JapMo May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 17 minutes ago, benteen said: I could buy Supergirl winning a fight against Superman if it wasn't for the fact that she's had her ass handed to her in hand-to-hand combat with everyone she has faced this season, even those she should have been able to mop the floor with. THANK you, Benteen. I have commented about this same thing in the past. When she kept telling everyone all she had to do was win and she was going to beat Rhea, I kept thinking about that schoolyard taunt 'you and what army? I think the problem for me is the physicality of the actress herself. She's too wimpy. Her swings and punches, coming from such a tiny little wrist, are just not believable. Strangely enough, however, Teri Hatcher really sold an intimidating Rhea. Even though she's tiny, you see a woman that IS tough because she's been in a lot of fights to the death, and isn't above fighting dirty to get her way. I loved her death scene, turning into stone (and Mon-El having no sympathy saying she had none when she killed his father...finally the show had him acknowledge that). I am going to miss her. She was one tough cookie. 3 hours ago, Mellowyellow said: Anyone know if Mon El is out for good? I've grown to like him I don't have the energy to accept a new LI! Plus he's turned all helpful and cute after they got rid of all the juvenile nonsense. Bring him back! I love him and Kara together, too, and really felt their last scene was compelling. I complained that last episode there wasn't a sense of urgency, but that wasn't so for this season finale. From the minute Lillian told Superman and Supergirl about Lex's invention, you could see the fear in Kara's eyes. And then things happened very quickly, and to the writers' credit it was believable. They created a real sense of impending tragedy for the couple. 6 Link to comment
JapMo May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 Even though I've made a few critiques on the finale, I really thought it was spectacular. Probably the best episode of the entire show. The special effects were top notch. Loved Superman coming back to help, and also the Martians. Cat's scenes were so much better than last week, and wonderful to see her panting after Clark again. In fact, the show does a good job having everyone in awe of Superman. It's funny and sweet, LOL. Even though we see Lena pretty savvy to Lillian's tricks, she still is on the fence in my mind about turning bad. Am going to miss Rhea's face in the clouds. Could you see if she took over earth, and every morning when you go to work there's her face, asking if you ate breakfast and to have a good day? And I was very impressed with the angst and tension between Kara and Mon-El. I think the writers sent him off in a good way, and I'm glad he will be back. Had a feeling the writers were foreshadowing something for next season with the two scenes where Kara talked about how she wanted to have it all and couldn't (with her cousin and with Cat Grant). Could the baby at the end of the episode being sent away in a spaceship 35 years ago meet up with an extremely vulnerable Kara next season and she winds up getting involved with him, to the chagrin of her sister and others who think it's happening too fast? Then Mon-El comes back, and you have the rest of the season, possibly two seasons, where they have to find their way back to each other. I think it took nearly 3 seasons for Barry & Iris to get together, and I really like them, too. 2 Link to comment
Dobian May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 (edited) Even if contimating the air was some transmutation tthing, the whole process would take a very long time, we're talking years. But this is sci-fantasy, you suspend disbelief and follow the MST3K motto...if you're worried about how they eat and breath and other science facts, remind yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax. So Mon-El is the leader of the Daxamites now, right? Edited May 23, 2017 by Dobian 3 Link to comment
Artsda May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 He should be the leader, but he ended up going through that breech hole that looked like something from The Flash. So who knows where he is or what earth # he's on. Spoiler I wonder if he appears during the crossover and returns then. 2 Link to comment
LolaRuns May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 26 minutes ago, Dobian said: Even if contimating the air was some transmutation tthing, the whole process would take a very long time, we're talking years. But this is sci-fantasy, you suspend disbelief and follow the MST3K motto...if you're worried about how they eat and breath and other science facts, remind yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax. So Mon-El is the leader of the Daxamites now, right? Considering that they ignored him when he tried to give them orders in the last episode and left their queen to die without a second glance and they called him traitor when he fought them in the streets, I'm gonna go with: probably not. 8 Link to comment
Cthulhudrew May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 (edited) 11 hours ago, catrox14 said: I don't understand the tag scene. Who were they sending to Earth? Superboy Prime. :D (j/k, I have no idea at all. For half a second I thought the wormhole Mon-El disappeared into would transport him to Krypton's dying days, and was surprised the show would be so ballsy and cruel.) Edited May 23, 2017 by Cthulhudrew 1 Link to comment
statsgirl May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 8 hours ago, AudienceofOne said: See, I don't get this. I don't get this at all. I mean, I get that you don't like Mon-El. That's fine. Each to their own and YMMV and whatever. But his arc was literally not what happens to a leading character. He was introduced as a love interest, given a truncated redemption arc that had more to do with the main character's personal development, brought scripted danger into their lives and then was fridged for the main character's arc. He's literally the epitome of a plot cipher. Maybe he'll be back next season. I personally hope so because I think the character could be more and I find the actor appealing, if not the best at his craft. But I can guarantee his return will be a plot driver and/or a character development for Kara. Or both. There's no universe where this was his show. This wasn't addressed to me but for me, the problem with Mon El is that he came and took over the show. His arc was literally a Hero's Journey -- he came on as a selfish and entitled jerk, he was exposed to a new way of life, he fell for Kara and become a better man for her, and he ended the season a True Hero, sacrificing himself for Earth. You don't get any more Hero than that. He got the Hero's Journey that Kara should have had, and she became a supporting player to his story. Meanwhile, the things that pulled me into this show in season 1, Cat Grant and things at Catco, Kara's relationship with Alex, and the Kara/Winn/James fighting troupe, disappeared. Cat's loss was a result of Callista Flockhart's decision but everything was a result of the time given to Mon El. Alex got what I think was a badly-written relationship with Maggie to give her something* while Kara spent all her time growing up Mon El and then fighting bad guys with him while telling James that he will never be good enough because he doesn't have super powers. I spent much of the season disliking Kara intensely. The goodbye scene between Kara and Mon El was well done on everyone's part but it's a cheat because Mon El will be back next season. I spent much of this season fast-forwarding because I had no interest in the storylines. With Mon El back next season, it looks like everything I didn't enjoy is going to be doubled down on (Kara and Mon El happily fighting together, Alex and Maggie's wedding) so I'll probably move on to another show. * I was looking forward to Alex on a voyage of discovery. Instead I got a very boring and "hit the tent poles" romance to free up Kara for Mon El. 3 hours ago, cambridgeguy said: One problem the show has is Kara's has already become the perfect superhero. She's been declared Earth's champion by the previous title holder, is beloved by the people, and works well with the government. As Kara Danvers she's apparently a super reporter and her love life taking a hit isn't due to a personal flaw. I don't know what part of the hero's journey is left. That's very true. And because it's been so fast and so perfect, there hasn't been much journey or much chance for character development. Let's bring on the next comic book villain for her to fight! They're running into the same problem that The Flash does for the same reason -- that by the second season Barry Allen was the perfect superhero to the world so all the angst had to be created by his personal failings within his small group of friends. You can do that with a comic book because they only come out every two weeks. It's hard to make a TV show on that premise interesting. 3 Link to comment
Cthulhudrew May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 (edited) 2 hours ago, Dobian said: So Supergirl has the authority to say to Rhea, okay, if you beat me then the Earth surrenders. Supergirl, an alien, speaking for Earth. And no need to ask the world's leaders first what they think. Back-up plan or not, that was just plain silly. On the topic of aliens speaking for Earth- why doesn't anyone seem to have a problem with the leader of the free world being an admitted alien? Not because she's an extraterrestrial, per se, but because she was admittedly not born on Earth, and thus does not meet the requirements- under the Constitution- of holding the office in which she is currently sitting? If they'd at least acknowledge it somehow- maybe this Earth doesn't have the same Constitutional requirements of natural born citizenship, maybe she is really, really old (and thus could have been living in the US at the time the Constitution was adopted), that would work. But as it is, she's defrauding the people she purportedly represents, regardless of her seemingly benevolent intentions. I don't know why they didn't just have her born on Earth to alien parents and avoid the whole issue. Edited May 23, 2017 by Cthulhudrew Link to comment
