Dichen Lachman
is involved in the abductions.
Since Supergirl closed down her first business,
which gave a home to illegal aliens on Earth,
she now recruits a workforce of Earthlings to serve the aliens.
Supergirl seems to have the American view that work is a good thing,
and she is happy that Mon-El has got a job as a bartender.
The bartender job was only available because Shawn Shones,
in a brutal act of domestic violence,
locked his girlfriend in solitary confinement without arrest or trial.
However, the millennials that the aliens abducted
have probably never worked a day in their lives.
The so-called villainess trades them to the aliens for a few diamonds,
while Supergirl handed over hard-working thieves to the police
for the sake of a few bits of stolen jewelry.
This was directed by long-time comic-book fan
Kevin Smith
, father of the guest-star.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 10]
We Can Be Heroes
Shown 30th January 2017
Livewire, Kara's arch-nemesis from Season One,
gets busted out of prison by a couple of strangers.
Kara assumes the worst.
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) tries to save the day.
Mon-El (Chris Wood -
Containment
) tags along to help out.
Kara has to save them both.
Serves them right for trying to live worthwhile lives.
They should have taken early retirement
and let the Maid of Might have all the fun instead.
Megan the Martian is still in solitary confinement,
imprisoned without trial simply because of her race.
Everyone in the DEO knows this and is okay with it.
She falls ill from a mysterious illness, and they act concerned.
It turns out she is the victim of a psychic attack by her own people,
who she betrayed and murdered when she turned traitor.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 11]
The Martian Chronicles
Shown 06 Feb 17
Shawn Shones has forgiven Megan the Martian for being a different race.
However, her own kind have not forgotten about her.
She committed war crimes by murdering her friends,
and now a survivor turns up to bring her to justice.
Most of the episode is dedicated to Shawn's soap opera relationship.
However, there is enough time left over for other peoples' relationships.
Kara has decided that Mon-El is not good enough for her.
Kara's sister is meant to help Kara celebrate her thirteenth Earth-day,
but has a hot date with her hot lesbian instead.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 12]
Luthors
Shown 13 Feb 17
Lillian Luthor (
Brenda Strong
) is on trial for trying to save the world.
The official charge is something about
using a bio-weapon to kill aliens,
but is that even a crime?
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) tries to mend fences with her wicked step-mother.
However, Lillian busts out with the help of Metallo.
Well, the security precautions would be pretty pathetic for a normal criminal,
never mind a billionaire supervillain with her own terrorist organisation.
The DEO does not care about protecting humans,
and instead uses their satellite sensors to detect Metallo's kryptonite emissions.
Ever since the DEO handed over the Earth's entire stockpile to Superman,
the human race has had to manufacture synthetic kryptonite.
Unfortunately the new version is unstable.
Once the main storyline is out of the way,
the soap opera aspect of the show is the main focus.
Kara spent the previous Season trying to be Jimmy Olsen's girlfriend.
Now she blatantly friend-zones Jimmy (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
), and goes after Mon-El (Chris Wood -
Containment
) - despite their differences.
Mon-El points out that he is super-fun and she is hypocritical.
She retorts that he is an arrogant dude-bro
and she is the personification of the American way.
Nobody points out that they are the same thing!
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 13]
Mr. & Mrs. Mxyzptlk
Shown 20 Feb 17
It is Valentine's Day, and Kara is spoilt for choice.
As well as an entire planet filled with human males,
she also has TWO alien suitors this week.
Mon-El (Chris Wood -
Containment
) is already established as a love interest,
although he is portrayed as a semi-villainous one because of his masculinity.
Now she has another semi-villain - Mister Mixyzpitlik.
He is a super-powerful entity from the Fifth Dimension.
Wynn the nerd has a great Valentine's day.
He actually gets a girlfriend!
Alex already has a girlfriend.
Unfortunately, it seems that Valentine's Day is different for lesbians.
The good news, we learn which one of the butch gun-toting girls
is the one who wears the pants.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 14]
Homecoming
Shown 27 Feb 17
Kara's human foster-father (Dean Cain –
Lois & Clark
) is back.
Everyone accepts him back without question.
The exception is Mon-El (Chris Wood -
Containment
). In part this may be jealousy,
because he took months to get accepted by the others.
However, Cain was in Cadmus custody for over a decade
so for all they know he could be completely brainwashed.
Also, nobody considers that he might have defected willingly.
This show tends towards the comic-book cliche
of portraying the antagonists as needlessly evil.
There are no shades of grey when it comes to Cadmus.
Unfortunately, this has become more prevalent in real-life mainstream society too.
The concept of meaningful dialogue or compromise is not even considered.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 15]
Exodus
Shown 06 Mar 17
The US Government has allowed literally hundreds of aliens to live in the USA.
It seems like they have not done much of a background check on any of them.
For example, Mon-El (Chris Wood -
Containment
) is assumed to be a good guy but they know very little about him.
After all, the first steady job he held on Earth
was as a debt collector for an illegal bookie.
Yes, he is literally a thug who was involved in organised crime.
And unlike the movie
Men in Black
, this show's MIBs do not keep the aliens under video surveillance 24/7.
As a result, the Cadmus group abducts many of the aliens.
The plan is not to kill the aliens, it is merely to send them home.
Kara's human foster-father (Dean Cain –
Lois & Clark
) is the brains of this operation.
He claims he is only doing it under duress,
but that is exactly the thing that is a problem with this show.
The villains are not alien invaders,
they are normal human beings whose only crime is political dissent.
It seems that the showrunner is in favour of all kinds of diversity,
except diversity of opinion.
The aliens probably do not even like living on Earth.
After all, it is a primitive backwater - the equivalent of Tatooine in
Star Wars
. And the most obvious target for Cadmus,
the place where the aliens congregate, is the Cantina ... where Mon-El works.
Naturally the MIBs do not have a team in place there when Cadmus attacks.
Mon-El's superhuman powers are useless, and Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) is not much good without his super-suit.
Luckily the off-duty lesbian thugs are there to save the day.
One unlucky Cadmus footsoldier is captured.
Instead of being arrested and given his constitutional rights
he is victimised with police brutality, Gitmo style.
The show that uses these tactics the most is right-wing thriller 24, but
Agents of SHIELD
is just as guilty.
Yes, the idea of the ends justify the means is accepted by the MIBs,
unless it is espoused by a supposedly fascist group like Cadmus or HYDRA.
In the final scene we see the Season's other plot arc continue.
Kevin Sorbo (
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
) and
Teri Hatcher
arrive in orbit around Earth, aboard an enormous warship.
What makes them really dangerous to anyone who gets in their way
is the fact that Earth's yellow sun has started to affect them.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 16]
Star-Crossed
Shown 20 Mar 17
Kevin Sorbo (
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
) and
Teri Hatcher
demand that the Earthlings release their hostage, Mon-El (Chris Wood -
Containment
). Nobody bothers to say that he is only a guest
and he can leave any time he wants.
Mon-El's secret history is revealed.
Is it that his name is short for Monday Kara-El,
because he was found on a monday by Supergirl?
Well, no.
It turns out that his hedonistic lifestyle was a perk of his job.
And when Kara discovers that her boyfriend may have boasted slightly
about something that made him less unfavourable in her eyes,
she is less than happy.
The DEO should be saving the world from alien invasion.
Instead they are dealing with Agent Wynn's love life.
His girlfriend, the blonde alien woman,
turns out to be suspect in a series of hi-tech burglaries.
She claims to have been coerced into it by alien gangsters.
Remember last week when the human resistance
wanted to peacefully repatriate the illegal aliens into outer space?
It turns out that Cadmus are the good guys all along!
After the soap opera is over,
Kara confronts an actual supervillain.
His name is Music Meister, and this storyline is continued in
Flash: Season 3, Episode Duet
.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 17]
Distant Sun
Shown 27 Mar 17
Kara has taken Mon-El (Chris Wood -
Containment
) back. After all, his only crime is wanting to be a better man.
Not only does he have a crappy gap-year job as a bartender,
he also has the cookery skills of an excellent house-husband.
Unfortunately his parents, Kevin Sorbo (
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
) and
Teri Hatcher
, are still hanging around in their orbiting space fortress.
Someone takes out a massive bounty on Supergirl.
The so-called good-guys capture a hard-working bounty-hunter.
They treat him like a criminal, but he is not a hired killer
- he is freelance law enforcement.
Then, to find out who hired him, they use coercion.
Abuse of defenceless prisoners is a long-standing tactic of the DEO.
It seems that liberal people may oppose Jack Bauer's tactics
but not if the one employing them is a black lesbian cripple.
While Kara is dealing with Mon-El's private life,
the lesbian sister has her own soap opera issues.
She interferes in her own lover's private life.
It turns out that the lady cop had a bad break-up a few years ago,
and now it becomes a big deal.
Who was the bad guy in the relationship?
Both women blame the other.
But really, who cares? Let sleeping dogs lie!
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 18]
Ace Reporter
Shown
th April 2017
Kara is bored with self-employment.
There is no major crime in the city.
Luckily, her best buddy Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) invites her to a press conference.
It is for a rival MegaCorp, run by Lena's ex-lover
- the South Asian pathologist from
iZombie
. He has invented the next generation of medical technology - nanobots!
Unfortunately as the story unfolds
it turns out someone is using the nanites to enforce a cover-up.
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) is also bored with the lack of major crime.
He has taken to beating up shoplifters.
Wynn the nerd distracts himself with his alien girlfriend.
He even invites her along on the vigilante patrol,
although her former status as a villain's henchwoman
means that this is a bad idea.
She is a violent psychopath,
and if she found a cat stuck up a tree
her answer would be to eat the cat.
Jimmy and Kara apparently do not socialise together much,
and only meet up when Kara drops by his office unexpectedly.
She wants him to use CatCo resources to help her website
- a direct competitor against the CatCo news organisation.
Luckily Snapper the news editor is around
to stop Jimmy doing something stupid.
However, Snapper eventually learns respect for Kara's skills as a reporter.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 19]
Alex
Shown
th April 2017
Someone kidnaps Alex and uses her as leverage against Kara.
This is not a supervillain,
it is a first-time criminal whose mission is a personal one.
He has a wonderful setup, with CCTV and IP-spoofers
and a basement boobytrap that
Saw
would have been proud of.
However, he makes one tiny mistake.
He gives Kara thirty-six hours to rescue a prison inmate.
She could easily do it in that many seconds,
but super-speed is the one super-power
that is only used when the plot demands it.
Kara relies on brute force and ignorance to solve problems.
Maggie, Alex's Lesbian lover,
is a Police detective who uses brains as well as brawn.
Of course, Maggie is technically bound by the rule of law.
Kara works for the Feds, who make up the law as they go along.
They imprison without trial, and conduct mind-reading without a search warrant.
One can hardly blame a poor human for resisting the Alien Overlords.
In the subplot, Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) is offered an alliance with another powerful woman -
Teri Hatcher
. However, she refuses to do business with people she does not trust.
She is not yet mature enough to realise that she should trust nobody,
and that her friends will eventually let her down.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 20]
City of Lost Children
Shown 8 May 2017
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) is disenchanted with his hobby as a vigilante.
He finally realises that he does not inspire hope,
he merely beats people up.
An alien woman with telekinetic powers goes berzerk in an outdoors market.
The DEO assume she is a terrorist.
However, Jimmy discovers that she is just an impoverished immigrant.
He bonds with her son, a pre-teen child who looks like him.
Yes, this being an American show the race issue plays a big role.
In the subplot, Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) and her new business partner (
Teri Hatcher
) make advances in their new technological breakthrough.
Somehow this is linked to the aliens' telekinetic seizures.
Is this a side-effect, or the villain's intended result?
