S02.E21: Resist

[immortalfrieza]

On 5/16/2017 at 9:22 AM, JapMo said:

 

• Man, the DEO got torn apart fast.  As tough as they've been portrayed these last 2 seasons, they were like a house of cards for the Daxams.  And by the way, for as much trash talk as Kara has spewn about Daxam, they kicked ass...hard.

 Aside from Supergirl herself, J'onn, Winn, and Alex, the rest of DEO, hell, the military and police force in general have always been so useless against anything on this show they might as well not exist. This follows both DC and Marvel comic books to a T, everybody but the superheroes and a select few characters supporting said superheroes are completely useless 999999 times out a 1000000. Yes, it is extremely annoying.

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• Cat was a major disappointment to me (not Calista of course).  There was no sense of urgency.  She acted like an alien invasion of earth happened every day, right between her morning Starbucks and afternoon massage.  I loved her take charge character in the first season, but to me she wasn't really taking charge at all...she was just posing.  Like she was shooting as episode of Bored Housewives of National City.

That's Cat though, she acts like even the worst stuff is nothing more than a minor inconvenience, in fact she has always shown more of a reaction over things that actually are a minor inconvenience like Kara spilling her coffee than she does over things that are actually serious. To be fair, this Cat Grant has lived in Metropolis with Superman flying around dealing with a giant monster or an alien invasion and whatever every week long before she ever came to National City and founded Catco.

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 It pains me how they wrote Rhea.  They had such a good villain in her and then they reduce her to Snidely Whiplash.  C'mon show.  She shockingly killed her husband and would do anything to keep her son away from a Kryptonian.  She was a gold mine of stories for next season but instead she went so overboard she's now just another run-of-the-mill looney-tunes.  I love Teri as Rhea.  Her head in the clouds talking to earth...LOL...reminded me of the Wizard of Oz.   

Something has been bothering me about the Daxamites on this show, and it finally clicked in my head what it was during this episode because it couldn't possibly get more blatant. Rhea the psychotic Not!Goa'uld System Lord trying to conquer Earth because she can't stand being slighted and thinks herself invincible. She does this with her army of Not!Jaffa wielding their utterly ineffective Not!Staff Weapons that can never actually hit anything while the protagonists take them out with one shot still somehow manage to take on an entire city and win despite being vastly outnumbered and not even holding a significant technological advantage and going down with one shot while Rhea the Not!Goa'uld System Lord talks to everybody as a giant floating head demanding everybody surrender. The whole thing with the Daxamites looks like it was lifted wholesale from an old rejected Stargate SG1 script.

Edited May 17, 2017 by immortalfrieza

[Chicago Redshirt]

7 hours ago, immortalfrieza said:

 Something has been bothering me about the Daxamites on this show, and it finally clicked in my head what it was during this episode because it couldn't possibly get more blatant. Rhea the psychotic Not!Goa'uld System Lord trying to conquer Earth because she can't stand being slighted and thinks herself invincible. She does this with her army of Not!Jaffa wielding their utterly ineffective Not!Staff Weapons that can never actually hit anything while the protagonists take them out with one shot still somehow manage to take on an entire city and win despite being vastly outnumbered and not even holding a significant technological advantage and going down with one shot while Rhea the Not!Goa'uld System Lord talks to everybody as a giant floating head demanding everybody surrender. The whole thing with the Daxamites looks like it was lifted wholesale from an old rejected Stargate SG1 script.

In fairness, in this case, the Not!Goa'uld in this case have superpowers and significant tech advantages (ships, shields, teleportation tech, and mind control) over Earth.

It is kind of silly that they are carrying weapons with their abilities. And it is kind of silly that Guardian/Alex/Maggie are not smears on the pavement after encountering more than one.

But for the most part, it makes sense that, let's say, 1,000 Daxamites could fairly easily capture a city of, let's say, 3 million.

[rtms77]

9 hours ago, Katsullivan said:

Was she foreign born?

Because extra-terrestrial DNA or not, if she was born in the US, no constitution is being violated.

We also don't know if they have the same constitution as our real world.

[Last Time Lord]

Man, I am so, so, so behind on this show.

Just watched this episode. I liked it. Teri Hatcher was a lot of fun in her role. I'm not really a big comic reader. Is Rhea a comics character?

[AD35]

42 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

In fairness, in this case, the Not!Goa'uld in this case have superpowers and significant tech advantages (ships, shields, teleportation tech, and mind control) over Earth.

It is kind of silly that they are carrying weapons with their abilities. And it is kind of silly that Guardian/Alex/Maggie are not smears on the pavement after encountering more than one.