stealinghome May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 (edited) 16 minutes ago, statsgirl said: This wasn't addressed to me but for me, the problem with Mon El is that he came and took over the show. His arc was literally a Hero's Journey -- he came on as a selfish and entitled jerk, he was exposed to a new way of life, he fell for Kara and become a better man for her, and he ended the season a True Hero, sacrificing himself for Earth. You don't get any more Hero than that. He got the Hero's Journey that Kara should have had, and she became a supporting player to his story. Meanwhile, the things that pulled me into this show in season 1, Cat Grant and things at Catco, Kara's relationship with Alex, and the Kara/Winn/James fighting troupe, disappeared. Cat's loss was a result of Callista Flockhart's decision but everything was a result of the time given to Mon El. Alex got what I think was a badly-written relationship with Maggie to give her something* while Kara spent all her time growing up Mon El and then fighting bad guys with him while telling James that he will never be good enough because he doesn't have super powers. I spent much of the season disliking Kara intensely. I like Alex/Maggie more than you do, but I agree with just about everything else here. The AVClub review summed it up nicely for me: Quote Yet I couldn’t help but notice that during their farewell scene, Mon-El is able to thank Kara for making him a better person, an arc the show has charted in great detail this season. She, meanwhile, just thanks him for making her happy. It’s a sweet sentiment, of course, but it also reflects the lack of specificity behind Kara’s arc. The season began with Kara claiming she wanted to find the same confidence in the Kara Danvers side of her life as she gained in the Supergirl side during season one. Yet though her budding journalism career has ostensibly been a through-line, there’s been no real weight or focus behind it. For a while the show pivoted to exploring Kara as a superhero mentor then pivoted again to explore her within a romantic context. And all that shifting has ultimately left Kara feeling underserved by her own show. To put it another way, does the Kara who ends this season feel different from the one who began it? I would argue not really, at least until the final 10 minutes of this episode. After Mon-El’s traumatic departure, Clark, Alex, and Cat each take time to remind Kara just how special she is. And those conversations subtly reposition Kara at a new point in her superhero journey. She’s more bruised by life’s hardships, but also more committed to her desire to do good. She’s faced most of the worst challenges a person can face in life and through it all she’s persisted. Now let’s just hope she gets to persist in a slightly more central way in season three. The writers were so invested in putting Mon-El on the Hero's Journey that they forgot to write any discernible journey for Kara at all. Edited May 23, 2017 by stealinghome 2 Link to comment
Lady Calypso May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 8 hours ago, AudienceofOne said: See, I don't get this. I don't get this at all. I mean, I get that you don't like Mon-El. That's fine. Each to their own and YMMV and whatever. But his arc was literally not what happens to a leading character. He was introduced as a love interest, given a truncated redemption arc that had more to do with the main character's personal development, brought scripted danger into their lives and then was fridged for the main character's arc. He's literally the epitome of a plot cipher. Maybe he'll be back next season. I personally hope so because I think the character could be more and I find the actor appealing, if not the best at his craft. But I can guarantee his return will be a plot driver and/or a character development for Kara. Or both. There's no universe where this was his show. I don't hate him, though. I think I've made it clear in my posts that I like Mon-El in certain situations, and that he still makes a good addition to the team....except when he's taking away from the other characters. The issue I've had with him is the fact that the show keeps giving him all these moments with Kara, so she hasn't been able to interact with the characters that have been there since season 1. He's getting the Hero Arc. First off, if we compare him to James, they were both supposed to be on similar paths to become heroes, but James' hero arc has been downright horrible and the screen time has been zilch. Mon-El's gotten a lot of screen time to not just be Kara's love interest, but to redeem himself as a hero. He started off as a bad hero and ended up sacrificing himself (or convincing Kara to sacrifice himself). He's not really that much of a plot cipher, because we know he'll be back. He's confirmed to be a season 3 regular. So his goodbye scene with Kara became moot for the people who do look up these spoilers and stay aware of the behind the scenes news. Again, the last few episodes with Mon-El were actually great for him because he became a supporting character, but he also got to interact with others, not just Kara. Him and Kara didn't live in their own little bubble and he didn't take away from Kara's story. Not the fault of the actor here, and the show has proven that they can actually write Mon-El where he could stick around. The issue is how much they're using him and at what cost of the other characters. I just miss Kara having Winn/James team-ups. I miss Kara/Alex ending the episodes with sister nights. I've missed more J'onn/Kara bonding scenes. But I've seen a lot more time dedicated to Mon-El's story while we hardly know anything about Winn or James. We know that Winn has a criminal father and he had one episode dedicated to that last season, but that's all we know. James has been treated less than kindly, to the point where I went from hating the James/Guardian arc to wanting them to actually explore it if it'll give him screen time. He's supposed to be a series regular! This is all due to the choices that the showrunners have made with Mon-El, of course. But yeah, of course I'm excited that we'll see Kara step outside of her romance bubble and actually spend time with Alex, Winn, and James again. I've missed her scenes with them, and not the scenes of her judging their choices with the Guardian arc. I miss them hanging out. We've had exactly two scenes of all three of them being friends. We've had dozens of scenes of Kara/Mon-El playing their true love arc. I just want more of a balance, and this finale didn't deliver on that. Again, if they can find a balance with Kara and her interactions with everyone, then I'd be thrilled to have him back. Really, I just need Kara to remember that Winn's also her best friend, not just Lena, and she loved James once, or at least had a strong crush on him. I'd also like to remind her that she needs to have more sister nights. I just want a little less romance next season, and more focused on the idea of family. They really lost that this season, besides with Lillian/Lena, so I need them to get back to family (friends included) before romance. 2 Link to comment
Dobian May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 13 minutes ago, Cthulhudrew said: On the topic of aliens speaking for Earth- why doesn't anyone seem to have a problem with the leader of the free world being an admitted alien? Not because she's an extraterrestrial, per se, but because she was admittedly not born on Earth, and thus does not meet the requirements- under the Constitution- of holding the office in which she is currently sitting? I think the showrunner made a conscious decision that there would be no depiction of a government or military presence in this show. They made a president who is secretly an alien because they thought it would be cool, and it makes it simpler to have this one character sort of encapsulate all global authority so they don't ever have to do a scene where Supergirl drops in on Capitol Hill to convince Congress about the latest alien monster threat. Making the president believable is at the bottom of their priority list. I'm sure next season President Wonder Woman will be dropping by CatCo for lattes with Cat Grant with no sign of even a Secret Service presence. 1 Link to comment
Iceman91 May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 The episode began well with the Supergirl/Superman fight but the rest felt very rushed and the plan to poison the daxamites was very poorly explained. - It's an airborne virus supposed to make earth uninhabitable but they release it from inside a building and it doesn't seem tp spread farther than National City. - The goal is to push them to leave but it kills Rhea in just a few seconds, I guess Lena miscalculated. -The daxamites just leaving like that and abandoning Rhea was lame. It would have really helped if they had tried to flesh out the daxamite society instead of keeping them as faceless soldiers who follow blindly Rhea - Everybody deciding that Mon-El had to leave earth to survive was contrived just because the writers really wanted him to end up in this wormhole. They have portals toward others planets and reality, they didn't even try to just put him inside the DEO or somewhere away from the contaminated air. I concur with everybody saying that Alex proposing is too fast. Not only it's too soon but I don't think she's doing it for the right reasons, she's doing it out of fear because she doesn't want to lose Maggie like Kara lost Mon-El and not because she really wants to get married. One last thing, I know that they have a limited budget and were putting the money somewhere else but it would be nice to see a big fight with Kara that doesn't end in a simple fistfight like she doesn't have powers. Link to comment
JapMo May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 18 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said: He's not really that much of a plot cipher, because we know he'll be back. He's confirmed to be a season 3 regular. So his goodbye scene with Kara became moot for the people who do look up these spoilers and stay aware of the behind the scenes news. Again, the last few episodes with Mon-El were actually great for him because he became a supporting character, but he also got to interact with others, not just Kara. Him and Kara didn't live in their own little bubble and he didn't take away from Kara's story. Not the fault of the actor here, and the show has proven that they can actually write Mon-El where he could stick around. The issue is how much they're using him and at what cost of the other characters. I agree that he has been stuck in a bubble with only Kara. People want to see her away from him....I want to see him away from her. Never liked how he rolled over and played dead while Kara humiliated his race. In the beginning he zinged her back, but for the most part he allowed her to slam all Daxamites to anyone who would listen. These were his people and they basically all died because of events that happened on Krypton and the show never allowed him to process that. Instead all he did was pump her up and say what a loser he was. Link to comment
