Climate isn’t the only thing changing on this week’s Supergirl, amirite? Seriously, though—while a scientist empowered by an alien parasite gets defeated before he can continue his quest against climate change deniers, other characters make concrete changes in their identity, from coming out of the closet to adopting a new persona. But while one of these changes looks like it’s gonna stick, I’m not so sure about the other.
Spoilers for Supergirl 2×06 “Changing.”
In an interesting update to last season’s villains-of-the-week, as well as a thematic tie to this season’s message of humans and aliens need to learn to coexist, this week’s threat is just a normal guy who touched the wrong frozen wolf at the wrong time. With a Yeerk-like slug roosting in his brain, Dr. Rudy Jones (William Mapother, a.k.a. Ethan from Lost) isn’t two distinct organisms, but someone entirely new—imbued with the power to find a solution for global warming, for which he makes a compelling case:
Dr. Jones: Global warming isn’t taking a break. Our planet is being destroyed, and not by any invader or army, but by us, taking it for granted.
Problem is, that parasite seems to have scrambled his brain a bit, because all he does is fight anyone—human, superhero—who gets in his way. While Dr. Jones and the parasite have a great symbiotic relationship going, it’s still hungry—and it turns out it can drain quite a bit of juice from both Supergirl and J’onn J’onnz.
With both of them temporarily out of the running, the second string is up: Mon-El, who’s not sure he actually shares Kara’s desire to help the helpless; and James, who cannot wait to put on his super suit and hit the streets as a vigilante. But even though James’ desire is a noble one, the one who really shines is his “man in the van” Winn: First he tries to put things in perspective for James, only to get snapped at like he’s his lackey. This was perhaps Winn’s best episode, for how he stands up for himself and shouts at James that he’s gonna get himself killed if he gives in to his impatience and haste and jumps into fights before he’s ready.
Even after James apologizes and Winn produces the suit, he gives him one last chance to back out—a reminder that he is about to stop being just James Olsen anymore, that there is no going back once he changes his identity. Because of his dad, you guys. If it hadn’t been for Alex’s subplot, this would’ve been the arc that got me the most choked up.
I’m really not sold on James as Guardian, though. He looks like a modern knight, down to the shield; his rasp is almost Bateman levels of laughable; and everything about his decision not to tell Kara—and him teasing Supergirl with his lead suit she can’t see through—is needlessly dramatic. Which is not to say he shouldn’t adopt a new attitude along with the suit, but these beats just feel way too worn. I can see all the wheels turning in breaking up Kara and James’ fledgling relationship, leaving a hole to fill with his sudden retconned crimefighter ambitions. I keep flashing back to last week’s conversation—again, Winn with the wisdom—about how James is someone who fights with knowledge. In a show whose fight scenes make me tune out, I would have loved to see how James combats National City’s growing unrest between human and alien populations with journalism and social media. It would also give us an excuse to spend time at CatCo, which was nonexistent here; now that Winn and Cat don’t work there, and James is clearly phoning it in, who’s going to defend Kara when she takes an unexpected sick day after getting all of her energy sapped?
But the Guardian fends off the parasite, until Supergirl can reappear with enough plutonium-239 to blow him up (and whisper “I’m sorry” right before doing so). James and Winn decide that they like being a crimefighting duo, so we’ll see where this arc goes.
Speaking of secret identities, M’gann M’orzz is put in a bind when Alex begs her to donate blood to a failing J’onn after the fight with the parasite. She makes weak excuses, but what can she say—sorry, I’m a White Martian, our people are sworn enemies? Alex, thinking it’s a cultural thing, implores her to save J’onn. M’gann whispering “Forgive me” to him seems to be about more than just the revulsion he would feel if he knew that one of his tormentors had saved his life; after he wakes up, his hand begins shaking, indicating that White Martian and Green Martian blood may not actually mix.
Moreso than M’gann Morzz, moreso than James as Guardian, moreso than Dr. Jones with the parasite, the character who most struggled with their identity this week was Alex Danvers. In showing us a big sister and “perfect” daughter finally putting her own needs first and recognizing the truth of who she is, the Supergirl writers are saying what we really need to hear right now:
Alex: Maybe it’s just a phase. You know, maybe it isn’t real.
Maggie: It’s real. You’re real. And you deserve to have a real, full, happy life. Tell your family. This is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to you, and you shouldn’t have to do it alone.
