Falling back on what I really think is becoming an overused trope, Supergirl starts off fighting what appears to be Hank Henshaw. He’s clearly intent on beating the hell out of her, and she’s very confused. Then, of course, we get a different scene and “24 Hours Earlier.” The writers really need to come up with something else for us to open their shows with. This is getting old.
There are a lot of things you don’t want to be doing in the opening of any sort of adventure/sci fi/superhero show. One of them is be in an isolated research station. That just never works out well. True to form, the scientist running an outpost dedicated to studying global warming gets a nasty surprise as most of his team become the designated redshirts in “Changing.”
Supergirl’s newest adventure leaves a lot of people caught in the “Crossfire.” They manage to juggle a few different storylines in a way that made sense and actually worked. My only major complaint is that they seem to be ignoring some of their own history from first season, but that might be from the change in network and locale.
This week’s Supergirl is called “Survivors” and that’s the running theme in the episode. They hit you with that early as Mon-El is shown barely escaping the destruction of Daxam at the time of Krypton’s destruction. We learn that Mon was a Palace Guard, and everyone (except maybe Mon-El himself) seems to think it’s a good idea to keep him confined at DEO Headquarters for now. Especially with more of his background in this episode, I’m a bit disappointed they aren’t at least commenting on his sharing the family name with both Superman and Supergirl. Maybe they’ll get to that later. Hank then surprises everyone by leaving for “personal business.”
Supergirl picks up exactly where it left off last time. The mysterious Pod Person has woken up, and apparently isn’t a morning person. He chokes out Kara, runs amok through the DEO, fights various guards, and manages to escape. He seemed surprised by his powers, which is an indication that either he wasn’t planning on coming to Earth or at least didn’t know that getting here would give him powers. Everyone is fine, but no one has a clue where he went.
“The Last Children of Krypton” begins with the CW tradition of updating their introductory voice over, with Kara now mentioning she’s a reporter, which I still think is a bad idea. After that, Kara and Kal-El help out National City’s Fire Department when there’s a major blaze. Kara fights the flames directly while Superman does something new and different and somehow makes it rain. That’s a new power. Maybe it was a speed-vortex that sucked up the water from the hoses. Then they fly off to break up an armed robbery. That goes as smoothly as you’d expect for two normals fighting two Krpytonians. Superman even shakes his head at one of them, saying, “If the bullets don’t work, why the punching? I’ve never understood that,” echoing an in-joke among comics fans for years.
Supergirl returns for a second season with “The Adventures of Supergirl.” Most likely that’s a reference to one of her past comic book titles, “The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl.” Not only is she back for a new season, she’s on a new network and has several changes from the opening forward. For one thing, now that she’s on the CW with most of DC’s other currently running shows (Gotham over on Fox being the exception), she’s being drawn into the “CW-verse” or “Arrow-verse” as I’ve heard it called. Flash appears in her opening credits from their crossover episode, which I thought was a nice touch.
You want the good or the bad news first? Well, we’re going with bad.
Supergirl’s first season comes to an end with “Better Angels.” The cliffhangers from last episode are resolved, a lot of things change, and there are a few events I was pleasantly surprised by before the end. There are cliffhangers on a few levels, but I’ll get to that later.
Last episode, Supergirl lost two of her closest allies. This week, she gets a little help from a new friend in “Worlds Finest.” Worlds Finest was a very long running team up book from DC Comics that usually featured Superman and Batman. In this case, it teams up not only two heroes but two shows and even two networks, as the CW’s Flash stops by for a visit.
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