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Supergirl: Ace Reporter

"It's very creepy journalism."

"Ace Reporter" had something for everyone: Lena Luthor fans, Mon-El fans, iZombie fans, Guardian fans and nanobot groupies, not to mention fans who wanted Kara to get her reporter job back. Even Snapper fans. (Does anyone actually like Snapper?)

This is probably a tactful way for me to say that there was way too much going on in this episode. It felt uneven, too. The way that that unfortunate whistleblower got blown up was too much of a contrast to, say, Kara and Mon-El's adorable break-in at Spheerical and James losing it with Lyra because she got too enthusiastic about crimefighting.

So Lena's long time old flame Jack Spheer was introduced, we had five minutes to explore their relationship and get to know him, and oops, he's dead. I thought it was obvious from the beginning that Jack was a monster, but it turned out the real villain wasn't Jack. This is one of the things I love about Supergirl — that of course, the bad guy would turn out to be a woman. This time it was Beth Breen.

And Lena did choose to sacrifice Jack to save Supergirl, even though it was what Jack wanted. I keep waiting for the obvious, that Lena is going to turn evil. Hopefully, not yet. (And could I also say that I'd be fine if it was never? I'm flashing back to my love of Michael Rosenbaum on Smallville.) Lena did sound cruel in that "cold and calm" bit to Kara about feeling warm about Beth dying in prison, though. Guess we'll see what Queen Rhea and her new human wardrobe are doing dropping by Lena's office with a "business proposition."

The geek in me enjoyed all of the different demonstrations of Kara's powers, because we rarely get so many of them in one episode: her clothes burning off as she flew up from the exploded car (poor whistleblower!), breath-freezing the bots into an abstract silvery sculpture, grief-baking while eschewing potholders. I also got a big charge out of Kara and Mon-El crashing Lena's date wearing identical Clark Kent glasses.


Kara: "Yeah, this is my boyfriend, Mike."
Jack: "I specifically asked that I be the handsomest guy in the restaurant tonight."

...and:

Mon-El: (hugging Jack) "Hey, listen. I feel a connection to you. Like a man-nection. We should hang, you should call me."
Jack: "Sure. I'll do that."

If Mon-El hadn't used that moment to steal Jack's security badge for the completely adorable break-in later, I'd swear that the two of them were about to dump Kara and Lena for each other.

I would have been fine if all this had been the entire episode, but no: they had to jam in James and Winn uncomfortably dealing with three's a crowd Lyra. It's not that I don't like James and Winn bonding, because I do. I even like Lyra most of the time. But I don't think they're giving James and Winn their due as characters with the Guardian plot. I also really didn't need to know that Lyra thinks Winn smells like honey.

Bits:

-- The "flock of starlings" thing was so romantic, even though the nanobots don't look like bees: they look like bats. When I was living in Austin, Texas, I went to see the bats swarming out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge. (This is someone else's video, by the way, not mine.)


-- Last time, Snapper mentioned danvers.com. This time, he mentioned karadanvers.com, which is empty but it's at least owned by Warner Bros.

Quotes:

I was debating on whether or not to include the entire opener, which I thought was genuinely funny, but it seemed like too much. And then I thought, why not?

Kara: "It is another beautiful day in National City, and the Girl of Steel is ready to take on the world! I am here to kick some ass, take some names, and do it all with an endearing smile on my face. So, bring it on. What do you got for me?"
J'onn: "There is literally nothing for you to do."
Kara: "Nothing?"
Winn: "I challenge you to find an eight-year-old stealing candy."
Alex: "It's like somebody slipped law-abiding serum into the reservoir."
Kara: "Did somebody do that? Is that illegal? I could stop 'em."
J'onn: "We'll let you know if something comes up. Until then, I'll be upstairs checking the budgets."
Winn: "I'm gonna go work on that new Lebeckian code breaker."
Alex: "Thursday morning knife practice."

Kara: "How long were you two together?"
Lena: "Romantically, two years. But we had a start-up together for five. Worked out of a garage trying to find a cure for cancer. It was a lot of small explosions and good times."

Lena: "So what's your Kryptonite?"
Kara: "Ummm..."

Kara: "Jack Spheer's nano swarm ate my source."

Mon-El: "This just feels like stalking."
Kara: "No, it's journalism."
Mon-El: "Okay. It's very creepy journalism."

Snapper: "Isn't there a Pinterest Anonymous support group meeting you're missing right now?"

Snapper: "What is this? More alternative facts?"
He gets all the current administration-related snark, doesn't he?

Beth Breen: "Did I mention that I'm a black belt?"
Lena: "Did I mention I was a Luthor?"

Lyra: "Now, what's this I hear about a cat stuck up in a tree? I'm starving."
James: "She's kidding, right?"
Winn: "You know, I am not sure."

Lots of good elements do not make for a cohesive whole. Two out of four clickbait millennials,

Billie
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

2 comments:

  1. I hope tha Rhea's alliance with Lena will mean that Lena will find out about Kara's secret identity.

    I was superised to see Lyra in the episode. I thought they were going to write her out after last time.

    Alex and J'onn were almost absent. That usually suggests an episode with only the 2 of them coming soon. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lena's back at last. And her girl has her back. Sigh, it's all going to hell soon, right? What with Rhea being there.
    Thought Lyra and James were being written out, but clearly not.
    Didn't miss Snapper at all. Oh well.
    Mon-El and James were cute even if it was just a ruse to steal that badge. Ravi's always cute. I need to catch up with izombie.

    ReplyDelete

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