Supergirl: Stand and Deliver
March 18, 2019 1:42 PM - Season 4, Episode 14 - Subscribe
When Ben Lockwood organizes support for anti-alien sentiments, The Elite pushes back violently. Supergirl must decide where she'll take a stand as Brainy and J'onn side with aliens in the city. Haley gives Alex a duty that goes against her morals. James picks up the camera again.
Left dangling with bits of leftover runtime for plot was James deciding to look into Lena's blacked-out science project, and I think that's what got him shot. I basically cared about nothing else in the last few seconds of the show because WTF!
(I just realized the whole next paragraph made me roll my eyes because of my using the word "alien", because I don't call IRL immigrants that. But the show is literally about aliens, but the parallels they're going for with the current immigrant issues makes for some uncomfortable wording.)
The whole rally vs march thing was very on-the-nose about current political climate. And while I like when shows take a moral stance to distinguish themselves, I think the climax here faltered with naivete. All of a sudden the anti-alien humans are helping the alien civilians when the whole place was being attacked by The Elite, who are aliens. I know the show is portraying these humans as just being afraid of the unknown and when push comes to shove they can do the right things, but it felt too easy for me.
So J'onn is unleashing the Manhunter! I don't necessarily like this side of him, but I find it believable that he's getting pushed to this by Manchester.
Left dangling with bits of leftover runtime for plot was James deciding to look into Lena's blacked-out science project, and I think that's what got him shot. I basically cared about nothing else in the last few seconds of the show because WTF!
(I just realized the whole next paragraph made me roll my eyes because of my using the word "alien", because I don't call IRL immigrants that. But the show is literally about aliens, but the parallels they're going for with the current immigrant issues makes for some uncomfortable wording.)
The whole rally vs march thing was very on-the-nose about current political climate. And while I like when shows take a moral stance to distinguish themselves, I think the climax here faltered with naivete. All of a sudden the anti-alien humans are helping the alien civilians when the whole place was being attacked by The Elite, who are aliens. I know the show is portraying these humans as just being afraid of the unknown and when push comes to shove they can do the right things, but it felt too easy for me.
So J'onn is unleashing the Manhunter! I don't necessarily like this side of him, but I find it believable that he's getting pushed to this by Manchester.
I've been busy, so I've fallen behind in my TV watching. This is one of the shows I'm really behind on. I was going to let that situation continue, and catch up (or not) at some point later. Then I heard about this week's episode bringing back Superman and introducing Lex, so I figured i'd watch the episodes I've missed (not that they're really needed to follow what's going on) just so that if/when I get a chance to watch this week's show, I'll be able to judge it fairly. At this point (I'm up to the end of episode 14) I'm pretty much regretting wasting the time.
The heavy handed plot aside, there are things that keep happening that are so stupid they're driving me crazy. Team Supergirl brings Menagerie back to J'onn's place, and Kara hangs around as Kara, glasses and all. Then they decide to hand Menagerie off to the DEO, without a care in the world that the villain will rat out Supergirl's identity. I mean it's not like they've gone to any trouble to keep the DEO from knowing who Supergirl is when she's off the clock--except for that pesky mindwipe of Alex.
Kara's stupidity continues in that when she shows up to the march she announces that she's Kara Zor-El, because it's not suspicious to have two people with the same, not very common first name who look identical running around when Kara is trying to keep her identity a secret. I believe that this is the first time Kara has announced her Kryptonian name in public, right? So it's really going to make big news, and surely that won't catch the attention of certain people at the DEO.
Then we've got Brainy. He works for an agency and an ultimate boss who doesn't want aliens working for the DEO and wants to know every alien's alter ego. So what does he do? Everything he can to demonstrate that he's an alien from showing that he understands the alien grumbling of the captured prisoner to leading the bloody pro-alien march when he was supposed to be in charge of the security detail for the counter protest. Yes, I know it's common for security personnel (including police) to go to these kinds of events undercover, but serving as the organizer and putting his face front and centre where he's going to be photographed and recorded is a pretty stupid thing for a person with a superior intellect to do.
