Spoilers Supergirl - Season 1

[Morpheus 02]

Just to "defend" Win's behavior...to a degree...

1) Jimmy ALEADY has a girlfriend, so for him to get too close to kara is a little shady

2) Win, in his mind, has been there for Kara, and clearly cared about her BEFORE her being SUpergirl. Jimmy, on the other hand, MAINLY came to National City BECAUSE of Supergirl, and his loyalty to Superman, not really at all about Kara the "normal" person.

3) He IS the son of supervillain (well a least a locked-up criminal) ...so this might be panting the seeds of him turning later on. And it' be a better motivation than his hair falling out.

Did Clark perhaps spend the 2 days doing extensive Sunbathing, hence the fast recharge? Now, this is a show my little girls watch , so me and my wife) are fine with not exploiting Ms.Benoist like that. But that's my theory...

 

[Christopher]

Just to "defend" Win's behavior...to a degree...

1) Jimmy ALEADY has a girlfriend, so for him to get too close to kara is a little shady

No, it isn't. Friends hug each other all the time. It's invalid to assume a hug between two people of opposite sexes can only be a romantic gesture.

2) Win, in his mind, has been there for Kara, and clearly cared about her BEFORE her being SUpergirl. Jimmy, on the other hand, MAINLY came to National City BECAUSE of Supergirl, and his loyalty to Superman, not really at all about Kara the "normal" person.

Not true, because James came to National City before Kara became Supergirl. It's kind of a coincidence that she happened to do it just after he arrived. Superman knew she might do something like that soon, and so he sent James to keep an eye on her, but at the time James learned about her and first met her, she was just Kara. And he clearly relates to her as who she really is, Kara, a Kryptonian with superpowers.

And it's none of Winn's business how they choose to interact anyway. He has no claim over her.

3) He IS the son of supervillain (well a least a locked-up criminal) ...so this might be panting the seeds of him turning later on.

Which is more or less my point -- that his behavior was not the action of a good guy, not a healthy, fair, or respectful way to respond to the situation.

Did Clark perhaps spend the 2 days doing extensive Sunbathing, hence the fast recharge? Now, this is a show my little girls watch , so me and my wife) are fine with not exploiting Ms.Benoist like that. But that's my theory...

We saw her in the DEO "tanning bed" in the opening montage. She got plenty of solar radiation, and we were told in dialogue that it was enough to recharge her cells. So that wasn't the problem. She just needed the extra jolt of adrenaline (or its Kryptonian equivalent) to "boot up" her powers again.

 

[Morpheus 02]

I don't believe I said that Win's behavior was "good"...but normal human behavior that "makes sense". Either he grows from it, or gets worse. Either way, it's seems "normal" to me, and will move the show's story in the long term, I think.

This makes a whole lot more sense than Ollie & Felicity getting together.

 

[davejames]

Winn definitely overreacted in that scene, but it still felt to me like a very human response born from frustration and jealousy that had been building up for months, and didn't strike me as being especially dark or "stalkery". And as others have said, sometimes people overreact and say and do stupid things when they're jealous.

And ultimately it wasn't any more over the top than most of the other melodramatic character moments on Berlanti's shows (where it seems like people are overreacting and blowing things out of proportion all the freakin time).

 

[Guy Gardener]

Their instinct to hug was normal, but because of the kilotons of muffled sexual attraction, their hug quickly became odd. They were feeling how odd that hug was beginning to feel, like they should maybe kiss to make the oddness go away, which is when Winn showed up.

Were they trying to loophole the girlfriend? No.

Did they blindly stumbled into an 8th of an orgasm by accident? Maybe.

Winn is not thinking clearly.

If he was smart with less character and questionable morals, he could probably use all this to sleep with Lucy if she is insecure and bat shit crazy.

"Your boyfriend is cheating on you emotionally with the girl I want to date. If you want to come out of this relationship head in points, we should revenge f### immediately."

 

[Trekker4747]

(Come to think of it, why didn't Kara text Clark and ask him how he dealt with this situation?)

Along similar lines, and this is a problem we'll run into often with this series, where was Superman during this crisis? Everyone in the city was bitching and moaning about where Supergirl was, but what of the man himself? Certainly a major disaster like this would call for ignoring any unwritten jurisdictional respect superheroes may have for one another. And certainly Supes would have gotten worried when he saw that Kara wasn't around, or knew she was suffering from Solar Energy Exhaustion and came to help.

Did Clark perhaps spend the 2 days doing extensive Sunbathing, hence the fast recharge? Now, this is a show my little girls watch , so me and my wife) are fine with not exploiting Ms.Benoist like that. But that's my theory...

