Supergirl: Parasite Lost
November 13, 2018 10:36 PM - Season 4, Episode 5 - Subscribe

The villain known as Parasite returns with Jensen as host. Alex adjusts to being under the command of Colonel Haley. Kara and Nia gets an exclusive interview with a prominent alien.
posted by numaner (4 comments total)
 
While this was kind of all over the place, I liked that quite a few bits of stories progressing nicely.

So unlike the last episode, the dialog actually felt more natural for the racist villains, and almost sympathetic. Once again, giving Ben Lockwood more lines let Sam Witwer do what he does best. I could almost feel for him.

I'll admit I didn't see the bigoted ex-girlfriend twist, but I guess I was not prepared for an Asian character to be... that bigoted. Although that's not a huge stretch. The ending with the daughter was nice. I couldn't help but notice that the daughter looked way older than the mom.

I'm going to need Nia to get her powers and be kicking ass already, 'cause if the next episode don't move things along the season's pacing is going to feel like a slog. I know it's only episode 5, but Sam's reveal took forever last season and I don't wanna go through that again. She and Brainy are cute, more of that please.

They didn't say what happened with the parasite worm, is it basically all dried up when Jensen went braindead at the "desert facility"

I appreciate that they validated Kara's optimism with Amadei, and Alex's cynicism with Colonel Haley. Sometimes we want that comfort of the predictable. Especially when we have to worry about what it'll mean for James to get close to the Children of Liberty.

I dig J'onn with the top hat getting into detective mode. I'm glad they're giving him stuff to do.
posted by numaner at 10:48 PM on November 13, 2018




I wish I could view this episode as positively as you did, numaner. I want to like what the show is doing but I was just so annoyed by how stupid and unaware the characters were being.

I'll start off with something good to say. I like that they've found J'onn's new direction in life and that he's heading down the detective road. It's a good way to use his skills and training and to give him not just a purpose, but a way to interact more with humanity. That fact that it's a canon typical direction for the character doesn't hurt either.

I wasn't familiar with Ben Lockwood before this show, but he's doing a stand-out job with his character.

And that's all I've got to say on the plus side. I don't know if I'll be able to remember all the minuses that bothered me as I was watching this episode, but I'll give it a try. I know some of these are more major and some of them are minor niggles at best, but if the big ones weren't so problematic, I doubt the little ones would have the power to irk me.

By this point Kara is supposed to be magazine's star reporter. James was singing her praises. Yet she didn't even do the basics of her job (looking up past interviews with the healer and subject of her interview) until after she had already published her story and realized, oops there were serious problems with it. I know sometimes reporters have to deal with stories on the fly and without adequate preparation time, but this wasn't one of those cases. Also, the thought didn't even cross her mind (not that this should be her primary concern at all) that an article like that might cause blowback and negative public opinions about the subject of her article, especially in the show's current political climate.

In addition to failing to do her research, Kara came off like an intern pitching her first story when she told Nia her plan for the series of alien interviews. I'm not saying more senior people can't get nervous or can't collaborate with more junior ones, but there was something entire off about that dynamic and that exchange.

I understand that plot reasons dictate that Nia become part of the inner circle of characters we are supposed to follow and care about, and that's going to put the character at the front and centre of certain story lines, but Kara's decision to invite Nia to the garden party was seriously inappropriate on at least two levels. First, everybody else there is either part of the DEO or has worked with the DEO in the past. Kara didn't seem to bother to tell anybody that she was bringing in an outsider. Who knows what kind of loose conversations or information Nia might have overheard (especially with a drunk Brainy) that could have put the organization in jeopardy (not that the DEO has been particularly adept at keeping secret, but that's a whole other rant). Even if people realized they had to be circumspect, that's not fair to the rest of the party attendees, who now have to censor themselves with regards to what they say.

Additionally, I'm afraid I have to come back to my comments about last episode, this whole intern/superior/management employment situation. Not only is Kara acting like a terrible superior (showing favoritism to one intern over all of the rest and placing her in a position to gain unfair advantage and develop relationships that her colleagues have no hope of building), why would she think that the president and CEO of the huge corporate giant that owns her own publishing division, and the head of that publishing division would want to hang around with a lowly intern in their off time? What would they possibly have in common? They aren't at even remotely similar stages in their lives. Don't James and Lena deserve a break from being the boss to just relax with friends? Forcing such a junior position employee into their orbit really isn't fair to them, just as it isn't fair to that junior person.

Of course James and Lena don't get let off the hook for their behaviour in this episode. When they realize what Winter has become and hear the views he espouses, neither one of them is able to exhibit enough self-realization to say, "maybe my actions contributed to the circumstances that led him down his current path." While James should have been able to see that, Lena especially should have been able to make the leap from, "oh, I dumped his company in favour of one that uses alien materials, maybe that's where part of the reason for his resentment."

Speaking of James, he had pretty much hung up his Guardian suit, but somehow, co-incidentally, he just happened to have it close enough at hand while he was at an awards ceremony that was being held in his honour, so that he could just slip into it and head into the fray. Really? (Yes, I know this is one of those standard superhero tropes that you just have to accept when you engage with this material, but in this particular situation, it seemed just too easy. As I said, if the bigger things weren't bugging me, this extra irritation would have likely going unnoticed.)

As for the big final fight with Parasite, that DEO solution was plain stupid. Just how big an energy cage was that? And how many innocent civilians were trapped inside it? Wouldn't it take significantly more energy and effort to create something so large than to build something smaller that might do a better job of isolating the villain? I know governments can be casual about civilian losses and deaths, but that plan seemed especially callous.

Oh, and one final thing. Kara is growing Kryptonian/Kandorian flowers on her rooftop garden. Is she crazy? Has she never heard of invasive species? Does she have any clue about how an extraterrestrial flower is going to react to Earth's atmosphere and growing conditions and sunlight (especially the sunlight)? Doesn't she realize that she could have possibly introduced an organism into Earth's environment that could potentially wipe out major parts of the ecosystem? Sure, it probably won't, but is that a gamble worth taking?

There's likely more that I haven't remembered to include. I know I said I'd give this show until the crossover (When is that supposed to happen? Soon I hope. Early December, maybe?) to decide if I wanted to stick with it, but I don't know if I can last that long if things keep deteriorating the way the are. I watch this stuff for a lighthearted break. I want to be entertained by it, but when it just mostly annoys me, the entertainment value is worthless.
posted by sardonyx at 8:34 AM on November 14, 2018 [3 favorites]


Do the writers on this show have it in their contract that they have to do a "both sides" bit of dialogue every episode? It bugs me because I disagree with it but also because it's hack writing.
posted by runcibleshaw at 8:44 PM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


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