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 21]
Resist
Shown 15 May 2017
The Daxomite Queen (
Teri Hatcher
) has conquered the city.
While her super-ship hovers overhead,
she broadcasts her face on a holographic screen - like in
V (2009)
. Her plan is to marry her son Mon-El (Chris Wood -
Containment
) to Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
), so her reign will be legitimised.
While the invaders are led by a Queen,
the humans also have a matriarchy.
The only people who can put up a real fight are the butch lesbians.
The US President (
Lynda Carter
) teams up with Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) and Lillian Luthor (
Brenda Strong
). Mon-El referred to his mother's followers,
the middle-class Daxumites, as thieves, liars and killers.
Perhaps this is a better description of Earth's Matriarchy.
Despite Cat Grant's assertion that POTUS is a pacifist,
she has deployed a super-weapon and intends to use it.
If they destroy the Daxomite super-ship they will basically commit genocide.
Cat Grant takes the handsome hobbit back to CatCo HQ for a diversionary broadcast.
The entire building has been abandoned,
and the supposedly elite news-gathering organisation have deserted.
Even Snapper Carr, Kara's editor, is nowhere to be seen.
The show is certainly not politically neutral.
The POTUS is a female Democrat, so she is presumably an analogue for Hillary Clinton.
Cat Grant is friendly with Madeline Albright, and calls Bill O'Reilly a lech.
However, the fictional characters do not exactly come off well
when associated with the real-life ones.
Among other things, Cat Grant must be a nasty piece of work
if she has dinner with a right-wing fanatic like O'Reilly.
Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 22]
Nevertheless, She Persisted
Shown 22 May 2017
Just like in the climax of the previous Season, Superman (Tyler Hoechlin -
Teen Wolf
) has been compromised.
This is a familiar trope also used in similar shows.
For example, in
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
the token adult, Rupert Giles, got knocked out every week in the third act
so that a bunch of school-children could save the world.
The Kryptonians recuperate in the Fortress of Solitude.
Somehow Kara's lesbian foster-sister got them there by herself,
although she has no superpowers or access to the Kryptonian-only building.
Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) has taken back her old office.
She chides Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) behind his back,
because of his vigilante actions while dressed like Darth Vader.
In yet another oblique reference to her real-life husband Harrison Ford,
she states that she has never seen
Star Wars
.
Just as the weakness of Kryptonians is Kryptonite,
the weakness of Daxomites is Daxom Ore.
However, it is not a rock - it is a duel of single combat.
Kara must face the Daxomite Queen (
Teri Hatcher
) in a one-on-one.
Of course, this would leave the entire supporting cast with nothing to do.
Not only does Shawn Shones have his own DEO army,
but his girlfriend Megan has an army of White Guilt Martians.
As a result, the Daxomite army also gets involved in an all-star battle.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) refuses to take responsibility for her own life choices.
She blames her mother Lillian Luthor (
Brenda Strong
), who turns out to be the one person who can actually save the world.
They call in Wynn for tech support,
although now he has a girlfriend there is no longer any sexual tension between him and Lena.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 1]
Girl of Steel
Shown 09 Oct 17
Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) has abandoned her responsibilities
and gone off to help the lady President.
Who will look after the city after it was attacked by aliens last Season?
Unfortunately the big government has spent its entire budget on the
Men In Black
. Luckily there are a couple of friendly billionaires in town.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) is still around,
and acts like the benevolent den-mother that Cat Grant used to be.
Morgan Edge (Adrian Pasdar -
Heroes
) wants to help repair the city,
although he is accused of gentrification.
He wants to buy CatCo -
to which Lena accuses him of wanting to use it against his rivals.
Well, Cat Grant always used it as a propaganda tool.
Supergirl is still busy.
A human male has been stealing hi-tech gadgets,
probably with the intention of building a super-weapon.
He might have superpowers,
because he can walk away after being thrown from a speeding truck
and landing on his spine.
Also, he can run a three-hundred-man submarine with only two other men.
In comparison, Supergirl forgets that she has super-speed.
Supergirl's bossy sister is reduced to crowd control.
She meets another bossy woman, a single mother (
Odette Annable
) who orders her own daughter around in a very controlling way.
If the character were a father,
these actions would be presented as abusive.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 2]
Triggers
Shown 16 Oct 17
Kara is unhappily single.
Meanwhile, the two lesbians are busy plotting their wedding.
After all, they have been dating for six whole months.
However, they have a major argument - wedding band or DJ?
This is not exactly on the same level as the Astronauts versus Cavemen debate in
Angel: Season 5
. But does it pass the Bechdel test?
Well, the original intent of the test was to seperate plot-related discussions
from the more cliched love-life discussions female characters were limited to.
The sad reality is that Social Justice stories lack conflict and plot.
Therefore, they automatically fail their own test.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) has bought out CatCo.
This is good news for Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
), who is now three quarters of a billion dollars richer.
However, it is bad news for Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
). Lena moves into the CatCo offices
where she sidelines him from his job.
She also keeps an eye on lesser employees like Kara.
This personal surveillance might be taken by some as a form of bullying.
Supergirl has a new supervillain to fight this week.
This time it is a blonde woman who robs banks.
Her superpower is telepathy,
which she uses to make everyone around her relive their worst fears.
Supergirl has a flashback to when her mother (
Erica Durance
) sent her to Earth during the destruction of Krypton.
However, her real mental issues are about her forced separation from Mon-El.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 3]
Far from the Tree
Shown 23 Oct 17
Shawn Shones has been summoned back to Mars by Megan McGann.
Kara goes along with him, as Super-Girl.
She probably does not even bother to tell anyone at CatCo she will be away for a few days.
Does she still have a job, or has she quit or been fired again?
Shawn's father (Carl Lumbly -
Alias
) has been rescued by Megan's gang.
He knows the location of an ancient Martian superweapon,
and the Resistance want it before their rivals can claim it.
The Alien Resistance are of the same species as their rivals,
and the only genuine difference is a political one.
The Resistance movement have assumed human form,
and are all portrayed as People Of Colour.
In contrast, their rivals are referred to as The Whites -
a racist term that refers to their species rather than their politics.
Back on Earth, Alex and her lesbian lover Maggie are planning their Wedding Shower.
Maggie invites her estranged father (Carlos Bernard - 24).
Unfortunately he still has issues about her sexuality.
His main preoccupation is the racist wall that someone is building to keep Latinos out.
Why is the lady President (
Lynda Carter
) and her mouthpiece Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) interested in such a horrible thing?
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 4]
The Faithful
Shown 30 Oct 17
Kara investigates a Cult that uses a Kryptonian symbol.
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) and Wynn the nerd tag along.
Jimmy still works at CatCo in some capacity,
and although Wynn is a DEO employee they still hang out after work.
The Cult's leader (Chad Lowe -
) was a passenger aboard the plane that Supergirl saved in the pilot episode.
Now he teaches his followers that she is a divine entity.
He does not have to do much convincing, because his followers (including
Sofia Vassilieva
) have all been saved by Supergirl already.
His plan is to convince more people to worship her
by putting them in danger so that she has to save them.
Of course, she has spent two whole Seasons (including two city-saving Season finales)
saving virtually everyone in the whole darn city.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) is still best buddies with Kara,
who is still technically her minion.
Her other BFF is the bossy soccer mom (
Odette Annable
) who juggles being CEO of LuthorCorp with home-schooling her bratty daughter.
Morgan Edge (Adrian Pasdar -
Heroes
) registers a complaint with the SEC about the LuthorCorp/CatCo merger,
since it would be an incredible monopoly.
It gets quickly quashed,
perhaps because Cat Grant is an important figure in the Government.
However, one suspects that there will never be a proper investigation into this corruption.
The lesbian couple have been dating six whole months,
and they are living togather as a married couple.
However, now they get round to a discussion about having children.
It turns out that Kara's sister, despite being a butch man-hater (even in Season One,
when she convinced everyone - including herself - that she was straight),
has always wanted to become a mother.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 5]
Damage
Shown 6th November 2017
This starts with a white cop beating up a bunch of black men.
Of course, the cop is Kara's sister Alex -
and her lesbian identity trumps their black identity,
so nobody accuses her of police brutality.
Morgan Edge (Adrian Pasdar -
Heroes
) holds a press conference at a hospital owned by Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
). Yes, she OWNS a hospital - she makes profits out of the suffering of innocent children.
She has already displayed her lack of integrity to Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
), by allowing her newspaper to run adverts disguised as impartial news articles.
Edge deepens her crisis by blaming her for an outbreak of lead poisoning in children.
Lena agrees to temporarily step aside so that her minions can run her comapnies for her.
She holds a public announcement - not a secure press briefing -
in front of a crowd who chant the familiar refrain of Lock Her Up!.
A disgruntled woman takes a shot at Lena,
who has not learned anything about personal security since her first public speach in Season Two.
Jimmy Olsen has been a bulletproof vigilante for a year or so,
but now he becomes vulnerable.
Lena's best buddy, the bossy soccer mom (
Odette Annable
), lets her crash in the family apartment.
It is possible that she is a victim of the Hollywood casting problem,
whereby no actress can get work if aged over thirty-five years old.
The real problem is that with a teenage daughter,
the character must have been only twenty years old when she got pregnant.
And yet despite the disruption to her education
and the lack of life-experience a thirty-something has,
the single mother is somehow worthy of being a top-level Corporate executive.
The truth is that she was one of Lena's Mean girls clique,
and got the job due to nepotism.
It is not what she knows, it is who she knows!
Will Lena be held accountable for her actions?
After all, as Jimmy points out the super-weapon she used was designed by Lex Luthor.
Why is one Luthor deemed a criminal madman for wanting to protect Earth from alien invaders,
but his sister is held as a heroine for doing the same thing?
It even turns out that Lena has a dark side, much like her mother and brother.
She is basically a murderer at heart.
Will this show be brave enough to have a strong female villain again?
Unfortunately the story takes a turn for the predictable.
A bad guy has framed Lena, so she has nothing to take responsibility for.
Except for exiling Kara's boyfriend Mon-El, but nobody cares about him.
Rather than kill Lena outright,
the villains decide to put her in a predictable deathtrap.
This involves a remote-control plane.
They seem to forget that the very first act that Supergirl is famous for
was the rescue of an out-of-control airplane!
There is also a soap opera sub-plot.
Alex and her lesbian fiance have been together for six months.
Now, in an equally spur-of-the-moment decision,
they decide to split up on the eve of their wedding.
Alex is obsessed with becoming a mother,
a completely retrofitted excuse that does not match with her character in the previous two seasons.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 6]
Midvale
Shown 13th November 2017
Kara drives the heartbroken Alex back to their childhood home,
so they can let their mother (
Helen Slater
) look after them for a weekend.
The main body of the episode is an extended flashback to the girls' teenage years.
They had a great sibling rivalry going.
Unfortunately their mother was a full-time scientist
as well as being a single mother,
so Alex had to spend most of her time baby-sitting Kara.
Kara's friend from school is discovered, dead.
Will the girls let the Sheriff solve the crime?
Of course not, he is a mere man!
What about calling in Superman?
No, but they email Chloe Sullivan for help.
Well, the teenage flashbacks would be empty without a reference to
Smallville
.
It turns out that the dead boy was a peeping tom and a blackmailer.
Kara whines about victim-blaming, and becomes the school bully -
barging into the boys locker room and beating up kids weaker than she is.
Her use of superpowers becomes so blatant
that the Feds send a MIB woman who looks like her mother (
Erica Durance
).
The Hardy Sisters discover some petty crime in their town.
One of the schoolgirls is committing statutory rape with a male teacher.
Also, there is a drug-dealing conspiracy that is selling ... cannabis.
Wow, that really is evil!
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 7]
Wake up
Shown 20th November 2017
Shawn Shones' father (Carl Lumbly -
Alias
) is still hanging around the DEO.
