Spoilers Supergirl - Season 1

[Allyn Gibson]

I wonder what he was referring to.

Quite possibly the various "good-bye" scenes in this episode. They were more emotionally manipulative than a Steven Moffat script, and stopped the plot dead in its tracks. There was maybe twenty minutes of plot in the episode, stretched out with the emotional stuff, and when Kara was talking to Alex about all the things Alex needed to tell Jeremiah I was actively annoyed with the episode; for a threat that was imminently going to kill everyone, Kara was bewilderingly non-chalant about it.

 

[Ovation]

Probably hedging their bets if no renewal. Not a great justification, IMO, but not entirely unexpected.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

She could have saved all three - grabbed two and used high-powered superbreath blown to bounce off the ground to slow the other. Superheroes don't seem to run through enough practice scenarios - just because you're super doesn't mean you don't need to train. I hope they show Kara starting to do so a bit more now that this happened to her co-worker.

I would love to see a superhero show try to include this sort of thing as a standard element - especially if they could do something along the lines of the X-men's Danger Room. I suppose that would probably be too expensive for the average tv show, though, and doesn't necessarily fit well into the life of a more solitary superhero (well, if you stretch the definition of Superhero a little, there is at least Buffy the Vampire Slayer who trained regularly for most of the show, but that was mostly exercise and weapons training rather than situational training).

 

[Admiral2]

I was just fine with the finale - mostly - until the part where she was going up into space and Alex was like, "there's no gravity." Really? Kara went into Low Earth Orbit, not the galactic void. She didn't need to fly back down. Gravity would have dragged her down eventually. Because there's no such thing as "no gravity." Idiots.

Cat finally said Kara's name right. I suppose we're supposed to like her now. Whatever...

I sat through this entire season, and all the way through I kept having the same thought: This could be a fantastic show, but...and there were so many goddamned "buts." But they put her in a Devil-Wears-Prada job, but they put her in a love triangle, but they made her a Superman avatar, but some of the characters' actions often defied common sense...

I get that Berlanti and Co. is meeting beaucoup success with their CW shows, but if this was any indication what they're normally like I'm glad I don't watch them on a regular basis. They had a chance here to elevate Supergirl into a stand-out character and scored a "C" at best.

 

[Christopher]

I think my issue with the finale is that they had all this great talk in last episode and the start of this one about how important it was to choose hope over fear, yet then they turned around and had Supergirl be convinced she was going on a suicide mission. You can't go in with the expectation of not surviving -- that's a terrible, self-sabotaging mindset. If Supergirl had just reminded Max of what they'd discussed mere hours before about placing hope over pessimism, he probably would've thought of some way to increase Kara's odds.

Streaky's an Earth cat.

And Jemm's a hero, and Hank Henshaw isn't J'onn in disguise, and so on. Characters can be reinterpreted. Cats too.

I loved J'Onn tearing Indigo in half.

That seemed a bit brutal for this show, and it didn't make sense that it would have any effect. I mean, last week we saw her blown to pieces and she effortlessly reassembled herself. So why couldn't she recover from a much less extreme dismemberment like this?

Apparently I was wrong about Non being redeemed.

Me too. I expected that the reason they brought in Indigo as such an extremist was to reposition Non as the more reasonable one and lead to his redemption.

So was the omegahedron purely from the movie or did it come from the comics too?

It was original to the movie, and has apparently never been used in any comic aside from the movie adaptation.

My main question there was: why fight Alex at all? Everything was set up to claim that her only choice was to kill Alex or let Alex kill her, but Supergirl could just as easily remove herself from the situation and give herself time to come up with a plan/put into motion her existing plan.

Supergirl had to defend the TV station and Cat and Max inside it. If she'd retreated, Non would've presumably had Alex kill them, and there would've been no way to stop Myriad.

Symbolically I like the way it ties into the themes of the rest of the season. Narratively, I have to agree they didn't really earn the idea that 'hope' and 'mind control' actually have anything to do with each other.

I think it made sense. Perhaps it helps to understand it if you've had experience with depression -- the way the sense of hopelessness leads to surrender and ineffectuality. And torturers and brainwashers break people's will by convincing them they have no power to fight back, no hope of winning. Myriad just used technology to achieve a comparable alteration in brain activity.

