Supergirl is back, after a channel hop over to the CW. I have no idea what exactly it took , but they kept all of their actors as well. Of all of them, I would’ve figured Calista Flockhart would’ve required the most negotiation. But she came back along with everyone else.
The big news was that they would be adding their Superman, Tyler Hoechlin, to the mix. I mean, they could only play with a character connected to one of DC’s big 3 for so long while also having said big 3 character in absentia. In my opinion, he looks good as Superman. Straddles the line between Dean Cain’s interpretation and the more conventional representations. He really works well as Clark, though. It’s where his performance is most on point, at least given what we’ve seen so far. He does really well with the attempts appear less than the Man of Steel while moving around as Clark. There’s just one problem…
Mehcad Brooks has grown on me over the course of the first season (BTW a living Jimmy is better than a dead one, Zack). But he’s, hands down, the tallest actor on the show. All I’m going to say about this is, if they’re smart, they’ll have as few shots as possible where both of them are standing right next to each other. But Goddamn, Jimmy’s taller than Clark. I had to pause and laugh when I saw that. And Tyler’s an even 6 feet tall; he’s pretty close to the butter zone they look for when casting a new Superman. Maybe this was made worse by the shot and the fact that’s it’s standard practice to compact oneself when playing Clark. Especially considering that looking up their heights reveals that they’re about 3″ apart. That said, they did well enough with some blocking to minimize the appearance.
Either way, both Kara and Clark happen to show up to save the same experimental commercial space ship. By teaming up, they’re able to keep from crushing the thing like a can, as well as keep it from crashing. Kara takes him by the new DEO headquarters afterwards, and it’s made plain that he and J’onn have some bad blood going on. It’s due to the fact that J’onn kept a chunk of Kryptonite they’d found on a mission when they were on better terms. Ignoring the fact that it obviously came in handy, Supes isn’t happy because that stuff can kill both him and his cousin. I have no idea how long they’re going to keep that tension going; Supergirl’s been better about that than The Flash. But both shows still have the tendency to pull the trigger on things that could’ve lasted a bit longer.
The major plot point to do with the space ship malfunction had to do with Lena Luthor. Their initial suspicions are pretty much dashed when they figure out that the malfunction would’ve killed her, had she been on the flight as she was supposed to. She’s taken over Lex’s company in light of his multiple consecutive life sentences. Her decision to rebrand the company L Corp (just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) put insult to injury, and he ordered the hit through connections.
John Corben is the hitman he used, and his backup plan was to steal military drones and shoot down Lena’s helicopter. That fails thanks to the Supercousins, so his only real recourse is to try and pull off a direct hit at the rebranding ceremony. He didn’t, however, count on Alex being there, nor for Lena to be armed. His wounds would’ve been fatal without immediate treatment, but he was somehow diverted in transit to Cadmus. He takes the only actual choice they give him, and they turn him into Metallo.
Clark decides to stick around for a bit. But the main things left are in regards to the previous season. Kara breaks things off with Jimmy, since things have “been strange” after the end of the last season, somehow. Real swing for a roughly one day time period, but whatever. Also, Kara finally figures out that she’ll be a reporter for CatCo. Cat Grant had her pegged for the job the entire time, she just needed Kara to take the jump.
Overall, the season opener for Supergirl is a little rough around the edges. That’s not too unexpected, though, considering the start of anything is usually inauspicious. Things have to be set up for the season, after all.
Final Thoughts:
- The answer to, like, half of this guy’s questions are “they’re clearly angling for something down the line”. Supergirl is currently set in a parallel universe, anyway, and The Flash hinted at bringing everything in line with the Arrowverse last season.
- “We’re moving back to Gotham!” Killed me when I heard that guy say that.
- The nods to previous Superman incarnations were nice, to say the least.
“Superman joins Supergirl as the series picks up and finds its groove over on the CW”
3.5/5
“Good”
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