I don’t watch CBS live because CBS shows regularly get preempted for sports, and the CBS app never worked reliably for me. I was hyped after watching the debut season of Supergirl on DVD. When it was announced that the show was moving from CBS to the CW, I was excited because I thought that I would get to watch it soon after it aired. Instead of waiting for the DVDs to be released, I thought that I could watch it on Hulu because that is what I did with the other DC Comics TV shows that are broadcast on the CW. Those shows include The Flash, Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. It felt like the television apocalypse when I discovered that Hulu and CW no longer have an agreement because CW decided to launch its own app. Unfortunately the CW app would not work on my Kindle.
I was finally able to catch up with the second season on Netflix, but it was not worth the wait. Supergirl’s second season was a disappointing sophomore slump. Unfortunately our titular character forgot all her battle training from her first season and could reliably be expected to pass out during the first third of every episode. It was revealed that Kara loves HBO shows, but she still stumbles over her words. I liked her restrained anger in the first scene, but it seems to have been replaced with petulance. Her job status, particularly towards the end of the second season, makes no sense.
Kara also turned into a jerk. Once she got two guys to express interest in her after she asked them to fess up about their feelings, she shot them down. Eventually she reciprocated the feelings of her second suitor, but ended up being an awful girlfriend by breaking up whenever he made reasonable points. As one character in an unrelated relationship issue said, you get one freak out, but apparently, not if you are Supergirl. Lest you think that this flaw is restricted to romantic relationships, please let me reassure you that it also extends to her sororal relationship.
Alex had a satisying character arc. She discovered that she is a member of the LGBTQ and is finally in a relatively healthy, long-term relationship with a person who has similar career goals. This storyline opened my eyes to some rites of passage faced in the LGBTQ community that I could understand intellectually, but it was another thing to empathize with a pair of characters on a show like I do with heterosexual couples. Representation matters. One of Alex’s traits is that she has built her entire life around protecting her adopted sister, but when she wants to miss ONE important, surprise last minute planned event to hang out with her girlfriend, Kara basically feels bad because the world does not revolve around her. First, you are adults-you do not make plans without making sure that someone is available and wants to do whatever you are proposing to do. Second, she can miss one birthday.
Unfortunately the missteps were not restricted to one character. Alex is still a bad ass, but the show stumbled in a couple of episodes by making her the damsel in distress. For example, in one episode, a normal dude kidnapped her, and I just didn’t buy it even though the actor, David Hoflin, and the dialogue were excellent. James’ character completely changed, and inexplicably without training, he now belongs in Arrow universe more than Supergirl’s Earth 3. A costume does not suddenly imbue you with an ability to fight—look at Arrow’s Curtis. Cat Grant only made bookend appearances, and though I love her, her appearances in the last few episodes made no sense. Why are you there? Martian Manhunter seemed a bit self-hating because of his instinctual distrust of most aliens. Also when he finally meets a girl, he wants to mind meld with her at hello. Dude! She just met you. He needs to work on his boundary issues. Also the DOE needs a security audit because apparently that secret government agency is not familiar with quarantines or what probation periods mean.
I felt ambiguous about Supergirl’s sudden plethora of various alien species. Supergirl was clearly paying homage to Star Wars’ alien dive bar, but it had mixed results. I understand that there were alien refugees other than Kara, but a lot of them are quite obvious, and it seemed like a sudden explosion of aliens as opposed to a gradual buildup. One alien’s characteristics changed dramatically from episode to episode then was randomly dropped and never appeared again even though she was supposed to be a supporting character’s girlfriend. There was one alien, Jo, who was really interesting, but he only appeared in a single episode, which seemed like a lost opportunity for a new member of DOE. One expected new alien, Superman, was fine and consistent with his description from the first season. It is staggering to think of how many people played Superman in live action productions. There have been at least ten different incarnations versus three live action Supergirls. Even though the immigration debate is still an important plot point, it felt a little more wooden. Out of all the CW DC Comics TV shows, Supergirl most organically and casually deals with race and feels less Afterschool Special well-intentioned, but still awkward than DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
The most controversial addition to the cast of characters is Mon-El, a Daxamite and possible love interest for Kara. He actually has a fairly solid character arc, but both he and Jimmy ended up rescuing Supergirl more than I would like. There was even an episode with first season villain, Live Wire, in which it felt like a frustrated writer used her dialogue to express frustration with the show diverting focus from a heroine to two moderately interesting, but second-rate heroes.
Supergirl definitely has better villains than Arrow and The Flash. Second season introduced Lillian Luthor, Lex’s mom, as the head of a human supremacist terrorist organization. There were also marvelous guest appearances by Dichen Lachman, who needs to be the lead in a TV show, and Teri Hatcher, who reminded me of Once Upon a Time’s Regina and Game of Throne’s Cersei. Villains were not the only new additions to the show. Merlin’s Katie McGrath plays Lena Luthor, Lex’s sister, and walks a convincing tightrope of still being a good guy with a pull no punches cunning that may indicate her future nemesis status. If she could get me to buy that she isn’t bad after appearing as a villain in a couple of shows, McGrath may be a better actor than I even thought she already was. Unfortunately the writers decided to make her briefly stupid because by the end of the season, she should have figured out Supergirl’s identity.
For eagle-eyed viewers, Supergirl’s writers snuck in some Easter Eggs about 2016 election and the subsequent resist theme. I thought that it worked, but I did wonder if 45 fans caught the references, and how they felt. Why would they like this show? Also I stopped watching Glee. I’m glad that you’re old Hollywood talented, but please no more musical episodes.
I’m still going to watch Supergirl, but I hope that the second season missteps are not an indication of a future trend in the quality of the show. Now with a Roku player, we’ll see if I have better luck with the CW app during the third season.