Spoilers "Supergirl": the 6th and final season

[Romulan_spy]

The big forcefield dome seemed like a metaphor for the covid quarantine with the Superfriends arguing that it was necessary for public safety and the governor arguing it was an infringement on civil liberties. We got the same debate with the covid quarantine.

 

[The Realist]

Overall, I’m sad that this once very good show is limping to the finish line with by far its worst season.

Dunno about "by far" -- I thought last season was a poorly conceived mess also -- but yeah, it's sad to see. If the show had ended after its excellent fourth season, I would have mourned its premature passing. Now, it feels like a mercy killing.

The big forcefield dome seemed like a metaphor for the covid quarantine with the Superfriends arguing that it was necessary for public safety and the governor arguing it was an infringement on civil liberties. We got the same debate with the covid quarantine.

I got a little of that too, though it was too abstract and filtered through too much sci-fi silliness to really land.

 

[The Habs Fan]

Dunno about "by far" -- I thought last season was a poorly conceived mess also -- but yeah, it's sad to see. If the show had ended after its excellent fourth season, I would have mourned its premature passing. Now, it feels like a mercy killing.

I liked season 5, but it definitely was not as strong as season 4. It did have It’s A Super Life, which is up there with the best episodes of the series IMO. Season 6 has nothing approaching top 10 Supergirl episodes.

 

[The Realist]

I liked the Midvale time travel two-parter this season, and I also thought the episode a few weeks ago involving the courage totem was enjoyable and funny -- not top-ten stuff by any means, but a solidly entertaining hour. But that's three episodes out of 16 (so far), which is not an inspiring average.

 

[Christopher]

The stuff with Nia and Maeve was cool, aside from the "dream plains" set, which looked kind of cool and creative at first, but quickly started to feel very stagey, like one of those minimalist sets from third-season Star Trek or second-season Lost in Space.

The stuff with the dome made no sense. Why couldn't they just put the dome around the nuclear plant instead of the whole city? I hate it when a story requires the characters to overlook a totally obvious solution in order to manufacture a needless dilemma.

They tried to make Lex's appearance at the end a surprise, but they gave it away with Jon Cryer's guest credit at the top of Act 1, and of course it was obvious last week that it was Lex's armor forming around Nyxly. Also, Peta Sergeant did a good job mimicking Lex's speech rhythms with her "I am you" voice from the gauntlet, so I could tell it was really him speaking (though I don't know how he knew about her secret crush).

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

hey definitely seem to be removing all things holding Supergirl to this time so that she can join Mon-El in the future (my finale prediction).

That was my long-running prediction for her fate, and the reason she's never mentioned on Superman and Lois by anyone who should know her.

William and Andrea are main characters that shouldn’t be main characters anymore. Everything with them is forced and shoehorned in because they need to be in almost every episode.

Andrea is yet another character who was dropped into this series and has too many irons in the fire to be believed. Dey was merely the showrunner mouthpiece for their childish / placed on a pedestal worship of journalists. There's not a thing he's said that either rang true to real world behavior / beliefs, or saying anything usually covered by J'onn.

Why does Brainy have to be green because William is at the tower but Alex makes no effort to disguise herself? Makes no sense.

Something else that should have been hammered to the writers' room door.

 

[The Realist]

The stuff with the dome made no sense. Why couldn't they just put the dome around the nuclear plant instead of the whole city?

Good point. You're clearly putting more thought into the show than the writers do at this point.

For that matter, they could have just confined the monster itself in a forcefield cage until they figured out how to deal with it (it evidently couldn't penetrate it, and it didn't go invisible till after the forcefield was deployed).

 

[David cgc]

Interesting behind-the-scenes note, apparently J'onn has been in CG Martian form again during action scenes the past couple of episodes because David Harewood injured his achilles' tendon playing tennis.

 

[Commander Troi]

The stuff with Nia and Maeve was cool, aside from the "dream plains" set, which looked kind of cool and creative at first, but quickly started to feel very stagey, like one of those minimalist sets from third-season Star Trek or second-season Lost in Space.

I kept expecting to see Gem.

The stuff with the dome made no sense. Why couldn't they just put the dome around the nuclear plant instead of the whole city? I hate it when a story requires the characters to overlook a totally obvious solution in order to manufacture a needless dilemma.

I actually thought that's what they did until everyone got bitchy about it.