While Alex’s coming-out conversation with Kara felt a tad after-school special, it was nonetheless emotional:
Kara: So, she’s gay?
Alex: Yeah.
Kara: And are you saying you’re gay, too?
Alex: I don’t know. I’m just trying to make sense of it all. It’s so complicated.
Kara: Alex, it kind of sounds like you’re coming out to me. Have you felt like this before?
Alex: Not like this.
Kara: Have you ever been with a girl?
Alex: No. Never.
Kara: OK, what’s different? I know you haven’t been dating much lately—
Alex: This isn’t because I haven’t found the right guy—
Kara: I never said it was. I’m just trying to understand, OK?
Alex: You know, I’m up all night just thinking about it, and… if I’m being honest, I realize that maybe I’ve had thoughts like this before. You remember my best friend in high school, Vicky Donohue?
Kara: Yeah, I remember Vicky. You guys had a really bad falling out, right?
Alex: I used to love sleeping over at her house, in her room, in her bed. I think I felt something then, and it scared me. Because the next thing I know, I’m fighting with her over something so stupid and we just—we just drifted apart. I shoved that memory down so deep inside that it’s like it never happened. I’m remembering stuff like that, now.
Kara’s initial stiffness was off-putting, because she seemed truly thrown by Alex’s revelation, and not in a seemingly supportive way. At first I thought that she was having the reaction I’ve heard about from the loved ones of my queer friends—an automatic fear and sadness that things will be harder for them now. But Kara’s reaction comes more out of guilt, as she realizes—especially with Alex’s mention of her high school best friend—that their childhood was spent focusing on Kara’s alien identity without ever considering that Alex would be struggling with a secret of her own.
I don’t love that the drama of Alex’s realization feels more in line with the same kind of subject matter we would have seen in an early-2000s Degrassi episode, but I do appreciate the specificity of her experience. I’ve known more than one woman to come out who had that kind of super-close, almost obsessive, female friendship in adolescence, where the two besties might as well have been dating, they were so intertwined in each other’s lives. My best friend growing up was technically my first kiss (though we were so young that we didn’t really think of it as that), and we were inseparable. She later came out as gay, and some years after that I discovered I was bi. Not sure if the writers’ room pulled from personal experience, but there’s certainly emotional grounding for what Alex says. Also this:
Kara: I’ll go get the alien. You get the girl.
But. But! After Alex screws up the courage to kiss Maggie, she gets another first experience: being let down gently.
Maggie: Well, we’re at really different places, and everything is changing for you, and everything’s gonna feel really heightened and shiny, and you should experience that for yourself, not just to be with me. I shouldn’t get involved with someone who’s fresh off the boat; those kinds of relationships never work out. I’m here for you, but as a friend.
It is so sensitive and measured, but of course Alex flees and goes home crying. She had told Kara earlier that despite being almost 30, she feels like a teenager again; so of course those feelings of rejection and self-doubt are heightened, not just the fun, shiny parts. Maggie makes excellent points about not wanting to be Alex’s first; and if she’s really listening, she might have caught the subtext that they could maybe be together after Alex has had some experience with dating other women. But I don’t blame her for sobbing into Kara’s arms about how humiliated she is; I almost started crying for her. And now she’s all “I made a mistake” and “I was wrong,” which has me worried she’ll go back into the closet. Fingers crossed that Alex will stay out, even if it’s a slow process, and take her time learning about herself as this new person.
Because we couldn’t end a Supergirl episode on an emotional cliffhanger, here’s a plot one: Mon-El gets nabbed by Cadmus! (With The Doctor Mrs. Luthor at the wheel, looking fierce as ever.) Yawn. This is the logical next step for his arc, after being told he’s a coward and then stepping in to help with the fight. Expect a lot of well Kara you never thought I was worth anything anyway as he turns (or is forcibly turned) to the dark side of this show.
I’m much more interested in figuring out why J’onn J’onnz is growling that Kara needs to die in next week’s preview. Does Cadmus do a number on him, too, or is it a side effect of his White Martian blood transfusion?
Other Thoughts
- Isn’t it really not smart for Kara to be seen at an alien bar, drinking rum that would kill humans, in her Kara Danvers getup? I have to imagine someone would notice the cute girl in glasses and connect her to Supergirl.
- “How do you feel?” “Floaty… but I’m not floaty.” Drunk Kara is adorable.
- “Cho-co-late. Choco-late.”
