Supergirl (Netflix, Season 6)
Jan. 31st, 2022 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThe final season of Kara Zor-El’s adventures, saving the world one impassioned speech at a time.
Like The Flash, they moved their proper finale from last season to the beginning of this one. (Because of covid filming restrictions, not any plan for a cliffhanger.) It doesn’t stick, of course, because while the alien gods are defeated, Lex wrangles the legal system into setting him free and takes control of LexCorp from Lena in just a couple of episodes. It’s not clear to me how much of the season’s plotlines were due to covid-related problem and how much was actually their original plan. Kara spends the first half of the season trapped in the Phantom Zone, and two episodes feature just Brainy and Dreamer from the regular cast because they’ve time-traveled back 15 years. (Really, the only way to get Kara’s DNA is time travel? She doesn’t own a goddamn hairbrush?) I’m guessing this had to be a hashed-together sent of plots, but maybe I’m wrong? I appreciate that Mitch the alien sidekick comes back after that flashback, somewhat linking it to the main plotline again, but a little upset they never did anything with the alive-after-Crisis boyfriend.
(Despite the worlds being merged during Crisis, none of the heroes from the other shows cross over and only a couple get mentioned in passing. Even Superman doesn’t get a mention beyond a few backstory bits. The couple of times the entire world is in crisis and the main characters have to all work together, it would have really made sense to get Barry and Clark on the phone. Also, all superpowers on this show are either alien or 5th-dimensional in nature; there are no metahumans. Honestly, Kara should have stayed on Earth-33 and that would have closed a number of plot holes.)
The second half of the season is a “race the villains to the six macguffins” plotline, which is secondary to wrapping up various long-ongoing character plotlines: Alex and Kelly move in together, get engaged and adopt a little superpowered girl (Alex’s other big romance broke up because her ex didn’t want kids). Dreamer reunites with her sister and finally clears the air over various transphobic remarks. Brainy gets some closure on his “emotions versus logic” journey. Lena closes the loop with both her mother (gaining new magical superpowers in the process) and her stepmother. The will-they/won’t-they for Kara and William is resolved by killing him off (to remind us that Lex cannot be redeemed). Kara resolves the conflict between being Kara and being Supergirl, a slow-brewing issue that nonetheless has influenced a lot of the series.
As a side note, Brainiac 5 was a terrible character on a lot of fronts. His 12th level intelligence (specifically his superpower!) was constantly outclassed by the humans around him in both strategic planning and technological know-how. He’s actually one of the reliably dumbest characters on the show. It probably would have been better overall if they brought Karate Kid or Cosmic Lad back from the future to be a regular instead of him.
A random other thing that I noticed: They were VERY thorough about always explaining why a character wasn’t present for a scene. Once you notice how often the first line of a scene is, “So-and-so is off doing this thing,” it starts jumping out at you. Now I’m curious if they’d been doing that in earlier seasons or whether they ramped it up.
I give them a lot of credit that the finale is a proper finale, referencing events from previous seasons all the way back to the beginning and getting every previous regular (Cat Grant, Winn, Mon-El, James) back for a real bit of closure, not just a walk-on. They also got Helen Slater to show; given that the show ends with Alex and Kelly’s wedding, I would have been deeply upset if either Mama Danvers or James wasn’t there, and they didn’t drop the ball. (They didn’t bring in anyone to play James and Kelly’s mother, who was referenced as still alive, which in retrospect was weird but was an understandable omission to make the scenes work.) The only really noteworthy character missing from the finale was M’Gann (though she was name-dropped as getting together with J’onn in the future), but at least she has the excuse of having Mars to manage and not being emotionally close to either of the brides. They actually kinda speed through the resolution of the season plot, dumping Lex and Nyxly into the phantom zone via their own bad choices, and move straight on to denouement. (Which means, should any of the other Arrowverse shows decide they want Jon Cryer back, he’s there to be retrieved.) Kara’s endpoint, giving up her secret identity to fully embrace her true self, is remarkably fitting for the series and a pleasant change from the hero dying/being depowered/resolving to be forever alone that typically ends things like this.
When a show ends, I’ll occasionally go searching for (or keep an eye out for) other work by some of the actors. There’s less of that here. (Maybe Mehcad Brooks, if he does anything that’s watchable for reasons other than him.) I hope Nicole Maines gets more work, because she’s solid performer and being an out trans actor should count for something. I hope that David Harewood finds regular work on a nice sci-fi show, because the man’s ability to say the most utterly ridiculous statements with gravitas cannot be understated. And I hope Melissa Benoist comes back to Broadway, where her voice and ability to be earnest will be properly appreciated.
Overall: Supergirl has probably been the weakest Arrowverse show that I’ve watched; it’s always had problems with corny dialogue and obvious, in-your-face messages. But it was very earnest; they were trying to address a lot of systematic societal issues in ways that superhero media tends to gloss over. It was the “very special episode” series, for good and for ill. I was entertained by it, but the odds of a rewatch are slim.