They tried to make Lex's appearance at the end a surprise, but they gave it away with Jon Cryer's guest credit at the top of Act 1, and of course it was obvious last week that it was Lex's armor forming around Nyxly. Also, Peta Sergeant did a good job mimicking Lex's speech rhythms with her "I am you" voice from the gauntlet, so I could tell it was really him speaking (though I don't know how he knew about her secret crush).

It's a damn shame when the villains are more fun to watch than the heroes.

It sucks David injured himself, but I was happy to see J'onn's Martian form again, as well as right-out-of-comics blonde & green Brainy.

How soon is the finale?

 

[The Realist]

How soon is the finale?

The last two episodes are scheduled to air as a two-hour "event" on November 9.

 

[Christopher]

It's a damn shame when the villains are more fun to watch than the heroes.

Really? The conventional wisdom in entertainment is that villains are usually more fun to watch (or to play) than heroes, since they can cut loose and ham it up more. Personally I've never bought that that has to be the case (who's more fun to watch, Bugs Bunny or Elmer Fudd?), but it is fairly common -- e.g. Gene Hackman vs. Christopher Reeve in Superman: The Movie, or Jack Nicholson vs. Michael Keaton in Batman '89.

 

[theenglish]

After a bit of an uptick the last couple of episodes, this latest installment hits a series low for me. It was an exercise in how poorly beloved characters can be written. The solutions that Alex and James' sister (who has never become an interesting character for me) come up with to help the girl were just amateur--obviously written by someone who doesn't understand children or parents. The scene with J'onn helping negotiate a peace agreement was even farther out there than Lex's trial at the beginning of the season. There have been three episodes I have enjoyed this season (counting the Prom as one episode). I am so disappointed in this final meandering and directionless season. What a lesson in running a beloved show that started with great characters and relationships deep into the ground.

 

[Commander Troi]

Really? The conventional wisdom in entertainment is that villains are usually more fun to watch (or to play) than heroes, since they can cut loose and ham it up more. Personally I've never bought that that has to be the case (who's more fun to watch, Bugs Bunny or Elmer Fudd?), but it is fairly common -- e.g. Gene Hackman vs. Christopher Reeve in Superman: The Movie, or Jack Nicholson vs. Michael Keaton in Batman '89.

Sorry, I wrote that poorly. I meant more that I was excited to see those actors (Peta and Jon) because 1) the episode was SO BAD and 2) at least they seem to be *trying* to sell these lousy lines.

 

[dupersuper]

I was happy to finally see some closure with Mia and her sister.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Supergirl - The Final Season
Season 6 - episode 17 - "I Believe in a Thing Called Love"*

SG: Soo, SG claimed the city had never been more vulnerable? Yep, so much for Dollar Store CW-Crisis being the "big event" that had to involve everyone....

SG also said Lena never had anyone to pull her back when she went too far. Yes folks, James is so marginalized the writers forgot he was the one character who questioned her decisions. What an inspirational, important guy, that James.

Future Lex / Nyxlygsptlnz: Yeah, yeah, the Infinity Totems saga limps along. ...and at the end of it all, the constant "doomsday" chatter about the totems was never Nyxlygsptinz's motivation: wanting to commit patricide is, which renders the totem's threat (as they will never be used in a way to justify the claims of the main characters) as rather limp.

Peta Sergeant seems to only have one emotional state (mustache-twirling "eeeeviiill") for this character, which makes her quite uninteresting.

Sigh, Lex is from the future, so he would have access to anything he needed to kill all of the not-so-super-friends, and frankly, he would not need Nyxlygsptinz's Totem scheme to accomplish that task. The side benefit is that his destroying her enemies alone (without aiding her plans) would impress her...not necessarily soften her heart toward him in the romantic sense, but it would have been a major start. Ahh, but inferior writers level-up a character with the greatest of all advantages, and he does not use it when he needed to.
...and if they're saving that for the next episode, it will make Lex appear to be off of his game for not doing what was necessary from the start. Way to go, Supergirl writers' room.

Alex/Kelly: Dey saying Alex and Kelly's relationship is "one of the strongest i've ever seen" (SEE NOTES).

Esme's "you had the same plan. it's fate!" Errgh., could any line be so forced? Yep, but there's no time to dwell on that, since the love totem has taken root in Esme's neck. You'd probably make easy money betting this will lead to some declaration of love that controls the totem or uses it against Lex and Nyxlygsptinz.