But for the most part, it makes sense that, let's say, 1,000 Daxamites could fairly easily capture a city of, let's say, 3 million.

At the risk of overthinking all of this, from Rhea's point of view conquering and ruling Earth as New Daxam would probably be the best option.  First of all Earth is probably far down the galactic totem pole in the scheme of things, so it's not likely anyone else is going to come to its aid.  Secondly as been mentioned before, Daxamites would have superpowers here and the subjugated population won't. Furthermore why spend who knows how many years rebuilding a devastated planet when you can conquer a new one in a short time that comes with a ready-made slave labor pool of a billion or so.  One question I have regarding the ep is that since J'onn is out of action for the time being and Alex is now acting head of the DEO, would that be over the entire organization in the country or just for the National City office with separate branches in, for example, Metropolis and Gotham City, and can potentially ask them for help?

[Mellowyellow]

That was a fun episode.

Cracked up at how consistently evil Lillian was. Went in, got her kid out, left Supergirl to rot.

I love Alex. She's a hero and a total badass but she's such a gentle soul. I love her softness despite how much of a skilled fighter she is. 

My favourite part was Mon El and Lena bonding about Kara! Sooooo much like my bestie's husband and I! I love the Kara/Lena friendship because it reminds me of my own with the bestie. 

[KirkB]

7 hours ago, Mellowyellow said:

Cracked up at how consistently evil Lillian was. Went in, got her kid out, left Supergirl to rot.

At least Kara was smart enough to be prepared. She knew full well how much Lillian hated aliens so she took precautions for when, not if, Lillian betrayed her.

[shantown]

I thought this was a fantastic review of the episode (x):

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mon-el: kara will stop you

me: or you???????? the one with superpowers?????? and a working understanding of daxomite technology and probably more than a few connections and people who will probably follow you since you are the prince as you are a self proclaimed “bit of a superhero” yourself

instead of forcibly marrying the human with no powers and no idea how to get off the ship who is still resisting 

but no~

I'm so sick of Mon-El.

[JapMo]

54 minutes ago, shantown said:

I thought this was a fantastic review of the episode (x):

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mon-el: kara will stop you

me: or you???????? the one with superpowers?????? and a working understanding of daxomite technology and probably more than a few connections and people who will probably follow you since you are the prince as you are a self proclaimed “bit of a superhero” yourself

instead of forcibly marrying the human with no powers and no idea how to get off the ship who is still resisting 

but no~

I'm so sick of Mon-El.

If he had said "I will stop you" there would be cries of 'the show is called Supergirl...not The Mon-El Show.  Why do the writers think a man has to help her?'  And I don't believe he "forcibly" married Lena.  They were both forced into it.  

[jay741982]

On 5/15/2017 at 10:15 PM, Lantern7 said:

Why can't we have Cat full time? Right . . . dramatic effect. And she figured out that James was Guardian from his eyes. Kara didn't even think of that.

Am I nuts for thinking Lena was kinda hot in Space Princess garb? I mean, Rhea is still a bitch, and she doesn't read forums like this, so it doesn't occur to her that Lena might be into Kara. Perhaps even more than Mon.

I hate to think how Bhutan will deal with the tourists. And the thinly-veiled political messages were a little too much for me. Plus side: President Olivia is a Durlan! We can call her President Chameleon! The downside with that is that this show would get the Legion of Superheroes, and they would be more awesome meeting the "Legends."

I was drooling over how hot Lena looked in that red dress lol

[legaleagle53]

On 5/17/2017 at 9:08 AM, Katsullivan said:

Was she foreign born?

Because extra-terrestrial DNA or not, if she was born in the US, no constitution is being violated.

Yes.  She herself said that she was born on Durla, not in the US to Durlan parents. So yes, it's a violation of the Constitution, which is why she asked Supergirl, Cat, and the DEO to keep her secret a secret.

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Why can't we have Cat full time? Right . . . dramatic effect.

That isn't why we can't have Cat full time, @Lantern7.  It's because Calista didn't want to move to Vancouver when the show did.

Edited May 21, 2017 by legaleagle53

[Lantern7]

@legaleagle53 . . . was not aware. Maybe they could film Calista where she is, and make Cat pop up by hologram. "Hello. Inspiration, inspiration, snark, inspiration, name-drop, and I'm going back to the damn yurt. And you can't come over, even if National City is on the brink of destruction."

