Supergirl - Season Four

[Christopher]

This version of Supergirl has never existed in any other medium. It was always intended as a feminist show, but that has nothing to do with how much of Clark's outline they used in their world building. Arrow started out as Batman in all but name only, and Supergirl started by using the Superman outline.

Only if you look at plot, not character or theme. Yes, they used Superman villains in the show, because Supergirl in the comics doesn't have very many well-known rogues of her own. But how they used them, what kind of stories those characters were used to tell, was very different from "the Superman outline." Context is what matters. Just because two stories use the same premise or story element, that doesn't mean they do the same thing with it. Because it's just an ingredient, not the whole recipe.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I don't question Supergirls' feminist credentials. I question Season 1 relying too heavily on Superman's premise versus an original one for her own.

It worked out but I wouldn't have had her working at Catco as much as I love Callista Flockhar's performance.

 

[Christopher]

I don't question Supergirls' feminist credentials. I question Season 1 relying too heavily on Superman's premise versus an original one for her own.

And as I've said, I think that's a huge overstatement, because a premise is far, far more than just a few recycled villains. It was a massively different premise -- she wasn't raised from infancy as a human, she had stronger ties to Krypton, she wasn't a reporter (until season 2), she had an adoptive sister who was central to her life in both identities, she worked with/for a government agency, she shared her identity with several close friends and colleagues, etc. You could say that Cat Grant was something of a surrogate Perry White and Max Lord was something of a surrogate Lex Luthor, but they were both very different too, because Cat was much more of a mentor figure to the hero than Perry was and Max proved to be more benevolent than Lex was.

 

[Kirk Prime]

The problem is this show is feminist in desire, but the exact opposite of feminist in execution, and the writers don't even realize it. Unless the goal of feminism is hating on men and diminishing them, then this show is not feminist. If they have to dumb down male characters to make females look better, then they are not feminist, and this show does that.

If feminism is supposed to show women in a positive light and as equals, then making men look stupid and weak, and showing outright gender hatred (as Cat Grant did), does not accomplish that goal.

Compare the movies Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, where in both cases, you had strong women heroes without weakening male heroes. Wonder Woman doesn't need to beat Superman to look strong. Steve Trevor was a hero in his own right and while obviously he couldn't physically match Wonder Woman, he wasn't some submissive going around telling the world how much better she was than he.

Nick Fury was vital to Captain Marvel's emergence as such a powerful hero as well.

They didn't need to dumb him down, and at least so far, we haven't seen Captain Marvel turn Thor into some sniveling submissive who goes around bragging about how strong Captain Marvel is compared to him.

But Supergirl used Superman for that very purpose.

If Superman is stronger than Wonder Woman, and in their brief encounter, it looked possible, that doesn't hurt Wonder Woman one bit. But Supergirl needed a weak Superman to establish Supergirl as something she should never be. It's not feminism--it's quite the opposite. Rather than the writers letting the character prove herself worthy, they took a shortcut and weakened another character.

When the show stays away from politics, it is so much better, as last week showed.

 

[theenglish]

Really? I kind of see the exact same thing - they never intended on bringing Superman into the show, and gave her most of his enemies (Parasite, Livewire, a version of Braniac), Clark's friends (Jimmy, Cat), his reporter job, his "regular guy" persona, the glasses as a disguise, and Winn as a new Jimmy. It continued by giving her a strong connection to Mon El and the Legion. This version of Supergirl has never existed in any other medium. It was always intended as a feminist show, but that has nothing to do with how much of Clark's outline they used in their world building. Arrow started out as Batman in all but name only, and Supergirl started by using the Superman outline.

I don't really see how this is much different than Arrow, The Flash or Legends. The Berlantiverse is filled with unique versions of the characters.

That said, Superman was always going to be part of the show in some capacity. IIRC this was mentioned by Berlanti and Kal-El was referenced multiple times on the show. You can't have a Supergirl series go on for multiple seasons without having Superman involved in some capacity.

 

[Charles Phipps]

You really have a hang up on the way men are presented in the show, which is damn weird since Jonn is awesome.

 

[Kirk Prime]

You really have a hang up on the way men are presented in the show, which is damn weird since Jonn is awesome.

It's not me, it's the writers.

 

[Charles Phipps]

It's not me, it's the writers.

Yea, well I think you'll find not many agree with you here.

 

[theenglish]

Yea, well I think you'll find not many agree with you here.

This obsession always seems to go back to a single scene from the second season and I have made my comments about this opinion earlier. Kirk Prime seems to believe that Superman should be stronger physically than Supergirl even though this is not even true in the comics. He also seems to take Superman's acknowledging Supergirl's prowess without embarrassment as being somehow as sign that he is a weak character, even though most of the rest of this treat it as an example of emotional maturity.

 

[Ovation]

The problem is this show is feminist in desire, but the exact opposite of feminist in execution, and the writers don't even realize it. Unless the goal of feminism is hating on men and diminishing them, then this show is not feminist. If they have to dumb down male characters to make females look better, then they are not feminist, and this show does that.

If feminism is supposed to show women in a positive light and as equals, then making men look stupid and weak, and showing outright gender hatred (as Cat Grant did), does not accomplish that goal.

Compare the movies Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, where in both cases, you had strong women heroes without weakening male heroes. Wonder Woman doesn't need to beat Superman to look strong. Steve Trevor was a hero in his own right and while obviously he couldn't physically match Wonder Woman, he wasn't some submissive going around telling the world how much better she was than he.

Nick Fury was vital to Captain Marvel's emergence as such a powerful hero as well.

They didn't need to dumb him down, and at least so far, we haven't seen Captain Marvel turn Thor into some sniveling submissive who goes around bragging about how strong Captain Marvel is compared to him.

