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Supergirl - Season Four

That makes sense but I didin't get that from the episode at all. I thought they all went down at the same time, until Lena fixed it.

It was clear to me from the dialogue that Brainy's was the first to go and that Lena had to fix the problem before the others went down too.
 
The episode doesn't say anything about why Brainy's inducer is the first to fail, but Lena uses the fact that it is as an 'impetus' to 'firewall' the rest of them. It also doesn't tell us whether or not others failed at the same time that Brainy's did.
 
The episode doesn't say anything about why Brainy's inducer is the first to fail, but Lena uses the fact that it is as an 'impetus' to 'firewall' the rest of them. It also doesn't tell us whether or not others failed at the same time that Brainy's did.

Maybe I was just hearing things, but I thought Brainy's was the first one made, and that's why it failed first.
 
Baker becomes the new President at the end of Episode 2; I don't know enough about the chain of succession to know if Congress can actually stop the transfer of power from a President to a Vice President in instances of death, impeachment, or resignation, but it seems to me that the most logical time to throw out Constitutional objections to Baker becoming the new President because of his connections to Marsdin would be in the hours leading up to his being sworn in, not in the days/weeks/months after.

What seems most likely to happen, IMO, is that the Speaker of the House tries to make life as difficult as possible for President Baker and that such 'infighting' becomes a flash point in the wider "humans first" conflict narrative of the season.


That's how I see it going down as well. Not sure how Russia Supergirl or Agent Liberty and also later Lex plays a role in all of this. Have they even casted someone yet who might be Speaker of the House? Would it be to hokey for Agent Liberty be that guy? Making Trump as a costume baddie sounds kind of far fetched even within the bounds of a comic book tv show.

Then again doesn't Lex Luthor someday become president in some versions of the comic? I know he did on "Smallville." I just had the idea that Lex might already be out and about and having one of those devices that aliens use to look human and be under disguise. What if Lex Luthor is this Speaker of House guy and killed the real guy and replaced him and nobody knows it. Soon as we find out you then do the Quantum Leap mirror thing were we see the real actor but the characters see the fake visual of the dead politican guy.

Jason
 
I'm not sure they'll even call back the Speaker reference. That was a throwaway Cat Grant line at the start of season 3, I think it was, and I believe the show was under different showrunners then anyway. It's too minor a detail to expect them to build all their plans around it.

Then again doesn't Lex Luthor someday become president in some versions of the comic?

In the main DC Universe as it existed prior to the Flashpoint/New 52 reboot, he did become US President for a few years. Clark's Smallville friend Pete Ross was his vice president, and a retired Black Lightning was his secretary of education.


I just had the idea that Lex might already be out and about and having one of those devices that aliens use to look human and be under disguise.

As I mentioned before, Lex is in prison last we heard. If he'd escaped, it would've been big news to the characters, so we'd know if it had happened.

Well, unless he's had himself replaced in prison with an impostor, like the Joker did at the start of The Killing Joke.
 
Speaking of Cat, I take it she is no longer Press Secretary for the administration? ;)
 
Speaking of Cat, I take it she is no longer Press Secretary for the administration? ;)

It's going to depend on if Baker keeps Marsdin's staff or replaces them with his own.

Re: the Speaker of the House, we don't need to see him in order for his actions and those of his Republican colleagues to play a role, directly or indirectly, in the season's "humans first" conflict narrative; we need merely to see/hear someone - or multiple someones - make reference to said actions and the sociopolitical effect they are having.
 
I'm not sure they'll even call back the Speaker reference. That was a throwaway Cat Grant line at the start of season 3, I think it was, and I believe the show was under different showrunners then anyway. It's too minor a detail to expect them to build all their plans around it.



In the main DC Universe as it existed prior to the Flashpoint/New 52 reboot, he did become US President for a few years. Clark's Smallville friend Pete Ross was his vice president, and a retired Black Lightning was his secretary of education.




As I mentioned before, Lex is in prison last we heard. If he'd escaped, it would've been big news to the characters, so we'd know if it had happened.

Well, unless he's had himself replaced in prison with an impostor, like the Joker did at the start of The Killing Joke.

Having a imposter in his place in prison was how I was also thinking they would go if they did say he was out. Or maybe a clone. Or even another version of himself from a different world if he has being able to figure out how to go to another earth.

Jason
 
The episode doesn't say anything about why Brainy's inducer is the first to fail, but Lena uses the fact that it is as an 'impetus' to 'firewall' the rest of them. It also doesn't tell us whether or not others failed at the same time that Brainy's did.

but was it the first to fail though? There were probably multiple failures but Brainy was the character we were focused on so we see his fritz.
 
Baker becomes the new President at the end of Episode 2; I don't know enough about the chain of succession to know if Congress can actually stop the transfer of power from a President to a Vice President in instances of death, impeachment, or resignation, but it seems to me that the most logical time to throw out Constitutional objections to Baker becoming the new President because of his connections to Marsdin would be in the hours leading up to his being sworn in, not in the days/weeks/months after.

The vice president immediately becomes president upon the death or resignation of the incumbent president. Congress' only option would be impeachment.

Marsdin's VP is now her successor, and unless his views are radically different from hers - although I don't know why they would be given that she chose him as her running mate - there probably won't be any significant shifts in policy unless both branches of Congress are controlled by Republicans (the House is, but we don't know about the Senate).

