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Supergirl: Medusa

"Your parents legacy is not death and destruction, Kara Zor-El. It's you."

'Medusa' is the first instalment of the CW's ridiculously hyped four part crossover event between all its DC superhero shows. Except, it isn't.

This was just a regular Supergirl episode with an odd dimensional portal, and a tiny bit of Barry and Cisco tacked on at the end. I'd be tempted to say it was a prologue, but it was barely even that. It was more like one of those preview chapters you sometimes get at the end of books. A little, and I do mean microscopic, tease of what's to come tomorrow night. So if you watched this show for the first time just so you wouldn't feel lost with the rest of the crossover I imagine you probably came way thinking why you even bothered.

For a winter finale this episode was rather on the anticlimactic side. As Cadmaus' big plan to deal with all the aliens played out I kept asking myself "Is this it?" to which myself said "Shut up, I'm trying to watch." Having this episode connect to the crossover, but not making it actually part of it, ultimately ended up working against it. Because Kara needed to run off and join the other heroes without any baggage everything had to be wrapped up as quickly and as neatly as possible. This is why stuff like J'onn turning into a White Martian was cured faster than you can say "Paris and Janeway turned into salamanders?"

If you're an avid viewer of the Berlantiverse (is that what we're calling it?) then 'Medusa' would've felt very familiar. I don't know how many times I've seen this exact same scenario played out on Arrow or The Flash (Legends less so because it is not tied to a central location)Why is it that the key component that so many of the villains of this fictional multiverse need to fulfill their evil plans is always conveniently in the possession of the company that is owned by a main or recurring character? And why are those buildings always so lacking when it comes to security? More importantly, what do these companies actually do? L-Corp, Queen Consolidated, Palmer Tech, S.T.A.R. Labs, what do these companies actually do that keeps the green rolling in? All they ever seem to produce is tech that has no real market value, but comes in real handy for saving or destroying the world. And don't think I am letting you off the hook, Marvel. You still haven't explained how Tony Stark is able to bankroll the Avengers when his company no longer does the very thing it was meant to do.

Okay, rant over. Back to the episode at hand.

This was an episode about family, specifically daughters finally showing their mothers who they truly are. Alex came out to her mom, who was loving and supportive in such a way that you suspect she knew long before her daughter did. After weeks of nothing but confusion, pain and heartbreak, everything finally seems to be going Alex Danvers' way. She came out to her family and received nothing but love and support in return, and the girl she likes finally realised that she likes her, too. Enjoy your happiness while it lasts, Alex, because there is nothing TV writers seem to hate more than happy, stable relationships. Also, invest in her and her personal force fields for you and Maggie. Trust me, you're gonna need them.

Lena's bonding session with her own mother did not go as smoothly as Alex's, which isn't at all surprisingly since Lillian Luthor clearly went to the Tywin Lannister school of parenting. She had no qualms about telling Lena that she was indeed her second favourite, not something any child ever wants to hear. Not matter what Lena accomplishes it will never be enough for her mommy dearest. That's because Lillian doesn't want Lena to be her own woman, she wants her to be exactly like her. She wants a mini me, someone who shares her fashion sense and thirst for alien genocide. But that, it turns out, is not Lena. Did anyone really think she had sided with her mother? Her turn to the dark side was just so sudden that it either had to be a ploy or just some really bad writing. Thankfully, it was the former.

I can't tell you how disappointed I am that Mon-El is going to be Kara's main love interest for the season. No, wait, actually I can. That's kinda the whole point of reviewing. Okay, so here I go. Kara and Mon-El as a couple is probably the most boring, predictable, uninspired, lackluster, mundane, pedestrian, unimaginative, tiresome, banausic thing the show has ever done. And, yes, I got a little carried away with the thesaurus. It's like the writers have got a great big long list of every TV romance cliche and they are just ticking them off one by one. Why is the Berlantiverse (we really need to come up with a better name for this) so bad at relationships? I can't think of one they didn't mess up one way or another.


Notes and Quotes

--Myriad, Medusa, why do so many Kryptonian secret weapons have Greek names? And why name it Medusa since nothing the virus does has any relation to the Medusa myth?

--Jimmy and Winn seem to forget that Kara has superhearing. Kara also seems to forget she has superhearing, or does she just not listen in on people?

--Speaking of Jimmy, he vanished again after the cold open. He's still a regular, right?

--The alien getting their phone out to record their impending doom was the most realistic part of this episode.

--If the Medusa virus was created by Kryptonians to kill non-Kryptonians, why didn't it kill any of the humans?

--Alex sneaking in the fridge to steal the whiskey after Kara took her beer was the height of adorable, but I can't help but wonder why Kara even has whisky.

--Did someone go out to get that Monopoly board or did they already have it in the staff break room?

Kara: "I'm a pretty good judge of character, and you are not like your mother. She is cold and dangerous. And you are too good and too smart to follow in her path."

Maggie: "Life is too short, and we should be who we are, and we should kiss the girls that we want to kiss. And I really just… I want to kiss you."

Two and half out of four bazookas that are actually rocket launchers.
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Mark Greig is not the reviewer you were looking for. More Mark Greig.

3 comments:

  1. Many good points, Mark. It absolutely got wrapped up too neatly so that they could move Supergirl over to the Flarrowverse. (I like Flarrowverse more than Berlantiverse.) But I really loved the reference to the previous mess of a Thanksgiving when the portal opened up over the dining room table, and the way Eliza already knew what Alex wanted to tell her.

    I must be the only Agent of DOUX who really likes Mon-El, and even likes him as a love interest for Kara. I don't think any other love interest they've introduced so far for her has worked in the slightest. He's grown on me. Plus they finally mentioned that Kryptonians and Daxamites have DNA in common. Maybe I'm the only Superman/Supergirl fan who wonders whether or not they'd ever find a genetically compatible mate other than each other. The trees are not full of single available Kryptonians.

    Ah, ridiculous science fiction problems. Don't you love them?

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  2. After my tirade on the Mon-El/Kara relationship last week, I totally squeed when they kissed. i don't want to ship them, but I guess I do now. Oh, the mysteries of my brain.

    Yeah same basic complaint that this was only in the broadest sense of the term a crossover. And I *REALLY* hated J'onn's White Martianism being cured so quickly. We couldn't even get one more episode of drama out of that? Why even do it??

    Thanks for stepping in this week Mark, great review!

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  3. Great review!!! The whole White Martian thing definitely needs to be explored more - basically the whole thing is a metaphor for race relations, isn't it?

    And sorry, but I'm in the Mon-El camp just for the eye candy. I want a few episodes with Mon-Mon just walking around in sweatpants and eating all of Kara's food while she complains and burns holes in his boxers with her heat vision, he's that cute. But I think the show has plans for this - that Mon-El is secretly Kryptonian or something, Mon-Mon seemed to have a secret he wanted to share.

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