I’ll open this week in saying that while still a fantastic episode, this is the first one that didn’t outshine the previous week’s for me. I still loved it, but I had some major hangups about certain parts of it. None of those problems came from what seems to be the controversial thing about the episode when I’m talking to others in my circles though. I have friends that don’t think they should have swapped episode order. That people should be ‘strong enough to separate reality from make believe.” I disagree with that sentiment and fully stand behind CBS’s decision to air the episodes out of order. I think it was both a respectful decision and one that makes a lot of business sense. The other options were to either air the originally intended episode, and possibly hurt and alienate some viewers into never coming back; or to not air any episode, which for a show that had been slipping in the ratings would have probably been a death knell. I’m glad they did what they did, and I think it shows the compassion that the show excels at. The episode still flowed well, the only continuity problem was how quickly it seemed that James and Lucy reconciled, but knowing the episodes were out of order made it easy for me to just assume the reconciliation happened in the one we missed. Melissa was still perfect in the part, but the show was really not hers this week. This week the show belonged to Chyler and Calista. Drunk Alex may have been one of my favorite things in this episode. “It’s the best pie in the galaxy, or so I’m told.” The relationship between Alex and Eliza was my biggest problem with the episode. It’s a dynamic that I wasn’t prepared for. With how the rest of the show seems to be rooted equally in the Silver Age mythos and Sterling Gates’s run, I expected the same relationship with the Danvers parents that she had in the comics. Fred and Edna were just as much mom and dad to Kara as Alura and Zor-El were. To hear Kara call her foster mom by her first name instead of Mom kind of dug at me a bit more than I expected. I was also put off by the change in the characters’ names, renaming them from Fred and Edna to Jeremiah and Eliza seems to drive home that these aren’t my Danvers. And Eliza’s character certainly did that too. She wasn’t really the same Mom Danvers that I loved so much in Paul Kupperberg’s run. (Little bit of trivia: in that run of comics, she’s the one that designs Kara’s new costume, while Kara is the one who plays seamstress.) Eliza reminded me a lot of my own relationship with my mother. I feel very much like Alex at times, when compared to my younger sister. But the shining moment of the episode was the talk with Eliza and Alex after the big fight. This show is now four for four on making me cry. “You have always been my Supergirl.” AND commence sobbing. The only thing I didn’t like about that scene was the choice of Elle Goulding’s cover of Hozier’s “Take Me to Church” as the background. The song just doesn’t really fit the scene.
Like Alex, Cat stole the show this episode. She was absolutely freaking fantastic. One of my favorite scenes was when she lambasted Leslie at the beginning, “Going after a young girl; insulting her body, how she dresses, her sexuality.” This was a motherly side to Cat we hadn’t gotten much chance to see yet, and I loved it. And I honestly think Cat knows that Kara is Supergirl, she’s just letting her have her secret. Too many things are said around Kara for me not to think that. I also loved the look at her motivations that we got. It explains a lot about Cat, and made her seem a lot more human. As did the end scene where she decided not to run gossip smut, but instead a human interest piece, our Cat’s growing up.
Poor Winn. I’m definitely in the James/Kara ship, but I couldn’t help but feel bad for him this episode. James is always butting in at just the wrong time. Also when Cat asks, “What’s a Winn?” Poor guy.
I don’t have a lot to say about Jeremiah other than that I’m sad that we will only see him in flashbacks (for now, I hope). That, and that I would have been traumatized for life if at 13, Dean Cain had told me that I was, “in so much trouble.” Because when I was 13, he was still Superman, so if I was in big trouble, it wouldn’t have ended well for me.
I loved Livewire’s introduction, and the reactions of the team to the specific parts of her rant. Winn getting upset about her criticisms of the costume, James about who would romance her. Her puns were the worst though. “Alive and Wired.” “Here kitty, kitty.” “Cat’s stock is falling” “So many ways to skin” - Cat was totally on point by saying she had the wit of a YouTube comment. The special effects though, I still can’t get over how amazing they are in this show. This show consistently looks like a movie, and that’s absolutely amazing. Those lightning whips were incredible. I like to think the alien at the beginning was this universe’s version of Rampage, which brings to mind some of my earliest comics, back when I was eating up any Superman comics I could find in back issue bins.
My big problem of the portrayal of Eliza Danvers in the show is still a minor problem compared to issues I’ve had with similar shows (we won’t even get me started on them) and this show is still far and away my favorite show on TV. I’m happy to say that the ratings took a slight uptick this week, and hopefully soon they’ll announce a full season pickup. ’Til next week, keep your ears open for Perd Hapley, broadcasting during a blackout.
Corinne McCreery has been a fan of comic books for over twenty years, and a fan of Supergirl in particular for just about that long. Other comic characters near and dear to her heart are the members of the New Teen Titans (Especially Nightwing), Kitty Pryde and Roy Harper. Other non-comic related interests include water skiing and tattoos, of which she has five, three of which are comic related. One of the best days of her life came when she met Dean Cain, and was able to recreate the famous Crisis on Infinite Earths cover with the Man of Steel that she grew up with. Currently she lives in Oakland, CA; a transplant from South Dakota. You can find her online on tumblr at effyeahsupergirl or Twitter at @corimarie21, where you will likely find her live-tweeting the west coast airing of Supergirl every week.
