S06.E14: Magical Thinking

[scarynikki12]

Quote

Lena is uncertain about using her magical abilities to help Supergirl retrieve the second totem from Nyxly.

 

 

[DanaK]

Peta continues to be the MPV villain of this show. This was another fun episode and Peta killed it with super-empathy stuff

Looks like William has found his spine

[Noneofyourbusiness]

That plan should have resulted in a lot more casualties.

[Chicago Redshirt]

I'm still trying to recover from the whiplash of:

Kara: We should intensify people losing their humanity so that Nyxly will be even more human and come and fix everything!

Lena: That's crazy talk and crossing into darkness and we're not going to do that evil, evil thing.

Kara: You're right.

Lena and Kara seconds later: OK, let's do this intensifying this loss of humanity thing!

Also, it seems like it would have been fairly simple for even just Kara and Jonn to have contained the rioters themselves through super-speed/strength/invulnerability. They must have access to some sort of tranquilizing darts/gas that could make it so they could have intensified the humanity loss without causing more chaos. One little bit stuck out: J'onn phases into a car to stop a carjacker, but then he breaks the car door's window pulling him out. Why not just phase the carjacker out of the car, or even simply open the door and pull the carjacker through the open door?

Once Nyxly returned to normal, why didn't she just immediately get the Totem of Hope from the Hague? Also, Mitch raised a good point: Why can't they come up with a plan to get the totem without killing anyone? Seems like with a transporter it should be a fairly simple matter. 

Considering the danger of the Totems, it is rather silly that at least three of them seem to have been hidden on Earth, and presumably all 7. The hiders had 5th Dimensional powrers and could have placed them anywhere in the universe.

Are we heading to a place where Kelly and Alex adopt a super-powered alien? Remember when Alex was baby-crazy and that in part helped undermine her last serious relationship with Maggie? (Pepperidge Farm remembers) Whatever happened to that plot line?

The trade of William for Brainy is not one I would make. Andrea will never cease being annoying. It seems like the concept of "embedding" with the Super Friends needed work. They probably should have worked things out. such as "don't reveal the location of the Tower," before taking William to the Tower. Why Alex revealed her secret identity to William seems...unclear. Had William ever met Alex as a civilian? Why didn't she just think hoodie + eye make up was enough secret identity protection? Lois and Clark had a villain call Lois "galactically stupid" for not realizing Clark is Superman. William is like, "hold my beer1" because he doesn't recognize either Kara or Nia. At least Clark wears glasses and changes his voice somewhat when he's Superman. Whoever would put together that the trans woman who randomly falls asleep at work and has mysterious disappearances is a superhero whose powers are dream-based? 

Shouldn't we be troubled that J'onn threatened to mindwipe William if he found out their secret identities? More to the point, shouldn't William? If I'm a reporter with any sense of independence and self preservation, I would walk away from a story when the super-powered alien says "I will mess with your brain if I decide to." 

I couldn't even with William being like, "I'll take this fight. You continue to protect Lena!" Don't herosplain to Supergirl! it will literally take her 2 seconds to stop the person it would take you at best a minute or two. So why not let her?  

 

[cdnalor]

4 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

couldn't even with William being like, "I'll take this fight. You continue to protect Lena!" Don't herosplain to Supergirl! it will literally take her 2 seconds to stop the person it would take you at best a minute or two. So why not let her?  

Just what I was thinking!  I don't watch a show called "Supergirl" to watch some doofus trading punches with some poor possessed victims.  Let the superhero use her powers, that's what we're here for.  Way too many secondary characters in this show.

[rtms77]

Superfriends, when deciding to have a reporter tag along, it would help you a lot to discuss the rules somewhere other than the headquarters. Secondly any good team would have covered Wills head on the way to HQ. Third I’m sorry but Will is dense if he can’t figure out who Dreamer is, or Supergirl is especially with Alex right there!  Maggie figured this out in no time flat! Then after deciding very seriously that Lena can’t be seen or known that she helps the group, they “accidentally “ walk in on her? Come on J’onn you have alien tech from across the galaxy you use for security! And did Supergirl/Kara give herself away when she called him William? Most would have used his last name, and would not be so overly familiar. To me it sounded like a dead give away on her ID. 

Sigh…. So they kicked out Brainy , the smartest guy supposedly, for the dumbest one just to justify Wills existence on the show? I’ll take Brainy any day over him. 
 

I had a good chuckle at the MMA guy just giving  Nyxly the totem without any resistance. I guess when you live in National City, the smart thing to do is always give up 😂 and wait for Supergirl to make things worse. 
 