Bats27 May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 15 hours ago, StarBrand said: I'm not sure the proposal is good news either-and, yeah, Alex thought of that on the spot-spurred on no doubt by Kara's "don't let her go speech". But then again, when is "too soon"-is there a designated amount of time a couple are "supposed" to wait? The writers said Alex and Maggie were in for the long run-and there they still are at the end of the season (I assume next season as well). The writers continue to defy expectations by keeping Maggie around, and her and Alex together...so we'll see what happens I guess... Plus from what I've heard from from them, they seem aware of the "dead lesbian" trope (and they have to know about the blowback on The 100 for what it did with Clarke/Lexa, especially since it's own the same network). And they've subverted my expectations several times by NOT going the cliché route with these two, AND they have to know that they'd get a lot of good press if they went all the way with this, etc. I'm not saying that there won't be any DRRAAAMMAAA (it's CW, of course there will be). But I actually think that there's a good chance that we get an Alex/Maggie wedding next season. Link to comment
mrspidey May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 So, for a while, I thought this show has become quite Buffy-esque. Now Kara seals the deal by sacrificing her love to save the world, just like Buffy did with Angel (and that was the finale of season two as well!) 2 Link to comment
benteen May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 1 hour ago, Cthulhudrew said: On the topic of aliens speaking for Earth- why doesn't anyone seem to have a problem with the leader of the free world being an admitted alien? Not because she's an extraterrestrial, per se, but because she was admittedly not born on Earth, and thus does not meet the requirements- under the Constitution- of holding the office in which she is currently sitting? If they'd at least acknowledge it somehow- maybe this Earth doesn't have the same Constitutional requirements of natural born citizenship, maybe she is really, really old (and thus could have been living in the US at the time the Constitution was adopted), that would work. But as it is, she's defrauding the people she purportedly represents, regardless of her seemingly benevolent intentions. I don't know why they didn't just have her born on Earth to alien parents and avoid the whole issue. Supergirl and the DEO are basically participating in a conspiracy with the President to hide this information. Link to comment
iMonrey May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 Quote Did anyone notice Winn silently mouth "I love you" to Superman after they had their little interaction about Superman knowing who Winn is? Yes, that was my favorite part. I rewound it twice. Quote At least by the Superman II movie, women from Krypton were as strong as men. It's all the sun's radiation, not actual muscle that matters. I find that a bit hard to swallow. All things being relative, I can understand that both Superman and Supergirl are affected the same way by the sun's radiation and are thus equally endowed with "super" powers - not one more so than the other. That said, Clark is still taller and larger than Kara, and that gives him an edge even if they are equally super-powered. She might be quicker and more limber, but a much bigger thing is always going to be stronger than a much smaller thing, even assuming both are equally empowered. 1 Link to comment
StaceyNotStacie May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 I'm surprised that nothing happened with the hallucination of Zod. I wonder if it foreshadowed something for next season. Is the baby in the pod related to him somehow? Link to comment
tofutan May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 1 hour ago, JapMo said: I agree that he has been stuck in a bubble with only Kara. People want to see her away from him....I want to see him away from her. Never liked how he rolled over and played dead while Kara humiliated his race. In the beginning he zinged her back, but for the most part he allowed her to slam all Daxamites to anyone who would listen. These were his people and they basically all died because of events that happened on Krypton and the show never allowed him to process that. Instead all he did was pump her up and say what a loser he was. Well it's not like the show made a good case for the Daxamites deserving that you stand up for them. And sometimes it can be important to cut ties or consciously separate oneself from one's culture. Quote The writers were so invested in putting Mon-El on the Hero's Journey that they forgot to write any discernible journey for Kara at all. I thought Cat's scene at the end was the writers spelling out to the viewers that experiencing his hardship/setback is part of her heroes journey. So they build something up and then take it away because all other characters who could fit the bill like Alex or James have plot armor. I would say at the very least Kara's life changed quite a bit this season. Precisely for things like relying less on Alex, being there for Alex rather than Alex being there for her, getting a boyfriend and now coping with losing him, making new friendships. Heck I would argue her being willing to team up with a villain in the previous episode and in this episode being willing to pull the trigger on the atmosphere poisoning stuff is quite the contrast to the end of season 1. At the end of season 1 Kara was willing to sacrifice/risk her own life, now she had to sacrifice/endanger the life of a loved one and give up something very personal. Not have it taken away from her the way Astra was, but SHE pushed the button on that. I don't think that the way the approached Mon-El were always correct, but when we look at it under the presumption of "they wanted to take something personal away from Kara, so they built something up so they could take it away" would have worked even worse and would have been even less believable if he didn't even have his own personality and inner life. From a writer POV it makes a lot of sense that if you want it to feel meaningful for Kara, you have to make him a fleshed out character too. And just because he probably will be back doesn't mean that this isn't still a real sacrifice. Chances are definitely there that when he comes back he might be a completely different person and they might never be able to pick back up where they left off. 2 Link to comment
GHScorpiosRule May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 2 minutes ago, Stacey1014 said: I'm surprised that nothing happened with the hallucination of Zod. I wonder if it foreshadowed something for next season. Is the baby in the pod related to him somehow? It wasn't a hallucination-Supes, under the effect and some brainwashing from Rhea, thought Kara was Zod. As for the "baby" in the pod, Spoiler It's been revealed she's Reign, who sounds like the sister of Doomsday, but I haven't checked myself for her origins. The link above to the wiki page didn't say if Zod was a relative Unless I missed something at the end? That fight sort of reminded me of the one with Supes and Diana from Justice League: Paradise Lost, when under some spell, they each thought the other was a monster who had done away with the other, and it wasn't until they looked in the mirror that they saw they were fighting each other. But the fight was a draw. Timm believes Diana could beat him, but we'll never know now.? Link to comment
Bats27 May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 1 hour ago, Iceman91 said: The episode began well with the Supergirl/Superman fight but the rest felt very rushed and the plan to poison the daxamites was very poorly explained. - It's an airborne virus supposed to make earth uninhabitable but they release it from inside a building and it doesn't seem tp spread farther than National City. - The goal is to push them to leave but it kills Rhea in just a few seconds, I guess Lena miscalculated. -The daxamites just leaving like that and abandoning Rhea was lame. It would have really helped if they had tried to flesh out the daxamite society instead of keeping them as faceless soldiers who follow blindly Rhea - Everybody deciding that Mon-El had to leave earth to survive was contrived just because the writers really wanted him to end up in this wormhole. They have portals toward others planets and reality, they didn't even try to just put him inside the DEO or somewhere away from the contaminated air. I concur with everybody saying that Alex proposing is too fast. Not only it's too soon but I don't think she's doing it for the right reasons, she's doing it out of fear because she doesn't want to lose Maggie like Kara lost Mon-El and not because she really wants to get married. One last thing, I know that they have a limited budget and were putting the money somewhere else but it would be nice to see a big fight with Kara that doesn't end in a simple fistfight like she doesn't have powers. Eh I'd prefer that they do it a bit too fast than to drag it out for so long that you stop caring, like most shows tend to. Also maybe they'll actually show that marriage isn't the end and that even married couples face challenges and need to work on their relationship. That'd be refreshing on TV. 1 Link to comment
KirkB May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 One little...well, nitpick I suppose is the word, that has been gnawing at me, is trying to work out the timeline of something. Superman shows up on Rhea's ship, presumably to try and stop her (I'm assuming she LET him, since it's already been established Rhea has kryptonite weapons, which is the whole reason Kara has not done the same thing, again). Rhea zaps him with silver kryptonite, which makes him see Zod, or more to the point, see his worst enemy/greatest fear. Fine. I get all that. Here's the part that confuses me. Superman then apparently left the ship, went down to the DEO and destroyed the cannon (that WAS his heat vision wasn't it?) then goes back to the ship and waits around for Kara to show up? Link to comment
honeydo7 May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 Been thinking since last night's season finale: 1) If Mon-El died, when his spaceship got swallowed up by a black hole, maybe the actor can come back next season as a different character. They do it all the time on daytime dramas. Kara/Supergirl would find his resemblance to her great love, intriguing. 2) Wonder if that Kryptonian baby/creature sent to earth after Clark & Kara, turns out to be Lena & her adoptive mother has been waiting for the perfect time to inform her of her true origins & activate her super powers ) which is why she's not as evil as mom or brother Lex? Or...... it could turn out to be Alex D or her gal pal. Link to comment