Unfortunately he has nowhere else to go,
and he has been institutionalised by 300 years of enslavement.
Shawn has to be persuaded to delegate responsibility to his minions
so that he can spend quality time with his only living relative.
The bossy single mother (
Odette Annable
) finally works out that she is not an average human.
She goes to visit her foster-mother,
the woman who threw her out of the house when she got pregnant outside of wedlock.
Yes, just like the lesbian cop she has a troubled past
involving expulsion from the traditional family structure that was meant to support her.
Supergirl and the DEO discover an alien space ship under the city's coastline.
It has been there for twelve thousand years - since before the last ice age!
Even more surprisingly, Mon-El (Chris Woods -
Containment
) is aboard. Yes, he has finally made his reappearance
despite being credited in every episode as a regular character.
Strangely, he has overcome his vulnerability to the toxic lead poisoning in the Earth's atmosphere.
However, beyond commenting on this nobody bothers to investigate further.
Meanwhile, the single mom abandons all her responsibilities and goes walkabout.
The daughter is left with a neighbour.
As for her job as CEO of LenaCorp, this does not even get a mention.
However, she discovers she has her own version of the Fortress of Solitude.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 8]
Greater Foes AKA Crisis on Earth-X, Part 1
Shown 27 Nov 17
Last year's crossover storyline was carried out over the three other shows,
and while Supergirl herself was present
her own show was not really participating.
This time the first part of the four-part story is in her show.
However, the episodes are not particularly tailored to the shows that they are stuck in.
It seems that the story was written in four segments,
then divided among the shows at random.
The main storyline actually takes place in
The Flash
, where Barry and Iris are finally getting married.
They invite all their superhero friends from the other shows.
Kara and her sister are both getting over relationship break-ups,
but they go along anyway.
Arrow
power-couple Olly Queen and Felicity Smoak also go along to the wedding.
No mention is made of the fact that Olly is on bail after being arrested by the FBI.
Also, he goes around as Green Arrow and fights ninjas
even though he has retired from the front line.
In other words, this cliched character intro is completely misleading.
The pre-wedding party has lots of drama and hook-ups.
Felicity refuses to marry Olly,
because they both see marriage as nothing more than a piece of paper.
If this were the case in reality,
then homosexual people would not have fought so hard to get equal marriage.
Olly may go to prison in the near future,
and without that piece of paper
Felicity will not be able to take custody of his son
or even give Olly a conjugal visit or two.
Finally, the wedding ceremony itself.
Yes, the reception was held the night BEFORE the ceremony.
Which is just as well,
because the ceremony is gatecrashed by super-Nazis from parallel universe Earth-X.
The follow-up is on
Arrow
.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 9]
Reign
Shown 04 Dec 17
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) turns up for Kara's family Xmas party.
She has her eye on Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
). Of course, sexual harrassment in the workplace is baaad ...
unless the victim is a man!
The bossy single mother (
Odette Annable
) comes along to the party too.
She brings her teenage daughter with her,
because she brings the daughter everywhere.
Yes, she combines being a CEO with being a single mother.
However, now she has to do her night-time hobby as well.
She is Reign, the evil Kryptonian.
Reign uses her heat-vision to burn her kryptonian symbol
into locations in the city.
Lena thinks that Morgan Edge (Adrian Pasdar -
Heroes
) is responsible, because the locations are LuthorCorp property.
Nobody tells her that LuthorCorp is the largest slumlord in the city,
and by random chance most of the locations would be hers anyway.
Kara tries to get more info on the Kryptonian symbols.
The Kryptonian computer interface, in the image of her mother (
Erica Durance
), has nothing to offer.
It admits that the Elders of Krypton,
who created a civilisation that Kara regards as utopian,
removed superstition by burning all the religious books.
Luckily Kara has a non-so-idealistic source of info.
The Cult leader (Chad Lowe -
) once met a Kryptonian Priestess who escaped from Fort Rozz.
He tells Kara anything she wants to know.
Of course, she still thinks he is crazy because he believes she is his saviour!
The city has a new crime gang, the One Seven.
This name implies an ethnic community origin,
but it turns out to be a generic group of expendable bad-guy stereotypes.
They are only importing illegal drugs,
a victimless crime, but apparently the cops cannot deal with them.
Supergirl has not done anything about them either.
However, they make easy victims for Reign's blood-sacrifice.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 10]
Legion of Super-Heroes
Shown 15 Jan 18
Supergirl was beaten into a coma.
Luckily Mon-El has the Legion of Super-Heroes in stasis on his ship,
so he unfreezes a friendly Brainiac (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) and inserts it into her head.
Now she has someone to keep her company in her subconscious.
Things are getting awkward between Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) and her employee, Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
). Lena wants to get some relationship advice from Kara.
Reign (
Odette Annable
) declares that she is on a crusade against Sin.
She starts by murdering a man she accuses of being a thief.
Yes, her definition of sin is the infringement of private property rights.
In other words, she is the biggest worshipper of capitalism since Ayn rand!
With Supergirl out of the fight,
the MIBs actually have to do their job for a change.
They may have given up all their Kryptonite a couple of years ago,
However, they have the supply they confiscated in the previous episode.
The Supergirl worshipper from the previous episode is in prison.
However, he quickly loses faith in Kara when he sees how powerful Reign is.
Yes, they might actually get an interesting villain for the Season arc.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 11]
Fort Rozz
Shown 22 Jan 18
To defeat Reign, Supergirl needs info from the Kryptonian crooks in Fort Rozz.
Luckily, the MIBs have located it in deep space.
The bad news is that it now orbits a star that causes radiation which kills everything with a Y-Chromosome.
Yes, when Supergirl hurled the rest of her species into space
she condemned all the male survivors to a horrible death.
Since there are no female super-heroes she can ask for help,
she recruits super-villainesses instead.
First up is Live-Wire,
formerly a radio DJ and now a waitress.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 12]
For Good
Shown 29 Jan 18
Morgan Edge (Adrian Pasdar -
Heroes
) is victim to a shoddy murder attempt.
Naturally, he assumes Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) is the one behind it.
After all, Lena already tried to murder him on a previous occasion.
This show has always derailed the Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) character, but this is a step too far.
Bad enough that he is not a black nerd,
he is a jock-alpha type.
Then he became a super-soldier with his own super-suit.
Now he is Lena Luthor's henchman.
Yes, he is basically muscle for Lex Luthor's sister!
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 13]
Both Sides Now
Shown 05 Feb 18
The MIBs go hunting for aliens.
They discover an easy target.
Next stage is the interrogation.
Alex, the butch lesbian, tags along
and plays the bad cop to match Kara's good cop.
Meanwhile, Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) moves out of Cat-Corp and back to Luthor-Corp.
She pretends that she is homesick for her old office,
but her minion (
Odette Yustmann
) takes it as criticism of her job performance.
Mon-el asks Hank to help repair the space-cruiser.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 14]
Schott Through the Heart
Shown 16 Apr 18
Wynn hears that his father has died in prison.
His mother (
Laurie Metcalfe
- Sheldon's mother from Big Bang Theory)
visits to help him get over his grief.
Someone copies the Toymaker's modus operandi.
It turns out that he had a girlfriend/apprentice (
Brooke Smith
).
Alex hangs around with her boss Hank and his dad M'yrnn (Carl Lumbly -
Alias
). She discovers the old man's unfortunate secret.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 15]
In Search of Lost Time
Shown 23 Apr 18
Remember in
Star Trek: TNG
when a character's father, a telepath with senile dementia,
inadvertently messed with the emotions of the regular cast.
Well, that time it was Spock's father Sarek
but in this episode it is Hank's dad M'yrnn (Carl Lumbly -
Alias
). He gives the MIBs a telepathic rage virus, and they attack each other.
For some reason, Wynn is targeted by a middle-aged woman from Human Resources Dept.
It turns out that Mon-El and the Legion did not arrive in that time and place by coincidence.
They are after one of Reign's hench-women, a world-killer named Pestillence.
Their plan is to change the timeline.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 16]
Of Two Minds
Shown 30 Apr 18
Pestilence is on the loose.
The MIBs try to hunt down the suspect.
The Justice League would rather kill her than take chances.
Brainiac (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) as built himself a holographic disguise.
This means he can pass for human, although there are many aliens in public in the city.
What it really means is that the actor does not spend three hours in makeup every day.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 17]
Trinity
Shown 07 May 18
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) is now in custody of the MIBs.
Her only crime was to have a secret stockpile of kryptonite.
So much for the right to bear arms!
Brainiac (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) and Wynn are reduced to tech support.
Even Lena Luthor, a civilian, is a more important warrior than either of them.
However, Wynn does have some useful talents.
He builds the lesbian MIB a special super-suit and a matching super-pistol,
which the MIB director claimed was beyond the scope of the Agency's budget!
Yes, Wynn can tinker around in his spare time
and produce something that a full-time team would take a decade to produce!
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 18]
Shelter from the Storm
Shown 14 May 18
Reign is on the rampage, and she wants to kill Ruby the annoying teenage girl.
Her first stop is at Lena Luthor's hook-up nest,
which is overlooked by a sky-scraper no doubt filled with peeping toms.
Luckily, Lena has a pepper-spray filled with weaponised Kryptonite.
Will Jimmy be a decent boyfriend and keep her secret?
Will Supergirl see the big picture,
or just consider herself the centre of the universe.
The JLA have successfully changed the timeline.
Their frozen superheroes were never infected with the Blight.
Now there is no reason for them to stay in 2018,
so they intend to go back to the future.
Reign has the powers of the other world-killers.
Supergirl's chances will be much higher if one of the JLA stays behind to help.
Will Mon-El choose her or his wife?
Lena has stashed Ruby in the most secure location available - Lex's mansion.
After all, it was designed to withstand an attack by a Kryptonian.
There are a couple of flaws with the design.
If you take out the control panel, you take out the holographic generator.
Jon Jones reminds Kara about his father,
who kept himself alive by negotiating with the White Martians.
Can they learn the secret skill, so Kara can negotiate with Reign?
Unfortunately Jones Senior is going senile.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 19]
Out of Pity AKA The Fanatical
Shown 21 May 18
Supergirl's real problem this week is that her friendship with Lena is over.
The storyline is treated as a subplot.
Alex is looking after Ruby, who is grieving for the loss of her mother.
Jon's father is suffering from advanced senility.
They decide to double-date, and take their dependents to a video-game Arcade.
Kara is probably still a journalist,
because she hangs around at Jimmy's CatCo office.
Perhaps it is just a social visit, because they whine about Lena behind her back.
A young African-American woman arrives.
She has stolen the journal of Coville, the leader of the Supergirl Cult.
Olivia (
Sofia Vassilieva
) and the other Cultists want the journal back.
The Cult have a photo of Jimmy Olsen's face while in his Guardian costume.
Can the city's vigilante come out of the closet as a black man?
Yes, once again this Canadian TV show preaches about the USA's racism.
Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) gives a monologue about being handcuffed by white cops
for playing hide-and-seek when he was only seven years old.
He concludes that Racism is the oldest form of bullying,
so presumably racially homogeneous societies have no social problems.
Speculative Fiction shows work best when the story uses metaphor.
For example, the
X-Men
series uses the oppression of the mutants
as a metaphor for the oppression of different races in the real world.
One of the problems with SJW comic-books circa 2008 is the lack of metaphor.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 20]
Dark Side of the Moon
Shown 28 May 18
Kara and Mon-El head off in a spaceship to locate a fragment of the destroyed planet Krypton.
They discover that a city has somehow survived, led by Tim Russ (
Star trek: VGR
).
Someone tries to assassinate Kara's sister.
Despite obviously knowing that she is a butch lesbian and Secret Agent
they only send a single shooter with a pistol.