- “I’m driving you home.” “I’m not flying, that’s for sure!” Seriously, Kara, stahp.
- “You can’t stop us. You can’t stop the thing that we’re changing into,” the parasite says, but safe to say you can apply this to all of the characters.
Natalie Zutter applauds the Supergirl cast and crew. Also, she has Aqua’s “Doctor Jones” stuck in her head now. You can read more of her work on Twitter and elsewhere.
“I’m much more interested in figuring out why J’onn J’onnz is growling that Kara needs to die in next week’s preview. Does Cadmus do a number on him, too, or is it a side effect of his White Martian blood transfusion?”
Remember whose face it is that J’onn is actually wearing…
I have to say, I wasn’t crazy about this one. I generally like it when the show engages in progressive social commentary, but the treatment of climate change and denialism here was heavy-handed and embarrassing, so strident and simplistic that it risked being alienating. You can’t change people’s minds by yelling in their faces. You just give them reason to dismiss you as irrational.
Also, it bothered me that they had Supergirl cross the line to killing a bad guy, and that so little was made of it. She did show regret, but there was no exploration beyond that of how it affected her to make that choice for the first time. Given the debates she and Alex had about it last season, it should’ve been a bigger deal for her to make that choice, just as a matter of character consistency. And personally I’d prefer if she hadn’t crossed that line. Supergirl is such a symbol of hope and goodness for me, and I feel something has been lost now.
Moreover, it wasn’t even necessary to kill him. The alien parasite was frozen in ice for 5000 years, and Supergirl has freeze breath. They had the perfect nonlethal solution right in front of them. Plus it would’ve allowed them to bring back the Parasite as a recurring villain.
Also, whatever happened to that huge DEO army they brought out all the time in season 1? We never see them anymore. Did they get demobilized under the amnesty act?
This episode also raised a credibility issue I had about the new DEO set this season. This was just the sort of situation where it would’ve made more sense to take the guy to the safely quarantined underground facility deep in the desert, rather than an office in a skyscraper in the middle of a heavily populated city.
James’s debut as Guardian wasn’t bad, I guess, but he has the same problem as Ragman on Arrow, in that I can hardly understand a word he’s saying when he’s in costume. Also, it was a bit rude of Supergirl to try to x-ray him. People’s privacy should be respected. It’s not like he’d committed a crime; he’d helped her. Anyway, the best part was the scene where Winn convinced James not to go off half-cocked. Good writing and acting there. So far I think the story of James’s superhero debut is benefitting Winn more as a character. It’s letting him fill a new role that’s pretty interesting.
Alex coming out was well-handled, nicely nuanced. And I’m not surprised that Maggie wasn’t receptive; I sensed last week that it wouldn’t be mutual. Although it might still be possible. Maggie’s not in a place where she’s ready for a new relationship, nor does she want to take advantage of a friend who’s just coming out. Maybe something could happen between them in the future, just not now. But I can certainly understand why it felt like a rejection to Alex. She’s only just discovered this side of herself, so it’s like she’s a teenager again, experiencing love for the first time. And that means it’s all incredibly heightened and the attraction is exciting and terrifying and being turned down, even gently, feels like the end of the world. Plus it took so much courage to take the chance and express this feeling, so failing on her first attempt is devastating. I like how multilayered and real this feels. I have to wonder if much of this is maybe coming from showrunner Ali Adler’s own autobiographical experiences with coming out. It feels authentic, at least to an outsider like me.
I was hoping for Kara’s Kryptonian perspective to come into play — like, maybe she was raised in a culture where sexual orientation wasn’t seen as a big deal and just took it very casually, or said that she’d always known that Alex was into girls and was surprised that she hid it from herself, or something. But on reflection, I guess it’s just as well they didn’t go that route, because this needed to be about Alex rather than about Kara.
@CLB: I’m actually somewhat annoyed by Maggie’s response – not that she let Alex down in general (seeing as she just had a nasty break-up, she simply might not be in the emotional state for another relationship), but that she let her down with the argument that “she shouldn’t experience that just to be with her” – I mean, Maggie made several passes at Alex, and now she suddenly decides she isn’t interested anymore?
Another thing: Aren’t we going to talk about the little detail that Alex kissed Maggie pretty much out of the blue? Is that suddenly ok when a girl does it? Considering some past discussions on this website, I don’t think we would ignore it if Alex were male.