Like The Flash, they moved their proper finale from last season to the beginning of this one. (Because of covid filming restrictions, not any plan for a cliffhanger.) It doesn’t stick, of course, because while the alien gods are defeated, Lex wrangles the legal system into setting him free and takes control of LexCorp from Lena in just a couple of episodes. It’s not clear to me how much of the season’s plotlines were due to covid-related problem and how much was actually their original plan. Kara spends the first half of the season trapped in the Phantom Zone, and two episodes feature just Brainy and Dreamer from the regular cast because they’ve time-traveled back 15 years. (Really, the only way to get Kara’s DNA is time travel? She doesn’t own a goddamn hairbrush?) I’m guessing this had to be a hashed-together sent of plots, but maybe I’m wrong? I appreciate that Mitch the alien sidekick comes back after that flashback, somewhat linking it to the main plotline again, but a little upset they never did anything with the alive-after-Crisis boyfriend.
(Despite the worlds being merged during Crisis, none of the heroes from the other shows cross over and only a couple get mentioned in passing. Even Superman doesn’t get a mention beyond a few backstory bits. The couple of times the entire world is in crisis and the main characters have to all work together, it would have really made sense to get Barry and Clark on the phone. Also, all superpowers on this show are either alien or 5th-dimensional in nature; there are no metahumans. Honestly, Kara should have stayed on Earth-33 and that would have closed a number of plot holes.)
The second half of the season is a “race the villains to the six macguffins” plotline, which is secondary to wrapping up various long-ongoing character plotlines: Alex and Kelly move in together, get engaged and adopt a little superpowered girl (Alex’s other big romance broke up because her ex didn’t want kids). Dreamer reunites with her sister and finally clears the air over various transphobic remarks. Brainy gets some closure on his “emotions versus logic” journey. Lena closes the loop with both her mother (gaining new magical superpowers in the process) and her stepmother. The will-they/won’t-they for Kara and William is resolved by killing him off (to remind us that Lex cannot be redeemed). Kara resolves the conflict between being Kara and being Supergirl, a slow-brewing issue that nonetheless has influenced a lot of the series.
As a side note, Brainiac 5 was a terrible character on a lot of fronts. His 12th level intelligence (specifically his superpower!) was constantly outclassed by the humans around him in both strategic planning and technological know-how. He’s actually one of the reliably dumbest characters on the show. It probably would have been better overall if they brought Karate Kid or Cosmic Lad back from the future to be a regular instead of him.
A random other thing that I noticed: They were VERY thorough about always explaining why a character wasn’t present for a scene. Once you notice how often the first line of a scene is, “So-and-so is off doing this thing,” it starts jumping out at you. Now I’m curious if they’d been doing that in earlier seasons or whether they ramped it up.
I give them a lot of credit that the finale is a proper finale, referencing events from previous seasons all the way back to the beginning and getting every previous regular (Cat Grant, Winn, Mon-El, James) back for a real bit of closure, not just a walk-on. They also got Helen Slater to show; given that the show ends with Alex and Kelly’s wedding, I would have been deeply upset if either Mama Danvers or James wasn’t there, and they didn’t drop the ball. (They didn’t bring in anyone to play James and Kelly’s mother, who was referenced as still alive, which in retrospect was weird but was an understandable omission to make the scenes work.) The only really noteworthy character missing from the finale was M’Gann (though she was name-dropped as getting together with J’onn in the future), but at least she has the excuse of having Mars to manage and not being emotionally close to either of the brides. They actually kinda speed through the resolution of the season plot, dumping Lex and Nyxly into the phantom zone via their own bad choices, and move straight on to denouement. (Which means, should any of the other Arrowverse shows decide they want Jon Cryer back, he’s there to be retrieved.) Kara’s endpoint, giving up her secret identity to fully embrace her true self, is remarkably fitting for the series and a pleasant change from the hero dying/being depowered/resolving to be forever alone that typically ends things like this.
When a show ends, I’ll occasionally go searching for (or keep an eye out for) other work by some of the actors. There’s less of that here. (Maybe Mehcad Brooks, if he does anything that’s watchable for reasons other than him.) I hope Nicole Maines gets more work, because she’s solid performer and being an out trans actor should count for something. I hope that David Harewood finds regular work on a nice sci-fi show, because the man’s ability to say the most utterly ridiculous statements with gravitas cannot be understated. And I hope Melissa Benoist comes back to Broadway, where her voice and ability to be earnest will be properly appreciated.
Overall: Supergirl has probably been the weakest Arrowverse show that I’ve watched; it’s always had problems with corny dialogue and obvious, in-your-face messages. But it was very earnest; they were trying to address a lot of systematic societal issues in ways that superhero media tends to gloss over. It was the “very special episode” series, for good and for ill. I was entertained by it, but the odds of a rewatch are slim.