However, first she lets the shooter get away
and then she gets sidetracked with her false assumptions.
She thinks it was a grudge attack by an old enemy,
the man she jailed for a dozen years in
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 6] Midvale.
Reign finally starts to mind-screw with Lena Luthor.
She implies - no, states outright - that Lena is a supervillain in the making.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 21]
Not Kansas
Shown 04 Jun 18
Reign is defeated with amazing ease.
Well, the magical device from the Kryptonians comes in useful.
Kara returns to her mother's city, accompanied by Mon-El.
She befriends the head of local law enforcement - Thara (
Esme Bianco
). They settle down for suburban space-bliss,
but it seems that someone is stalking Kara.
Is she paranoid, or is someone trying to kill her and make it look like an accident?
With Supergirl and Mon-El gone, Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) is now the main law enforcer in Central City.
He does not have much to worry about at first,
since the crooks have apparently all taken the day off.
Then he gets called in to deal with a bank robbery.
The crook has a massively powerful assault rifle that almost knocks Olsen off his feet,
although it has absolutely no visible recoil on the man using it.
How the man concealed a long-barrelled rifle under his short jacket is not explained.
Yes, this is the compulsory Gun Control episode.
Just like with the previous Big Issue storylines,
such as Racism and Police Brutality,
it is centred around Jimmy Olsen rather than the show's title character.
At least they give lip service to covering both sides of the argument, like in
Arrow
. However, the advocate for gun ownership is Olsen's girlfriend Lena Luthor.
She claims that she needs her pistol for self-defence,
while the reality is that she actually used it for attempted murder.
There is a strange pay-off to the Gun Control storyline.
The DEO will have to stop using lethal weapons.
Actually, this is not too much of a stretch.
After all, they got rid of all their Kryptonite
which is the only weapon against Kryptonians like Reign.
And since the DEO has bullet-proof super-heroes on the payroll
the foot-soldiers will be in minimal danger.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 22]
Make It Reign
Shown 11 Jun 18
Kara and her mother uncover a cult among the Kryptonians.
Yes, there is a serpent in the garden of Eden.
This is in fact quite predictable, and not necessarily a bad thing.
Kara's mother expresses regret about her role in the Police State that was Krypton,
but it seems that the new city is a single-party monoculture
with no diversity of any kind.
Only reasonable that the outliers and subcultures would be concealed.
The Kryptonian Cultists arrive on Earth,
where they try to revive Reign.
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 23]
Supergirl Returns AKA Battles Lost and Won
Shown 18 Jun 18
The Kryptonian Cultists try to un-terraform Earth.
This means they have no need of their human ally.
Supergirl and her allies take on the Cultists.
It is four against four, so they have a fair fight.
That said, at no point does it look like the good guys will have a hard time.
Lena Luthor is actually set up as a potential supervillain for the next Season.
It turns out that her new sidekick is Eve Teschmacher (
Andrea Brooks
), the bimbo who had sex with Mon-El in the stationary closet at work.
But Miss Teschmacher is secretly an accomplished scientist
and thus a potential super-villain in her own right.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 1]
The American Alien
Shown 14th October 2018
The story takes up a few months after the end of the previous Season.
A lot has changed at the DEO.
With Wynn gone, Brainiac (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) is now doing tech support.
The butch lesbian is now in charge,
since Shawn Shones has retired to spend more time hanging out in the pub.
She tends towards micro-management, whether it is pressurizing Brainiac
or teaching the goon squad martial arts by beating them up.
This is a change from Shawn's leadership style,
where he commanded from behind the scenes
despite being a superhuman with most of Kara's strengths
but not her weakness for Kryptonite.
The new girl-power villain is Mercy Graves (
Rhona Mitra
), a Cadmus type who wants to defeat the alien menace.
One can hardly blame her for opposing alien invaders,
since the Big Bads of the previous three seasons were all aliens!
Mercy used to work for Mrs Luthor, so Kara pays her a visit in prison.
Lena is also visiting her mother,
to trick some info out of her for Lena's own personal gain.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 2]
Fallout
Shown 21st October 2018
The US President (
Lynda Carter
) has been exposed as an illegal immigrant.
She resigns in order to avoid impeachment.
The VP (Bruce Boxleitner -
Babylon 5
) will take over, but the SJWs are unhappy about working for an old white man.
Nobody cares about the fact that the VP must have signed up
to fully support his running mate's policies.
His surface characteristics are all that matter to them.
Mercy Graves (
Rhona Mitra
) targets the LuthorCorp computer server.
Lena's company handles the personal holographic image projectors
that the DEO uses to let aliens pass for human beings.
She wants to drag all the aliens in the city out of the closet.
By incredible coincidence, Brainiac (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) goes for pizza at the same place Kara's apprentice goes for coffee.
Yes, once again a couple of supporting characters are destined for a relationship.
Both of them have secrets, so it will be strewn with pitfalls.
One of the supporting characters comes out as being transgender.
This is meant to get the show support from the LBGT+ community.
However, this is the same show that was lambasted by SJWs
because there was a Latina lesbian character ...
portrayed by a straight Italian-American actress.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 3]
Man of Steel
Shown 28 Oct 18
The story flashes back two years, to just after the end of
Season One
). A racist grandfather (Xander Berkley -
Walking Dead
) rants at his college-professor son (Sam Witwer -
Being Human USA
) about the problems of immigrant aliens.
The irony is that Witwer played a Kryptonian invader in
Smallville
.
This episode has been a long time coming.
Finally the show has decided to address
the social consequences of repeated alien invasions,
and the economic consequences of open borders.
Yes, it turns out that actions have consequences.
The Professor drives his racist dad to work at the steel mill.
The old man dresses like a blue-collar worker,
but is actually owner-manager of a million-dollar company.
He does not want to upgrade to handle new alien technology,
even though it would be the next natural step in the evolution of his business.
His workers would rather riot and harass alien workers at a rival firm.
The Professor gets caught in the middle
when an alien panics and shoots a bunch of people.
Shawn Shones, gun-control advocate in later episodes,
does not care because the alien claims it is a biological imperative.
Yes, it is okay to shoot innocent bystanders as long as you say you panicked.
The DEO turn up, posing as the FBI,
and treat the human citizens like criminals.
Twelve months ago, Cat Grant (
Calista Flockhart
) got a job as the new Kelly-Anne Conway.
Not a good thing, but it got Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) a promotion.
The Professor tries to talk Olsen into covering both sides of the issue,
but Olsen decided it was better to bury the important things in the back pages.
Six months ago, the Professor has become more radicalized.
His whiny tweenage know-it-all students are unhappy
when he starts stating ideas that challenge their own beliefs.
His lady boss accuses him of spreading rhetoric and prejudice.
This show is very political, but one-sided when it points the finger.
Finally, the Professor gets recruited to help Mercy Graves (
Rhona Mitra
) and her brother save the world from illegal aliens.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 4]
Ahimsa
Shown 04 Nov 18
Supergirl is out of commission.
The human militia have released kryptonite into the atmosphere,
so Supergirl is locked in a sealed suit.
The DEO go after Mercy Graves (
Rhona Mitra
). Not that she does not deserve it.
She corrupts DEO Agents and recruits them to help her,
but she regards fellow humans as expendable loose ends.
Shawn Shones has other things to worry about.
His friend Fiona is still missing,
so he teams up with her boyfriend Manchester Black.
He is Black by name, black by nature.
Yes, aliens of colour only date other aliens of colour.
The Professor (Sam Witwer -
Being Human USA
) explains that his expressionless mask indicates that his individual identity is irrelevant.
In other words, he is a living embodiment of the NPC meme
that is currently (late 2018) being used to vilify the so-called Leftists.
POTUS (Bruce Boxleitner -
Babylon 5
) is unhappy about Supergirl trying to sacrifice herself.
The US Government sends in a VIP to provide oversight to the DEO management.
This time it is not the Lane family, but the US military's best butch black woman.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 5]
Parallax
AKA
Parasite Lost
Shown 19th November 2018
The Professor (Sam Witwer -
Being Human USA
) is now in charge of the Human Resistance.
He puts an alien parasite in Jensen, a DEO defector.
The alien creature, imaginatively named Parasite,
gives him the power to absorb aliens' strength and superpowers.
The human militia in
The Gifted
are treated like three-dimensional characters with realistic hopes and fears.
In contrast, the humans in this show are portrayed as selfish hate-mongers.
Shawn Shones (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) is still running his group therapy session for closet-case aliens.
These aliens regard it as a success for them to come out of the closet
by switching off their holographic projectors.
Yes, they now regard integration as a bad thing.
Shawn himself is still a closet case,
using his black man face instead of his red non-human one.
Jimmy Olsen (Mehcad Brooks -
True Blood
) is unhappy that Guardian is being promoted by the human people
as being one of their own.
He and his girlfriend Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) attend a gala event for the mainstream media.
The Professor is also present, since he has gotten an online following.
He wants to stir things up,
and pushes Olsen into actually taking some responsibility.
Of course, this involves Olsen dressing up as Guardian again
- something he is forbidden by the courts from doing again.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 6]
Call to Action
Shown 26th November 2018
A brunette woman and her gay best friend go for a walk in the park.
Some vigilantes in masks start to give them a hard time.
They are not the Guardian Angels, but the Children of Liberty.
Manchester Black, a recurring psycho,
beats up the men in masks.
It turns out that one of them is his old friend, Police Officer Petrochelli.
That explains how Mr Black managed to be there at the same time.
Then Supergirl arrives,
and someone air-drops paper copies of the Children Of Liberty's political manifesto.
Supergirl reports back to the DEO.
The new boss lady orders her not to interfere in local matters.
Muggings are the responsibility of the local cops,
although in this case a cop was one of the muggers.
Likewise, the Children of Liberty are classed as a domestic terrorist group
so they are the responsibility of the FBI.
The DEO's job is to save Earth from alien threats, not the other way around.
Supergirl's butch lesbian sister compares the boss to Dolores Umbridge,
and decides to deliberately disobey direct orders.
She actually thinks it makes her a great leader.
Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
), their gay best friend (or the next best thing) and honorary member of the family,
gets talked into helping.
The Black man from Manchester is meant to be a hero.
However, he is not above kidnapping and torturing a police officer.
He wants Shawn Shones to read the man's mind telepathically.
At least Shawn has the decency to refuse on principle,
because non-consentual mind-reading is an act of violence.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) arranges for Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) to debate the Professor (Sam Witwer -
) on a TV show.
Jimmy goes off to do some journalism, so he sends Kara in his place.
Not Snapper Carr or someone else with experience.
It's not what you know at CatCo, it's who invites you to a Thanksgiving party.
Kara needs to catch up on work at the last minute.
Rather than use super-speed, Kara gets Mia the minion to help.
Mia has a lot of problems.
Not only is she a transwoman played by a CIS-gendered actress,
which is cultural appropriation or something,
but she also has narcolepsy.
She pretends to be seeing a doctor, but she is not getting treatment.
Kara says that Thanksgiving is about celebrating family values.
The Professor reminds everyone of what the colonists did to the natives.
He has a valid point,
one that would have a lot more strength if it came from a main character like Jimmy.
But because the Professor is a straw-man villain,
his valid arguments are ignored and tarred by association with him.
The lesbian sister points out that technology exists to make a human as strong as a Kryptonian.
In fact, we have seen her use such a super-suit to join Kara in battle.
If there were enough suits for all the DEO,
a civilian version could also be sold to businesses.
Lana has her own plans.
She and Miss Teschmacher have been experimenting on human hearts
in the hope of creating a super-soldier serum.
Well, eventually it will be weaponised as such.
But first she will try to sell it in the private healthcare market.
Yes, her personal friends and her rich business contacts will get preferable treatment.