[stealinghome]

17 minutes ago, Lantern7 said:

@legaleagle53 . . . was not aware. Maybe they could film Calista where she is, and make Cat pop up by hologram. "Hello. Inspiration, inspiration, snark, inspiration, name-drop, and I'm going back to the damn yurt. And you can't come over, even if National City is on the brink of destruction."

I would pay to watch that webseries. Can you imagine the fun running gags they could do with Cat beaming in from a yurt?

Edited May 20, 2017 by stealinghome

[Mellowyellow]

18 hours ago, JapMo said:

If he had said "I will stop you" there would be cries of 'the show is called Supergirl...not The Mon-El Show.  Why do the writers think a man has to help her?'  And I don't believe he "forcibly" married Lena.  They were both forced into it.  

I didn't think he forcibly married Lena at all either. They both agreed to it since his crazy ass mumma was going to kill little children.

I really liked the acting during the marriage actually. They took the threat seriously enough but there was enough resigned eye rolling that signalled a bit of camaraderie between them.

[legaleagle53]

2 hours ago, Mellowyellow said:

I didn't think he forcibly married Lena at all either. They both agreed to it since his crazy ass mumma was going to kill little children.

I really liked the acting during the marriage actually. They took the threat seriously enough but there was enough resigned eye rolling that signalled a bit of camaraderie between them.

Exactly.  It was obvious that neither of them wanted any part of the marital arrangement and that they both hated Rhea for forcing them to go through with the ceremony.

[mac123x]

Brenda Strong and Teri Hatcher in the same episode -- felt like a Desperate Housewives reunion.  What characters will Felicity Huffman and Eva Longoria be playing next season?

 

I almost didn't watch the episode just because of the ham-handed episode title.  Okay, we get it, Show, you don't like Trump.  No need to beat me over the head with it until I stop watching.

On 5/16/2017 at 10:48 AM, JapMo said:

Speaking of figures, Brenda Strong TOWERS over Katie McGrath.  Was she standing on stilts.  Unless Katie is like 5 foot, Brenda seemed about 2 feet taller.

 

Brenda Strong is quite tall, 6 feet according to the Googles.  She's going to tower over most actresses and quite a few of the actors.

[legaleagle53]

20 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

@legaleagle53 . . . was not aware. Maybe they could film Calista where she is, and make Cat pop up by hologram. "Hello. Inspiration, inspiration, snark, inspiration, name-drop, and I'm going back to the damn yurt. And you can't come over, even if National City is on the brink of destruction."

And I was not aware that you were not aware.  I honestly thought that was common knowledge.  I'm deleting the last two lines of my post.  It was rude of me, and I apologize.

[Bruinsfan]

On 5/16/2017 at 7:06 PM, Oreo2234 said:

I agree. I enjoyed a lot of stuff this episode but the political stuff is forced and poorly executed and often takes me out of the show because it is so blatantly referencing political events that don't even exist on this earth. It's great that this show is progressive but it can be that without lame Trump references and allegories. When they first did the political allegory stuff in the third episode it mostly worked despite some heavy handed moments but they really need to tone it down now. It's not a thing the writers do well. 

If we limit the show to things the writers do well, that leaves... scenes with Kara and Alex relating as sisters? Maybe Alex's romance with Maggie as a subplot?

On 5/17/2017 at 8:56 PM, rtms77 said:

We also don't know if they have the same constitution as our real world.

True, if there were a number of years where Superman was the only known alien and the masses practically worshiped him, I suppose it's possible one party or another might have backed an amendment to remove the "natural-born citizen" restriction in the hope that they might be able to field him as a candidate down the line.

[Lazlo]

On 5/21/2017 at 2:06 AM, mac123x said:

Brenda Strong is quite tall, 6 feet according to the Googles.  She's going to tower over most actresses and quite a few of the actors.

Yeah, I've met Katie McGrath in real life and while wasn't *tall* she was definitely much taller than 5 feet.

I have to agree with a lot of the posters who are finding the heavy handedness grating. You can picture the writer's room: 'What's the one thing funnier than a Republican bashing joke from Cat Grant? How about five Republican bashing jokes from Cat Grant.'

What gets me more though is that the show constantly introduces behaviour that falls in a gray area but ignores the implications in favour of a very simple good vs. evil context. So here we discover the president lied to everyone about who she really was, breaking the law and conning the American people in the process and everyone is immediately super okay with it? I've mentioned it before but Alex is a particular is a character that frequently crosses various ethical lines but the show is either not interested or not aware of this.

I don't want Supergirl to be an incredibly grim and gritty slog but I think it desperately needs a sense of nuance at times.