Chicago Redshirt May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 7 hours ago, LolaRuns said: But in that episode they specifically included a scene with Kara on the balcony talking to J'onn I think about how she's trying to listen for Alex. I feel the same way. Rhea cheated first. We don't know how Kara would have acted if Rhea had won fair and square. But coming prepared for Rhea's betrayal definitely wasn't the most unrealistic thing, especially since the very episode before Kara did the same thing where she had Winn prepare for when Lillian would betray them. I don't really mind if Kara doesn't have a no kill rule as strong as Superman's (she killed Parasite before, didn't she?). Especially since they made it so the majority of the Daxamites apparently flew off in time, no matter how unrealistic that is. But I would like it if they showed Kara feel at least a bit pensive about that. They couldn't apparently, since Supergirl held the trigger. It's more that the US government doesn't answer to Supergirl, so if she had lost chances are that they would at some point just have nuked the city. I remember the scene but there was never anything where Supergirl was like, "Oh, so that's why I couldn't hear Alex. She was in a lead box!" I took it to simply mean that she could not single out where Alex was through super-hearing, rather than muffling the area with lead meant that she couldn't hear. Lead preventing X-ray vision makes some level of sense because actual lead can prevent actual X-rays. Lead, however, doesn't do more to inhibit sound than other metals. In fairness, when I was googling on the subject, I saw some response that claimed that Superman not only could not see through lead, could not hear through lead, but also could not use his heat vision to melt lead. Not being able to see through lead is well-established in various forms of Superman comics, TV series and movies. I think I remember seeing some Golden Age stuff about not being able to melt lead, but that's obviously been put by the wayside as that's BS. I have never seen it expressly stated that Kryptonians can't hear through lead, and I've spent a fair amount of time with Superman in various medium. Which again, doesn't mean that there wasn't some episode of the 50s show or a comic from 1966 where it was mentioned that Superman couldn't hear through lead. But I tend to doubt it. 6 hours ago, stealinghome said: Yes, this show has always said that lead impairs Kara's x-ray vision and superhearing. Not just when Alex was kidnapped, but there was also the White Martian episode where Kara gave J'onn shit for lead-lining the DEO so she couldn't look for the WM, and in the Toyman episode, Winn's father lined some box with lead so Kara couldn't see there wasn't an actual human child inside (it was just a doll/decoy). I agree that Kara doesn't use her powers nearly as much as she realistically would, but the show HAS been consistent that lead blocks her vision and superhearing. Those examples are of not being see through lead, rather than not being able to hear through it. And now that you mention the Toyman episode, I think that Kara could hear the doll making some noise, like it crying for help or something. It's been a while, though, so I could be making it up. 2 Link to comment
Lady Calypso May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 49 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said: And now that you mention the Toyman episode, I think that Kara could hear the doll making some noise, like it crying for help or something. It's been a while, though, so I could be making it up. No, you're not wrong. Kara could hear the doll crying for help, but she never used her X-Ray vision to see through the box, since she could pinpoint through sound. So, from what I remember throughout the two seasons, it's been confirmed that Kara can't see through lead, but I can't recall any confirmation that it affects her superhearing. It would make sense for it to, but I can't recall them stating that it did. 1 Link to comment
secnarf May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 4 hours ago, mrspidey said: So, for a while, I thought this show has become quite Buffy-esque. Now Kara seals the deal by sacrificing her love to save the world, just like Buffy did with Angel (and that was the finale of season two as well!) Buffy did it better. The season 2 finale was actually the first episode I ever saw, and knowing nothing about the characters or plot I was still immediately captivated. I couldn't say the same for Supergirl - not even close. It struck me more as a regular episode than a season finale - decent, but not earth shattering. 2 Link to comment
KirkB May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 It's not like lead dampens Kryptonian powers or anything, otherwise guns would obviously be a lot more dangerous. Kara and Clark can't see through lead simply because x-rays can't penetrate lead. The only way a lead container would "keep her hearing from working" is if there were enough of it to muffle the sound, but that's true of any material really. 1 Link to comment
AudienceofOne May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 5 hours ago, statsgirl said: This wasn't addressed to me but for me, the problem with Mon El is that he came and took over the show. His arc was literally a Hero's Journey -- he came on as a selfish and entitled jerk, he was exposed to a new way of life, he fell for Kara and become a better man for her, and he ended the season a True Hero, sacrificing himself for Earth. You don't get any more Hero than that. He got the Hero's Journey that Kara should have had, and she became a supporting player to his story. See, this is the broader problem with making a TV show about Super anything - Man or Woman. Supers are aspirational superheroes. They're what everyone should aspire to. They're essentially a modern-day Sun God - powered by the sun, watching over us, can see and hear everything, strive to make the world better but need us to strive too. The heroes journey for both of them is about the decision to put on the suit. Once they do that, any character development is over because they're already God. That's why the very first Superman movie was the only decent one ever made. Smallville knew this: that's why they had the painful "no tights, no flights" rule that made us endure 10 seasons of an increasingly-geriatric Clarke Kent agonising over becoming a hero. This show decided to deal with that entire arc in one half of one episode. There are only two character arcs that work for a show like this after the hero's journey is done: 1. To what extent is a God allowed to have a normal life? I mean, every time Kara bakes or goes to work at Catco somebody dies that she could save. But, again, this show put the anvil down on 'normal life' in one half of one episode AND they limited her concerns to the city she lives in so the wider world literally doesn't exist (this could not be more stark in this season finale). So while Kara goes to great lengths to live a normal life, there's no question here as to whether she should. Yes I still haven't gotten over the baking and yes I would have liked a bit more self-awareness from her and everybody else about the pressure of responsibility on somebody with her abilities. OR 2. How do they use their perfection to inspire other people to be better? Do they lose themselves to arrogance or overconfidence? Do they lose themselves to their own PR? Or do they overcome their inherent problems with superiority to inspire others? I think you'll find the Mon-El storyline fits perfectly into the only arc they've left themselves to play with in this show. Kara needs to keep fighting because her example is what makes other people do better. As I said, Mon-El's storyline is entirely about Kara. I guarantee that when he returns in Season 3, he brings her a new villain to fight in the same way he brought the villain in Season 2. 3 Link to comment
Bruinsfan May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 (edited) 5 hours ago, Iceman91 said: One last thing, I know that they have a limited budget and were putting the money somewhere else but it would be nice to see a big fight with Kara that doesn't end in a simple fistfight like she doesn't have powers. I'll admit, when the Kara vs. Clark brawl crashed into that apartment with the people cowering in the elevator, I thought they'd used up their Act 1 FX budget and were going to do another unimpressive mouse punches resolution, but then it went into overtime with more flight, explosions, and that big slo-mo reflecting pool finish that was pretty damn spectacular. I may not have liked the conceit of Kara overpowering Clark, but for once Supergirl was in a fight on her own show that actually looked worthy of the character. Edited May 23, 2017 by Bruinsfan 5 Link to comment
JapMo May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 55 minutes ago, AudienceofOne said: As I said, Mon-El's storyline is entirely about Kara. Thank you!!! People are constantly screaming bloody murder that he's on too much and taking everyone else's screen time and poor Kara doesn't have a story on her own show, but that's not at all what I saw. It was always about her. Even when his own parents came, it was about her. 7 Link to comment
GHScorpiosRule May 23, 2017 Share May 23, 2017 (edited) 3 hours ago, AudienceofOne said: See, this is the broader problem with making a TV show about Super anything - Man or Woman. Supers are aspirational superheroes. They're what everyone should aspire to. They're essentially a modern-day Sun God - powered by the sun, watching over us, can see and hear everything, strive to make the world better but need us to strive too. The heroes journey for both of them is about the decision to put on the suit. Once they do that, any character development is over because they're already God. Smallville knew this: that's why they had the painful "no tights, no flights" rule that made us endure 10 seasons of an increasingly-geriatric Clarke Kent agonising over becoming a hero. I couldn't disagree with this more. I don't consider either Supes or Kara, a God, just because they get their power from the sun. They're not humans, but they do have weaknesses-like to Kryptonite, which can kill them, and magic, which can hurt them. They can be killed. They also have emotions. As for Smallville, that rule was put in because they didn't want to do a show about the Adventures of Superboy; they wanted to do a show about Clark Kent (played by Tom Welling, who was anything but geriatric as far as I'm concerned and did a good job of playing a teenaged Clark) and his life before he became Superman. Essentially, the fleshed out version of Christopher Reeves' Superman before Jonathan died. Yes, he agonized over whether he was a hero or villain in the making because the show runners decided to make AI Jor-El into a massive, Machiavellian ASSHOLE, who told Clark humans were expendable and his destiny was to RULE Earth.??? But he never agonized over helping or saving people; but he didn't want to...do anything publicly until the end. And he had to be guilted (which I HATED) into helping and being part of a team, while the ones that actually wanted and did take the risks (Ollie(Green Arrow), Bart (Impulse), Victor (Cyborg), Arthur (Aquaman), and Dinah (Black Canary)) looked up to him as some leader. And that "Lois" did see him as a God and not a man, and had the bright idea to not marry him or continue their relationship, because each second he was with her, he could be out there saving people. ???Meaning no time for him to decompress, eat, sleep, or just be Clark. Like Tim Daley's Clark said to Martha and Jonathan when he was presumed dead, in S:TAS' "The Late Clark Kent," when they suggested he could become someone else: "But I AM Clark. I NEED to BE Clark. If I was Superman all the time, I'd go crazy." (Not sure about the crazy part, but close enough). Anyhoo, this isn't really the thread to go into detail about the differences, but I had to defend my show! One I stuck with till the bitter, bitter end. So no, I don't think Kara's journey is over. I'm still waiting for Galatea!? As for the lead, in Smallville, Clark couldn't see NOR hear his dad in the second season premiere when Bo Kent was trapped in a lead lined crypt after a tornado. And Pa was yelling really loud and he was standing right over him. It also protected him from the effects of Kryptonite. Sorry for the long post, and if I need to move this over to another thread, please let me know. Edited May 24, 2017 by GHScorpiosRule Autocorrect hates me. Link to comment