I've seen different versions of Superman needing equipment to breath in space, but I've never seen a version of him that was unable to fly in space, provided he had breathing equipment. Is that new to this show?

It's rare, certainly. Superman has been flying in space under his own power since the '40s radio show. But it makes sense, if you assume there's actually some physical phenomenon behind Kryptonian flight besides just magic will power. If you assume they're levitating against Earth's gravitational or magnetic field, or exerting some force to push against the ground or the air, then they'd be pretty useless away from a planet.

Although, come to think of it, Kara could've given Fort Rozz one last, forceful shove to put it onto an escape trajectory, and the reaction could've then decelerated her enough to fall out of orbit. But maybe she wanted to make sure it was going fast enough to achieve Solar escape velocity, so that there'd be no risk of it coming back in the future. So she might've been going too fast to decelerate herself back into an Earth-capture trajectory.

Let's see, Non said his Kryptonian troops were in their hibernation pods aboard Fort Rozz in preparation for leaving the Earth. So they're still out there, frozen but alive. And presumably that doesn't include the escaped inmates, many of whom are in cells at the DEO while others are no doubt still at large on Earth.

Andrew Kreisberg said in this interview Non is not dead. He has been lobotomized. Presumably when he returns he will be closer to how he was in the movies and the comics. A mindless mute. http://www.ew.com/article/2016/04/18/supergirl-finale-season-2-spoilers

Yeah, it would've been wrong to discard Supergirl's no-killing policy so casually and without comment. I figured Non was still alive, just injured or blinded.

Kreisberg says his heat vision is gone too, which fits with the original movie character and the running gag of his inability to get his heat vision to work.

 

[Admiral2]

Supergirl had to defend the TV station and Cat and Max inside it. If she'd retreated, Non would've presumably had Alex kill them, and there would've been no way to stop Myriad.

She still didn't need to combat Alex directly. She could have barricaded the entrances to the facility with obstacles only someone as strong as her could move - which would save it from Alex - and force Non and the other kryptos out of hiding - which would force Non to send Alex away from the fight entirely. She's so busy emoting she hasn't learned how to use her brain in combat yet.

It's rare, certainly. Superman has been flying in space under his own power since the '40s radio show. But it makes sense, if you assume there's actually some physical phenomenon behind Kryptonian flight besides just magic will power. If you assume they're levitating against Earth's gravitational or magnetic field, or exerting some force to push against the ground or the air, then they'd be pretty useless away from a planet.

Although, come to think of it, Kara could've given Fort Rozz one last, forceful shove to put it onto an escape trajectory, and the reaction could've then decelerated her enough to fall out of orbit. But maybe she wanted to make sure it was going fast enough to achieve Solar escape velocity, so that there'd be no risk of it coming back in the future. So she might've been going too fast to decelerate herself back into an Earth-capture trajectory.

Overthinking. If she has all of Superman's abilities, and we've seen Superman maneuver in space with no problem, then supergirl can fly in space. That last line was just BS thrown in to give Kara a sacrifice moment and Alex a savior moment.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Different fictional universes, or fictional subuniverses, can and usually maintain different physical characteristics and properties. In this DC Comics subuniverse, apparently no Kryptonians can fly either inside a vacuum, outside a gravity well, or both.

Considering there was a big honking bomb a while back that she should have taken into space to save the day, and didn't, this might explain why, and I might have to stop thinking less of her.

Anyone else think that Non or Kara were going to burn out their powers from over doing the heat vision?

How many of them knew where Fort Roz was the who time?

In the Pilot I'm sure we saw pictures of it crashed, and assumed that the humans had it safely as there's and should have spent ten years reverse engineering the tech. So what ever Human occupational force was supposed to be there making sure that this, re-acquirement of their "space station", happened.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Supergirl had to defend the TV station and Cat and Max inside it. If she'd retreated, Non would've presumably had Alex kill them, and there would've been no way to stop Myriad.

I don't remember any point when Non knew that the others were in the tv station. Maybe I just missed it, but if so, why didn't Non and Indigo come and stop the broadcast themselves after Alex failed? Supergirl had just proven Myriad could be undone, so that really should've put them on high alert instantly.