Meanwhile, the left-behinds who now form an underclass
The Children of Liberty have a secret plan
to stage a Kristallnacht-type pogrom on all alien homes and businesses.
Of course, Supergirl and her friends try to stop it without government help.
Yes, they do not contact the DEO, FBI or local cops.
The aliens are able to defend themselves,
so all the vigilantes achieve is that they reveal the true depth of the alien threat.
A shape-shifting dragon is kept as a child's pet.
Yes, a human needs a license to own a dog
but aliens can own a dragon without any oversight.
The only reason the DEO will treat the vigilantes as a threat
is in order to placate the alien community.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 7]
Rather the Fallen Angel
Shown 3rd December 2018
The Children of Liberty take Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) to their secret base.
They want to make him their figurehead, to replace Citizen Liberty.
It would be a better story if he was actually keen to do it.
Manchester Black, a recurring psycho, beats up some men in masks.
He wants to kill their leader,
and will do anything to get the man's identity.
His approach is to torture info out of people.
Luckily Supergirl is around,
to point out that a suspect cannot talk if his jaw is broken!
Supergirl reluctantly teams up with Mancunian Black Man,
even though she disagrees with his methods.
It turns out he is something of a villain by her standards,
although this just turns out to be another missed opportunity.
The Manc is portrayed as sympathetic, despite his actions,
while the Professor (Sam Witwer -
Being Human USA
) is somehow meant to be a much worse person.
A better show would have used Jimmy Olsen as a sympathetic antagonist
so as to show both sides of the story,
instead of introducing the Professor as an entirely new character.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) is the only one who seems to have a grasp on what is going on.
Since alien immigrants have greater strength than humans,
they have greater earning potential and thus have disproportionate economic power.
The answer to this situation is obvious.
The humans need to use technology, be it human or alien,
to improve their own earning potential so they are equal to the aliens.
To that end, Lena has ordered human trials of a super-serum to begin.
But when she meets the volunteer test subject,
she begins to have second thoughts about it.
She is certainly shaping up to be the first well-rounded character in this show.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 8]
Bunker Hill
Shown 10th December 2018
Manchester Black visits the Professor (Sam Witwer -
Being Human USA
) at home. They pretend it is a pleasant social call,
but the Manc has murder on his mind.
The Professor claims to be proud of his human rights activisim,
but he is more than a bit reluctant to have his wife discover the truth.
Shawn Shones uses his telepathic powers to run interference on the Manc.
Meanwhile, Kara takes brainiac and the trans girl on a trip to find Agent Liberty.
It turns out that the trans girl may be played by a CIS-gendered actress,
but her flatmate is a drag artiste.
Also, they live in apartment 2D which is ironic,
because this show is filled with two-dimensional characters.
Manchester Black is clearly the episode's antagonist.
However, we are not allowed to feel sympathy for his victims.
In fact, when the Manc proudly proclaims himself to be The Antagonistic Left
we are probably meant to take his side.
Basically, this episode does not even pretend to be interested in telling both sides of the issue.
The director is
Kevin Smith
, veteran of the Hollywood system, so he could probably have done a better job if he had wanted.
For example, when Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) disrespects the Professor for having a costumed identity
someone could have called him out for his own secret identity as Guardian.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 9]
Elseworlds, Part 3
Shown 17th December 2018
Olly and Barry are in an altered timeline where they have been turned into villains.
The antagonist has turned himself into Superman.
Supergirl, the only one who is strong enough to stop him,
is imprisoned in a power-dampened cell in the Star Labs secret prison basement.
The jailor is her sister,
who in this alternate universe is still unaware of her own lesbianism.
Can Kara persuade her to out herself?
Because this is set in Olly and Barry's Earth,
there are few of the usual crew from National City.
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) pops up as a thug working for the local gangster,
not too different from his usual job as Lena Luthor's boyfriend.
Luckily the gangster in question is Cisco's alternate self,
who is corrupt enough to help the fugitives visit Supergirl's reality.
This means some of Supergirl's supporting cast get an appearance.
Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) gets to fight a massive robot - off-screen, of course,
but still more bad-ass than anything he has been allowed to do in regular episodes.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 10]
Suspicious Minds
Shown 20 Jan 19
Supergirl has been fired by the DEO.
This is especially unfortunate,
because Superman has retired and gone to live with the Kandorians.
However, despite having a full-time job at CatCo News
Kara still responds to a distress call.
She tries to save a US Navy Seal - apparently a female one,
because Kara would not waste her time saving a male one.
The Seals were killed by invisible Aliens,
and the DEO is stonewalled by a conspiracy of silence.
It turns out that Supergirl was not the only alien to be weaponised
by the US military-industrial complex.
Shawn Shones (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) has set up his own Private Investigator business.
Instead of an office he has a second-hand bookstore.
He also has ten years worth of paper files
from when he was Director of the DEO.
Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) drops by to tell him that Kara needs help.
Shawn will be the perfect Girl Friday -
like in the 1930s movie, not a reference to MAN Friday
because, you know, racism.
The new DEO boss wants to find out Supergirl's secret identity.
She interrogates every agent who might have a clue.
Kara's sister Alex wants to resign,
but Kara insists that she is still the Agency's moral centre.
This morality is incredibly flexible,
because Alex will use violence whenever possible.
This includes getting Shawn Shones to wipe peoples' memories without their consent.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 11]
Blood Memory
Shown 27 Jan 19
Alex is having problems since her memory wipe.
Kara's secret played such a big part in Alex's life.
Now she cannot boss people about as effectively.
At least she remembers that her favourite movie is
Terminator 2
.
Kara goes with the trans girl to her hometown, Parthas,
where humans and aliens have co-existed peacefully for decades.
This sounds as if the aliens have integrated perfectly,
as in gone to the sunken place like in the movie
Get Out!
One of the CatCo reporters investigates Lena Luthor's slush fund.
L-Corp is obviously running a secret operation.
James trusts Lena, but he is in a tight spot.
Will he confront her with unfounded accusations,
or will he continue the secret investigation behind her back.
Lena is not the only one with super-soldier pills.
A couple of drug-dealers find their stash has been blasted with gamma rays,
and their frat-boy customers turn into a rip-off version of
The Incredible Hulk
. They then sell these super-steroids to the Purifiers, AKA the Legion of Light.
This is the natural step that noboy seems to understand.
Alien tech and biology landing on Earth
will be duplicated and weaponised by the Military-Industrial complex.
Then it will be stolen by the criminal element,
and become standard among police and industry.
Alex has a face-off with Supergirl.
Yes, the butch lesbian actually explains to the girl of steel
that when humans feel vulnerable they take steps to defend themselves.
She only means it in reference to an angry young woman,
but this is equally true of the blue-collar men who make up the Purifiers.
The alien tech and biology has merely upped the game.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 12]
Menagerie
Shown 17 Feb 19
The episode starts with a pair of jewel thieves
as they make their getaway from a non-violent crime spree.
Like at the start of
Men In Black
, they encounter a meteorite that actually contains a murderous alien.
Instead of a giant bug that wears them like a skin-suit,
it is a giant Ghoul parasite from
Stargate SG-1
that eats human hearts.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 13]
What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?
Shown 03 Mar 19
Manchester Black is back.
He breaks out of prison, and sets up his own personal murder-squad.
Their plan is to slaughter their political opponents.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 14]
Stand and Deliver
Shown 10 Mar 19
Ben Lockwood (Sam Witwer -
Being Human USA
) is now the US Government's Head of Alien Affairs.
Alex is appointed head of his personal security detail.
Does she have enough integrity to do her job properly and impartially?
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 15]
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Shown 17 Mar 19
This starts with a flashback to before the storyline began.
We finally meet Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
), and discover what it was that got him sent to prison.
He turned the Earth's sun red so that Kryptonians would lose their powers.
His office's defences are so good that they can take out a police helicopter.
However, a group of cops in overcoats - not SWAT gear -
can still burst in and arrest him when it is appropriately dramatic.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 16]
The House of L
Shown 24 Mar 19
This starts directly after the end of the previous episode.
We then get an extended flashback,
starting three years before the main storyline.
Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) was convicted and imprisoned, but this did not slow him down.
The Kaznian Army found a clone of Supergirl,
and called in Lex as their specialist advisor.
He trained the girl, and gave her a copy of
The Great Gatsby
. She enjoys the prose of F. Scott Fitzgerald,
but Lex points out the book's theme concerns the corruption of the USA's aristocracy.
It is good to have an episode that centres on an interesting character for a change.
However, the real revelation is that Benoist can actually act.
She gets the chance to show off her talent as Supergirl's alter-ego,
a character with infinitely more depth than the regular Supergirl.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 17]
All About Eve
Shown 31 Mar 19
The DEO has been ordered to Washington DC,
to provide security if the aliens riot when the Alien Amnesty Act is repealed.
Supergirl, the butch sister and Lena form their own investigation.
Lena is worried that her previous actions will be uncovered.
Supergirl admits to being a judgemental bitch,
but claims she feels the weight of the world on her shoulders.
This is in many ways self-inflicted,
because she has undermined the independence of the human species.
Shawn Shones (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) cannot help in the investigation.
He is busy working through his PTSD with the help of his dead father.
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) recovers from his hospital stay,
but is similarly crippled with PTSD.
Yes, as always these days it takes a woman to do a man's job.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 18]
Crime and Punishment
Shown 21 Apr 19
After the false flag attack on the White House, POTUS (Bruce Boxleitner -
Babylon 5
) has declared war on Supergirl.
He declares a night-time curfew, to help the round-up of aliens.
Normal human citizens go out on vigilante patrol,
as if they can stop Supergirl with mere bullets.
Later the National Guard chase after her,
ignoring the fact her super-powers include super-speed and flight!
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) blackmails the warden of Stryker's Island prison,
although all she has on him is a petty misdemeanour
in comparison to what Supergirl is accused of.
He is gay, but does not want his husband to be his cell-mate.
Too much like commitment, perhaps.
Secretary Lockwood (Sam Witwer -
Being Human USA
) now wants to obtain DEO weapons to defend the world against Supergirl.
The butch sister refuses, on the grounds that the DEO responds directly to the POTUS
and not to any cabinet-level officials.
The DEO has spent years creating a registry of all aliens in their jurisdiction.
Now Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) decides to destroy the registry
so that Lockwood and the US Government cannot use it to intern illegals.
Basically this will undermine all their work of the previous Seasons.
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
), once a vigilante superhero named Guardian,
got shot by a woman and is now traumatised by all women.
The vocabulary is also quite misandrist.
Lex is called a gaslighter, and a nosy parker is called a peeping tom.
At least the nosy parker gets the chance to call Supergirl out,
and call her a malignant narcissist.
Otis pops up to start a prison riot.
In the real world it would be all Crips and Bloods, like in Oz.
However, people of colour are un-represented in this place -
except the gay warden, that is.
Luckily one of the inmates is a non-violent offender - Willie Garson (
Stargate: SG-1
). He is inside for whistle-blowing on illegal drone strikes,
and he is too smart to trust a loose cannon like Supergirl.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 19]
American Dreamer
Shown 28 Apr 19
Dreamer is now a masked vigilante -
well, she is a terrorist and her victims are vigilantes.
Since she is very feminine, with a pink costume and whip -
and the theme song American Woman -
it is obvious that she is Trans.
Kara gets Dreamer to become the face of the Alien community.
They make a TV broadcast from CatCo.
Lockwood (Sam Witwer -
Being Human USA
) and his DEO men turn up to arrest them.
Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) is working through his PTSD.
His superpowers come out when he has a flashback.
Basically, his strength is caused by his weakness.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 20]
Will The Real Miss Tessmacher ...
Shown 05 May 19
Kara flies off to Kaznia.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) tags along, to take revenge rather than to save the world.