I too was scratching my head that Nyxly didn’t immediately go back to The Hague and grab the next totem when she was fine. But since we are only allowed action when one of these activates they had to save it for the next ep. Not to mention they have to save money for the big final, hence these little break out fights now which Supergirl or Jonn should have easily contained. 

What is Andrea purpose other than being a sleazy news site head? They give her powers and then almost forget about it. She could find out the ID of every superhero now. Heck she should know thanks to those files she snooped. Why give her powers if you never use her? 

 

Edited October 6, 2021 by rtms77

[Noneofyourbusiness]

Not to mention that when Andrea took over, she threatened everyone at CatCo with their non-compete clauses preventing them from working anywhere else for a long time if they tried to leave, so William's threat of going to the Daily Planet shouldn't have worked.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Noneofyourbusiness

[Chicago Redshirt]

3 hours ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

Not to mention that when Andrea took over, she threatened everyone at CatCo with their non-compete clauses preventing them from working anywhere else for a long time if they tried to leave, so William's threat of going to the Daily Planet shouldn't have worked.

I suppose one could fanwank that a few ways:

1. William came in after Andrea first took over and was smart enough/big enough that he did not have a non-compete clause in his contract.

2. His (and/or everyone's) contract has been reworked to remove the non-compete contract.

3. Andrea realizes that such a broad non-compete clause would be utterly unenforceable in reality, so she let it go.

4. Andrea was so stunned by William growing a spine and not letting her walk all over him that she forgot that she could use the non-compete clause to try to slap William down. 

5. The writers have forgotten that little tidbit from a few seasons back. Whoopsie!

I'd go with 4. Andrea is just a big bully, and unlike, say Cat or J. Jonah Jameson or others, is not fun to watch.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

4 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I suppose one could fanwank that a few ways:

1. William came in after Andrea first took over and was smart enough/big enough that he did not have a non-compete clause in his contract.

2. His (and/or everyone's) contract has been reworked to remove the non-compete contract.

3. Andrea realizes that such a broad non-compete clause would be utterly unenforceable in reality, so she let it go.

4. Andrea was so stunned by William growing a spine and not letting her walk all over him that she forgot that she could use the non-compete clause to try to slap William down. 

5. The writers have forgotten that little tidbit from a few seasons back. Whoopsie!

I'd go with 4. Andrea is just a big bully, and unlike, say Cat or J. Jonah Jameson or others, is not fun to watch.

1. They came in at the same time.

5. It was only the premiere of the previous season. Time flies.

And the show seems to have forgotten that Andrea and Lena are friends, 'cause Andrea (a) doesn't ask Lena where the Superfriends' HQ is, and (b) doesn't seem concerned that if she publishes the Tower's location without permission she'll alienate Lena.

.

[Chicago Redshirt]

10 minutes ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

1. They came in at the same time.

5. It was only the premiere of the previous season. Time flies.

And the show seems to have forgotten that Andrea and Lena are friends, 'cause Andrea (a) doesn't ask Lena where the Superfriends' HQ is, and (b) doesn't seem concerned that if she publishes the Tower's location without permission she'll alienate Lena.

.

I can't remember the specifics of whether the non-competes were supposed to be contracts that preceded Andrea or if she somehow imposed them on taking over. From what I'm reading on the Interwebs, it sounds like she and William arrived at the same time and before they arrived, the rest of the staff had signed new contracts or had them somehow imposed on them. Either way, there is a possibility that the CatCo staff broadly could have gotten new contracts with the noncompete clause while it was still the Lena regime of CatCo but William as just coming on board around the same time as Andrea and being a Big Deal didn't.

[Note: it is probably relatively rare that media companies would have individualized contracts. With superstars, sure. Or with unions. But an individually signed contract across a newsroom just is unlikely. Also, noncompetes are often unenforceable. One that literally said that you couldn't work for ANY journalism entity if you leave the original one would be laughed out of court.]

A couple episodes ago, there was an Andrea/Lena friend scene where Andrea was doing Lena a solid while Lena was learning of her witchy heritage.

I was confused as to whether William told the whole truth that Lena is working with the Super Friends and has witchy powers now. Maybe we are going to get into more Lena/Andrea scenes in future eps.

[angora]

46 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I was confused as to whether William told the whole truth that Lena is working with the Super Friends and has witchy powers now. Maybe we are going to get into more Lena/Andrea scenes in future eps.