Iceman91 May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 1 hour ago, Bruinsfan said: I'll admit, when the Kara vs. Clark brawl crashed into that apartment with the people cowering in the elevator, I thought they'd used up their Act 1 FX budget and were going to do another unimpressive mouse punches resolution, but then it went into overtime with more flight, explosions, and that big slo-mo reflecting pool finish that was pretty damn spectacular. I may not have liked the conceit of Kara overpowering Clark, but for once Supergirl was in a fight on her own show that actually looked worthy of the character. Yes the fight with Clark was good, when I was talking about disappointing fights I was mostly thinking about Rhea. And next time that Kara organizes a duel she really needs to do it outside the city not on a rooftop, fewer risks like that. It may not be the best topic to do it but I'm going to add my opinion to the debate about Mon-El and I really believe that his importance in this season has been greatly exaggerated. He played a crucial role in what, half the episodes? Probably less. His last big episode must have 2x17, the last episodes of the season were about an invasion by his people led by his mother and he was a very passive presence through most of it. He wasn't given any big scenes with the daxamites to try to convince them to leave, he didn't have a real goodbye scene with Rhea ( she had more meaningful scenes during these last episodes with Lena than her own son) and his role in this last episode was to literally support Supergirl while she's the one to fight, his only big scene being the goodbye with Kara. So if you compare him to the other characters, yes he was clearly the main supporting character and the one with the biggest story but when it comes to Kara he was a supporting character in her story and not the contrary. 4 Link to comment
Oreo2234 May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 Quote So if you compare him to the other characters, yes he was clearly the main supporting character and the one with the biggest story but when it comes to Kara he was a supporting character in her story and not the contrary. I think that is a lot of people's problem with Mon-el. He became the main supporting character over every character left from season one. Whether he was supporting Kara or not too much of her time was eaten up by their relationship. 4 Link to comment
BkWurm1 May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 7 hours ago, iMonrey said: Yes, that was my favorite part. I rewound it twice. I find that a bit hard to swallow. All things being relative, I can understand that both Superman and Supergirl are affected the same way by the sun's radiation and are thus equally endowed with "super" powers - not one more so than the other. That said, Clark is still taller and larger than Kara, and that gives him an edge even if they are equally super-powered. She might be quicker and more limber, but a much bigger thing is always going to be stronger than a much smaller thing, even assuming both are equally empowered. I think being bigger would give him only minimal advantage since he'd have extra length to his arms so a longer fulcrum for punches or kicking, but per what I've come across, Kryptonians get their strength not from the size of their muscle mass but from the the ability of his cells to store up energy. Since Kara actually lived longer on Krypton, it would actually make sense that her cells would do a better job of absorbing the energy. For me, that fact that Clark is bigger is meaningless. It would be like assuming in a fantasy story that the guy magicians are automatically stronger than the women even though magic (and superpowers from the sun) has nothing to do with normal biology or logic. 1 hour ago, GHScorpiosRule said: I disagree with this. I don't consider either Supes or Kara, a God, just because they get their power from the sun. They're not humans, but they do have weaknesses-like to Kryptonite, which can kill them, and magic, which can hurt them. They can be killed. They also have emotions. As for Smallville, that rule was put in because they didn't want to do a show about the Adventures of Superboy; they wanted to do a show about Clark Kent (played by Tom Welling, who was anything butgeriatric[/i] as far as I'm concerned and did a good job of playing a teenaged Clark) and his life before he became Superman. Essentially, the fleshed out version of Christopher Reeves' Superman before Jonathan died. Yes, he agonized over whether he was a hero or villain in the making because the show runners decided to make AI Jor-El into a massive, Machiavellian ASSHOLE, who told Clark humans were expendable and his destiny was to RULE Earth.??? But he never agonized over helping or saving people; but he didn't want to...do anything publicly until the end. And he had to be guilted (which I HATED) into helping and being part of a team, while the ones that actually wanted and did take the risks (Ollie(Green Arrow), Bart (Impulse), Victor (Cyborg), Arthur (Aquaman), and Dinah (Black Canary)) looked up to him as some leader. And that "Lois" did see him as a God and not a man, and had the bright idea to not marry him or continue their relationship, because each second he was with her, he could be out there saving people. ???Meaning no time for him to decompress, eat, sleep, or just be Clark. Like Tim Daley's Clark said to Martha and Jonathan when he was presumed dead, in S:TAS' "The Late Clark Kent," when they suggested he could become someone else: "But I AM Clark. I NEED to BE Clark. If I was Superman all the time, I'd go crazy." (Not sure about the crazy part, but close enough). Anyhoo, this isn't really the thread to go into detail about the differences, but I had to defend my show! One I stuck with till the bitter, bitter end. So no, I don't think Kara's journey is over. I'm still waiting for Galatea!? As for the lead, in Smallville, Clarke couldn't see NOR hear his dad in the second season premiere when Bo Kent was trapped in a lead lined crypt after a tornado. And Pa was yelling really loud and he was standing right over him. It also protected him from the effects of Kryptonite. Sorry for the long post, and if I need to move this over to another thread, please let me know. No. I think it's clear that they are not gods but it's also IMO clear that some could be foolish enough to try and view them and treat them as gods just due to their power. It's one of the reasons that I never got behind Smallville's Lois. She again and again was written as someone that really didn't get the difference. Certainly not until her cousin explained it. (Sigh, it's no wonder I was such a fan of fan fiction) I also agree that Tom Welling was never geriatric but I can get why someone would toss in such hyperbole. The show really stretched out him not becoming the full blown hero far longer than it should. To the point where he kept having to relearn lessons while Clark's character got practically rebooted for a while in the last two seasons. I enjoyed TW's Clark, but hated what they did with his journey the last couple years. I'm going to disagree with you about Clark not hearing his dad because of the lead. I don't think it was the lead, just the really thick, sound proof walls. But it's ok if we agree to disagree. :D 3 Link to comment
BkWurm1 May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 (edited) Quote They're essentially a modern-day Sun God - powered by the sun, watching over us, can see and hear everything, strive to make the world better but need us to strive too. The heroes journey for both of them is about the decision to put on the suit. Once they do that, any character development is over because they're already God. That's why the very first Superman movie was the only decent one ever made. Smallville knew this: that's why they had the painful "no tights, no flights" rule that made us endure 10 seasons of an increasingly-geriatric Clarke Kent agonising over becoming a hero. This show decided to deal with that entire arc in one half of one episode. There are only two character arcs that work for a show like this after the hero's journey is done: 1. To what extent is a God allowed to have a normal life? I mean, every time Kara bakes or goes to work at Catco somebody dies that she could save. But, again, this show put the anvil down on 'normal life' in one half of one episode AND they limited her concerns to the city she lives in so the wider world literally doesn't exist (this could not be more stark in this season finale). So while Kara goes to great lengths to live a normal life, there's no question here as to whether she should. Yes I still haven't gotten over the baking and yes I would have liked a bit more self-awareness from her and everybody else about the pressure of responsibility on somebody with her abilities. OR 2. How do they use their perfection to inspire other people to be better? Do they lose themselves to arrogance or overconfidence? Do they lose themselves to their own PR? Or do they overcome their inherent problems with superiority to inspire others? I deeply disagree with this because their abilities aren't what makes them who they are as individuals and as long as they are an individual, then there would always be stories about how they react to people, places, things. And growing and learning as an individual never has to stop. The power and the decision to help is only them deciding on their career path. Clark and Kara aren't all knowing. They aren't free from jealousy. They can be selfish and myopic and well, human. Getting something right one time doesn't mean having all the answers. It doesn't mean they can't be tricked or hurt or deceived. So I don't believe that there are only three stories to tell. I will agree the first one is the simplest to tell, but it's also the most cliched. Less time IMO is needed to be spent on it since we've watched that movie so many times, lol. And once they decide to be a hero, it's not just answering the question of to what extent can they have a normal life, because most protagonists on most shows know they can have a "normal" life and yet their story is never over. Their life and how they live it IS the story. Edited May 24, 2017 by BkWurm1 3 Link to comment