They capture Miss Tessmacher,
but she seems as dumb as she used to pretend to be.
Kara's butch sister is hanging out with Jimmy Olsen's sister.
Rather than help save the world,
she gets dragged into a soap opera sub-plot about adoption.
The girl-on-girl teams love to emotionally validate each other.
Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) has to run the DEO single-handedly.
Well, Colonel Haily is in Washington trying to get Lockwood's security clearance revoked.
Since Lockwood is her boss, she is basically undermining the chain of command.
Brainy states that the other aliens are innocent of any crimes.
Lockwood replies that they were harbouring a fugitive,
which is a technicality but also arguably a fact.
They both ignore the fact that the Aliem Amnesty Act was repealed,
meaning the aliens are illegally present in the country.
The next time Brainy challenges Lockwood,
he basically forces him to up the ante.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 21]
Red Dawn
Shown 12 May 19
Kara's butch sister is heartbroken over her failure to adopt.
She makes herself feel better by hanging out with Jimmy's sister,
who by amazing coincidence is also a lesbian.
Small world, but at least she will not have to look far to get a new love interest.
Also, the emotional trauma is forcing her repressed childhood memories to recurr.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) confronts Ben Lockwood (Sam Witwer -
Being Human USA
), and they both realise he was Lex's pawn.
She and Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) use Ben as bait, to trap Otis Graves.
Luckily, Lena coerced her own mother, under threat of death,
into making a way to remove the serum from someone's body before it kills him.
Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) and Dreamer try to infiltrate a government prison camp.
They have Shawn Shones (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) with them,
and he is basically a Kryptonian without the weakness of Kryptonite.
They ignore the obvious brute force approach,
and consider the Wookiee Prisoner routine.
Brainy has met and interacted with Lockwood several times -
can he get the stick out of his ass long enough to act the part?
Kara closes in on Red Daughter.
In all fairness, the Kaznian girl's motivation is far purer than Kara's.
Lex seems to have done a good job of raising her.
Red Daughter goes after Kara's weakness - her foster-mother (
Helen Slater
). The battle between the two super-femmes has a strange transition from day to night.
All for dramatic effect, since Kryptonians get their strength from sunlight.
It seems they can just absorb the life-force from green plants,
which use chlorophyll to absorb sunlight.
Supergirl [Season 4, Episode 22]
The Quest for Peace
Shown 19 May 19
This stars with the events of the previous episode,
from the perspective of Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
). Since his superhuman powers from the previous episodes seem to have faded,
he now has his very own
Iron Man
suit.
Dreamer and Shawn Shones (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) are among the slave labourers in Lex's power plant.
They start a prison riot, so they can get a message out to Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
).
Ben Lockwood (Sam Witwer -
Being Human USA
) goes after Lex,
but instead of teaming up with Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks -
True Blood
) and the butch sister he decides to fight against them.
Meanwhile, Kara faces off against Lex.
She has a super-suit of her own,
which not only protects her from kryptonite
but also prevents the cameraman from accusations of upskirt shots.
CatCo publishes an expose of Lex's conspiracy.
Somehow this by itself is enough to get the President's own cabinet to turn against him.
Yes, in the real world it is practically impossible to indict a sitting president
- even with a mountain of evidence published over several years.
This is all tidied up far too quickly,
with Lockwood's whiny teenage son spewing platitudes
about how humans and aliens should listen to each other.
The real problem, that of aliens shifting the basis of the country's economy,
has never been addressed.
Lena's super-serum will probably be abandoned,
since (like any other technology) it can be easily weaponised.
Despite the Lockwood storyline being tied up far too quickly,
several minutes are dedicated to foreshadowing the next Season.
A new villainous conspiracy called leviathan was secretly manipulating Lex,
in the hope that he would move the needle.
If that means absolutely nothing in real terms,
this is because it is a reference to the idea of moving the needle
in terms of the slaes figures for comic books.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 1]
Event Horizon
Shown 06 Oct 19
All the political turmoil of the previous Season is completely forgotten about.
Well, that storyline concerned the wider world
while this Season is more concerned with domestic life.
Kara's lesbian sister has hooked up with Jimmy Olsen's lesbian sister.
Yes, it seems that this Season they keep every storyline tied closely together.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) is still enraged at Kara's apparent betrayal.
She has spent the last few months building an artificial intelligence to help her.
To finance this, she sold CatCo to an old school-friend of hers.
Yes, it is the old girl network all over again.
It's not what you know, it's who you know.
The new owner of CatCo, a light-skinned latina woman named Andrea Rojas (
Julie Gonzalo
), wants to turn it into a cheap tabloid news outlet.
She is smart enough to stick three-year non-compete clauses in everyone's contract.
Jimmy Olsen quits anyway,
so he can walk the Earth like Caine in Kung Fu.
Kara gets a new boss.
Snapper Carr has never been seen since Season Two.
The replacement is a young English fellow
who seems to have been selected for his male model looks.
For the supervillain storyline of the week,
a mysterious shapeshifter broke a female superhuman out of the Phantom Zone.
Her name is Midnight, and she has a personal grudge against Shawn Shones (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
). Luckily
Kate Micucci
helps out at the museum.
Supergirl's cape gets ruined, so Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) makes her a new costume.
It is nanite-based, and activates when she removes her phony spectacles.
There is no more mini-skirt, it is a skin-tight bodysuit.
This is not a gender-neutral approach:
pants for girls generally lack practical aspects like pockets,
and instead focus on enhancing sex-appeal.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 2]
Stranger Beside Me
Shown 13 Oct 19
Shawn Shones (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) knows the supervillain is his brother.
But he does not remember having a brother.
It looks like his father deleted his memories.
Yes, the supposedly high moral standards of the green Martians were not upheld.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) claims she wants to do good,
but her methods are typical of a supervillain.
She has decided to test her next stage on a human subject.
Rather than use a completely untraceable stranger,
she decides to combine science with revenge.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 3]
Blurred Lines
Shown 20 Oct 19
The villain of the week is a female assassin
who uses an alien spider parasite to kill a scientist.
William, Kara's attractive English superior,
had a secret meeting with him before his death.
Kara is more suspicious of him than ever.
The assassin is a female Special Forces operator,
expert sniper and martial artist.
Her mugshot has her wearing an SAS beret, complete with cap badge!
Somehow, combined with her alien spider-power,
she has the skills and strength necessary to survive a fight with Supergirl.
Jimmy Olsen, in his Guardian super-suit,
has more of a chance against her than Kara does.
Shawn Shones (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) seeks counseling from Brainy's girlfriend.
Meanwhile his brother has the same idea,
and gets counseling from the DEO director's girlfriend.
To do this he disguises himself as her old wartime buddy (Sean Astin -
Lord of the Rings
).
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) and her new AI buddy, now in a human host, plot their new step.
She no longer cares about physically improving humans
so that they can earn a living in an economy based on alien labour.
Instead she wants to remove the human ability to do violence.
Basically she will brainwash the human species.
But to do it, she will need help from Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
). Unfortunately he is no longer available,
thanks to her actions in the previous Season.
But his journals were kept in his prison cell,
and are now in the custody of the US government.
There is no legal way to get access to them,
but Lena's best friend Supergirl might be persuaded to steal them.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 4]
In Plain Sight
Shown 27 Oct 19
Shawn Shones (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) is targeted by his brother.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) assists the DEO.
Of course, this selfless good deed also gives her access to their technology.
James Olsen takes his sister Kelly out of town,
because she will be targeted by the evil Martian.
They go to a small town where Jimmy's mentor lives.
The town's main industry is the prison-industrial complex,
so basically innocent people get jailed with unfairly long sentences
so the private prison can get access to lots of taxpayers money.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 5]
Dangerous Liaisons
Shown 03 Nov 19
Kara, displaying a compleye lack of integrity,
blackmails her cow-orker into sharing his investigative journalism with him.
He agrees, because she is willing to share DEO info with him.
His agenda is personal revenge because of the apparent death of his best friend.
No body was ever found, which is a red flag in this kind of story.
The supervillain of the week is another one of the freelance assassins.
This one has a backpack which operates a couple of Doctor Octopus arms.
Someone has paid him to steal one of Lex Luthor's prototype weapons,
a laser rifle with a 26-mile range,
which was confiscated by the US military-industrial complex.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) has gone back to humanoid testing.
Her new test subject is not actually human.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 6]
Confidence Women
Shown 10 Nov 19
The DEO has the cyborg hitman in custody.
Leviathan wants him dead, before he can reveal what little he knows about them.
Andrea Rojas (
Julie Gonzalo
) wants to rescue him, so neither Leviathan not the DEO can hurt him.
Andrea Rojas (
Julie Gonzalo
) goes to her old friend Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) and asks for help.
This leads on to a long series of flashbacks about their friendship over the last few years.
For example, we discover that Andrea's father owns a company
that was once in direct competition with Maxwell Lord.
If Lord had gone out of business as a result,
this would explain why he has not been mentioned since
Season One
.
The flashbacks also include scenes with Lena's ex-lover (Rahul Kohli -
iZombie
), last seen in Supergirl [Season 2, Episode 18] Ace Reporter.
She was obsessed with destroying her brother Lex's legacy,
and as a result she chose the Luthor Empire over her lover.
To defeat Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
), Lena teamed up with Anthea.
They went on a quest to recover an ancient artefact.
Instead of using
Indiana Jones
as a role model - or even
Lara Croft
- they choose Rose Dawson from
Titanic
. Her real name was Rose Dewitt-Brubaker,
because she never married Jack Dawson and took his surname.
Back in the present day, Lena agrees to a team-up.
Her new tech can psychically disable all the DEO Agents in the HQ building.
All except the main cast members, that is.
This keeps the climactic fight nice and small.
The main theme of the story is Lena's growing relationship with villainy.
Her previous best friend, who is not even mentioned in this episode,
turned out to be a murderous supervillainess.
Now she discovers that her new-again best friend is also a super-villain.
However, Lena herself has become a brutal super-villainess.
Twice so far she has made deals with other villains,
and then double-crossed them for her own benefit.
Will this time be any different?
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 7]
Tremors
Shown 17 Nov 19
Since the hired help have been defeated and Leviathan's existence is exposed,
they send in a member of the inner circle.
Rama Khan, God of Earthquakes (Mitch Pileggi -
The X-Files
), goes head to head with Supergirl.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) offers to help Supergirl.
The best weapons to fight super-powerful aliens were the ones Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) created,
which are now in superman's private trophy collection in the Fortress of Solitude.
Since Lena is the only one who can hotwire Lex's machines,
Supergirl takes her along to help out.
Ironically, the most dangerous item in Superman's trophy case is not a human invention.
It is Myriad, the piece of Kryptonian tech used by Supergirl's aunt in
Season One
.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 8]
The Wrath of Rama Khan
Shown 01 Dec 19
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) plans to use Myriad to control the human race.
Supergirl cannot use brute force for a change,
so she tries to talk to her instead.
Shawn Shones (David Harewood -
Robin Hood (2006)
) has a plan to stop Lena.
His brother's superpower,
Inception
, should be enough to overcome the effects of Myriad.
The brother was a supervillain a few episodes ago,
but apparently he is cured.
The moral of the story is that everyone deserves a second chance.
Let us pause for a moment to consider the irony.
Once again Earth is in danger because of alien interference,
yet nobody would ever consider pardoning Ben Lockwood (Sam Witwer -
Being Human USA
).
Rama Khan, God of Earthquakes (Mitch Pileggi -
The X-Files
), is back.
His plan is to set off a supervolcano under National City.
This is potentially an extinction-level event,
although he makes conflicting statements regarding his willingness to exterminate the human race.
Leviathan has legitimately labelled the human species as the greatest threat to the planet,
and intends a massive depopulation in order to save Earth from its inhabitants.
