Spoilers "Supergirl": the 6th and final season

Supergirl - The Final Season
Season 6 - episode 5 - "Prom Night!"

Teen Kara / Younger Alex: Alex was right--Kara should not have involved herself with the "aliens" and by the way, she knows nothing about the technology of the ship, so how--exactly--would she be able to help repair it? Sigh.

Alex constantly echoes/reinforces Jonathan Kent's logical warning from Man of Steel (regarding the danger of exposing Clark's powers in a world that would not understand, fear, hurt and/or exploit him). I doubt Alex's steadfast warnings will survive this 2-parter, and if that happens, it would plot inconsistency with the way season 1 adult Alex did not want Kara using her powers in public, or telling her friends about it, either.

Brainy / Nia: Brainy forbids Alex and J'onn from going back in time to avoid changing their own history, but he was speaking nonsense, since the presence of two people who never existed in that time run a greater danger of altering a past they were never a part of. By Brainy's own warning, they've changed history by going to high school, Nia trying to call her mother, and a number of things they are unaware of.
If how Berlanti and Co. handled timelines / universes / realities in their CW-Crisis is any indicator, this should all survive about 4 seconds of scrutiny.

Professor Naxim Tork: His assistant mentioned trying to add the other Kryptonian to his zoo, but this duo's baked-in ineptitude was all the explanation one needed to know why they failed in the past, and will continue to do so, thus there's no sense of danger added to this plot.

CJ Grant: Comic relief that's not really comical.

Kenny Li: Oh well--he lives in this new universe, but will be left behind when Kaka graduates...or perhaps he dies again...

NOTES:

The fuchsia-colored cougar..1998 called and wants its bad CG animals back.

Brainy complains "everytime I try to use one of these things--" about vending machine troubles--a callback to season four's "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"--the episode where he was at the hospital while he (and others) waited for the outcome of the Forgotten Marginalized Man's surgery.

Olivia Nikkanen continues to be good casting as college-age Alex, not only in facial features, but how well Nikkanen has studied certain vocal patterns of Chyler Leigh. On the other hand, Izabela Vidovic's teen Kara never worked in performance (or appearance), playing it like someone told her to "just act like Melissa" instead of trying to get into what makes the actress tick when playing the character.

GRADE: C.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/supergirl-showrunners-spin-off-series-020000131.html

I don't actually expect this to happen, but it would be wonderful if it did.

 

I think it sounds wonderful. But would be skeptical if they could generate enough stories within established continuity to do a full series. Probably better to do a limited series like is happening with Obi Wan Kenobi. Also that the 2 younger actress are college age right now.

There are certainly places to see them in the Arrowverse again. Why not episodes of Legends? That is my biggest annoyance with that show. They could explore the history of the Arrowverse. Would not have to be every episode. But they barely ever do it at all.

 

I barely noticed that Benoist was completely absent from this episode. Vidovic and Nikkanen are both dead-on, uncanny as young Kara and Alex, and young Cat was perfectly cast too.

There was another familiar face, though I didn't recognize him until I saw the guest credits. Kenny Li was played by Peter Sudarso, who was Preston, the Blue Ranger in Power Rangers Ninja Steel a few years back.

Overall, a pretty fun episode, and almost Legends-like in how unerringly and immediately the time travelers screw up everything they promised themselves not to screw up. One thing that doesn't work for me, though, is how cartoonishly over-the-top the alien hunter is.

As for the cougar in Nia's vision... I was expecting her to start humming Henry Mancini rather than singing Dolly Parton, since a cougar is also known as a panther, and that one was decidedly pink.

 

The AV Club's well-observed and very positive review:

https://tv.avclub.com/a-stellar-supergirl-time-travels-back-to-high-school-1846777228

As always, the comments are worth checking out as well; the AV Club has a cool and clever readership (says guy who reads AV Club).

 

It's a shame that Kinja has just been getting worse and worse, or else I'd still be commenting there instead of lurking. Damn thing won't even log in successfully.

