Supergirl: Rather the Fallen Angel

November 26, 2018 12:55 PM - Season 4, Episode 7

James falls in deeper with the Children of Liberty in his efforts to meet Agent Liberty. Meanwhile, Supergirl and Manchester Black follow a lead on Agent Liberty's location, but things take a dark turn. Lena kicks off her first set of trials.

AV Club: It's time to question Supergirl's concept of good and bad

posted by numaner (7 comments total)

I found it bizarre that Lena, who's very good at hiding her emotions, was basically having a therapy session with this random test subject who she's been trying not to sympathize with (and thus led to her wanting to call the experiment off). I think maybe she was expecting him to die, so she felt comfortable being vulnerable to a stranger. And then had a change of heart because she now cares about him after opening up to him, and it took his convincing for her to continue. But it's sort of weird that we're expected to care about this guy without a last name just for the duration of this episode, however we've been asked to care about less in most shows.

I guess Manchester's bad now. The debate in the AV Club article is that the show is trying to portray good and bad in black and white terms, and that he's bad now because he's killed a few people. While I agree that there are shades of good and bad in these shows, I don't think the show is really trying to portray him that way. Kara and J'onn sees him that way, but we don't have to. As viewers of the Arrowverse, we know how dark these shows can get, and Manchester is Supergirl's foray into the anti-hero that we're used to in Arrow and Flash. You do have to admit though that the dude is straight up murdering people. And the show is striking a good balance showing that while he's getting results, he's creating martyrs out of the dead villains. Fighting the idea of hatred will require a powerful message of peace, rather than unchecked violence.

Until Tom helped James in that fight, I really thought he was still in on the whole thing to bait James to blow up Supergirl. I suppose there's still hope.
posted by numaner at 1:15 PM on November 26, 2018

I do feel like having the black Englishman walk around constantly wearing a giant Union Jack on his shirt and naming him Manchester Black is a little on the nose. Kinda like, I dunno, getting a red-headed Irish guy on your show, always putting him in a shirt with a caricatured leprechaun on it, and naming him Shamrock O'Guinness. Or a dude from New York named Brooklyn America who wears a shirt with the statue of liberty holding an ak-47.
posted by Justinian at 2:29 AM on November 27, 2018 [4 favorites]

I don't know what the hell was going on here.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:27 AM on November 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

It was good to see Supergirl continue its tradition of having at least one episode/season where one person, in this case Supergirl herself, makes totally out-of-character stupendously stupid decisions (and nobody calls her out for her stupidity) for the sole purpose of moving the plot along.

I wonder what the Colonel will think of this extra-DEO adventure, or will that be forgotten by next week?
posted by plastic_animals at 8:21 AM on November 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

I do feel like having the black Englishman walk around constantly wearing a giant Union Jack on his shirt and naming him Manchester Black is a little on the nose.

To be fair, the original Manchester Black was a white guy. (He was created to write a sendup of The Authority, IIRC.)

This episode pissed me off pretty thoroughly. Among my many frustrations:

- Alex is the queen of beating and intimidating suspects. Supergirl letting her family get away with this, but calling out a black guy? Not cool. Principles are universal, or they're not principles. The episode letting her off the hook by making Manchester Black extra bad was downright insulting.

- I am very tired of how dumb they keep making James Olsen. This was obviously a trap. It was always obviously a trap to get him on camera doing something stupid. I would expect a journalist to be at least dimly aware of the possibility. I also did not like his fascist buddy being on the level - that screamed setup, and should've been a setup.

- Lena's plan seems extra stupid. I don't want another villainous Luthor. I want her to stay good.

Grr. I want to like this show, I dunno why they always gotta make that so hard.
posted by mordax at 12:47 PM on November 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

I think this happens every season now. This is the episode that makes half of us wanna quit it, and then it gets better.

I wonder what the Colonel will think of this extra-DEO adventure, or will that be forgotten by next week?

To the show's credit, they've done this before where you're like "how is there no consequence for this crap they pulled" and then the next week they actually get in trouble.
posted by numaner at 1:02 PM on November 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

The speech James made about his reputation being worthless, it's just his reputation, doesn't really matter, it's not who he really is ... WTF? It would be so easy to let James admit he's caught in a horrible situation, and as much as he'd like to preserve his integrity he's going to have to sacrifice his reputation in order to save this schmuck. But to make a speech, which seemed like the audience was supposed to take literally, that a person's reputation doesn't really mean anything ... SMH

I think this happens every season now. This is the episode that makes half of us wanna quit it, and then it gets better.
This x 1000000
posted by pjsky at 7:12 AM on November 29, 2018