Supergirl - season 2 (The CW) (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

The only thing about Alex having a girlfriend, and it would be the same if she was straight and had a boyfriend, is that she seems a little softer now. At the start she was a tough hard character. She was a bad ass. It's not like she isn't now, it just seems like she is a little softer character now. But those softer scenes are mainly when off duty. She had her softer moments with Kara too. Perhaps if she had a tough as nails boyfriend, then she would be more like Renee Russo in Lethal Weapon paired with Riggs.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

Maggie's a "tough as nails" character as well. Plus, it seems they've tried to soften J'onn as well.

 

[Garysb]

In anticipation of the musical crossover here is Jeremy Jordan singing.

 

[Oliver Ravencrest]

I liked this episode. Winn dating the alien was good and I even liked Alex and Maggie's Valentines. I was surprised at how much I liked Peter Gadiot's Mxyzplk, I didn't think a charming variation on the character would work but it did. Hope he returns soon. I liked how Kara outsmarted him at the end. The weakest part of the episode was the scenes between Kara and Mon-El, just didn't work for me.

 

[Matt Hough]

In the comics, didn't the trick of sending Mxyzptlk back to the 5th Dimension work for 30 or 60 days, and then he could return? It's been a long time since I read any DC comics (back in the 1960s actually), so I may be confused on that, but seems like there was a brief time limit toward his return. I certainly found this main plot of the show the most appealing.

The episode otherwise had mixed results for me. I really did not like the romantic subplots with either Winn or Maggie. Their middle-school ways of handling relationships are really tiresome to me. They're not adolescents, and yet the discomfiture and awkwardness with EVERY SINGLE romantic entanglement on the show (not just these two in this week's show) is predictable and a complete turn off for me.

 

[Garysb]

In the comics, didn't the trick of sending Mxyzptlk back to the 5th Dimension work for 30 or 60 days, and then he could return? It's been a long time since I read any DC comics (back in the 1960s actually), so I may be confused on that, but seems like there was a brief time limit toward his return. I certainly found this main plot of the show the most appealing.

The episode otherwise had mixed results for me. I really did not like the romantic subplots with either Winn or Maggie. Their middle-school ways of handling relationships are really tiresome to me. They're not adolescents, and yet the discomfiture and awkwardness with EVERY SINGLE romantic entanglement on the show (not just these two in this week's show) is predictable and a complete turn off for me.

It was 90 days back in the 1960's when I read the comics. Don't know if its been retconned since then.

 

[ponset]

Here is some info about MXY.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Mxyzptlk


Its was an OK. But I am tried of all these romantic sub plots.
JOR-EL statue coming to life to battle Supergirl was cool.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

But I am tried of all these romantic sub plots.

I agree. The first season was a pretty even split between Kara's professional life at Catco and personal life and Supergirl's heroics and work with the DEO. It was a good balance that gave the show structure.

This season seems like it's 50 percent romance, 50 percent everything else. Alex's relationship with Maggie, Kara's relationship with Mon-El and now Winn's relationship with the superstrong alien with the Star Trek face played by Tamzin Merchant... it's just too much.

The show feels unfocused and aimless. The writers spoke a lot about being less restricted with the jump to The CW, but maybe CBS's restrictions were a good thing since they kept the show disciplined.

It also feels like the four DC CW shows are losing a bit of their distinct identities and becoming more alike each other. When "Arrow" started, it was a dark gritty (for The CW, at least) crime drama. When "The Flash" started, it was a naive and optimistic ode to the Silver Age of comics that wasn't afraid to embrace the silliness or venture into the far out. "Supergirl" was "The Mary Tyler Moore" show. "Legends of Tomorrow" was The Dirty Dozen meets George Pal's The Time Machine. There was always a soap opera element to all four shows, but it's definitely moved more and more to the forefront as time has gone on. The one show bucking the trend a little bit is "Legends of Tomorrow", which has shaken off the first season's blandness and embraced its "Baa Baa Black Sheep" underpinnings.

But for all my criticism, these four shows are still generally the top priority on my viewing list the nights they air. The formula just works, and I'm invested in the characters on all of them -- even when the writing lets them down.

 

[Sam Favate]

The Mxyzptlk episode was fun. I like how they're using a lot of the Superman mythology and adapting it to Supergirl. It's not like there's ever going to be a Superman TV series where they can dive into this stuff, and can you imagine if they tried to use a concept as light-hearted as Mxyzptlk in the movies? Zack Synder would make him a killer or destroyer of worlds.

That said, this show is missing something that it had. We never see Kara at work anymore, and we haven't seen Jimmy in two episodes. The show really misses Cat Grant, and Alex's character is very different from what she was. Alex was a very confident leader of the DEO. Now all we see is her as a lovesick schoolgirl. This show used to have three strong women (Kara/Alex/Cat) but now we're down to one. I applaud the storyline of Alex being in love with a woman, but the focus on her inexperience in matters of love makes her character suffer. It's also too typical for the CW. (Also, John Jonzz pining for a woman? Not in character.) The show used to focus on more than romantic relationships for the entire cast.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I'm not a fan of Mon-el and Kara's relationship.