When Andrea was talking to William at the end, I'm pretty sure one of the things he refused to reveal was WHICH of the Super Friends has the magical powers. Since he's staying silent on that, I'm betting Lena's name was kept out of it altogether.

But yeah, absolutely ridiculous of Andrea to want William to shoot his entire wad on his first story. That is not how you develop trust with a highly-sensitive source, Andrea! Aside from being bad journalism, it's just bad business, too focused on the immediate short-term benefit and completely ignoring the long-term potential you'd be throwing away by burning the bridge all in one go.

I didn't enjoy this one as much as last week's, which earned a lot of good will from me because it just tickled me so much. This one seemed a bit underwritten AND overwritten at the same time, does that make sense? Like it was kind of scattered/muddled but also underlined its big points super loudly. I have no idea how we went from 1) Lena objects to Kara's idea to 2) Lena makes Kara see the error of her ways to 3) Lena is now totally on board(?) What happened there?

But I enjoyed Nyxly overdosing on empathy - Peta Sergeant continues to be great in this role, and I loved her tearfully proclaiming, "I could save the snow leopards from extinction!" I also liked the ongoing device of Kara feeling Nyxly's strong emotions. The show didn't overplay it, and Melissa portrayed it well.

My favorite part of the episode, though, was Nia. After getting barely any Nia last week, she was so much fun in this episode. I loved, "Lena broke my brain," "We have a coffee maker that's literally out of this world!", and her cheerful "Hi!" right before she suckerpunched one of the humanity-depleted MMA guys.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

2 hours ago, angora said:

But yeah, absolutely ridiculous of Andrea to want William to shoot his entire wad on his first story. That is not how you develop trust with a highly-sensitive source, Andrea! Aside from being bad journalism, it's just bad business, too focused on the immediate short-term benefit and completely ignoring the long-term potential you'd be throwing away by burning the bridge all in one go.

I didn't enjoy this one as much as last week's, which earned a lot of good will from me because it just tickled me so much. This one seemed a bit underwritten AND overwritten at the same time, does that make sense? Like it was kind of scattered/muddled but also underlined its big points super loudly. I have no idea how we went from 1) Lena objects to Kara's idea to 2) Lena makes Kara see the error of her ways to 3) Lena is now totally on board(?) What happened there?

But I enjoyed Nyxly overdosing on empathy - Peta Sergeant continues to be great in this role, and I loved her tearfully proclaiming, "I could save the snow leopards from extinction!" I also liked the ongoing device of Kara feeling Nyxly's strong emotions. The show didn't overplay it, and Melissa portrayed it well.

My favorite part of the episode, though, was Nia. After getting barely any Nia last week, she was so much fun in this episode. I loved, "Lena broke my brain," "We have a coffee maker that's literally out of this world!", and her cheerful "Hi!" right before she suckerpunched one of the humanity-depleted MMA guys.

That's a very good point. Someone should remind Andrea that she has no prior experience running a newspaper and it shows. Good embedded journalists conceal details about terrorists and criminals, let alone superheroes whose work is important to keeping the city safe and don't need more of a target painted on them.

Kara had the idea of telling everyone about the plan and that it was their doing in the article afterwards ("the light of day"), which somehow made Lena okay with it because then the people would know what happened. After the fact. And be able to give their opinion on the Superfriends' actions. After the fact. Even though it still should have resulted in way more casualties than we saw.

I liked the "Am I the only one who cares?"/snow leopard and out-of-this-world coffee maker gags.

3 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I was confused as to whether William told the whole truth that Lena is working with the Super Friends and has witchy powers now. Maybe we are going to get into more Lena/Andrea scenes in future eps.

He refused to say which of the Superfriends had magical powers, but I thought it was public knowledge that Lena was one of them. Maybe not.

I think it's either 4 or 5. Supergirl and continuity are only passing acquaintances.

[tennisgurl]

On 10/6/2021 at 3:45 AM, Chicago Redshirt said:

One little bit stuck out: J'onn phases into a car to stop a carjacker, but then he breaks the car door's window pulling him out. Why not just phase the carjacker out of the car, or even simply open the door and pull the carjacker through the open door?

I know right? Now that poor woman not only has a traumatized kid but has to pay for a new window when J'onn could have easily just opened the car door, all because J'onn felt like being dramatic. 

Not a bad episode, but something of a let down after last week episode. Peta continues to be a real highlight as Nyxly, she really handled being overwhelmed by empathy well, not coming off as over the top goofy as other actors would. The Superfriends plan could have easily led to even more death and destruction, they're really lucky that most everyone we saw were just beating people up instead of pulling knives or guns (until those guys with axes attacked the alien girl).