Perfect Xero May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 I'm just assuming that Cat also figured out that Clark is Superman, and all of her telling Kara about what he'd be like in bed without his glasses is part of Cat winding her up. Kara's original 'mission' was to mentor Kal El, so she got to play that out with Mon-El and did indeed teach him to be a better person, so she now knows that she could have succeeded at that promise she made to her parents and aunt and uncle. I think that, theoretically, that's a good season long story arc for her, making him also her love interest at the same time, however, makes the whole thing muddled and a bit weird. I was hoping that we'd get a scene where Kara introduces them and Clark says something like: "Mon El? Like our family name? You're not, like, some distant cousin of mine, are you?" Mon: "What? No my name is Monel, all one word, we don't actually use house names on Daxam. That was actually a major source of the rift between Daxam and Krypton when our forefathers rebelled against the restrictive house system" Kara: "Yeah, Kal, that's basic knowledge, I'm surprised that you didn't read all about that in the entry on Daxam in the archives" 3 Link to comment
TV Anonymous May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 So the Daxamites are as powerful - or almost as powerful - as the Kryptonians. Then why the Daxamite soldiers were very easy to defeat? At the beginning of last episode Maggie killed several of them with just a shotgun. Why did they not fly and just crushed things with their bare hands? And what kind of good idea it is to release lead dust to the atmosphere? Hello, lead poisoning anybody? Modern society is trying very hard to prevent human ingestion of lead and they just release lead dust in the air for all men, women and children to breathe in? 1 Link to comment
Bruinsfan May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 Daxamites are vulnerable to lead rather than kryptonite. It poisons them, dampens their powers, and apparently works fast enough that lead bullets or shot punches through their invulnerability immediately. So, basically everyone on the planet with a gun and decent aim can kill a Daxamite. 1 Link to comment
TV Anonymous May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 But when Maggie shot them they were not doused with lead dust. Olsen did that when he fought them. Second thought, Supergirl beat 4 of them easily. What kind of soldiers were they? Link to comment
Perfect Xero May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 17 minutes ago, TV Anonymous said: But when Maggie shot them they were not doused with lead dust. Olsen did that when he fought them. Second thought, Supergirl beat 4 of them easily. What kind of soldiers were they? Most bullets/slugs are made of lead, they wouldn't need to be doused with lead dust for guns to work against them. Kryptonians were supposed to be stronger than Daxamites on the show, at least they said as much when they were first introducing Mon-El. The real question is why the fight between Kara and Rhea lasted as long as it did before the Kryptonite blood came into play. 2 Link to comment
Chicago Redshirt May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 4 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said: As for the lead, in Smallville, Clark couldn't see NOR hear his dad in the second season premiere when Bo Kent was trapped in a lead lined crypt after a tornado. And Pa was yelling really loud and he was standing right over him. It also protected him from the effects of Kryptonite. Smallville Clark developed many of his powers gradually over time. In the case of his super-hearing, that didn't kick in until the third season. http://smallville.wikia.com/wiki/Whisper 2 hours ago, BkWurm1 said: I think being bigger would give him only minimal advantage since he'd have extra length to his arms so a longer fulcrum for punches or kicking, but per what I've come across, Kryptonians get their strength not from the size of their muscle mass but from the the ability of his cells to store up energy. Since Kara actually lived longer on Krypton, it would actually make sense that her cells would do a better job of absorbing the energy. For me, that fact that Clark is bigger is meaningless. It would be like assuming in a fantasy story that the guy magicians are automatically stronger than the women even though magic (and superpowers from the sun) has nothing to do with normal biology or logic. Obviously, we're talking made up science and such, and the word on this varies somewhat depending on the source. But one general idea I've seen across Superman canons is the notion that the longer a Kryptonian spends under a yellow sun, the more they can store up energy, and thus the more powerful they are. In fact, there was one comic miniseries in which Superman hangs out in the sun till the year 1 million and becomes even more ridiculously powerful. In this episode, the writers tipped a hat to that theory with the notion that Mon-El would be able to handle the lead longer than the other Daxamites because he had been taking in yellow sun radiation for longer than the other Daxamites. Living on Krypton for longer would be a negative. Clark has been soaking up yellow sun radiation for 30+ years, while Kara has for something like 12. Of course, with the concept of solar flares (expelling all the stored solar energy in one burst) and with exposure to red sun radiation wiping out superpowers and solar lamps like the DEO has, the notion of who might have more energy stored up might be harder to figure out. And also, just having more solar energy stored up wouldn't guarantee victory. Ok, that's probably enough nerding out about that topic for now. 26 minutes ago, TV Anonymous said: But when Maggie shot them they were not doused with lead dust. Olsen did that when he fought them. Second thought, Supergirl beat 4 of them easily. What kind of soldiers were they? Again, for TV writing, people are as strong or weak as they need to be for the plot. The general ground rules set up this season has Daxamites not quite as strong as Kryptonians, with a slightly weaker power set. Daxamites can't fly. They can just jump, a la the Hulk. As far as we've seen, Daxamites don't have heat vision or freeze breath. They can be fast, but we haven't seen them display Flash-levels of superspeed. Lead is common, and they can be shot and killed with a regular lead bullet. They don't have to be weakened first by lead. Mon-El's dad was killed just by stabbed with a lead dagger. The showdown with Rhea needs to be epic, so Supergirl can't just knock her out with one punch like she did with a whole bunch of Daxamites. 3 Link to comment
tennisgurl May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 You know, in retrospect, I'm rather disappointed that the Daxamites were never really that fleshed out, especially considering a huge arc of the show was about Kara and her Daxamite boyfriend, and they ended up being the Big Bads of the season. We know that they and the Kryptonians don't like each other, and that they have a tougher, more martial culture that enforces classism and slavery, and have a monarchy, and that's really about it. I actually thought it was interesting when Rhea first arrived and basically called Kara out on looking down on them without understanding them or their culture. There was actually a possibility of Kara realizing that the relationships between civilizations were more complicated than Good and Evil, and that while the Daxamites did a lot of awful things and had TONS of societal problems, they had different values than Krypton, and there were good parts to their civilization as well. And, while they touched on it, it might have been interesting to have Kara learning more that she cant judge people based on crappy things their government or society does, and that doing that is extremely counterproductive. Of course, that all went down the drain when it was confirmed that Mon-El was the prince of said evil society. It just all seems so black and white with no complexity. After all, plenty of the great civilizations of Earths history did shitty things, but also did great or impressive things, or had some alright people involved. But instead, they're just the assholes of the galaxy, and that's all we know about them. Its like when Star Trek would create whole species that were all based around one single trait, it just doesn't seem real. Which leads me to my next issue. I wish Mon-El had left with his parents back when they threatened the Earth to bring him home. Now, I don't blame him for Rhea attacking Earth or anything, but I think it would have been a better character beat if he left to try to make his society better, and to help them take the better parts of their culture and mix it with the more progressive attitudes he learned on Earth. If he was going to leave now anyway, why not? It sucks that Mon-El basically ends on "Your whole civilization is totally awful and the universe was better off without them" with no hope of societal progress. Granted, this is a show that has a really simplistic version of even complicated Earth based societal issues, let alone moral relativism and the foundations of alien societies, but it just feels like a wasted opportunity to me. 4 Link to comment
tofutan May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 (edited) 4 hours ago, Oreo2234 said: I think that is a lot of people's problem with Mon-el. He became the main supporting character over every character left from season one. Whether he was supporting Kara or not too much of her time was eaten up by their relationship. And if a new villain comes who has characters who are associated with them then those people will get a bump in screentime. Lena was just the same way with them declaring to be best friends after like 2 episodes and 2 conversations. It didn't take as much screentime, but it just as much Lena being suddenly planted in a role that was previously occupied. Most of Lillian's meaningful scenes were with Lena, a character we just met and they were about them and their past together and not Supergirl, and at the end of the season it seemed like Rhea cared more about Lena than about her own son. Both Lena and Mon-El came as characters who were intimately related to the villains of the season. Kara is a superhero. She needs more villains. The villains brought their own supporting cast. Mon-El as a character basically smacks tragedy to me (there's probably a reason why they kept referencing Romeo and Juliet and being star crossed). As in, his entire reason to exist is to make Kara sad in ways they don't want to do with Alex or J'onn. Even if he lives, my bet is it will probably just lead to another probably slightly more mature goodbye in the end where he leaves to be a superhero elsewhere. Because his point as a character is to make Kara sad, but with the consolation that she has added another nice person to the universe. The writers wanted to add this aspect, to have loved and lost, to *Kara* and they did. Arcs