A random smattering of thoughts on Supergirl while watching through S1. I might do one for each season.
I started watching (after the queerbait finale) because I wanted to see Supercorp. People criticized the writing for being relatively weak compared to other Arrowverse shows, but I already had my bar below to begin with. Superhero stories have always been incredibly bland and mentally unengaging for me, but for Supercorp I guess it could be worth?
Obviously spoilers (will reference future seasons as well), don't read if this is going to be a problem. I am not a professional media critic, I hardly watch superhero media, don't expect high quality prose. I don't watch the episodes with my brain turned on. This is just unfiltered drivel.
Things I take issue with:
- Lack of emotional payoff for Kara learning the truth about Astra's death after the story builds up this lie as a ticking guilt bomb. Kara spends all her time being furious and resentful of the wrong person. She only comes back to the DEO again because teamwork is more important than personal differences, so she's still not over Astra's death. However, she immediately gets over it with no hard feelings after Alex gives a tearful confession. This completely cheapens the rousing fall guy speech Henshaw gave, because both he and Alex exaggerated just how bad the truth would be. Kara is not at all upset that Alex and Hensaw lied to her or that Alex wasn't the hero she expected. What was the point of all that tension? False drama?
- The writing seemed to want to portray Astra as a sympathetic villain, except they never managed to developed the backstory. Instead, we get breadcrumbs that she ultimately wanted one to do the right thing and her sister wanted to keep lying (something related to tHe TrUtH about the dying planet).
Same tired premise as The 100 with the oxygen supply, but at least The 100 was clear about it.The main heroes decide that the context doesn't matter because her group murdered people. It doesn't matter, really, but then the writers shouldn't have bothered making an aborted attempt to portray Astra as well-intentioned. Then there's some emotional tug-of-war between Astra and Kara that didn't quite have the emotional impact because their underlying conflict of what happened at Krypton never resolved, oh and Astra got unceremoniously killed. I can't even call that 5 second goodbye Kara got with Astra closure. They also left her dead body there lmao. Yes, I get it, it should have gone to Non to begin with, but that scene turned from slightly tragic to comical. Any setup of what they were trying to do before ineffectual politicking stonewalled everything is overshadowed by the big bad Myriad and no longer matters. I was honestly more interested in hearing what Astra and co. wanted to do before they became mustache-twirling villains. But we're not allowed to have sympathetic villains. - The recurring struggle to hide secret identities because "people are in danger if they know my identity" is some real 掩耳盗铃 shit. Even more so because S5 is literally Lena and Kara breakup arc over this. Not going to talk about Lena's temporary descent into villainy, just on Kara's viewpoint that knowing who she is puts people in danger. I haven't even watched that far and S1 also establishes it makes no sense. People are not in danger because they know heroes' secret identities, they're in danger just from being in proximity of Kara. Friends' not knowing Supergirl's identity does not shield them from enemies' learning who Kara is and using them against her. James was kidnapped by Bizarro because he was close friends with Kara, not because he knew she was Supergirl. I might support this argument if the premise was "if they know my identity, they will endanger themselves by trying to do reckless things to help me" but that is not what the writers are expressing.
Not knowing Supergirl's identity sure didn't save Kelly the office skydiver kek - The number of times Alex and everyone else scream Kara's name in public, even if there's no one around or just DEO, while Kara's in Supergirl uniform, is too damn high. For how paranoid Alex and Kara are about Supergirl's identity, they do really really shitty jobs of maintaining that cover. I won't comment on how Superfriends casually discuss everything in public.
And then Kara just casually gives her first name to the reformed drug smuggler turned professor I want to wring the writers' necks AAARRRGGGHHHH - The whole romantic tension between Winn, Kara, James, and Lucy is ridiculous. Why did it need to be there? The story would have been completely fine even if all of the office awkwardness got written out. We get it, Kara is poorly adjusted and her attempts at normality is cringe sometimes. But was keeping the tension throughout the season really worth anything? Sidenote, I utterly hate Kara's cluelessness and how Winn got done dirty. They're both out of their depth when it comes to having difficult conversations and watching it is agonizing for all the wrong reasons. I also thought going out of the way to make fun of stereotypical nerds and their poor relationship skills was a thing of the past but I guess I was wrong.