We saw Kara sitting in a tanning booth-like contraption in the DEA headquarters, I'd suspect her clothes don't hinder any "absorption" of solar energy, assuming it's from radiation other than visible light it'd pass right through her clothes. If we ignore the adrenaline thing, it could just be that maybe she did expend more energy than Supes does in a "meltdown" or there's just something different about the way Kryptonian females manage solar energy. Similar to how human male and female metabolize and deal with certain things differently. (Like fat storage.) Or it could just be a metabolism of thing, some people can eat like a horse, not be very active and not gain much weight, others have to really watch their diet and exercise to maintain a desired weight. Kara's "solar metabolism" is different than Clark's.

It is a wonder though on how far the "solar energy" thing goes if we were to really analyze it. Is it like a battery with a maximum capacity and it takes two days for Superman to get to 100%? Then after that he's not taking in any more energy? Then wouldn't he gain some power back slowly over this time? Like, shouldn't he be somewhat invulnerable when his "battery" is at 50%? Or is it an "all or none" thing? He can't use his solar energy unless he's capped out and under normal circumstances his use of powers doesn't exceed his intake of energy? Meaning he really has to put the pedal to the floor to drain his battery and then it just blows it all out in wad like a.... Well, er...

Because if his absorption is uncapped then shouldn't it take him a lifetime to build up that level of strength again? I mean if it took him 30-years to reach a point and he blows it all out, then shouldn't it take him another 30 years to be back to that expended level?

I know, it's just a show, I should just relax.

I do thin Winn's action in this episode were pretty damn disgusting. There's jealousy and then there's being an asshole. He was being an asshole. Even if we grant him jealousy, what right does that give him to throw Kara's potential eternal loneliness in her face like that? And is it really *that* bad she gave a friend a friendly hug? That's was just pretty terrible behavior form him.

 

[dahj]

Along similar lines, and this is a problem we'll run into often with this series, where was Superman during this crisis?

In Metropolis.

I find it fascinating how after almost 80 years since the first comic book team up and the idea that superheroes live in a shared universe, people still dredge this up.

The titular hero of this show is Supergirl, it's her story.
Deal with it.

 

[Trekker4747]

Along similar lines, and this is a problem we'll run into often with this series, where was Superman during this crisis?

In Metropolis.

I find it fascinating how after almost 80 years since the first comic book team up and the idea that superheroes live in a shared universe, people still dredge this up.

The titular hero of this show is Supergirl, it's her story.
Deal with it.

Doesn't mean things are allowed to not make sense.

Deal with it.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I was thinking that maybe her desire for a normal life (expressed last episode) was psychosomatically blocking her powers from returning, but they didn't go there.

I like the idea of her power levels varying with expenditure rather than her powers just shutting off...that would give the writers a lot of leeway when it comes to depicting how powerful she is. Something that wouldn't have been a challenge to her last week can be one this week because of what she did last week, or because of something she did between episodes.

 

[urbandefault]

This was the first time in her life she'd depleted her "solar battery." Maybe she'll recharge faster from now on, maybe she won't expend all her energy at once, maybe this, maybe that. They'll work it all out as the show goes on.

 

[dahj]

Doesn't mean things are allowed to not make sense.

It would make less sense to have an episode where Kara chillaxes sunbathing while Superman deals with the quake.

The whole theme of the episode was reliance of humans on heroes, and reliance of Kara on her powers. If Superman was there neither of those topics would have been addressed and Kara would learn nothing.

Sometimes you just gotta accept that there's no room for pure logic in comic books and related shows. The price of having a Justice League is that you don't ask questions why Superman doesn't help Batman all the time in his standalone series...

If you really do need an on-screen reason, Superman said a few episodes earlier he's gonna butt out of her business because he believes in her. So you can just assume he trusted her that she'll handle it. Which she did. So there.

 

[The Old Mixer]

chillaxes

Is that what the youngsters are saying these days? Makes me picture a frozen melee weapon....

 

[dahj]

Makes me picture a frozen melee weapon....

That's what one of Captain Cold's medieval ancestors used.

 

[Christopher]

Winn definitely overreacted in that scene, but it still felt to me like a very human response born from frustration and jealousy that had been building up for months, and didn't strike me as being especially dark or "stalkery". And as others have said, sometimes people overreact and say and do stupid things when they're jealous.