Despite having incredibly advanced alien technology
they do not bother to implement a non-violent solution.
Last Season saw the POTUS get impeached and imprisoned in hours instead of months or years,
and yet somehow the super-powerful aliens cannot reverse climate change?
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 9]
Crisis on Infinite Earths: Hour One
Shown 08 Dec 19
Wil Wheaton (
Star Trek: TNG
) is a placard-waving prophet of doom.
Although Kara takes pleasure in humiliating him,
it turns out that he is actually right.
A subspace phenomena is about to destroy the Kryptonian city
that Lois and Clark are raising their infant son on.
Afterwards, its next target will be planet Earth.
Harbinger, formerly known as John Diggle's wife,
is sent to different universes to recruit the usual bunch of heroes.
Their job is to fight Dementors until the humans can evacuate Earth.
Somehow, Shawn Shones has got enough alien starships
that they can shuttle billions of humans through a wormhole
into the prime reality.
Yes, after the humans of Kara's Earth complaining all the time
about alien refugees, they themselves are now seeking refuge.
White Canary takes Lois Lane to look for her lost baby.
They end up in the future of a bad timeline,
and have to interview the local Batman.
This is a setup for Crisis on Infinite Earths: Hour Two,
to be continued on
Batwoman (2019) [Season 1, Episode 9]
.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 10]
The Bottle Episode
Shown 19 Jan 20
It turns out that there are now five versions of Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) in the combined Earth.
Three are identical to the original one, and the last is a female (
Meaghan Rath
). Unfortunately, one of them is a murderer.
Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) is looking for an ally in his next project.
Meanwhile, Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) is still plotting to brainwash the entire human species.
Can they agree to work together?
Also, why do neither of them bother to bring back Miss Tessemacher?
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 11]
Back from the Future - Part One
Shown 26 Jan 20
Without his personality adjusters, Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) is working on a purely logical basis.
While all his friends hate and fear Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
), Brainy is smart enough to realise that Lex is the only one
who can save Earth from Leviathan.
Winn Shott is back.
This time he is from an alternate timeline,
where he took up his father's career as a supervillain named the Toymaker.
Of course, since Kara's world has been merged with the prime timeline
there is no logical reason to believe that the original Winn survived.
Much like that girl in
Heroes: Season Two
he went to a future which now no longer exists.
Ironically, Winn's future did actually survive.
He comes back in a time-travelling ship,
not unlike the Wave-rider from
Legends of Tomorrow
. This will give Lex Luthor and the DEO
the opportunity to learn about their greatest threat, Leviathan.
Shawn Shones has turned his attic into a secret HQ for the superfriends.
Well, since Lex now controls the DEO
it is now in the super-heroes' interest to become unaccountable
to Government or corporate interests ...
basically, to anyone other than themselves.
Lex uses the opportunity to help Lena (
Katie McGrath
) get what she wants.
However, Brainy begins to feel guilty about helping his boss.
After all, Kara and the others all hate Lex.
But without his inhibitors, why is Brainy being so illogical?
Also, now he has suddenly split up with his girlfriend.
Presumably this is so that she can bond with Winn,
but will eventually get back with Brainy again.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 12]
Back from the Future - Part Two
Shown 16 Feb 20
Toymaster has converted himself into an artificial intelligence.
Now he can control all the drones in the DEO HQ,
so he sends them after Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
). Kara's sister Alex puts the DEO HQ in lockdown.
Their super-surveillance technology has now been weaponised against them.
This seems to be a comentary on copaganda TV shows,
which are sponsored by the police-industrial complex.
It also means the villain has an army of drones,
which allows the heroes to use massive amounts of violence to solve their problems
without it deing directed against humans or other living beings.
The big danger is that the villain will be able to weaponise the Internet.
In the previous episode, he was a Youtuber looking for a million subscribers.
This led on to a reference to the anti-trolling legislation of 2126,
which somehow removes the first amendment of the US Constitution.
Now, as an AI, he is basically just a face on a screen.
Winn is trapped in the DEO HQ with supergirl.
He still has a lot of unresolved issues with his father.
Luckily an AI version of his father has been activated,
so they can now work out those issues and get closure.
Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) secretly orders Brainy to copy the Toymaster's source code.
The plan is to make himself immortal,
thus removing the only advantage Leviathan has over him.
Meanwhile, Alex Danvers is playing office politics
and seeks to promote her personal agenda by putting spyware on his computer system.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 13]
It's a Super Life
Shown 23 Feb 20
Mr Myxlpzlyk is back in town,
looking like a grown man instead of a tweenager.
Like Q in
Star Trek: TNG
he has been held accountable by the others of his kind.
Now he must make amends to everyone he wronged -
and Kara is the final one on his list.
Kara's wish is to change history,
so that she can never have a falling out with Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
).
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 14]
The Bodyguard
Shown 08 Mar 20
Kara is ordered to play bodyguard to Lana's friend Andrea Rojas (
Julie Gonzalo
), who is targeted by an anti-technology extremist.
Of course, she objects to helping the female VIP on general principle.
After all, the orders come from Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
). So much for women helping other women.
Alex is getting used to her new freedom after quitting her job.
She teams up with her old boss, Shawn Shones,
who gives her a magical martian super-pistol.
Lena thinks that by brainwashing humans to lose their emotions
they will somehow be freed to become more creative.
She and Lex recruit some test subjects in a prison.
Willie Garson (
Stargate SG-1
) is stuck among hardened criminals for some reason,
despite his unthreatening appearance.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 15]
Reality Bytes
Shown 15 Mar 20
Alex joins Shawn Shones in his Private Investigator business.
They get a missing persons case,
a bisexual man reported missing by his gay lover - both of them POCs.
Alex gets her black lesbian lover
to help track the missing man in Virtual Reality.
The villain seems to be a straight-acting white-looking man.
Just as the gay POCs are being hassled by CIS Het White men,
so are the Trans people.
Dreamer's roommate gets catfished.
The good news is, he is not an ugly dude.
The bad news is that he is a transphobic thug
who is targeting Dreamer's friends
because he thinks Dreamer is a poor role model who is tricking people.
Apparently he thinks this justifies his own immoral actions.
In his mind, catfishing is okay
but being a trans-woman who can pass is apparently a bad thing.
The police need to find evidence and follow the rules.
Even Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) and the DEO need a couple of hours
to sort through the data on anti-Trans hate groups.
Yet somehow Kara's friend, William the English journalist,
writes an article naming the attacker before the cops catch him.
Dreamer decides to set herself up as bait
to lure out the attacker.
What is strange about this is that the transphobes
are portrayed as a minority group of extremists.
The shocking reality is that during the week this review was written,
the Governor of Texas passed an anti-Trans law
that would persecute Trans people under the age of 18.
Such transphobia does not just come from an extremist fringe,
but is actually very mainstream.
This show does a major injustice to a serious issue.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 16]
Alex in Wonderland
Shown 22 Mar 20
A report comes back that Kara's foster-father (Dean Cain -
Lois & Clark
) has been killed off.
Yes, an off-screen death - the worst fate a TV character can endure.
As with Kevin Sorbo, we must assume this has something to do
with distaste for the actor's off-screen politics.
Alex, Kara's lesbian foster-sister,
takes news of her birth-father's death unexpectedly.
Since she has a lot of time on her hands since she quit her job,
she decides to log onto Virtual Reality and play at being Supergirl.
Unfortunately the VR sim has a glitch -
it makes the players think they are in the real world,
and makes every effort to prevent them from leaving.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 17]
Deus Lex Machina
Shown 03 May 20
This episode shows the highlights of the previous few days ...
from the perspective of Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) himself.
It charts the events over ninety days,
from the first time he hears of Leviathan
until he enters the final stages of his plan to destroy it.
We find out why Lex did not recruit Eve Teschmacher (
Andrea Brooks
).
Lex does everything necessary to save the world.
The only thing that stops him from being a hero is his only weakness.
Not pride or overconfidence, but spite.
Just as he needlessly turned against his supergirl clone in the previous Season,
he now turns against the women who support him.
Yes, he is a cartoonish villain whose illogical outbursts
make him look stupid instead of threatening.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 18]
The Missing Link
Shown 10 May 20
Lena and Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) visit their test subjects in the prison.
Willie Garson (
Stargate SG-1
) is the only one who has not begun a mental melt-down.
The rest of the inmates start a riot.
Naturally, Lex acts heroically to save his sister.
Supergirl [Season 5, Episode 19]
Immortal Kombat
Shown 17 May 20
Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) is about to spring his final trap,
and destroy Leviathan from the inside.
He distracts the villains by sending them after Supergirl.
Meanwhile, Supergirl's minions face off against them.
Lena takes sides with Supergirl.
Almost two billion people have logged on to the VR network,
voluntarily trapping themselves because they are in a world without pain.
Supergirl gives her version of Kirk's pain defines us speach from
Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier
.
Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) decides not to help Supergirl or Lex,
and chooses to go his own way.
He summons his sister (
Meghan Rath
) for moral support.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 1]
Rebirth
Shown 30 Mar 21
Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) is about to go conquer the world.
He has Obsidian and Myriad,
so he can brainwash half the population and kill the rest.
Supergirl offers to sacrifice herself to save humanity.
Andrea Rojas (
Julie Gonzalo
) has bigger problems that global slavery and genocide.
Her daddy issues have taken over,
since her father publicly announced his disappointment
in her for letting Obsidian get taken over.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 2]
A Few Good Women
Shown 06 Apr 21
The team arrest Silas the gay vampire, who is robbing a blood bank.
He once tried to break his husband out of the Phantom Zone,
so they hire him to help them rescue Kara.
Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) is about to go on trial for crimes against Humanity.
His mother gets him a lawyer who arranges a plea-bargain.
Lex rejects the deal, fires the lawyer and represents himself.
The main prosecution witness is Eve Teschmacher (
Andrea Brooks
), his co-accused and jilted ex-lover.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) and Andrea Rojas (
Julie Gonzalo
) are still not friends again, despite their shared grudge against Lex.
They pursue separate plans to end his trial.
Catco's news outlets destroy Lex's image
in an attempt to prejudice the jury.
Lena attempts to get Lex to bias the jury himself,
by playing on his tendency to make grandiose monologues.
Supergirl is in the Phantom Zone,
where she makes a new ally - her father (Jason Behr -
Roswell High
). The bad news is the place is run by Dementors - oops, Phantoms.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 3]
Phantom Menaces
Shown 13 Apr 21
On Earth, the Team have to hunt down a Phantom that escaped the zone.
It can procreate by infecting victims,
and Martians are more vulerable than humans.
In the Phantom Zone, Supergirl tries to save her father (Jason Behr -
Roswell High
). She has a new ally, a 5th-dimension imp-woman.
Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) is locked in a struggle for control of LuthorCorp with Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
). She has Brainy to help with the hacking,
while Lex has Otis to blow things up.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 4]
Lost Souls
Shown 20 Apr 21
Supergirl tries to escape the Phantom Zone.
Luckily she has a couple of allies,
including a woman who claims to have magic -
even if it never works when she needs it.
Earth has been invaded by Phantoms,
who want to turn Earth into another Phantom Zone.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) teams up with the super-friends,
and builds a spirit-trap gun like in
Ghostbusters
. Of course, Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) points out the similarities
so this is an homage rather than a rip-off.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 5]
Prom Night!
Shown 27 Apr 21
To save Kara, the Team must go back in time.
Instead of just going back to stop Lex from imprisoning her,
they choose to visit Kara's High School prom night in 2009.
This is sort of a sequel to
Supergirl [Season 3, Episode 6] Midvale,
but thanks to the multiverse that history did not happen.
Brainy (Jesse Rath -
Defiance
) and his girlfriend end up with the young Kara and her friend Kenny,
who is basically just Jason from
The Good Place
.