 

[NeilO]

So, no stun setting on Alex's gun? Why didn't they take Mon-El with them? And with Mama Luthor they need to take a shoot first policy,

 

[Matt Hough]

I found this a pretty pedestrian episode. Always love to see Dean Cain, and I'm hoping he has his own end game that will inevitably doublecross Caedmus, but only time will tell about that.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I'm not a fan of Mon-el and Kara's relationship.

You have plenty of company there. There's definitely a section of the show's fandom that HATES Mon-El. I don't want him to be Kara's Lois Lane, but I think he's fine as the boyfriend of the moment. I'm more interested in his functionality as a plot element, and seeing that pay off. Chris Wood's doing an incredible job with a character that isn't quite working on the page. I do think/hope that he'll be a one season and done character. The show's gotten a bit overcrowded as of late, which is a big part of why it feels so unfocused.

The whole thing in tonight's episode with Kara having broken four boys' noses kissing them stirred up thoughts of "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" that I'm not sure the show wanted to raise. Was Mon-El Kara's first time? If not, did she put any boys in the hospital?

I found this a pretty pedestrian episode. Always love to see Dean Cain, and I'm hoping he has his own end game that will inevitably doublecross Caedmus, but only time will tell about that.

Even though this episode didn't have anywhere near the execution that the best first season episodes had, it at least was about something. I cared about the personal stakes for the Danvers family, I cared about the mystery of Jeremiah's allegiances. I still miss the Catco element of the show that's forgotten for multiple episodes at a time, but otherwise this episode had the ingredients of a great episodes.

The DC CW shows have a common trait of characters who are far too trusting. Mon-El here respectfully raises very sensible concerns, and everybody shits on him for it. The first time I knew he was on to something was in the hallway when Jeremiah tried to blackmail him into silence by threatening to reveal his true identity. The Jeremiah we knew from before wouldn't leverage his daughter's safety like that. If it's as significant a revelation as Jeremiah implied, then he would have told her for her own good.

It's interesting that Winn's alien girlfriend is totally the alpha male in the relationship. You look at the women he's been interested in the past -- Kara the god-like alien with immense powers and Siobhan Smythe the dominating bad girl whose screams shatter glass -- and it's pretty clear Winn has a type.

 

[David Weicker]

For me, this was a brain dead episode. The internal fights were just plain stupid.

And I agree about the shooting - non-lethal should be an option, not escape

 

[Oliver Ravencrest]

I liked what I saw until the sound quit just as Kara was confronting Jeremiah about breaking into the computer. I have no idea what he said. I noticed that ads for other CW shows didn't have any sound during the commercial breaks before it happened during the episode. It also took time to figure out how to get the closed captioning to work after trying 2 different remotes. The sound finally came back after Alex let Jeremiah go. Had to go into the Spectrum (Time-Warner) remote for the CC. The CW station was having other issues, some shows before and after Supergirl were in Spanish but not on other stations, fixed that with remote too. Weird that it never happened before.

I don't mind the Kara/Mon-El relationship but I'm not sure how I feel about Mon-El. sometimes I like him and sometimes I don't.

 

[Sam Favate]

The disbelief among Kara and Alex was not believable. You spend the whole episode waiting for them to wake up. Alex's character, in particular, is not well-written this year. She used to be a lot more confident and professional.

Also, for a show that has done a great job of not objectifying women, they sure show Mon-El with his shirt off a lot.

 

[NeilO]

I really did find it hard to believe that they let Jeremiah have computer access after all that time (for something that sensitive there should be at least two-factor authentication). I really think there should have been days of debriefing about Cadmus, plus physical and psychological tests. The whole situation was not well written.

 

[Hanson]

My favorite part is Jeremiah disabling the DEO systems by... Shooting up the monitor. Oookay...

 

[Matt Hough]

Good action; a decent wrap up to this arc with Dean Cain.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Good action; a decent wrap up to this arc with Dean Cain.

I agree with both sentiments, but I still felt like it was a frustratingly sloppy episode. They have Alex act stupidly and unprofessionally until she goes rogue, and then she does all of the things she should have done instead of flying into a rage against the captured Cadmus agent. And while J'onn's test was cruel, she still failed it. There was a lot of characters being manipulated to satisfy plot in this episode, which is never a good thing.

I did like that they delved into Winn's helplessness at having his alien girlfriend snatched away, but I felt like that got lost in the shuffle for long stretches.

The show basically forgets that James exists for long stretches. Whether that's a good thing or not depends on whether you like James or not.

Kara absolutely deserved to get fired from Catco. Not only has she been apparently absent for long stretches working with the DEO, but this episode made it evident that she's still learned little to nothing about being a reporter. She still thinks it's about sharing what is important to her with the world. Ian Gomez was great as Snapper in this episode, reinforcing what the standards are and why they exist. There were several junctures where she could have broken the story legitimately, but she prioritized other things above getting the story.

On the plus side, we got a big old epic Supergirl action sequence, culminating in a great sister moment on the edge of space. Benoist really sold the hell out of it despite some dodgy effects.

And Dean Cain, Terri Hatcher and Kevin Sorbo all in one episode is like my nineties television memories coming back with a vengeance.