 

Is Cat Grant supposed to be a lot younger than Callista Flockhart?

I liked the episode too, it had a nice vibe and chemistry, I think getting away from the whole DEO and Luthors was a nice respite. I found myself much more invested in Brainy and Nia than I can remember.

I was waiting for a Pink Panther reference of some sort myself.

 

It is rather hard to believe she went from gossip columnist to owner of a worldwide media empire in just six years. Maybe it's a post-Crisis thing.

 

Remember this is only 5 years before season one of Supergirl

 

^Six years. It's 2009.

 

My bad. I thought Supergirl started in 2014.
Cat did quite well to go from a reporter to the head of her own magazine in only 6 years.
I did like that they had Dreamer use a iPhone 11/12 while Kara was using a 3G.

 

I don't think Kara's birthday supports her still being in high school in 2009.

 

She was thirteen when she left Krypton, and season one starts eleven years after she arrived on Earth, so she was 24 in 2015, so in 2009 she'd be 18 (give or take), exactly the right age to be going to senior Prom and getting ready to head to college. Even if the back-of-the-envelope math they did to find the date isn't correct, an inter-planetary adoption and eleven years of suspended animation means she doesn't have to strictly line up with the school-year cutoff dates.

 

My math says that Kara would be 19 (not 18) in 2009, which is old for a neurotypical person to still be in HS, but then I realized that she probably wouldn't have started her formal public education on Earth until the fall of 2003 (most probably as a 7th Grader), which would put her still in HS in 2009.

 

After this initial run of seven episodes, Supergirl will not be returning for its final 13 until August 24:

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/...-and-returning-favorites-552215/20210429cw01/

What the actual hell, CW?

 

Not having watched the show at all this year, I decided to give this one a go as I feel 'Midvale' is the show's absolute best episode. This isn't nearly as introspective and self-reflective (or otherwise self-aware), but it's still a lot of fun.

While the two key actors continue to hold their own, I thought the one doing young Cat falls way too far on the caricature side of things. Maines was definitely the star.

Also, who makes a 'fortress' out of a loft in a barn? That's so 2009.

 

Not quite as good as the first part -- a little less comedy, a little more plot mechanics -- but still half of the best couple of hours of Supergirl in a long time.

I thought Chyler Leigh's direction was perhaps most evident in Izabela Vidovic's performance; she's always been great as young Kara, but I felt tonight she invoked Benoist's mannerisms and delivery more frequently and perfectly than ever before.

 

Supergirl - The Final Season
Season 6 - episode 6 - "Prom Again!"

Teen Kara / Younger Alex: The problem with most time travel stories is that the writers abuse the "if they only knew" trope when a character (in the past) speaks as if they have a completely different future and/or hope when the audience knows its not happening, so any character interaction based on that holds no weight for the story being told. Here, Teen Kara referring to Kenny as one of her town's perks as if she's staying was one of those abused tropes, along with Kenny's quickie decision to find himself / not attend National College.

Professor Naxim Tork: Far too cartoonish; he reminded me of the kind of "villains" seen on shows produced by the Kroffts from the 1970s (e.g. Dr. Shrinker, Electra Woman and Dyna-Girl, etc.), which made camp characterizations look restrained by comparison.

CJ Grant: Plot Convenience 101 - Grant having anything close to a clue about what code to use in order to open the entrance to Naxim Tork's ship. That's more than simply stumbling her way to the code, since she was behaving as if it was something simple enough for a human to even comprehend.

Nia going on and on and on about Grant's future in a way that threatens any attempt to avoid altering the future. It made Nia seem like an obsessed fan who could not keep her mind on the specifics of the mission.

NOTES:
The meteor FX...six years in and this series' FX is still so low rent.

Next week: the mid-season finale.

GRADE: C-.

 

Though Brainy and Nia reset things, now wonder if Cat Grant put 2 & 2 together and knew Kara was Supergirl from the very start?

 

Poor Kenny.