An alien zookeeper is in orbit.
He wants to catch one of the local Kryptonians for his collection.
Armed with a spray-painted pulse-rifle,
he poses a relative threat to the teenagers.
Cat Grant pops up too, now an aspiring journalist with the gender-neutral name CJ.
She suspects that Midvale's status as the Luckiest Town in the USA
is due to something like the red-blue blur in
Smallville
.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 6]
Prom Again!
Shown 04 May 21
This is the second part of a two-parter.
The new team takes care of the zookeeper,
but they are seen by Cat Grant.
She is willing to throw everyone under the bus
so she can get herself a pulitzer award.
Although Cat is the main antagonist, the show also reminds us
that she is intended to be an inspirational role model
for young people that choose to identify as women.
Why a soft-serve supervillain would be inspirational is not explained.
Likewise, Kara has to choose to ditch her boyfriend
and go to college or whatever.
After all, for her a career is not an aspiration -
it is a god-given right that she does not need to earn.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 7]
Fear Knot
Shown 11 May 21
The team fly off to the Phantom Zone in Shawn's new ship.
Well, he built it into his building,
so it is basically the spare room he has been using as the team's HQ.
They know the Dementors will use psychic attacks,
so they are prepared to face their greatest fears.
The team all start to experience their worst fears.
However, they do not realise that this is is not a coincidence,
and that it is clearly a halucination.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 8]
Welcome Back, Kara!
Shown 24 Aug 21
Kara returns to work at CatCo News.
The company is only rated eighth in the top ten national news outlets,
so Andrea Rojas (
Julie Gonzalo
) insists they boost ratings so they do not lose advertisers.
Kara discovers a floating garbage patch a thousand miles off the coast.
Her father (Jason Behr -
Roswell High
) is reminded of Krypton's fate,
so he adapts one of the robots from the Fortress of Solitude.
The good news is that it can clean up the garbage mountain.
The bad news is that some of the garbage is alien technology from the DEO.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 9]
Dream Weaver
Shown 31 Aug 21
Jimmy Olsen's lesbian sister is called to a foster home
to help with a super-powered brat who throws pyrokinetic tantrums.
The lesbian is unhappy with the home's boss,
who would rather activate the kid's power restraints
than let him burn the house to the ground and kill everyone.
Kara investigates the brat's brother.
He is one of the super-powered alien convicts,
really a gang of low-level supervillains,
who gets work-release from the local prison.
It turns out some of the guards are working for InterGang,
and are using the aliens to steal components for a dirty bomb.
The convicted felons are treated as victims,
while the corrupt guards are shown as the real problem.
Well, this is a change from when Supergirl was just muscle for the DEO.
All it took was Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) becoming the agency's Director ...
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 10]
Still I Rise
Shown 07 Sep 21
Supergirl wants to use her celebrity status
on Social Media for Social Justice.
Brainy gets to record a healthy eating PSA.
The next step is a CatCo live-stream to get the city council
to stop selling the ex-convicts' halfway house to a MegaCorp.
Yes, councillor Rushkin (
Kari Matchett
) chooses office space over housing for the poorest.
Nia makes a deal with Nxyly.
The good news is that she gets 24 hours with her mother's ghost,
in order to learn how to use her superpowers.
The bad news is that Nxyly is now free.
Mitch the alien zoo-keeper is out of jail,
and like Jimmy's brother he has no real choice but to revert to crime.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 11]
Mxy in the Middle
Shown 14 Sep 21
Trapped by Nxyly, Supergirl summons Myxlpyllx.
He gives some exposition by way of a song-and-dance routine.
It turns out that Nxyly was criminally insane
long before she was sent to the Phantom Zone,
but Supergirl insists on depowering her
rather than returning her to the Zone.
Dreamer blames herself for unleashing Nxyly.
Meanwhile, Myxlpyllyx cannot ise his magic without being traced.
However, he feels useless without it.
Lena Luthor (
Katie McGrath
) visits her childhood home in search of her birth-mother's friend Margaret Bishop.
She finds the woman's daughter Peggy (
Emanuelle Vaugier
). It turns out that, just like her adoptive mother Lilian Luthor (
Brenda Strong
), Lena's birth-mother was something of a villain.
She and two friends were a coven,
which ties in well with the main story's magical theme.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 12]
Blind Spots
Shown 21 Sep 21
This takes place in the same timeframe as the previous episode.
When Nxyly destroyed the halfway house,
lots of local slum-dwellers were injured.
Kelly Olsen takes some children to the local hospital,
which is seriously under-resourced.
Luckily John Diggle comes to town.
This is useful, not because he has lots of power
as the boss-man of a major government agency,
but because his skin-tone is similar to Kelly's.
Just as well, because he is the episode's director.
Councillor Rushkin (
Kari Matchett
) was injured in the incident too.
Having wealth and power, she gets preferential medical treatment.
A side-effect is that it lets her make herself stronger
by draining the life-force from the slum residents.
This could have been an episode about the corrupt capitalist system
which rations health-care by ability to pay,
and the landlords who raise the rent on the poorest and most vulnerable.
Of course, the episode just gets racialised
and everyone's morality depends on their skin colour.
Kelly decides to become performatively Black.
She adapts her Guardian costume - well, she gets Brainy to do all the work.
This distaff version of the helmet has dreadlocks, like a
Predator
. She keeps straightening her real hair, though.
Instead of just letting it grow naturally like the cop lady in
Sleepy Hollow
, she just wears a Rosie-the-Riveter head-scarf.
Yes, Rosie was White ... but these days,
blue-collar is code for African-American.
Yes, she just cosplays at being Black.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 13]
The Gauntlet
Shown 28 Sep 21
Nxyly is after the totem of Courage.
She and Supergirl each get a half of it.
It affects lots of humans in the area,
including a scientist who is obsessed with harnessing lightning.
Yes, she has a hi-tech lightning rod.
The totem gives its bearers a challenge, known as a Gauntlet.
They re-live the time in their life when their courage was challenged,
and they have to prove their courage.
Of course, it is not as easy as it sounds.
Whenever they attempt it, a disembodied voice tells them you have chosen poorly.
This seems to have been influenced by a Season Nine episode of
How I Met your Mother, which parodied the climax of
Indiana Jones and the Last crusade
.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 14]
Magical Thinking
Shown 05 Oct 21
Nxyly is after the totem of Humanity.
This time, it takes the humanity from everyone within range.
That means a few hundred people are running around
like raging animals for the next few hours.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 15]
Hope for Tomorrow
Shown 12 Oct 21
Kelly and her girlfriend Alex have adopted the little alien girl Esme.
Nxyly is after the totem of Hope.
The nations of Kasnia and Cordo Maltese are at each others' throats.
With peace talks failing,
Supergirl decides to unilaterally intervene
and remove both sides' nuclear stockpiles - like in
Superman IV
. Since this episode was made six months before the Russians invaded Ukraine,
the strange assumption that non-nuclear war is impossible
can be overlooked.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 16]
Nightmare in National City
Shown 19 Oct 21
Nia must make amends with her estranged sister.
Nxyly is after the totem of Dreams.
She receives a gift from an anonymous admirer -
a wrist-watch that becomes an armoured suit,
complete with an artificial intelligence.
This is clearly the work of Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
), who has not made an appearance in a few episodes.
Kara is very busy, working two jobs.
She is supposed to be interviewing the representatives of Krasnia and Cordo Maltese,
but she keeps getting called away to fight Evil.
Well, she cannot be in two places at the same time
but she can fly and super-speed.
Somehow, this is not enough.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 17]
I Believe in a Thing Called Love
Shown 26 Oct 21
Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) introduces himself to Nyxly.
Apparently he fell in love with her future self in the 31st Century.
Now he is here to help her, and win her love all over again.
However, Nyxly's upbringing means she genders everything.
Because Lex fought Supergirl,
Nyxly chooses her Kryptonian arch-enemy's side rather than Lex's.
Nxyly is after the totem of Love.
It will be drawn to the greatest source of love.
By incredible coincidence,
the lesbian couple are about to celebrate the anniversary
of their first moment of true love.
Will this prove to be a greater attraction than Lex's love for Nyxly?
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 18]
Truth or Consequences
Shown 02 Nov 21
Andrea Rojas (
Julie Gonzalo
) was unhappy with William's apparent inability to deliver a story.
She decided to use her own superpower for personal gain,
reminding us that she is still basically a supervillain.
She burglarised Luthor mansion,
stole a book of love poems that Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) wrote about Nyxly, and made a TV show about it.
The worst thing is that she used William's name on it,
associating him with the kind of cheap and nasty tabloid journalism
that he despises.
Nxyly is after the totem of Truth.
She and Lex are one step ahead,
since the Super-Friends are occupied with the lesbian engagement party.
This means Lex gets to confront William.
Since Lex has a tendency to monologue,
and William has a smart-phone with a video camera and email capability,
this gives William the chance to do some actual journalism.
Alex's adopted daughter is an alien with superpowers.
The child is basically a walking flamethrower.
Kara suggests that Alex should be pay more caution.
As the NRA should have said after a school shooting,
The only thing that can stop a bad 8-year-old with a gun
is a good 8-year-old with a gun.
Should they give six-shooters to 6-year-olds
and nine-mils to 9-year-olds?
Alex's opposition seems to be based on the idea
that her adopted daughter should not have to be in the closet.
Should she have to blend in with the others
and get along with the rest of society?
The Libertarian saying is
Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins,
which is similar to the Wiccan saying
Do as you will, if it harms none.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 19]
The Last Gauntlet
Shown 09 Nov 21
As always, the episode starts with Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) having to prove himself to Nyxly yet again.
Well, this may be a hold-over from the days of episodic TV
(rather than modern-day box-and-binge) but it just gets repetitive.
Ironically, the only thing that can push them apart is Lex's mother Lilian Luthor (
Brenda Strong
).
Nxyly is after the totem of Destiny.
Since she and Lex have the Totem of Love,
they coerce the Super-Friends into handing over the others.
The handover spot is in a dead zone near the Fort Roz crash site from Season One.
Supergirl is yet again willing to sacrifice the few
in the name of the greater good.
She would rather risk the lesbian couple's adopted daughter
than hand over the totems.
Later, she has Brainy and Shawn hijack a US Government satellite
(yes, the Super-Friends are unaccountable freelancers)
and direct a solar energy beam at supergirl to super-charge her powers.
Well, she used a sun-bed to recharge after visiting the Phantom Zone.
However, this time she is hovering in the middle of Central City ...
so the slightest error could wipe out half the population.
Supergirl [Season 6, Episode 20]
Kara
Shown 09 Nov 21
Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer -
) and Nyxly are now fighting in the middle of the city.
It seems that they are sucking the hope out of everyone,
enrichening themselves at everyone else's expense.
It seems that this is a zero-sum game,
because somehow there is a limited supply of hope
in the same way there is a limited supply of money.
The Super-Friends need a new strategy.
Supergirl wants to empower the humans,
making her a role model rather than a saviour.
The Super-Friends do not bother to call in some heroes from the other Arrowverse shows.
However, they do get visited by some former co-stars who ended up in the 31st Century.
Yes, this is the finale of the Series
so they have to tie up all loose ends
and give every recurring character a send-off.
The lesbian couple have their long-awaited wedding.
Kelly Olsen wears a wedding dress and gets given away by her brother Jimmy.
Alex wears a white pant-suit.
Well, that proves she is the man in the relationship.
After all, she has a man's name, job and haircut.
Everything except the pronouns, in fact.
In contrast, Supergirl does not get a love interest.
This is the irony - a heteronormative female cannot get a happy family,
because that would imply her happiness was defined by being with a man.
Instead, she has Cat Grant make her a job offer.