Which was my original point, one that I may have drifted away from a bit. It was stupid. As I said, there was a time in high school when I did a similarly stupid thing and ruined a great friendship. So I'm afraid Winn has poisoned things with Kara and may not be able to walk it back fully. Even though she tried to give him another chance, the same level of trust might not be there anymore. Particularly since Winn seems to believe that he's the one who's been wronged by her, which is the stalkery part. He's being a possessive, judgmental jerk and acting like he's the victim there. At least I recognized what a stupid thing I'd said to my friend and tried to apologize. Winn seems to think Kara needs to apologize to him, and that's going to be a problem if he doesn't recognize his mistake.

Along similar lines, and this is a problem we'll run into often with this series, where was Superman during this crisis? Everyone in the city was bitching and moaning about where Supergirl was, but what of the man himself? Certainly a major disaster like this would call for ignoring any unwritten jurisdictional respect superheroes may have for one another. And certainly Supes would have gotten worried when he saw that Kara wasn't around, or knew she was suffering from Solar Energy Exhaustion and came to help.

It would be nice to have occasional references to Superman being busy dealing with a crisis of his own in Metropolis, or being off-planet for a few days, or something. It'd be easy enough to have a talking head on Cat's TV wall saying something about it in the background of a scene.

I do thin Winn's action in this episode were pretty damn disgusting. There's jealousy and then there's being an asshole. He was being an asshole. Even if we grant him jealousy, what right does that give him to throw Kara's potential eternal loneliness in her face like that? And is it really *that* bad she gave a friend a friendly hug? That's was just pretty terrible behavior form him.

Yeah... I was just rewatching, and it was pretty contradictory. "I'm not-so-secretly in love with you and want to be with you, so I'm going to express my jealousy by pointing out that you can never be with any human." Does he somehow not recognize the logic flaw there? And human or not, telling someone "You will spend the rest of your life alone and unloved" is kind of the nuclear option, so it's really a disproportionate response to being upset about an ambiguously friendly hug.

I was thinking that maybe her desire for a normal life (expressed last episode) was psychosomatically blocking her powers from returning, but they didn't go there.

Except that for her, a normal life is Kryptonian. Humanity isn't normal by her definition. It's an alien culture she's assimilated into by denying her heritage. So I don't think her psyche would react that way.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Yeah, but not having powers would bring her closer to life on Krypton.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

And ultimately it wasn't any more over the top than most of the other melodramatic character moments on Berlanti's shows (where it seems like people are overreacting and blowing things out of proportion all the freakin time).

The point was that his jealousy is born from seeing what the audience is meant to: there's something more than a close friendship going on between James and Kara. Right now, it might not be romance, but its certainly not in the friend zone Winn occupies.

I do thin Winn's action in this episode were pretty damn disgusting. There's jealousy and then there's being an asshole. He was being an asshole. Even if we grant him jealousy, what right does that give him to throw Kara's potential eternal loneliness in her face like that? And is it really *that* bad she gave a friend a friendly hug? That's was just pretty terrible behavior form him.

Berlanti seems to be stretching this out: that "hug" scene was originally shot with dialogue cut from the episode, as seen in this promo starting @ 1:45--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtaaip6veYY

The dialogue--

Kara: "I don't wanna let go."
James: "I don't want to, either"

--as originally shot, it was probably observed by Winn, and thus provided an additional reason for his loser outburst. But cutting it, the show is either stretching out a potential romance, or not wanting to imply it at all at this point. Then again, Mechad Brooks would not confirm or deny where the relationship was going (the link a few pages back), so...

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, but not having powers would bring her closer to life on Krypton.

Which was 12-13 years ago for her. She's lived half her life with powers on Earth. The powers are the link to her Kryptonian heritage, the side of herself that she hid while pretending to be human. I can't see her being comforted by losing all that's left of her home and being stuck with only her adopted facade.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Subconscious desires can express themselves in funny ways that defy conscious logic. Just look at dreams.

 

[Christopher]

I think that if the delay in the return of her powers was due to some psychological yearning to be human, then it would've been acknowledged as such in the episode. And she did make it pretty clear in "Red Faced" that living among humans will never feel entirely normal to her. I like that aspect of her; it's her memory of her life on Krypton, her identification with that life, that makes her distinct from Superman, who's only known life among humans since infancy. The "hero wishes to be human" trope is enough of a cliche as it is, and I think it would be wrongheaded to force it onto Kara. It's more interesting seeing her subvert that cliche.

Not to mention the immigrant/refugee allegory. Portraying a refugee character secretly craving to assimilate entirely and abandon her original identity and heritage strikes me as being rather ill-considered.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I think that if the delay in the return of her powers was due to some psychological yearning to be human, then it would've been acknowledged as such in the episode.

Which brings this full circle, as it started when I said that I thought that her power blockage would be psychosomatic, but acknowledged that the episode didn't go there.