Thanks for reading my weekly recaps of Supergirl. To read about past episodes, click here.
It’s hard to believe that we’ve already come to the winter finale of season two of Supergirl and yet here we are and the show doesn’t let us forget it. Despite some highlights (which I’ll get to in a moment) the episode very much served as a jumping off point to both the week long DC TV crossover but also for the second half of the season once the holiday hiatus is over. Subplots such as Kara and Mon-El possibly being an item were rushed when they needed room to breathe and develop to avoid becoming obvious and annoying. Hank’s plot of being reverted back to his Green Martian self was a tacked on, throwaway sentence, sweeping what could have been a nice, meaty narrative for the character under the rug with little care of grace. It wasn’t a bad episode but it was one that could have benefited from being given some breathing room. We could have waited until after the Christmas break to see some of these storylines get their natural conclusion.
Also, even though I think it paints a big, fat target on his back, I do not in anyway support the Kara and Mon El romance. They are essentially the same person. I 100% support Lea Luther and Kara however, because that’s an example of chemistry.
Speaking of…
Here are my favorite things about the episode:
*I don’t talk about this much because it pretty much goes without saying in terms of this show but the series unabashed utilization of color in it’s direction is a breath of fresh air not just for DC TV fans who have watched as their favorite series (The Flash) have grown increasingly gray but also for fans of any part of the entertainment medium period. Hollywood is currently obsessed with filters the dull down the color in the images the camera is capturing and Supergirl, much befitting the heroine at the helm, embraces the reds, blues and sunlit hues. It’s a nice change of pace if you were to compare a still from this weeks episode to even this weeks cross over episode of The Flash, where the change of worlds was jarring due to how differently Star City and its inhabitants are shot.
*Lena Luther! Lena Luther not going down the obvious path of evil was a welcome decision and makes the character that much richer for being someone who hasn’t had that much screentime since her introduction. Her rapport with Kara continues to shine and she’s a character worth watching as she becomes integral to season two and very much picking up Kara’s mantle from season one in that she carries the weight of peoples expectations and judgement around her and must choose her own path and find who she is in her own life amidst the madness that surrounds her.
*And then there’s Alex and she continues to be such an important figure this year after being underwritten and underserved in season one. Her coming out storyline is being handled with the right amount of gravitas and what the writers are nailing is that each person she comes out to entails a different experience. Her coming out to Maggie isn’t going to go the same way it does with her mom, it’s not going to hold the same worries that she held with Kara. It’s been done with such delicacy that the real hook of her narrative hasn’t been her and Maggie as an eventual couple, but her own emotional struggle and path that this personal discovery brings her. However, that kiss at the end was wonderful and fully felt with just the right amount of tenderness to promise something grand and romantic to follow.
I can’t wait.
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Of course this was all primer for what eventually was the start of the four night crossover event as Barry and Cisco appear at the end to recruit Kara to help them fight aliens, but it was a decent enough episode to warrant the time spent not in the crossover.
What did everyone else think?
Rating: 7/10
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