And, obviously, she didn't necessarily have to fight Alex in order to protect the tv station.

 

[USS Triumphant]

when Kara was talking to Alex about all the things Alex needed to tell Jeremiah I was actively annoyed with the episode; for a threat that was imminently going to kill everyone, Kara was bewilderingly non-chalant about it.

Great Rao, yes! I told the people in the room with me that while I knew it was wrong it almost would have made me giggle if Alex's head had just exploded mid-sentence because them going on there took too freakin' long.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I have been researching the Omegahedron. Sterling Gates during his run writing the main Supergirl comic, which started in 2008, wanted to introduce it. But DC did not own the rights at the time. So he had to call it the Alphahedron. Along with an older Kryptonian artist called "Zal-Tel". Who was clearly inspired by Peter O'Toole's character Zaltar. Gates is now writing the tie-in comic to the show. He mentioned on Twitter last night that since than the rights issue was resolved.

It seems similar to what happened with the names Ursa and Non. Which were created for the Salkind produced Superman films. For his book "Last Days of Krypton" Kevin J Anderson was told he had to use Aethyr and Nam-Ek instead. Because at the time those had been used on Smallville for followers of Zod.

But that is odd because Foara has usually been used as a replacement for Ursa. But there is confusion on which came first. Foara first in the comics in 1977 before Superman The Movie was released. But Ursa was likely written into early scripts for the movie before.

It took Geoff Johns "Last Son" story line before Ursa and Non were finally used as names again. But surprisingly have rarely been used since. The film Man of Steel used the combination of Foara and Nam-Ek. But only Supergirl has used Non. Which at first seemed to have no resemblance of any previous character with that name.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I am wondering if that could have been Zor-El, her Kryptonain father, in the Pod. He has been used as villain the comics in recent years. Plus I could see writers using the theme of her having 2 fathers. With Jeremiah Danvers revealed to be still alive.

 

[Christopher]

I don't remember any point when Non knew that the others were in the tv station. Maybe I just missed it, but if so, why didn't Non and Indigo come and stop the broadcast themselves after Alex failed? Supergirl had just proven Myriad could be undone, so that really should've put them on high alert instantly.

Supergirl couldn't know whether Non was aware of the station or not. It's not like she had a copy of the script. She wouldn't have just left Earth's best hope unprotected because she assumed they were in no danger.

And, obviously, she didn't necessarily have to fight Alex in order to protect the tv station.

And she didn't actually fight her. She seemed to be trying to get Alex out of the armor suit.

 

[Greg Cox]

I'm surprised people are objecting to the Cat Grant character. I think she's a hoot and one of the best parts of the show. She steals pretty much every scene she's in--and provides just enough tartness to keep things from getting too sweet and schmaltzy.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I'm surprised people are objecting to the Cat Grant character. I think she's a hoot and one of the best parts of the show. She steals pretty much every scene she's in--and provides just enough tartness to keep things from getting too sweet and schmaltzy.

Yep. She is one of the few characters that from time to time make me want to go back to the show. She's fun.

 

[davejames]

Quite possibly the various "good-bye" scenes in this episode. They were more emotionally manipulative than a Steven Moffat script, and stopped the plot dead in its tracks. There was maybe twenty minutes of plot in the episode, stretched out with the emotional stuff, and when Kara was talking to Alex about all the things Alex needed to tell Jeremiah I was actively annoyed with the episode; for a threat that was imminently going to kill everyone, Kara was bewilderingly non-chalant about it.

Yeah I have to agree there did seem to be a curious lack of urgency for a big chunk of this episode, which is not what I would have expected for a finale. I know the show often likes to take these breaks in the middle of episodes for lighter office scenes with Cat and the gang, but it really felt out of place here. And I really hope if there's a next season that they try harder to sustain a story's tension throughout and not fall back on this standard formula every time.

 

[matthunter]

My guess for the pod: another Kara (13 again), making our Kara wonder what the fuck is going on - is she a clone? Could Kara be a clone and this is the real deal? Did the Phantom Zone somehow split her in two worse than Vartox would if she'd let him? (this works for either show or comic Vartox, only one involves a big chopper and the other an axe)

Other possibility: Alura

If it's Krypto and he's a little white dog and he gets a cape I will gladly bear Berlanti's children, and I said that as someone with a Y chromosome.