@2/Torvald_Nom: I don’t think Maggie was ever really making passes at Alex; after all, she was in a relationship at the time. She was just being friendly. The interesting thing, to me, was the extent to which the attraction always seemed to be coming from Alex’s side. I mean, their first “flirty” moment that I can recall was when they dressed up to get into Roulette’s fight club. Alex was the one who complimented Maggie’s appearance first, and more earnestly.
As for the kiss, it was overly forward, but that makes sense in character given that Alex is only just starting to feel out how this works, so she’s going to be as clumsy as a teenager about it. She misread Maggie’s encouragement of her coming out as an expression of personal interest. Maggie was forgiving because she understands that. I don’t see this as a case of Alex exploiting someone she has power over; rather, Maggie was the one with the greater power in this interaction, because Alex is so much less experienced at this. That’s why Maggie turned her down — because she doesn’t want to take advantage of Alex. If Maggie had been the one to kiss Alex, that would’ve been inappropriate.
I fully agree with everything you say about James, Natalie. And drunKara is totally adorable. But I don’t think Mon-El will turn to the dark side, they might control him or something, but he doesn’t give me the impression, after helping save the day, that he’ll embrace evil. My son actually asked if Cadmus was going to turn him into Superboy. :)
@1 – Chris: It’s not the first time Supergirl kills. She blew up Red Tornado when I think they had already found out he was sentiente. But I do agree that they had a perfect non-lethal solution in her freeze breath. And while I can understand James (but his growl is stupid, he should have an electronic voice scrambler), I’m with you that I have no idea what Ragman is saying in Arrow.
@4/MaGnUs: I just ignore the “sentient” line from that episode, because it makes no sense. There’s no way Alex could’ve known Red Tornado was actually a thinking being — all she knew was that it was operating independently rather than remotely controlled. It’s a huge leap from that to actual consciousness. So I figure she just misused the word.
By the way… Has anyone else noticed that Alex basically has the same haircut as Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell?
Alex is definitely bi. She’s bi, right? Does the world that supergirl is set in not have the concept of bisexuality? Or is it because being bi is still something of a taboo and the writers bottled it, trying to convince us that Alex was gay all along and she just didn’t realise. I don’t buy it, she would know by the time she reached her age. She’s bi and I hope they go with that but I suspect not, even though this episode didn’t commit to her being gay.
Everyone who’s even heard of The Thing (movie, not Marvel) knows what happens when you find a frozen dog in the Arctic, especially if it’s doing anything it shouldn’t after a few thousand years.
@6/politeruin: No — as Alex said last week, she never actually liked being physically intimate with men. She dated men because she just accepted that as a default, not because she really wanted to. And she’s never been given a romance in the show, aside from a vague flirtation with Maxwell Lord where he was the aggressor. So there’s no problem with the idea that Alex was lesbian all along without realizing it. It doesn’t contradict anything.
Everyone’s experience is different. Some people know early in life, others don’t figure it out for decades because they’re raised with assumptions they don’t question. Alex said that she was aware of her attraction to a female friend in her teens, but she resisted it and suppressed the memory of it.
I don’t know why you think bisexuality is taboo on TV; if anything, it’s quite abundant. On The CW alone, we have Sara on Legends of Tomorrow (usually shown as preferring women, but formerly involved with Oliver Queen), Clarke on The 100, and Darryl on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. And as the link shows, there are tons of bisexual characters (usually women) on other shows. I’m so used to seeing initially heterosexual female characters turn out to be bi that it’s refreshing to see them not going that route with Alex.
Well, first of all, i would have to limit this to the states where to those of us who live outside it it does seem more of a cultural taboo than being gay unfortunately, it’s like the media are only now coming to terms with gayness but they’re still catching up with accepting bi. And a lot of those examples, take babylon 5 for instance, are very loosely hinted at and it’s even worse when depicting bisexual men on tv. Tvtropes has a page dedicated to the lack of bisexuality – http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoBisexuals – but i guess my point is that it’s rarely outright stated and i have a problem with that. The fact that alex and kara have this conversation about her sexuality but the word bi is so notable in its absence to me. The way i read it is her sexuality is fluid, as so many people’s are, and i just wish it had been an option in the writing instead of dancing around it. To be honest, i’m used to seeing characters who thought they were hetero but in fact are gay with seemingly no sliding scale in between so our tv viewing experiences have differed.