There have been instances of vice presidents being more conservative or liberal than their president. It's usually a political calculas to "balance the ticket" so as to win over a region or more moderate constituency. The most famous example was Abraham Lincoln's vice president, a southerner who, upon succeeding Lincoln to the presidency, largely acted against the more northern Republican Party's ideals and priorities (particularly in regard to Reconstruction).
 
This is ridiculous tautology...

Republicans are not racist for Gerrymandering and vote suppressing against people of colour.

The GOP would do that to any clearly defined group who will not vote for them.

African Americans however, will not vote for Republicans because the Top Republicans are racist and cruel.

It's a domino effect.

Republican are racist, but if African Americans did vote Republican, then there would be no voter suppression and different gerrymandering targeting another difficult class of people.

Its a question of cause and effect.

But Republicans, at the top, clearly have no interest in helping black people, so it really doesn't matter why they are racist and mean.
 
Another famous example of a "balanced ticket" was JFK and LBJ. In that case, LBJ was largely seen as a conservative Democrat (particularly on issues of race), though he would later go on to govern as a liberal.

Ronald Reagan offered Gerald Ford the vice presidency under some sort of weird joint presidency arrangement that likely would have been unconstitutional.

John Kerry strongly considered John McCain as his running mate in 2004, and John McCain strongly considered Joe Liberman as his running mate in 2008.

Joe Biden was arguably much more of a moderate in the Senate than Barack Obama.
 
Supergirl
Season 4 / episode 3- "Man of Steel"


SG/Kara: So, I guess she will leap back into action once Agent Liberty and Mercy invade the DEO.

Agent Liberty / Mercy: I'll give the show credit for showing how Ben Lockwood's background was having parallels in reality if one is hurt enough to reconsider their original sociopolitical assumptions, making some interesting arguments along his journey that can't be judged through a narrow lens, when one considers the "how and why" of his pain/loss.

Sam Witwer was inspired casting; he was able to sell the total ideological transformation--hopefully he sticks around long enough to use his talent to its full effect as A.L.

On the other hand, casting Xander Berkeley as Pete was too on the nose, capitalizing on his recently killed off A-Hole Gregory on The Walking Dead. There was not much difference between the way his characters used constant manipulation / watching for reactions to get what he desires.

NOTES:
On a related note, the "we're a nation of immigrants" line has too often been used as a blinders-on, sociopolitical tool that deliberately, consistently ignores that the land mass known as the United States was already nation of quickly abused, mass murdered Native American groups with their own nations within a nation, and built with centuries of enslaved Africans long before the oft-mentioned Ellis Island migration (which that "nation of immigrants" line usually refers to in media and political circles), which makes the rather insulting revisionist history claim of America not being America until the early 20th century.

Nice opening with J'onn rescuing Supergirl. I could do without the shaky cam bit; I've never been a fan of that since it became a thing in the late 1980s.

Alex asks "What kind of person is capable of doing this?" Really? Has she been asleep on the job for that past few years? Who doesn't want to kill someone else on this show?

GRADE: A-.
Effective flashback for all of the main players of this season. Easily the best Supergirl episode of the past two seasons.
 
That was one of the best written episodes of the whole series. Great how they intergrated Lockwood into the show’s history. Rarely have used the world they have build so effective. It reminded me of the type of stories told in the comic Astro City.
 
Definitely an exceptional installment. The writing -- more deft than usual, though still not exactly subtle -- combined with Witwer's talents, succeeded in making Lockwood's transformation understandable and even sympathetic on a human level, though where he ends up is still not defensible. Certainly it made the show's politics a little less simplistic than usual. (Mind you, I like the show's political stances, but they're rarely models of nuance.)

It also acknowledges the elephant in the room vis-a-vis the parallels Supergirl has always sought to draw between its extraterrestrials, and immigrants and refugees in our own world: namely that people on Earth-38 have much more tangible reason to fear aliens, given their recurring invasions and world-threatening attacks.

The weakest aspect, which I am willing to put down to dramatic license, is how often Lockwood's story intersects directly with our main characters. He gets face time over these couple of years with Supergirl/Kara, Alex, J'onn, James, Lena -- to the extent he's supposed to be something of an "everyman," he sure does cross paths with that world's movers and shakers a lot.

Still, a very strong hour, and an admirable effort toward giving our villain -- and make no mistake, Lockwood is still a villain -- a human face.

(And hey, I think that was 30 seconds of new Calista Flockhart footage!)
 
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I was not sure Calista’s footage was new. At first I thought it reused like Teri Hatcher as Rhea. We had one previous episode of Cat appearing only on tv. This was different footage? Which is great if true. It hopefully means more of her to come.
 
This is why Superman is the better hero. He helps rebuild in the aftermath of a attack. He wouldn’t just leave people with their houses destroyed.
I enjoyed the episode but why didn’t it occur to them to send Supergirl to Earth-1. Especially after that line Brainiac said.
 
I was not sure Calista’s footage was new. At first I thought it reused like Teri Hatcher as Rhea. We had one previous episode of Cat appearing only on tv. This was different footage? Which is great if true. It hopefully means more of her to come.
I didn't remember this dialogue from her previous appearance as Marsdin's press secretary -- though it occurred to me it might have been an outtake from that shoot.
 
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