 

[kirk55555]

I'm surprised people are objecting to the Cat Grant character. I think she's a hoot and one of the best parts of the show. She steals pretty much every scene she's in--and provides just enough tartness to keep things from getting too sweet and schmaltzy.

She's a completely unlikable jerk with no redeeming qualities who gets as much if not more screen time then any other character, except possibly Supergirl in some episodes. Cat only exists to give Kara someone who will constantly berate her and treat her like garbage. Well, ok, she's almost certainly there because the people in charge obviously loved The Devil Wears Prada and other similar stupid stories about the verbally abusive boss and the plucky assistant, but I think their justification (so they don't get sued) is to have someone constantly take Supergirl down a peg. Maybe to garner sympathy, or make Kara seem more relatable? Although to me it just makes Supergirl seem like an idiot for taking the abuse and not just quitting, and the "Kara wants to work with a "powerful" woman" excuse is just ridiculous.

If Cat wasn't on the show, I'd still be watching it regardless of the show's other problems. She's basically the main character, every thing revolves around her. It feels like half the villains were created by her or want her dead. Her family gets more screen time then Kara's. But, she isn't the least bit sympathetic. When I feel more sympathy for Livewire then I do the woman she's trying to kill, that's a big problem. Heck, Max Lord was more likeable, and he planted bombs. If the character is made for you to hate them, they either need to be a villain, or go through some kind of development and become likeable. Cat is just a rich jerk who, in a surprisingly realistic twist, will never suffer any consquences for treating people like garbage and generally being a horrible person.

 

[Christopher]

Ooh, maybe it could be a future version of Supergirl come back in time to warn her younger self of something. Too bad they already have Helen Slater playing Eliza Danvers.

 

[matthunter]

Cat is just a rich jerk who, in a surprisingly realistic twist, will never suffer any consquences for treating people like garbage and generally being a horrible person.

Like, say, pushing her assistant too far to the point she calls her out and - instead of firing her for it like a jerk would - taking her out for drinks and explaining the issues around anger management and perceptions of anger that women have to deal with, whilst also perceptively identifying that said assistant wasn't actually that upset with HER but had some underlying problems she needed to work out?

Or accidentally creating a psychotic superbitch by letting them have free reign as a shock jock, realising her mistake and risking her life to draw said superbitch out so she could be dealt with?

I'd say she's had her share of consequences. She's still a jerk, sure, but that's not ALL she is. Think Cordy from Buffy/Angel... there ARE depths there but you need to swim through a LOT of shallow(s) to reach them...

 

[JD]

She's a completely unlikable jerk with no redeeming qualities who gets as much if not more screen time then any other character, except possibly Supergirl in some episodes. Cat only exists to give Kara someone who will constantly berate her and treat her like garbage. Well, ok, she's almost certainly there because the people in charge obviously loved The Devil Wears Prada and other similar stupid stories about the verbally abusive boss and the plucky assistant, but I think their justification (so they don't get sued) is to have someone constantly take Supergirl down a peg. Maybe to garner sympathy, or make Kara seem more relatable? Although to me it just makes Supergirl seem like an idiot for taking the abuse and not just quitting, and the "Kara wants to work with a "powerful" woman" excuse is just ridiculous.

If Cat wasn't on the show, I'd still be watching it regardless of the show's other problems. She's basically the main character, every thing revolves around her. It feels like half the villains were created by her or want her dead. Her family gets more screen time then Kara's. But, she isn't the least bit sympathetic. When I feel more sympathy for Livewire then I do the woman she's trying to kill, that's a big problem. Heck, Max Lord was more likeable, and he planted bombs. If the character is made for you to hate them, they either need to be a villain, or go through some kind of development and become likeable. Cat is just a rich jerk who, in a surprisingly realistic twist, will never suffer any consquences for treating people like garbage and generally being a horrible person.

Have you actually timed Cat's screen time in one of the episodes? I have not noticed her really getting that much more screen time than the rest of the supporting cast, and definitely not more than Kara. I'm not being sarcastic , I'm looking for real solid numbers here. If we hadn't gotten the season finale I would do it myself. I know the episodes are online, but I really don't have time to go back through an episode I already watched.