You would think that, with aliens being so common on Earth now (at least in this city) there would be more special training for foster parents taking in alien kids, or a stronger vetting process, regular humans trying to take care of a kid who can breath fire by accident without any kind of training seems like a recipe for disaster. They dealt with that a bit in the previous foster care episode, but that was mostly more about the foster mom being horrible and not about how the system is doing dealing with an influx of super powered kids who might not be in full control of their powers or have different biological needs than humans. That continues to be a huge missed opportunity of this show, aliens are apparently super common now (especially ones that look conveniently human), but we hardly get to see how that has really changed anything in society unless its being used as a really on the nose metaphor for some social issue. And even then its often very surface level without much complexity and nuance, which is certainly on brand for this show, but I would have loved for the show to engage in more interesting world building when it comes to aliens integrating into Earth culture. So now Alex finally gets that cute adopted kid that she has wanted so much that she blew up her relationship with Maggie over it...which hasn't really been mentioned sense. You would think after that debacle she and Kelly would have had that talk by now before this. Or maybe they did and I don't remember, this show has taken way too long to give Kelly a real voice on this show.

Andrea continues to be a weird mix of a total idiot as well as making good points that the show doesn't seem to think are good. She isn't wrong about the Superfriends being a good story or that having a reporter follow them around would be interesting to people, even if the show seems to go back and fourth on whether or not this is a good thing or not, but she is also clearly a moron who has no idea how reporting works or what people actually want to read. Of course William isn't going to want to name names or give away secret information, he would be totally blowing up his sources and it would end their cooperation with their paper for good, duh. Andrea is both an asshole as well as a total idiot, no wonder their doing so poorly, she's running their Catco into the ground with her stupidity. The show also continues to try and justify William being a thing. I continue to not care. 

I missed Brainy.

Edited October 7, 2021 by tennisgurl

[Rushmoras]

I'm just wondering what was more bullshit in this episode: the fact that William actually got "embedded" with the Super Friends and writing a story about how they operate or Super Friends plan on how to get humanity back to the victims from Nxly. No, I'm thinking the latter. Now I'm imagining how Batman, for example, is showing some reporter guy his batcave with all the gadgets and introducing them to his day-to-day activities.

And what the hell is this sudden notion that the public doesn't trust the heroes and the heroes need more transparency. So, what we just going to throw out the window all of the development since S1? Well, since it is the last season, might as well go all in and shit on everything that was previously established.

I know that I've been saying with each season that it gets worse and worse, but, damn, if last season I thought they are not even trying, then what the hell I should call this season?

[ADDENDUM] Would have found funny, if Lena actually told William off by saying: "Will, with all do respect, doing magic is not making dishes, so shut the hell up, because you know as much as I do about this".

Edited October 7, 2021 by Rushmoras

[thuganomics85]

Sloppy and weird episode.  We get a grand, over-dramatic (but well acted at least) scene of Lena pushing back against Kara wanting to amplify the totem's powers to track Nxy and how they can't lose sight of "who they are" just to get a win, only for Lena to have a grand revelation and then they announce to the group about a new plan which is... honestly, pretty much the exact same plan Kara had already suggested.  What was the point about having that kind of conflict?  Really just felt like padding the episode and considering that this is suppose to be the final season, one would think there wouldn't be so much filler.

Then again, it really didn't matter since the majority of National City's citizens without humanity just makes them simply throw fists and each other comically, and never really cause real harm to one another.  I know this one of the more "lighter" shows in the Arrowverse (honestly getting to the point of Power Rangers at times, frankly), but it was hilarious how no one seemed to really do damage to one another.  At least no one in National City carries guns or knives, I guess (besides the one dude who just happen to be stopped by Kara at the right time.)

They are totally going down the path of having Alex and Kelly adopt overly-precious, fire-breathing alien kid.  Yawn!

Peta really is saving a lot of this by making Nxy a compelling antagonist.

On the flip side, Andrea continues to become even more one-note and idiotic each episode.  William standing up to her was the most I ever liked him, but even then, I still wanted him to just say screw it and still go to the Daily Planet.  I'm not his biggest fan, but he really shouldn't be getting pushed around like this: especially since it is so obvious how short-sighted Andrea is here.

Boo to no Brainy!

