They brought out the big guns. In fact, this season finale was like a DC pocket version of The Avengers.
The biggest and best parts of this episode were centered on the relationship between Kara and Kal, starting with their fight to the death, followed by hugging and closeness, their identical career paths as reporters, their love lives. Could I mention again how much I love Tyler Hoechlin as Superman? If I weren't feeling lately that we're reaching peak Berlanti-verse, I'd be lobbying the powers that be to feature him more often, or even give him his own show. (We're getting another Berlanti-verse show, aren't we? Honestly, I'm blocking it out.)
The very wet fight in the fountain was totally cool, pun intended. Even though we knew that Superman was seeing Supergirl as Zod, it was still disturbing to see him beating on her the way he did. How did she defeat him? He said later that he was at full strength, that the silver K hadn't weakened him. Did Kara's DEO combat training give her an edge?
The impressive fight scenes continued with Kara and Queen Rhea duking it out on a rooftop with the fate of the Earth at stake. (I watched this episode with my son Daniel, who pointed out the obvious meta, that it was a one-time Lois Lane who was mind-controlling Superman. Later, Kal even talked about how, whenever he fought, he was fighting for Lois.)
The thing about that fight for Earth, though, was that both Kara and Rhea were lying, and that neither of them planned to abide by the results of the "Dakkam Ur." It was inevitable that Rhea would whip out the Kryptonite, although I wasn't quite sure how that worked. Was she saying that it had rained down her planet for so long that it was under her skin, or was she perhaps wearing Kryptonite make-up? After Rhea's ships started targeting every school and hospital in National City, Kara was forced to press the button Lena gave her that set off the Cadmus silver box of lead. I was actually surprised when Rhea crumbled into dust, because I thought they'd keep her waiting in the wings with the other effective villains that good shows never kill off. Plus we never did get that Dean Cain/Teri Hatcher scene.
Mon-El got the last word with his mother...
"Mon-El, save me."
"Like you saved Father?"
... before he had to leave Earth, and Kara, forever. Except that it ended with his little fishy ship going into a mysterious wormhole, confusing Chris Wood's fans and detractors alike. While I'm definitely on the pro-Mon-El side of fandom, I don't like him so much that I want him to stick around at the expense of a whole lot of Supergirl fans who despise him. And I confess that the tearful Kara/Mon-El goodbye didn't do much for me anyway, so I have to conclude that I don't feel like Kara belongs with him. I'd rather Chris Wood was still playing an evil witch. Couldn't he move over to The Originals?
I also thought Mon-El's departure went on too long. I was like, dude, stop kissing Kara and get in that ship before you die. And while I'm on the topic, isn't lead poisonous to humans, too, hence the phrase, "lead poisoning?" Couldn't they have come up with something else that Daxamites were allergic to, like... I can't think of anything offhand that isn't political, so I should stop there.
Melissa Benoist did a great job here showing Kara's distress at losing Mon-El just as everyone else was living happily ever after. Alex proposed to Maggie! M'gann returned to kiss J'onn, and she brought some good White Martians with her! Everyone won but Kara.
I'm also glad that we got a second welcome helping of Cat Grant. The adorable scene where Kara and Clark and their glasses dropped by to ask Cat to tone down the sensationalism so that innocent civilians wouldn't go watch the Dakkam Ur was just an excuse to have Cat spout one-liners and lust after Clark's big green eyes. Although, if you go back and watch that scene knowing that Cat knows who Kara is, it strongly hints that Cat knows who Clark is, too. Just like it was obvious that when Cat was giving Kara a mentoring pep talk about her successes and the challenges she'd overcome this year, she was talking to Supergirl as well as Kara.
The Luthor content worked well, too. Nice move that Lena gave Supergirl the remote control to Lex's silver box, knowing full well that Lillian would try to turn it on before the fight for Earth was over. I've grown to like Lena and am hoping that her journey as a character won't echo Lex's on Smallville, although I suspect it will. Michael Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor was so interesting, complex and likable that during the early seasons, viewers were dreading his inevitable descent into evil. And then, of course, he inevitably descended into evil.