I'm really at the point where I'm ready to write this show off, at least temporarily, unless episode 15 is able to turn my view around. Sadly, I don't expect that to happen. A Superman cameo may be something to look forward to, but it's not going to be part of the season going forward, and while I'm curious to see how Jon Cryer is going to handle the role of Lex, I've never really been a fan of the character, and I doubt they're going to create an attention-grabbing-enough story line for Lex that I'll look forward to tuning in every week.
posted by sardonyx at 9:13 PM on March 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
The heavy handed plot aside, there are things that keep happening that are so stupid they're driving me crazy. Team Supergirl brings Menagerie back to J'onn's place, and Kara hangs around as Kara, glasses and all. Then they decide to hand Menagerie off to the DEO, without a care in the world that the villain will rat out Supergirl's identity. I mean it's not like they've gone to any trouble to keep the DEO from knowing who Supergirl is when she's off the clock--except for that pesky mindwipe of Alex.
Kara's stupidity continues in that when she shows up to the march she announces that she's Kara Zor-El, because it's not suspicious to have two people with the same, not very common first name who look identical running around when Kara is trying to keep her identity a secret. I believe that this is the first time Kara has announced her Kryptonian name in public, right? So it's really going to make big news, and surely that won't catch the attention of certain people at the DEO.
Then we've got Brainy. He works for an agency and an ultimate boss who doesn't want aliens working for the DEO and wants to know every alien's alter ego. So what does he do? Everything he can to demonstrate that he's an alien from showing that he understands the alien grumbling of the captured prisoner to leading the bloody pro-alien march when he was supposed to be in charge of the security detail for the counter protest. Yes, I know it's common for security personnel (including police) to go to these kinds of events undercover, but serving as the organizer and putting his face front and centre where he's going to be photographed and recorded is a pretty stupid thing for a person with a superior intellect to do.
I'm really at the point where I'm ready to write this show off, at least temporarily, unless episode 15 is able to turn my view around. Sadly, I don't expect that to happen. A Superman cameo may be something to look forward to, but it's not going to be part of the season going forward, and while I'm curious to see how Jon Cryer is going to handle the role of Lex, I've never really been a fan of the character, and I doubt they're going to create an attention-grabbing-enough story line for Lex that I'll look forward to tuning in every week.
posted by sardonyx at 9:13 PM on March 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
sardonyx: I generally agree with your points and uh...I just finished watching the next episode and you might as well stop now.
I enjoyed the aliens standing up for themselves plot (though I concur that Kara Zor-El...um, what?) and Brainy is also transparent as fuck.
I was completely gagging at Ben Lockwood getting the job that he did. That's so Trumpian, for fuck's sake.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:59 PM on March 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
I enjoyed the aliens standing up for themselves plot (though I concur that Kara Zor-El...um, what?) and Brainy is also transparent as fuck.
I was completely gagging at Ben Lockwood getting the job that he did. That's so Trumpian, for fuck's sake.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:59 PM on March 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
I appreciate the warning Jen. Thanks. I'll probably still watch it. I just won't make it a priority. I'll admit, I took a peek at the FanFare thread for the episode (I've skipped reading the reviews), and it does sound terrible, but not terrible enough to be in the so-bad-it's-good category.
Maybe I should watch it, just so I can have an opportunity to whine about it in FanFare with others who have suffered through it.
posted by sardonyx at 8:00 AM on March 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
Maybe I should watch it, just so I can have an opportunity to whine about it in FanFare with others who have suffered through it.
posted by sardonyx at 8:00 AM on March 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
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Has Alex never seen Kara without her glasses on?
How are those the glowing blue orbs that Nia shoots related to her ability to dream the future?
Will Lena give James the superhuman serum to save his life?
posted by plastic_animals at 5:36 PM on March 18, 2019