@9/politeruin: Yes, a lot of the examples are vague, but a lot of others are overt — Captain Jack, Inara, Bo and Tamsin on Lost Girl, Cara on Legend of the Seeker, Delphine on Orphan Black, etc. It’s not at all rare these days, at least not in the shows I watch. So there’s no reason to push Alex into that mold when we’ve been unambiguously told otherwise: that she’s someone who’s never really been interested in men, who’s actually disliked physical intimacy with men, and is only just now discovering why. That is anything but bi or fluid.
The thing is, it seems to me that depicting female characters as bisexual in TV and movies is often done as a way of pandering to men’s fantasies — they’re turned on by the thought of two women doing it, but they also want those women to be sexually accessible to them. Either that or it’s a retcon where a character was initially defaulted to heterosexuality and then changed to a lesbian, e.g. Willow, Sara Lance, Clarke Griffin. Alex is a bit in the latter vein as well, but she avoids that cliche because she was never actually shown in a relationship with a man beyond her vague thing with Max that never went anywhere. So what she’s saying now fits perfectly with how she was portrayed before.
I don’t see it as pushing Alex into any mould though, I see it as freeing up the character and you say we’ve been unambiguously told otherwise: yes but only in the last 2 episodes and we’re now in the second season. We’ve seen very little of her personal life anyway and that’s on the writers, it’s unforgivable for someone who is part of the main cast. Not that writing her as some sort of pansexual like captain jack would be suitable for her; I liked the idea she may be asexual as Natalie pointed out in the last review and when has that ever been portrayed sensitively and not as something to be untrusted.
I certainly agree that it panders to male audiences and I want to see a lot more non-hetero male relationships to redress the balance, there’s the couple in the walking dead but you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise and ummm…that’s all I got. Let’s not go into the trope of non-hetero male characters being portrayed as bad apples, it still hurts what they did do Felix Gaeta on galactica.
@11/politeruin: How in the world is it “unforgiveable” to define a character based more on her professional life than her romantic life? That’s actually quite common for male characters on TV and film, but the sexist convention is to define all female characters primarily by their romantic lives. I’ve heard praise from a feminist perspective for the show’s choice to define characters like Alex and Cat on the basis of their professional lives first and foremost, or the choice this season to show Kara pulling away from romance to focus on her career.
As for gay male characters painted positively, the Arrowverse has Curtis/Mr. Terrific on Arrow and Captain Singh on The Flash (both happily married to male spouses), as well as guest characters like Hartley/Pied Piper on The Flash (though he hasn’t been shown in a relationship, I think) and Obsidian on Legends of Tomorrow. There’s also Steve Jinks on Warehouse 13, Felix on Orphan Black, Joey Gutierrez on Agents of SHIELD, Lito and Hernando on Sense8 (which also has a trans female lesbian lead character played by an actual trans woman), and many more. As with bisexual characters, it’s not all that rare anymore.
It’s unforgivable because that’s all the alex has been defined by, personally I’m not much interested in many character’s romantic lives from any drama but even I can see that Alex is a less rounded character due to a lack of this. Even Winn had an episode dedicated to his personal life and cat is a great example even though I would argue she was never core cast, but they portrayed her with the right balance for where she was as a recurring character.
Your examples are, I feel, simply not good enough apart from a few exceptions and tend to fall into the trap that the latest Star Trek film did: it’ll be a glimpse and you’ll miss it nod, perhaps a line here or there and then it’s gone with no attempt to explore it further. We’ll then go back to the straight relationships and spend an inordinate amount of time with them. I’ll give a pass to orphan black though I’ve not seen it but I’ve read very positive things about that side of it. Sense8 is exceptional though and should be quite rightly celebrated but it’s very much an outlier. All in all I would say C+ ‘could do better’.
@13/politeruin: I don’t understand what you’re saying. First you say you like the idea of her being asexual, then you say it’s somehow inexcusable for her to focus on work instead of romance. That’s completely contradictory.
Some characters don’t get stories focused on their personal lives because some people don’t have personal lives beyond work, or beyond work and family. I don’t have much of a personal life myself, because I’m shy. My work is the primary thing in my life. It’s not unrealistic. We didn’t see J’onn’s personal life explored last season either. Or Cat’s, except where her sons were concerned.
