Man. I didn’t think this show could raise the bar again. I just didn’t think it was possible, because the previous bars had been so high. I was dead wrong. I hope I will be wrong again, but we’ll see. “She is the kindest person you’ve ever met.” That line says it all to me, just as much as a line from Supergirl TV Talk’s own interview with Sterling Gates (have you listened to it yet? Go do it now) did, “She’s an unwavering optimistic voice, in an increasingly cynical world.” Those are both brilliant once sentence descriptors of this character, and both are so powerful at this time.
The scene at the beginning with the little girl is probably my favorite scene in this entire season. It just says so much to me, and shows the truth of Supergirl’s character. Standing up to bullies is very much exactly what I expect the Maid of Might to do. Which made it all the more gut wrenching when Laura threw away her costume. It broke my heart.
The foreshadowing at the beginning with Senator Crane comes off a little heavy on a second viewing, but on the first viewing I didn’t catch it at all.
Okay, so now we talk, and I’m going to bring in some good comic talk into this too. Which I guess it’s fortunate I still haven’t had time to sit down and review Supergirl Volume 1 yet, because I’m going to touch on a lot of it here. Red Kryptonite in the comics is slightly different from what is portrayed in this episode. In the comics, Red K affects Kryptonians randomly. Some effects that is has bestowed in the past include a second head, becoming a mermaid, shrinking, and weird hallucinations. As of now, we don’t know if the show Red K will ever have any other effect other than this one. I do like that it’s similar to the Red K that was used in the JLA: Tower of Babel story, in that it’s synthetically replicated. In the comic it was done by Batman, while in the show it’s Max Lord. Now onto the real talk part of things. I like that the effect that it had on Kara was to make her more like the dark and gritty character I’ve seen some people clamor for on social media. This is a thing that we’ve seen before, sadly from someone with as much power over the character as Superman line editor Eddie Berganza. To me it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the character, and has twice taken her in directions that were the anti-thesis of what you should be able to boil the character down to. In order to make the character “relatable” they make her angsty and mean. They did this early in the Jeph Loeb and Joe Kelly run on the character (something that wouldn’t get fixed until Sterling Gates played with it) and they did it with the New 52 version of the character (something I’m not sure they ever fixed, because I stopped reading). The thing is, Supergirl isn’t supposed to be a relatable character, at least not Supergirl herself. That’s what her secret identity is for. And again, that’s something both of those runs on the book were missing. Kara didn’t have a secret identity in the 2004-11 book until she adopted the name Linda Lang. And again, I stopped reading the New 52 book very early on, so I don’t know if one was established there or not. This is much like Superman. The heroic identity of the character is supposed to be larger than life, to be an ideal that no person can live up to. If you want someone to relate too, you need to look at Kara Danvers or Clark Kent, not at Supergirl or Superman, those are meant to give you something to strive to be, something to try to be. I don’t want a Supergirl who is like me. I want a Supergirl that inspires me to be better than I am, in hopes of one day being as good as her. That’s what makes this episode so powerful, and what makes it so good. In this we get a Supergirl that’s relatable, and she’s an awful person. She’s catty, she’s mean, and she’s reckless. Cat said it best in the episode, “You don’t get to be a real person… you get to represent all the goodness in the world.”
That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy catty Kara, because I did. But I enjoyed her for what she is, a character that we will hopefully only ever see rarely, not the monthly star of her own book. Costing Siobhan her job is an enticing motivation for the future of that character, I’m excited to see where this comes into play.
The red lighting effects used throughout the episode were fantastic. Especially when they did the red veins, those looked awesome.
Siobhan’s outfit when she gives Cat the scoop on Supergirl is a fantastic subtle hint at what’s to come for the character.
“True power Cat, is deciding who will live and who will die.” While it was said mostly as a threat in this episode, it’s something that can be said of superheroes regularly. The fact of the matter is that they can’t save everyone. They do have to pick and choose, and that’s where the real humanity comes from in them. Seeing them “have a dark side” isn’t what makes them relatable to me. Seeing how they react when they fail is, and we got that so very much at the end of the episode. The fact that Supergirl’s first words after snapping out of it were “Did I kill anyone?” proves the depth of her character. Her visceral reaction to the damage and pain she caused was all too real. The end scenes of Kara dealing with what she did while under the effects of Red Kryptonite were some of the most powerful things we’ve had in an extremely emotional series. Walking in to see them carrying out Siobhan’s desk was something subtle, but impactful.
I did love the peanut flicking homage to Superman III. So perfect for this episode, especially since it was synthetic Kryptonite that caused that too.
J’onn revealing himself was shocking, and epic. And the fight between him and Supergirl was insane. The truth coming out to save the Danvers sisters was perfect for this character, and I truly look forward to seeing where this leads with the show. The betrayal of trust was a huge theme for this episode, and one that we got major consequences from on both storylines.
So as I said in my opening paragraph, this is my new favorite episode of the show. That said, I don’t see it being an episode that I will rewatch with much frequency. I feel like one more time will probably be the last until I get my DVDs. That’s because this is an episode that’s got a lot to digest, so it’s not a good episode to put on for something to watch to kill time or as background noise. See you next week for some Dean Cain flashback goodness, and then in two weeks it’s go time for the biggest race in the history of races.
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.
