Supergirl: Red Faced
December 1, 2015 5:40 PM - Season 1, Episode 6 - Subscribe

Kara goes too far during a training exercise against a military cyborg commissioned by Lucy Lane's father; Cat's judgmental mother visits; Alex asks Winn to investigate her father's death.
posted by oh yeah! (19 comments total)
 
The end of this episode caught me completely off guard. I found the laser eye scene so powerful. The acting, editing, music and fx were stunning. Got so damn emotional. I've watch it over about 8 times now and it makes me cry every time.

Kudos Supergirl team you hit all the right notes with the ending to the dealing with anger arc.

Only problem is that now I just want some evil android robot that I can laser eye rage-grieve and scream at because holy heck for whatever reason it's so damn cathartic.
posted by Jalliah at 6:31 PM on December 1, 2015


Hm. Very mixed feelings about this one:

* Cat was downright sympathetic this time. Her taking Kara out for a drink was pretty great. (I still hope they go with the notion that Cat has always known she's Supergirl, but I know they won't.)

* The primal scream heat vision scene at the end was pretty great.

* Kara and Jimmy working out their aggression in private was pretty good, and I feel like their balance of angst to optimism is pretty good with Kara.

* The scene where Supergirl was blamed for the road rage asshole in the opening rang all too true, unfortunately.

* The Army's plan was even more terrible than usual. "Beat up our robot, but not too much or it will turn invisible and murder everyone, PS, we will only mention this after you beat it up too much."

* General Lane was a little cardboard to put in a cartoon, much less a live action show.

* Red Tornado looked terrible. Like, extra terrible.

* I have no idea why T.O. Morrow was able to hold off a trained secret agent in hand-to-hand combat.

* While I appreciate them making it clear that Red Tornado was never, ever a match for Supergirl, her straight up destroying him seems like a lost opportunity.
posted by mordax at 8:35 PM on December 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Red Tornado looked terrible. Like, extra terrible.

He didn't bother me that much, but I guess he did sort of look like the love child of Vision from Avengers and the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, with a little Iron Man thrown in for color.

I have no idea why T.O. Morrow was able to hold off a trained secret agent in hand-to-hand combat.

Morrow was controlling the robot too, so he was fighting not just a trained agent but also Supergirl. So that wasn't very believable. Then, after that fight, the writers made the machine sentient, which calls into question the ethics of obliterating The Red Tornado at all without first at least trying to reason with it.

That stuff aside, I did like the episode overall, mostly for the human aspects and less for the heroics. I'm having trouble buying into Jimmy/James Olson as the love interest, though, so I hope they get past that soon. I also wish James' love interest's last name weren't Lane. That just makes the show seem like a mirror image of Superman, except with females. I would much rather Supergirl be her own show/character with her own foils and without every single Superman cliché. They made an effort early on to call out that that's what this show would be, so I'd like them to keep that promise a little better.
posted by tempestuoso at 9:13 PM on December 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


* The Army's plan was even more terrible than usual. "Beat up our robot, but not too much or it will turn invisible and murder everyone, PS, we will only mention this after you beat it up too much."

That was one of the dumbest ideas they've had on this show so far. The military's new weapon goes haywire and they're blaming the tester? And there don't seem to be any consequences for a piece of military equipment targeting civilians? That was a really stupid story line.
posted by homunculus at 11:10 PM on December 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I feel like this was the show's low point overall, but contains some of the show's best scenes (ones everyone else is mentioning).

Maybe it was that the show didn't have enough episodes until just now, but I felt it tried to cram several multi-episode emotional arcs into one episode:

- General Lane needed to be established as an accomplished, competent, loving father whose terrible prejudice slowly ruins his professional and personal life. His dismissal of supergirl and james mean nothing because he is clearly the stupidest person to ever be made a US general.

- Lucy Lane has what should be a major, life changing realization; her adored father who she modeled herself after is flawed to the point the morals he taught her require she leave. But this is her first sort of non-james plotline, soooo it isnt like the audience is seeing a change or growth.