At least the Superfriends now have a totem, so it's back to an even playing field.  Granted, Nxy already knows that a totem is at the Hague, but it looks like Lena has a way to track another one, and the gang has set their sights on the Dream one, since they actually have someone named Dreamer on the team!

[BaggythePanther]

On 10/6/2021 at 7:10 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

Either way, there is a possibility that the CatCo staff broadly could have gotten new contracts with the noncompete clause while it was still the Lena regime of CatCo but William as just coming on board around the same time as Andrea and being a Big Deal didn't.

One of Andrea’s first scenes at CatCo is when she introduces herself as the new boss and tells everyone their contracts have been changed (seemingly without their knowledge) and now includes a noncompete clause. However, like most of William’s and Andrea’s stories, you could say it was undone by Crisis (the answer to all plot holes).

 If I’m being honest I don’t think the episode made any sense but for whatever reason I still enjoyed it. For most of the episode I assumed Kara had also been affected by the totem and lost her humanity and that would be the explanation for why Lena Luthor had to lecture her on doing the right thing. But nope, seems like Kara and Lena have been spending so much time together that they’re switching personalities and Lena refuses to hurt people while Kara is willing to do questionable things to beat Nyxly. I think the writers only had one solution so they had the characters address the fact that it was a terrible idea, but did it anyway. I hope the resolution to the remaining totems is better.

William being embedded with the Superfriends makes no sense, but it’s also the most interesting he’s ever been. It’s a nitpick but I still can’t get over that CatCo is a full fledged magazine that operates like a newspaper. 
 

On 10/7/2021 at 12:56 PM, tennisgurl said:

You would think after that debacle she and Kelly would have had that talk by now before this. Or maybe they did and I don't remember, this show has taken way too long to give Kelly a real voice on this show.

Kelly has known Alex wanted a kid from before they started dating. When Alex and Kelly first met Alex was trying to adopt on her own. And I think Kelly was there when the adoption didn’t work out. I don’t think we’ve seen them talk about it since they started dating though. But taking care of an adorable little alien girl is right up Alex’s alley. 

 

[legaleagle53]

6 hours ago, BaggythePanther said:

Kelly has known Alex wanted a kid from before they started dating. When Alex and Kelly first met Alex was trying to adopt on her own. And I think Kelly was there when the adoption didn’t work out. I don’t think we’ve seen them talk about it since they started dating though. But taking care of an adorable little alien girl is right up Alex’s alley. 

 

And the looks they were giving each other while waiting for the van to take the little girl back to the group home spoke volumes. They WERE clearly having "that talk" without saying a word, and by the end of the scene, it was obvious that they were on the same page. I half-expected one of them to tell the driver to take that little girl to their home address, where they'd be waiting for her.

[Trini]

The writing for this episode was not great. Weirdly, the only part that didn't seem lazy, or that flowed properly from beginning to end, was the C-plot with William.

Another episode where the let the stunt team have at it. Happy for them.

This episode is easily skippable; unless you want to see how Alex and Kelly adopt Esme (my speculation), otherwise, "previously on Supergirl" will suffice.

I hope this is an outlier, I need them to pull it together for the final set of episodes.

[Lantern7]

Didn’t think too much of the episode. Once again: the series isn’t bad, but the impending finale is probably for the best.

Hey, Alex finally has a shot to be a mommy! Helluva way to go about it. “Honey! Defend me from these marauders!” “But . . . I can’t breathe fire! I have no idea how I did that in the first pl-“ “*klik*”

Letting Nyxly drain humanity from people and hope she overdosed on it enough to give up the totem . . . that’s something the Legends would do. And yes, PETA is bringing it, even if Nyxly isn’t really the ideal choice for a final nemesis.

On 10/6/2021 at 4:45 AM, Chicago Redshirt said:

J'onn phases into a car to stop a carjacker, but then he breaks the car door's window pulling him out. Why not just phase the carjacker out of the car, or even simply open the door and pull the carjacker through the open door?

My guess: because it looked awesome. I can be shallow, right?

[angora]

On 10/6/2021 at 3:45 AM, Chicago Redshirt said:

I couldn’t even with William being like, "I'll take this fight. You continue to protect Lena!" Don't herosplain to Supergirl! it will literally take her 2 seconds to stop the person it would take you at best a minute or two. So why not let her?  

 

You know that scene in Iron Man 2 where Happy laboriously beats on one bad guy then announces, “I got him!”, only to turn around and realize that Black Widow dispatched like six dudes while he was doing so? It was basically that. At least Happy had been a bodyguard. What are you doing, William?