I don’t have a lot of specific experience with coming out or stuff like that, but I thought Alex was pretty reasonably described as a lesbian – and to me it did seem like it fit. It would be one thing if they had previously established her character as somebody who really enjoyed dating men, etc – then maybe you could make more of an argument that she was bi (unless they were going to say that the whole thing was an act) – but they hadn’t.
That said, I totally understand why Maggie turned her down. Even in the previous episode I was thinking, ‘this can’t work out’. While I don’t really know all the ups and downs of non-hetero relationships, it seems to me that it would be a pretty uneven relationship if one person is very confident in who they are and the other is still figuring out and can barely even say the words yet and may not even fully know what they want in a relationship (in a general sense). I don’t mean that as any kind of particular slight against Alex, but in some ways it’s like she’s still very immature in that sense. (Not to mention that as far as Maggie knows, she COULD just be still questioning and realizing in the end that she’s not – although I don’t think the show is going that way).
The kiss thing – so I did kind of laugh at the fact that Alex was a bit too aggressive there, and in fact in other circumstances that might have been really creepy (and I think Alex will probably eventually come to realize that personal space is a thing and it should be respected, regardless of gender) but given that she didn’t keep pressing it I think for her it’s mainly a learning experience. Plus I think she seemed to think Maggie was interested (even though as a viewer it seemed pretty obvious from the start that she wasn’t). Actually, in some ways, maybe it speaks to some ingrained assumptions that we have about sexuality, kissing, consent, etc. A lot of media has the idea of some big damn kiss where the unresolved sexual tension is finally broken, and I’m not saying that every single scenario where that happens (either in media or real life) is bad, but sometimes people can definitely misread the signs and blunder into something (actually my own first kiss was kind of like that, haha – I was the one being kissed, not the kisser. But I’m actually still very good friends with the guy, in part because he eventually did accept things weren’t going to go that way), so in a way it was kind of funny (and sad for her sake) to see it subverted.
As for other plots, I guess I don’t have as much to say. I like the Winn/James team up. I think Kara is honestly being super pushy/obnoxious with regards to Mon-El, and my biggest ‘take me out of the moment’ part of the show was the blood transfusion part, simply because at no point did anybody question if their blood types are even compatible (and that’s even with the assumption that they are the same species). I get that maybe they were willing to risk it anyway but I guess I wish they would have at least mentioned it. Also, it was a little ethically fuzzy for Alex to pressure her into it in the first place (actually, it kind of reminded me of that Star Trek episode where Work won’t give a blood transfusion to a Romulan. I also really hope that the clip in the preview isn’t actually suggesting that white martian blood actually makes him crazy/evil because…eh. It just kind of seems to be falling back to old racist arguments about how some races (or genders) are just inherently more violent, angry, etc. I guess I could see that the transfusion made him sick or maybe even triggered some kind of auto immune response that damaged his brain and altered his personality, but even so, I’m not sure it’s worth the in unintentional symbolism.
I’m not at all saying it’s inexcusable for her to focus on work, I’m saying it’s inexcusable that the writers don’t show us much of her life outside of work except for the past two episodes where it became glaringly obvious she has been neglected. I happen to like the character and wish they’d do better by her and I would argue that J’onn’s personal life has been better served when they showed flashbacks to his life on Mars. Fair enough she might live to work, many people do, but I just don’t think that is the writer’s intention here; some characters in drama get left behind a bit until they suddenly remember they have to do something with them lest they be placeholders.
@15/Lisamarie: Maybe other species don’t have the blood-type/rejection issues that humans have. Given how mutable Martians’ cells are, maybe they could just “shapeshift” to match a recipient’s type.
I like that Maggie turned her down, if only to see the Big Damn Kiss thing get inverted. I’m starting to really like Maggie. And Alex’s scene afterward where she felt so humiliated/embarrassed I thought was good too. I was surprised (in a good way) at how slow this arc was going, because these shows tend to speed things along.
Speaking of Max Lord, where is he this season?
I hope Cadmus turns Mon-El into Superboy.
@18/cryzydroid: Given that Chris Wood is 28 years old and only 7 months younger than Tyler Hoechlin, it would be weird to cast him as Superboy.
And Max seems to be one of several characters that got left behind in the move to Vancouver/The CW, along with Cat (mostly), Lucy Lane, General Lane, and Agent Vasquez (whose actress has jumped universes and become a SHIELD agent on ABC). We’ve only seen holo-Astra once, and I’ve been starting to wonder if Livewire and Silver Banshee will ever break out of jail.