Brainy: Its about time Brainy contacted the Legion....or Mon-El (the guy Brainy has pent-up resentment of) in time for the series finale.

NOTES:
Kelly and Alex's romance was and remains completely unbelievable, as there was never any remotely realistic chemistry between the two, which made Chyler Leigh's constant, breathless pronouncements of love come off as so obviously forced--saying it because the script said so. That slapped-together relationship only existed to serve a purpose, one that was never going to have anything to do with Kelly as a black American, which should have informed her character's decisions--including her relationship--all along, but in typical Berlanti fashion, that was not going to unfold in that terrible Very Special Episode. As usual, a black character is a token--there to serve other purposes, leaving the character as little more than a manipulated shell.

GRADE: D-

 

[The Habs Fan]

I liked this episode more than the last few, although it was still plagued by the same logic problems Supergirl has had all season long.

I’m a bit confused by Lex. He went to the 31st century, fell in love with Nyxly who had the AllTotem. She died somehow and he missed her so he came back to the present to help her? If so, couldn’t helping her mean he changes the timeline and she doesn’t get the AllTotem? I actually liked the twist that this Lex had a relationship with Nyxly in the future and it changed him, but there are some holes that hopefully will get answered.

I liked the double proposal between Alex and Kelly, but I feel like Alex and Maggie had way more chemistry and that relationship was a huge missed opportunity when they wrote Maggie off the show.

Anyway, this episode was the first Supergirl in a while to make me interested in where things are going (with the Lex plot mostly), so that alone makes it the best episode in a while.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not sure how I feel about the "Lex in love" angle, but I'm willing to see how it plays out. It does add an interesting new angle to the Nyxly story, which hasn't been all that compelling.

Bringing the 31st century and the Legion back into the story so close to the series finale lends credence to the conjecture that Supergirl will go to the future in the finale.

I felt Alex was kind of a jerk to step on Kelly's proposal so she could steal her thunder and propose first. It's not a competition!

I’m a bit confused by Lex. He went to the 31st century, fell in love with Nyxly who had the AllTotem. She died somehow and he missed her so he came back to the present to help her? If so, couldn’t helping her mean he changes the timeline and she doesn’t get the AllTotem?

The idea is to change the timeline so she doesn't die. I figure Lex just naturally assumes that having Lex Luthor's help will make her more certain to succeed in getting the AllTotem.

I liked the double proposal between Alex and Kelly, but I feel like Alex and Maggie had way more chemistry and that relationship was a huge missed opportunity when they wrote Maggie off the show.

As I recall, it was Floriana Lima's decision to leave the show in favor of a role in The Punisher season 2, so they had no choice but to write her out. I agree that it would be better if they hadn't, not only because Maggie and Alex had better chemistry, but because Lima's Punisher character was nowhere near as a good a role as Maggie.

 

[The Realist]

This was above average for the season, for what that's worth. Decent character work for most everybody. And of course, the return of Mr. Jon Cryer provided a welcome boost.

I started to get a weird feeling they might just pull this thing out, after all. The episode leaned hard into the notion of the show's "found family," with almost every character getting a beat of acknowledgment or recognition of how they could draw strength and confidence from their friends and allies -- in short, that they are "stronger together." That's a theme that was made explicit as far back as the show's second episode, and if the idea is to create a throughline from there to put a button on the entire series -- well, I've heard worse ideas.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I’m a bit confused by Lex. He went to the 31st century, fell in love with Nyxly who had the AllTotem. She died somehow and he missed her so he came back to the present to help her? If so, couldn’t helping her mean he changes the timeline and she doesn’t get the AllTotem?

He's a time traveler with the advantage of knowledge of events yet to unfold (for those in 2021), which means he's not obligated to follow any "law" (an abused, eye-roll-inducing sci-fi trope), but can reshape the past without engaging in the ridiculous totem plot to save her life. To that end, he has the ability to work behind the scenes to prevent Nyxlygsptinz from ever having the totem, which seemed to be the reason she died in the future. Again, when "writers" level-up a character with very specific powers but he fails to ever use them, its just another example of this series' constant lack of coherent plotting.

 

[David cgc]

Is it just me, or have Supergirl and J'onn been doing high-speed superhero landings rocketing out of the sky indoors a lot more often. I guess, thinking about it, J'onn might be phasing them through the ceiling, but it feels like a very weird thing for them to just drop into an enclosed room.