- A tangential sidenote to the decision to include a Lane-Olsen-Danvers triangle. I never understood the concept of emotional infidelity until I watched this arc and now I completely understand how real it is. The worst part about the writing is that James suffers no consequences for the dick move to Lucy. Even better because this is an reenactment of their Metropolis breakup. It's clearly James's fault, and every criticism Lucy has about their failed relationship is true. This triangle is reminiscent of the Asami-Mako-Korra mess in Legend of Korra, except Mako is clearly portrayed to be the asshole, gets called out by Asami and Korra, and the two women don't let Mako's fuckup get in between their good relationship (and Lucy and Kara do not end up together). Everyone hated the Mako arc, so at least that was done right. But James doesn't kiss Kara during all this so that's a win?? He is not called out in any way, and no, Lucy's breakup speech was so subdued it's hardly a callout. If anything, James is portrayed sympathetically, with Lucy and Kara continuing to praise what an amazing guy James is. Lucy and Kara liked each other before being unintentionally pitted against each other. They ultimately work together, James's horrible behavior takes a backseat to progressing the plot and ends up being forgotten, and the arc resolves itself without any kind of conversation between the two women for closure. Instead, Lucy gives the "it wasn't you, we wouldn't have worked out" speech and encouraged James to go after Kara in the same conversation.
- My general disdain of superhero stories comes from a lack of meaningful discourse on the topics of morality and "the right thing" despite all the good potential topics that can be brought up. Most narratives handwave some discussions on ambiguous morality. It's always the same old talking points from Philosophy 101 lectures getting reused over and over, and I've accepted that traditional media will never go beyond the Overton window. But Supergirl writers aren't even trying. E14, with Max held in DEO prison while Cat Grant tries to beat eThiCs AnD MoRaLItY into James, is embarrassingly heavyhanded and lacked even basic talking points. The validity of comparing a domestic abuse victim with a reformed nerd with a God complex isn't brought up. While James is telling Kara how Max's detainment is unethical, all Kara can say is "he tried to murder me and hurts people." The story frames Kara's reasons as more personal than legitimate. This is not my disagreement with "should Max be kept in jail" because the episode didn't even show two sides. Writers could add anything from the superhero cookie-cutter arguments handbook, and they didn't even do that. Make Kara flip the question back on James. Why is he relying on the justice system when they can't pin anything to Max? It's not about how the conversation ends, it's about the writers' inability to include valid criticisms. "He has good lawyers" is a good starting point if Kara followed that up with pointing out failures in the justice system. That argument by itself makes her sound petulant. Unfortunately, only villains are allowed to criticize the government so we can't have that.
- To continue my tirade on E14, which is the first episode that really tried to tackle a "difficult" issue instead of a cheap villain-of-the-week, Kara suddenly turning a 180 on detaining Max and releasing him "because it's the right thing to do" gives me whiplash. All it took was a remorseful Fort Rozz prisoner for her to change her stance? The message I got out of this was that Supergirl is weak willed and has the conviction of a revolving door, from defending Max's detainment to releasing him in the span of 2 episodes. This arc is like watching a children's show where the trivial conflict-of-the-day leads the main character to learn a new lesson, except this is a feeble narrative about due process, not the power of friendship. I expect Supergirl to have more intellectual nuance than Dragon Tales. Final thing I can't stand about this arc before moving on. Alex says DEO has amassed a dossier of Max's crimes after letting him go, but how was this possible when they couldn't pin anything on him earlier? If it were that easy, why didn't they just lawfully arrest him to begin with? I highly doubt that they were able to legally obtain any more evidence of his wrongdoings only because he was locked up. Sloppy way to tie a loose end of a sloppy plot.
- Python 6. Python 2 reached end-of-life support in 2020. S1 came out in 2016.
- How did Silver Banshee punch out Supergirl? She's still a human, and there's no indication her sound powers also gave her supernatural strength.
- Imagine targeting National City first because of Supergirl instead of Washington DC where the real hold over America is. Just to spite Supergirl.