come and go and it's not unusual for arcs to bring their own temporary characters with them. The show already decided that they weren't gonna do Smallville's way of dishing out powers bit by bit in season 1, long before Mon-El was even a glimmer in anybody's eyes. Kara's problem in season 1 was self confidence, but that was done by the end of season 1 when Cat told her to stop being an assisstant and pick a real grown up job. Again, to me this often uncomfortably close to people wishing Kara to remain emotionally weak just so Alex or James can have a stronger role propping and cheering her up. Rather than Supergirl being allowed to be a strong and mature person in her own right who deals with more sophisticated challenges as a true blue hero. I think getting Alex her own life and stepping away from that borderline co-dependency stuff from season 1 was probably the healthiest thing they could ever have done for Alex as a person. You can't just freeze a relationship in infantile state. It's creepy and undignified for Supergirl, even if it leads to scenes where Chyler can do good acting. Supergirl isn't some macho because of this. She still cries, she still cares, but it's GOOD that she can push through it the way Cat talked about rather than needing her sister to chew her food for her. And it's not like the writers didn't write in episodes this season, specifically giving the sisters a chance to do something together or hash something out (we have Alex supercreepy appeal to stop Kara from leaving with Clark, we have Alex coming out to Kara, Kara comforting Alex when Maggie shoots her down, the episode with the shapeshifting Martian, the episode where Alex saves the aliens from Cadmus, "Alex" of course and the super fake drama of "will Alex shoot the gun while Kara is up there") [and that's not even mentioning scenes where Alex gives Kara advice, like when she told Kara to back off from trying to turn Mon-El into a Catco intern). But many of them had a different dynamic, because lot and behold, Kara got to do the caretaking and saving this season more. If Alex and Kara are as clingy as sisters that it keeps them from having romantic relationships, that's not cute, that's unhealthy. So it's good that particularly Alex went out and got a life outside of Kara. Something that the show has specifically addressed. Quote I remember the scene but there was never anything where Supergirl was like, "Oh, so that's why I couldn't hear Alex. She was in a lead box!" I took it to simply mean that she could not single out where Alex was through super-hearing, rather than muffling the area with lead meant that she couldn't hear. But the initial accusation was that the characters never use their powers for the plot. "Alex" the episode of all is a poor example for this because they went through the effort to put in a scene where Kara tries and tells us, the audience that it's not working. IMO the far bigger crime in this regard is J'onn next to never using his mind reading and the show not giving us any consistency on how easy it is to block J'onn and how easy it is or isn't for him to mindwipe people. Edited May 24, 2017 by tofutan 5 Link to comment
AudienceofOne May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 25 minutes ago, tofutan said: IMO the far bigger crime in this regard is J'onn next to never using his mind reading and the show not giving us any consistency on how easy it is to block J'onn and how easy it is or isn't for him to mindwipe people. Also, as with the Superman problem last season, J'onn's so powerful they need to keep knocking him out or having him disappear to make the plotline work. Not the best planning. I super agree with everything else you wrote btw. 1 Link to comment
stealinghome May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 3 hours ago, Oreo2234 said: I think that is a lot of people's problem with Mon-el. He became the main supporting character over every character left from season one. Whether he was supporting Kara or not too much of her time was eaten up by their relationship. I would certainly agree with the idea that Mon-El took up way too much of Kara's time this season and isolated her from the rest of the cast (the fact that they went through basically the same dynamic in like 90% of the episodes didn't help either). But as someone who does think Kara ended up servicing Mon-El's story and not vice versa, here's how I look at it: I draw a distinction between what Mon-El provided to the show's narrative and what he provided to Kara's personal arc. If we're talking what Mon-El provided to the show's narrative, then sure, in the broadest terms he contributed to Kara's story insofar as the show is Kara's story and a) it was Mon-El's mother who became the Big Bad of the finale--though I also think it's telling that the Big Bad for the season had far more to do with Mon-El than Kara, as opposed to last season, when Kara's family were the villains--and b) all of Kara's angst in this finale was about losing Mon-El. So if we define "Kara's story" as the entire show, on a totally narrative, plot-based level, then yes, Mon-El serviced Kara's story the same as everyone else. But the personal arc--or lack thereof--is where Kara serviced Mon-El's story and not vice versa. imo and as the AVClub review says so eloquently, Kara didn't grow or change in any meaningful way thanks to the relationship. Mon-El definitely did; as others have said, Kara was the catalyst for his zero to hero, intergalactic frat boy to "the man you think I can be" arc. But Kara didn't really change. No matter how much the writers try to retcon S1 away, we've already seen Kara be head-over-heels for someone before and struggle with it, and we've also seen her struggle with "having it all" (literally, she and Cat had a conversation all the way back in what, 1x03 or 1x04? about this, and it reared its head in several moments throughout the first season, my favorite being when she tells Cat that she needs the job at Catco to balance out her superhero life--also part of the problem here is that Kara began and ended the season doubting whether she can have it all, whereas S1 definitively answered the question of whether she could be a superhero); the idea of Kara dealing with her own prejudices was a good one initially, except as it turns out, the Daxamites did suck major donkey balls, what with the whole slavery and conquering the world thing and all, so the show accidentally retconned Kara's prejudice into just actually having ethics. Even the prospect of Kara's grief isn't going to break much new ground for her as a character, as even if we accept that Kara and Mon-El are Epic True Love, Kara has already lost an entire world. We've seen her massively grieving before, and she has too. "Loved and lost" would work a lot better for a character that wasn't founded on tragedy and trauma to begin with. We already know Kara draws strength from her grief, and comes out painful experiences all the stronger. Further, too much of the relationship was written from Mon-El's point of view, particularly in the pivotal episodes 2x13-14. We saw the big moments of the relationship pretty much through his eyes instead of hers, and it was largely framed as the attainment of his desires, which is great for Mon-El's zero to hero arc and all, but not very helpful for exploring Kara. What really, truly attracted Kara to Mon-El? What qualities did she love the most about him? What did she find compelling in him that offset all the things she didn't like about him (which we spent way more time hearing about, which was a bad writing move)? And what does that tell us about her as a person? I don't know the answer to any of those questions, and I don't think it's just because I never rewatch Kara/Mon-El scenes. None of this was helped by several writing missteps in the relationship itself, most notably imo the way the show for all intents and purposes handwaved away the fact that Mon-El lied to Kara about his real identity and may never have told her the truth had circumstances not forced his hand--seriously, they were sleeping together and he was lying about who he was, I can't overstate how creepy I find that and how creepy it was that Kara got over it in like 3 hours--and the whole framing of him as an intergalactic frat boy in need of being Changed By The Love Of A Good Woman, which was executed quite poorly and which is also the most tired and tropiest trope to ever trope. Now, I will give the romantic storyline a little bit of a break here, insofar as the fact that it was about Mon-El's zero to hero arc wouldn't have been as bad if the writers hadn't also neglected to give Kara any sort of big arc in other aspects of her life. Kara's job as a reporter was a bit of a joke; the show began the season by saying she needed to grow as Kara Danvers and then would go entire episodes at a time without even mentioning her career (that she only seems to want because Clark is a reporter too). And while the friendship with Lena had potential early on, it too felt rushed and by the end of the season also was just replaying the same beats over and over. Every episode was basically "Lena maybe looks vaguely shady/oops Lena is good after all!/Kara believes in her and saves her." All we learned is that Kara has faith in her friends and is ride-or-die for them, which we already knew...unless your name is James, and then Kara is like "you're incapable, GTFO"...poor James. I am hopeful this changes next season, though, as I definitely thought Lena very pointedly asked Supergirl about "Kara Danvers" dating Mon-El. Maybe the stuff where Kara truly took the biggest and most consistent steps was where Alex and Maggie were concerned, but that was like a C-plot for her at best relative to the rest of the season. Mostly what I want the writers to do is when they sit down to break next season, begin by asking the question "what will Kara learn this season, how will she grow and change, how will we structure events to have her go through this journey, and how will we make sure we're in her head all the way through the season?" And then let the rest of the season flow from there. The bones of a solid season existed for S2, but the show lost sight of Kara herself for stretches of this season, and that's the one thing it can't do. 4 Link to comment
bros402 May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 (edited) 20 hours ago, ottoDbusdriver said: Spite. Why didn't they put the magic box o' lead on the roof the building at least ? Yeah. Maybe Lena, Lillian, and Wynn will have to deal with lead poisoning next season. Huh. If Supergirl were helping out doctors doing free X-rays, if the patients had lead poisoning, would she be able to see stuff? Will the lead in the atmosphere affect the X-Ray vision? Edited May 24, 2017 by bros402 Link to comment