But Supergirl used Superman for that very purpose.

If Superman is stronger than Wonder Woman, and in their brief encounter, it looked possible, that doesn't hurt Wonder Woman one bit. But Supergirl needed a weak Superman to establish Supergirl as something she should never be. It's not feminism--it's quite the opposite. Rather than the writers letting the character prove herself worthy, they took a shortcut and weakened another character.

When the show stays away from politics, it is so much better, as last week showed.

More yawn. But props for doubling down on the wrongness (though the more concise version from an earlier post was more impressive for its brevity).

This obsession always seems to go back to a single scene from the second season and I have made my comments about this opinion earlier. Kirk Prime seems to believe that Superman should be stronger physically than Supergirl even though this is not even true in the comics. He also seems to take Superman's acknowledging Supergirl's prowess without embarrassment as being somehow as sign that he is a weak character, even though most of the rest of this treat it as an example of emotional maturity.

This, oh, let's say x1000.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Supergirl
Season 4 / episode 16 - "The House of L"

SG/Kara: SG - "You have powers?" / Lex - "I have powers!" That was a nice scene, but before she knew he had powers, she was unloading on a person she believed was a regular human...but she never attacked Manchester Black with such ferocity...

Lex / Lena / Eve: I did not expect him to kill nearly everyone in court during his sentencing. Nasty, and very comic Lex-like.

Amusing how he once considered Eve's interest to be akin to the fangirls who used to send Charles Manson letters.

The plan to pit East vs West, and using Comrade Kara, Lockwood (and his supporters) is a slight stretch. Ultimately, using Comrade Kara as a brainwashed terror to set the final human push against aliens in motion is a strong plan on the surface, but he also has to assume Comrade Kara--or perhaps the DEO under Haley--will be able to kill SG (with public support of a figurehead like Lockwood). From there, I imagine believes he will step in with the true answer, positioning him as earth's savior.

Ballsy, ultra-manipulative move to give himself cancer as a way to get Lena to test the serum, but there's no way he--even with his knowledge--would know how much radiation he exposed himself to, or how much it would take to activate cancer cells in his body. Radiation does not work like that.
Comrade Kara: Not exactly realistic that a clone of Kara would remember absolutely nothing except her sister's name, but Lex stepped right into her attachment to the name..

"Linda Lee"...I wonder how many picked up on that.

James: So, Lex considered James a thorn in his side, and once tortured him. I would like to know more about that backstory.
Oh, and James has powers, since Lex had Lena test the same formula he used on Olsen. It should be interesting to see how that plays out.

NOTES: Next week, Comrade Kara--as predicted--appears to take on SG's identity to attack the White House, and become public enemy number one.
Jon Cryer is making Luthor his own without referencing anyone else who once took on the role. He's not on the level of the DCAU's Luthor, and has more of the sniveling side to his character, but he's doing a good job.
GRADE: A.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Haha! Lex gave himself cancer!

This may be the best Supergirl episode ever.

Melissa really gets to show her acting chops off in this episode.

I feel kind of bad how utterly pointless that Agent Liberty turns out to have been Just a distraction.

 

[Marc]

Haha! Lex gave himself cancer!

I believe that's been a common thing in the Superman comics.

 

[Phoenix219]

At one point, he dies of it, and transfers himself into a fully haired clone.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Yeah, but it's usually accidental.

He also cured his clone getting cancer with a pact with Satan.

 

[Christopher]

This was a superb episode, easily the best portrayal of Lex Luthor as a mature supervillain that has ever been done in live-action. Cryer was fantastic, and the writing captured his character magnificently. (The idea of him casually using prison as an alibi and coming and going at a whim is right out of Elliot S! Maggin's classic Superman novels.) And the development of his relationship with "Red Daughter" and her maturation was engaging and nicely explained and recontexualized the glimpses of her that we've gotten.

One thing, though -- if she learned Russian (Kaznian?) before she learned English, then why did she need to look up the Russian word for "Help" in a Russian/English translation dictionary???

I believe that's been a common thing in the Superman comics.

Luthor giving himself cancer accidentally by prolonged kryptonite exposure is an idea introduced in the post-Crisis comics and used in other versions like the DC Animated Universe. But what they did here was to make us think that was what had happened, only to have it turn out that he faked it and gave himself cancer on purpose.

 

[The Realist]

but she never attacked Manchester Black with such ferocity...

The Manchester obsession never gets old ... for you.

"Linda Lee"...I wonder how many picked up on that.

*raises hand*

This may be the best Supergirl episode ever.

It's definitely up there. It was even better than last week's killer effort. And between the excellent writing for the character and Cryer's bravura performance, this is probably the second best live-action Luthor ever (Rosenbaum still holds the top spot for me).

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The Manchester obsession never gets old ... for you.

No obsession. Consider it a case of the showrunners successfully creating a villain viewers can really find evil/sickening. That's the job of writers, and this series has never really handled antagonists like that until this season.

*raises hand*

It's definitely up there. It was even better than last week's killer effort. And between the excellent writing for the character and Cryer's bravura performance, this is probably the second best live-action Luthor ever (Rosenbaum still holds the top spot for me).

Clancy Brown--the voice of Luthor from the "Timmverse" animated series--still set the Mount Rushmore / gold standard of an adapted Luthor, but Cryer is good.

 

[Greg Cox]

"Linda Lee"...I wonder how many picked up on that.

I chuckled.

 

[thribs]

it was pretty good. I'm already liking this new Supergirl over the current one. Looks like they're combining two comic stories with this with Red Son and Matrix. I already figured Lex was behind everything since that's his style.
I liked that Otis saved the kid against Lex's orders. He was never that cruel in other iterations. I'm also glad they didn't have him launch the missiles as he would probably just put in the wrong coordinates. Again.