- Heck, even supergirls angry-cause-can't-be-normal plot line is pretty left field. Having a line about "I thought using my powers would make me happy but it doesn't" feels false to me as she seemed pretty happy (though constrained) hiding her powers then super happy using them. Sh was coming into her own and loving it, I think, until this episode says otherwise. Itlead to that amazing scene where she unleashed her powers, but that doesn't make it any more than a charachter trait that seems to exist for this and next episodes plot (unless I'm totally overlookig the build up of course).

All that in contrast to Cat-Kara and James-Kara scenes, which took their established relationships and grew them in very satisfying ways.
posted by humans are superior! at 11:41 PM on December 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


If they must have a love interest sub-plot I would far far rather it end up being some sort of tremendously complicated and emotionally difficult sub-dom relationship with Cat-Kara.
Like. in terms of power Supergirl > Cat > Kara. They're both screwed up, both got these fantastic walls to let down, there would be such confliction, such catharsis.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 3:45 AM on December 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


On reflection my last post about superhero romance was demanding a film about Captain America's difficulty in realising his own internalised 1940s prejudices whilst falling in love with Falcon, so... ok maybe there is some kind of a theme here.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 3:48 AM on December 2, 2015


I enjoyed this. Red Tornado's terrible costume almost made sense as a piece of janky military engineering. I hope if RT comes back somehow they come up with a more polished look, though. I thought him going "sentient" at the end was ridiculous. Somehow her sister is able to determine that by looking at a diagnostics screen for five seconds?
posted by sevenyearlurk at 4:41 AM on December 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


When whatsisname picked it up, it was obvious that Red Tornado's arm weighed virtually nothing. And why did nobody notice that his arm had reappeared the next time it he showed up?
posted by pipeski at 7:25 AM on December 2, 2015


While I appreciate them making it clear that Red Tornado was never, ever a match for Supergirl, her straight up destroying him seems like a lost opportunity.

Eh, it's Red Tornado. RT getting destroyed is like Archer getting a concussion.
posted by happyroach at 9:11 AM on December 2, 2015


Does that... does that mean it happens a lot?
posted by Justinian at 11:18 AM on December 2, 2015


Oh fine, now I'm going to watch Archer. Everyone tells me I should.
posted by Justinian at 11:19 AM on December 2, 2015


You definitely should watch Archer.
posted by Pendragon at 1:23 PM on December 2, 2015


I thought him going "sentient" at the end was ridiculous. Somehow her sister is able to determine that by looking at a diagnostics screen for five seconds?

I guess she got inexplicably good at robotics to compensate for Morrow getting inexplicably good at hand-to-hand combat. (More seriously, yeah, that got a laugh from me too.)

Eh, it's Red Tornado. RT getting destroyed is like Archer getting a concussion.

That's reassuring, because I really did like seeing her offer him such a curbstomping. (I was concerned that they might water down Supergirl's powers, so I smile every time they don't.)
posted by mordax at 2:13 PM on December 2, 2015


I loved how she got to scream and rage and cry without being perfectly beautiful.
posted by congen at 2:14 PM on December 2, 2015 [4 favorites]


"is like Archer getting a concussion."

read this first as Archie getting a concussion as in Archie from archie comics which I've never read and only really ever seen referenced on the simpsons.
But, yeah, you should watch Archer.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 3:47 PM on December 2, 2015


Is Red Tornado the anti-Vision?
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:44 PM on December 2, 2015


* The Army's plan was even more terrible than usual. "Beat up our robot, but not too much or it will turn invisible and murder everyone, PS, we will only mention this after you beat it up too much."

That was one of the dumbest ideas they've had on this show so far. The military's new weapon goes haywire and they're blaming the tester?


I literally laughed out loud when the general blamed Supergirl and was kind of surprised no one in the show was laughing too, it was so ridiculous.

Wow, the DEO have the worst freakin' plans. Let's send Danvers alone to deal with guy controlling a killer robot was almost as dumb as let's "trap" the alien by luring him to our convoy where we will shoot at him with handguns while driving.

Also, "You're fired! Now go back to your workshop with all our military hardware."
posted by ODiV at 8:44 AM on December 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


Eh, it's Red Tornado. RT getting destroyed is like Archer getting a concussion.

At least he didn't start crying.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 5:21 AM on December 9, 2015


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