LolaRuns May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 Quote No matter how much the writers try to retcon S1 away, we've already seen Kara be head-over-heels for someone before and struggle with it, and we've also seen her struggle with "having it all" (literally, she and Cat had a conversation all the way back in what, 1x03 or 1x04? about this, and it reared its head in several moments throughout the first season, my favorite being when she tells Cat that she needs the job at Catco to balance out her superhero life--also part of the problem here is that Kara began and ended the season doubting whether she can have it all, whereas S1 definitively answered the question of whether she could be a superhero); But the difference is that in season 2 Kara actually pulled the trigger and jumped into a relationship with 2 feet rather than dumping it if it got too complicated. She actually got the experience of being in a relationship with somebody new and she got to experience losing it. It's not a blood relationship where she had no choice, she chose this relationship and she had a direct hand in losing it, not like when Krypton and her parents and Astra were taken by her. Sure, circumstances are the reason why Kara and Mon-El had to split, but in the end Kara made the choice (with Mon-El's permission) to choose earth over him. The point of characters is also to put Kara into interesting situations she can react to. And for somebody who supposedly "stole" Kara's hero arc, count how many times Mon-El was actually allowed to defeat a bad guy compared to how often Lena was allowed to. Lena shot Metallo, defeated Lillian during Medusa, defeated Biomax (killing Jack Sphere in the process), and now defeated the Daxamites. Compared to Mon-El fought a goon in slaver's moon, a goon in Distant Sun, a goon in Nevertheless She Persisted. He failed at fighting Parasite, he failed at fighting Mister Mxyzptlk, he even failed at fighting a goon in Resist. Hardly what I would expect from somebody who is stealing spotlight from Kara. Just like James biggest victory was non-violent (talking down the Phorians), notice how when he got to fight a more complex villain for once, the art thief, Alex came in did the hard work, when Mon-El was useful it was usually with soft skills (apparently using inspiring speech powers to convince his father to let them leave the Daxamite ship, the "true love's kiss" in Duet, and various times when he non-violently offered himself up to save others). Yes he went through an arc, but do did Astra. In a show where a lot of lip service is paid to Kara being a symbol and inspiring people, the last thing that should be weird is that she inspired people and that had an affect on their life. Quote What really, truly attracted Kara to Mon-El? What attracted Romeo to Juliet and vice versa? As I approach Kara/Mon-El as a something that was always meant to end with a painful goodbye the main point is attachment. How character X makes character Y grow is maybe something worth investigating if you talk about a multi year couple, not something that is meant to be mostly about tears. (speaking of which, what attracted Clark to Lana other than her looks again? Or that she was sweet and pityful?) Not to mention, how many people in real life approach a relationship with "well in what way will you make me grow?". Most people in real life enter relationship because they find each other physically attractive and they have a nice rapport and then maybe the grow together or they break up. I would also mention that this show is basically ooozing with people who lie about their identity. From Kara to Lena and Cat, from Alex to Kara, from M'gann to J'onn. 5 Link to comment
Mrs. DuRona May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 (edited) Because I am really bad about searching for this stuff, does anyone know if a gif exists of Winn mouthing "I love you" to Superman? Because that was the comedic highlight of the show. Loved, loved, loved the fight between Supergirl and Superman. Mr. D and I were both saddened by Rhea's death. We were hoping they'd keep her around (locked up) for the snark factor alone. I would love for the baby to be Lena Luther, but I have a feeling it's not. There was so much hype about who was in the betta fish lifeboat last year, and it turned out to be way less interesting than we'd hoped, so I'm not getting my hopes up for something awesome. I am also trying to stay spoiler-free... All in all, good episode. If only the whole season had been as interesting as the last few episodes... Never mind. Found it. :) Edited May 24, 2017 by Mrs. DuRona 6 Link to comment
Noneofyourbusiness May 24, 2017 Share May 24, 2017 On May 23, 2017 at 2:19 PM, GHScorpiosRule said: It wasn't a hallucination-Supes, under the effect and some brainwashing from Rhea, thought Kara was Zod. Um, isn't that what a hallucination is? I'm not sure what the distinction is that you're making. Link to comment
Chicago Redshirt May 25, 2017 Share May 25, 2017 6 hours ago, tofutan said: But the initial accusation was that the characters never use their powers for the plot. "Alex" the episode of all is a poor example for this because they went through the effort to put in a scene where Kara tries and tells us, the audience that it's not working. IMO the far bigger crime in this regard is J'onn next to never using his mind reading and the show not giving us any consistency on how easy it is to block J'onn and how easy it is or isn't for him to mindwipe people. Well, the original discussion was whether Supergirl could hear through lead. I took it that someone was citing the example from "Alex" as evidence that Supergirl could not hear through lead because she couldn't hear Alex and Alex was in a lead-lined structure. My response was that more reflected one of the many examples where the characters don't use their powers to the fullest because if they did, it would end the plot. I can't be convinced that Supergirl could not do a search of the entirety of National City and its surroundings within an hour or two, especially given at least some information as to where Rick was operating from and how. Winn, who can hack alien spacecraft and Indigo, can't figure out how to detect the source of a live feed of where Alex is being kept? Yes, Nerfing J'onn so that he can be taken out by Dean Cain, or alien devices or just about anything is a more prevalent example. But there are few episodes of Supergirl (or for that matter, Flash or Legends) where if the character pooled their powers and resources, they wouldn't manage to solve situations way better and earlier. 3 hours ago, LolaRuns said: But the difference is that in season 2 Kara actually pulled the trigger and jumped into a relationship with 2 feet rather than dumping it if it got too complicated. She actually got the experience of being in a relationship with somebody new and she got to experience losing it. It's not a blood relationship where she had no choice, she chose this relationship and she had a direct hand in losing it, not like when Krypton and her parents and Astra were taken by her. Sure, circumstances are the reason why Kara and Mon-El had to split, but in the end Kara made the choice (with Mon-El's permission) to choose earth over him. The point of characters is also to put Kara into interesting situations she can react to. And for somebody who supposedly "stole" Kara's hero arc, count how many times Mon-El was actually allowed to defeat a bad guy compared to how often Lena was allowed to. Lena shot Metallo, defeated Lillian during Medusa, defeated Biomax (killing Jack Sphere in the process), and now defeated the Daxamites. Compared to Mon-El fought a goon in slaver's moon, a goon in Distant Sun, a goon in Nevertheless She Persisted. He failed at fighting Parasite, he failed at fighting Mister Mxyzptlk, he even failed at fighting a goon in Resist. Hardly what I would expect from somebody who is stealing spotlight from Kara. Just like James biggest victory was non-violent (talking down the Phorians), notice how when he got to fight a more complex villain for once, the art thief, Alex came in did the hard work, when Mon-El was useful it was usually with soft skills (apparently using inspiring speech powers to convince his father to let them leave the Daxamite ship, the "true love's kiss" in Duet, and various times when he non-violently offered himself up to save others). Yes he went through an arc, but do did Astra. In a show where a lot of lip service is paid to Kara being a symbol and inspiring people, the last thing that should be weird is that she inspired people and that had an affect on their life. What attracted Romeo to Juliet and vice versa? As I approach Kara/Mon-El as a something that was always meant to end with a painful goodbye the main point is attachment. How character X makes character Y grow is maybe something worth investigating if you talk about a multi year couple, not something that is meant to be mostly about tears. (speaking of which, what attracted Clark to Lana other than her looks again? Or that she was sweet and pityful?) Not to mention, how many people in real life approach a relationship with "well in what way will you make me grow?". Most people in real life enter relationship because they find each other physically attractive and they have a nice rapport and then maybe the grow together or they break up. I would also mention that this show is basically ooozing with people who lie about their identity. From Kara to Lena and Cat, from Alex to Kara, from M'gann to J'onn. Part of my issue with Mon-El is that his arc from zero to hero, as another poster put it, still has him at closer to zero than (IMO, anyway) he should be or the show portrays at this point. I still am not sure if his motivation for heroism goes beyond impressing Kara. And his list of failures, as you laid out, are more than his list of successes. The consensus is that Jimmy has been put on the backburner for the season. But there are some successes that we have been shown Guardian has had - getting the art thieves, intervening in muggings, helping Supergirl get the high-tech crooks that Cadmus had been supplying, arresting the vigilante who was killing people who got acquitted on technicalities are ones that come of the top of my head. And it's been implied that Jimmy and Winn have been regularly patrolling and stopping crimes beyond what we have seen. Despite his far greater powers, what successes has Mon-El had as a hero? Are they any more than Jimmy, Winn, or Maggie have done? I suppose there's an argument to be made that even attempting to help out in cases like Parasite and Live Wire is heroic, regardless of the results. But still... As to Romeo and Juliet, the reasons they were attracted to each other were 1. teenage hormones and 2. forbidden fruit. It is sort of weird to say this, but in this respect, Supergirl should be more complex than Shakespeare. Supergirl has a more modern sensibility of the nature of love, and we should expect that while yes, there can be that "thunderbolt" moment of attraction (as there supposedly was with Jimmy in S1, no matter how much they retcon it), at least some of the attraction should be about values and things other than looks and chemistry. 3 Link to comment
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