Finally, the set-up for next season was a flashback to yet another little fishy ship leaving Krypton with something tiny on board. "It will reign." I don't know a lot about this stuff, but I think "Reign" is the operative word. Plus, there's Mon-El and the wormhole, and I was also wondering if fantasy Zod was a precursor of sorts.
Maybe Cadmus will use its newfound fame as the Earth's savior to run Lillian Luthor as a new fascist presidential candidate against Wonder Woman? That might be fun.
Bits:
-- Continuing with this season's political references, the episode title is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's explanation of why he shut up Senator Elizabeth Warren. There's a good article about it here.
-- There was a wonderful Wonder Woman commercial with Supergirl, Alex, President Marsdin, and Queen Rhea, who says, "Nice boots." Kara responds, "You like? I borrowed them from a friend."
-- If it was that easy to fly through and shatter the viewport of the Daxam mothership, why didn't Kara do it in the previous episode when she needed to rescue Mon-El and Lena?
-- Loved how Winn was totally starstruck when Superman came into the DEO.
-- I actually cheered when that incredibly ugly magenta leopard crumbled to the floor. That's one set decoration I'd prefer not to see again.
-- Lena's scenes began with her knocking over the pieces on a chessboard that has been in the Luthor family for generations. Geez, no symbolism there.
-- This time Calista Flockhart got to do jokes about her real life husband Harrison Ford and her TV husband Rob Lowe.
-- James' participation in this episode, and the season, was minimal. Will he be around next season? If he is, they need to give him something new to do.
Quotes:
Kara: "I feel like..."
Alex: "You just got punched by Superman?"
Kara: "Repeatedly."
Superman: "And you're the guy who's dating my cousin?"
Mon-El: "Yes, sir. Mon-El of Daxam. Though not like the, you know, the others of Daxam, the killy ones?"
Cat: "Where the hell is my latte? I've been typing for twelve hours, I need caffeine, I need carbs, I need a... (looks up) Clark bar."
Clark: "Gosh, Ms. Grant, I just wanted to see what I could do to help."
Cat: "You do love danger, don't you, Clark Kent? Yet another reason why Lois made no sense."
Cat: "He's been parading around like Darth Vader punching out villains, and I for one do not want to watch some space invaders slay him with their lifesaver."
Clark: "I think you mean 'lightsaber'."
Kara: "And um, Darth Vader punches out good guys."
Cat: "Oh, okay. Whatever. I've never seen Star Wars."
Superman: "I learned that move on Warworld."
While this was an exciting, busy finale, I think I liked the penultimate episode a little bit better. Three and a half out of four lightsabers,
Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
I read somewhere that Calista really hasn't seen Star Wars. Not sorry to see the back of Mon-El. There's a rumor he might turn up on Legends of Tomorrow but who knows at this point?
ReplyDeleteIf they didn't show Mon-El falling int oa wormhole then I would be conflicted, but now it's 100% certain that it will be answered in one way or another. So Mon-El won't completely dissapear.
ReplyDeleteFunny that the kryptonian capsule that transported the 3rd survivor was all red and evil. Maybe supposed to be misleading, but this show plays most visual symbolism straight so I guess we should start to worry.
It was a really fun finale as most of the stuff from the season got call backs. I wonder will Cat return for the season 3 premiere and then disspear again a la Claire Holt. Will she take James with her? Would be about time.
Decent finale. Poor, poor Kara..saving lives and being heartbroken.
ReplyDeleteJames should be written out, or be given something to do. I vote for the former. Winn and Lyra can stay, since Lyra only ever pops up once in a while to remind us she exists.
Rhea crumbling to dust was odd. I doubt she's really dead. It's comics after all.