@17 – Chris: I actually told my son that maybe Martians didn’t even have blood or internal organs, being shapeshifters. Kinda like the founders.
@20/MaGnUs: We saw last season that J’onn did bleed when Indigo stabbed him.
Although it’s never made sense to me when shapeshifters are portrayed as being susceptible to stab wounds or bullet wounds, e.g. when Wolverine stabs Mystique in X-Men and she still has the stab wounds after shifting to her true form (and scars in the next movie). Or in Heroes Reborn where there was a character who could turn to mist but was killed by being shot while in solid form (much like how Obsidian was wounded in Legends of Tomorrow last week). If they have such control over their bodies that they can alter their form, or even completely disintegrate and reassemble themselves at will, why couldn’t they just shapeshift the injured body part back into an intact form? (One character that does somewhat work this way is Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel; if she’s injured in an altered form, she’ll heal when she reverts to normal.)
Yeah, he bled, but for all we know, it could be something he’s used to doing to pass as human, and it became a sort of reflex.
@22/MaGnUs: In any case, the impalement clearly injured J’onn seriously, which would not be the case if he were just some kind of undifferentiated liquid being like Odo.
I guess it depends on how many species can safely drink the rum, and whether it’s known that Kryptonians can (albeit getting drunk in the process). After all, many of the aliens in the bar can pass as human. They would realize that Kara isn’t human but wouldn’t necessarily connect her to Supergirl.
Still probably not smart, but it may not be a dead giveaway to her identity.
@1/ChristopherLBennett: I agree totally that the show has lost something now that supergirl willingly chose to kill. All those speeches about her morality in the first season, including a mini-arc dealing with her views on killing (refusing to work with J’onn because she thought he had killed Astra), and here we are just 6 episodes into its run on the CW and she has killed someone, and doesn’t even care. To me this is a clear indication that DC learned absolutely nothing from the fans backlash against Batman killing in BVS. I know the supergirl show and the movies are different universes, but supergirl killing makes this show just another murder-verse now. And just like the series of movies, where Batman will always be a killer (no matter how much they address it, they can’t undo it), supergirl will always be a killer in this show now. I don’t know if you saw the Legends of Tomorrow episode, Invasion, (final crossover episode) but there’s a brief CGI shot that clearly shows supergirl killing the aliens with heat vision, the way they crumple slowly to the ground it’s obvious she’d killed them. The first season of supergirl had so much heart and emotional depth; it truly inspired, everything that a real superhero is supposed to do. But season 2 has just degraded the Kara Zor-el character. Other superheroes kill, so leave the killing to them. DC has a serious fetish with making its non-lethal characters kill on screen. And the worst part is, I bet the show will never acknowledge this, and we will still here supergirl say that she doesn’t kill, despite the obvious fact that she has killed sentient beings. I would rather they had cancelled the series after its first season instead of letting it degenerate into this. The show sucks now.
@25/Aaron: I don’t think you can tell whether someone is alive or dead by how they fall down. That’s hardly a diagnostic indicator in humans, let alone aliens. Indeed, “crumpling slowly to the ground” suggests incapacitation to me rather than death.
Besides, there was that time in the Master Jailer episode where Supergirl did something to the MJ’s neck and he collapsed, and it looked to a lot of people like she’d casually killed him, but Word of God is that she just knocked him out. So sometimes the choices made in depicting a takedown don’t quite align with the intent of the story. In the absence of confirmation one way or the other, I’m comfortable assuming that Kara just injured the Dominators instead of killing them.
@26/ChristopherLBennett: Thank you for replying, and yes, you’re right, I guess I did assume a lot by the way they fell. I read that the director of the Master Jailer episode tweeted to say officially that supergirl did not kill him. Still, they could’ve made it a lot clearer in the episode. Just like the episode Changing could’ve made it clearer if supergirl killed Rudy Jones, I think it’s obvious she did though, she even nodded in acknowledgment that she’d killed him. There is an argument for how supergirl did not kill Rudy Jones, but it’s weak compared to the evidence on screen. I think if the show is trying to blur the lines with her moral code, then that’s just as bad for me as a fan of the show. I feel that in season 2, so far, they are trying to cram so much story into each episode that show has lost its emotional depth, and the writer’s aren’t allowing for enough time to explain clearly what happens. The first season on CBS was better paced, but that’s just a personal opinion. Early days though I guess.