Spoilers Supergirl - Season 3

[ihno]

It is a bit problematical. The original idea was that Jor-El could only save his infant son because he didn't have time to build more than a small prototype rocket.

Yes and that made perfect sense.
Unfortunately when prequel/sequeling filmmakers get back to those scenes from original material to recreate them they forget to take a look at the reason behind the original scene and think "THAT'S how they do space travel" or "The audience would be confused if it looks different!"

If Kryptonians had a bunch of these one-person interstellar spacecraft, it's hard to understand why they didn't have anything bigger and why there weren't already a bunch of Kryptonians off-planet at the time it exploded.

Yeah, hmmm... Well, the new Krypton series will explain all of that or not... since it plays hundreds of years in the past.

btw I always found the line "I was sent to protect my cousin" from the season 1 trailer a bit odd. Wouldn't their parents put her in that ship to survive in the first place and then - maybe - take care of her nephew?

 

[Ovation]

btw I always found the line "I was sent to protect my cousin" from the season 1 trailer a bit odd. Wouldn't their parents put her in that ship to survive in the first place and then - maybe - take care of her nephew?

Probably told her that to give her motivation to climb into the thing. Twelve year olds can be stubborn creatures—I know because I’m on my second one.

 

[ihno]

Probably told her that to give her motivation to climb into the thing. Twelve year olds can be stubborn creatures—I know because I’m on my second one.

Have fun.

Maybe it was a total different reason and it was a punishment because she had been caught shoplifting or doing something nasty, so she had to take the journey for a round of nephew-babysitting as punishment but she leaves those details out. "I had to protect my cousin because I'm so trustworthy!" That's something that children do too.

 

[Reverend]

I think the general explanation in most versions for why such an advanced civilisation as Krypton didn't have any means of mass interstellar flight is that it's a *very* old civilisation. Meaning that they did the whole "explore the stars" thing eons ago and have long since pulled back and become somewhat isolationist. In which case what Jor-El actually did was recreate something that had *long* fallen out of use.

IIRC the 90's animated show had his plan being to evacuate everyone into the phantom zone, then use the pod to send one person (presumably himself) to a new homeworld with the projector and let everyone back out on the other side. But the council shut him down and he ran out of time.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Supergirl--
"Reign"

SG/Kara: Enough with the longing for Mon-El; he has a life, and considering how he spent years in the futut, should understand he's moved on...well, if the series does not screw up Mon-El's life just to "gift" him back to her.

"there's no such thing as the devil" Yeah, that's a mindset that's really working. Interesting how both she and Reign come off as atheists in this episode.

"the moment you start believing in something is when you give your power away" What kind of BS is that? Showrunner BS, that's what.

"Is she dead?" asks an onlooker. Oh, come on. This is Supergirl, not a series known for taking chances with series leads....well, this series lead.

Reign/World Killer: Reign's costume is horrible. For a second, I thought I was watching some nightmare combination of Halle Berry Catwoman mixed with the kind of costuming seen on cheap, syndicated superhero series of the early 90s.

Ruby's obsessive hero worship is annoying. Oh well, she will get what she's asking for after months of pestering her mother with said obsession.

Thomas Coville: Nutty as ever with his Kryptonian idolatry; his breathless prophecy--though relevant to the story--makes him seem less than believable. Chad Lowe should have played this in a more somber way, since he believes the end is near.

James & Lena: Although it was interesting to see, I have no faith that the flirtation/kiss/whatever else between James and Lena is real / will ever go anywhere that's not destructive. Considering the showrunner interests, I will not be shocked to see her pursue someone else (groan).

The Guardian sort of returns.

Morgan: It matters not how "evil" Morgan is supposed to be, but James, Lena, Kara and the rest lose all moral standing when they are not as dedicated to helping/protecting him as anyone else.

Mon-El / Saturn Girl: I'm suspecting the ship will be repaired thanks to some 31st century visitors.
Saturn Girl has no reason to placate Kara. She's entitled to her own life as Mon-El's wife.

Moreover, Mon-El should not be portrayed as awkward or regretting his choices, since he's not making some overnight booty call (like Alex), but he's in a real, developed relationship that existed longer the time he ever knew Kara.

J'onn: ...and why is J'onn (you know...a superhero) not taking to the streets/air to help uncover the Reign threat?

Alex: Her advice for Supergirl to "be alien"--in other words, forget any adopted humanity--has to be the most thoughtless, assbrained advice anyone could give to a super-powered being. Smells like SG will go through another "dark" phase (thanks to Alex) before someone has to bring her back to the light. If this series has a backbone, it will not be Mon-El (destroying his marriage).

NOTES:
The Legion finally named, but the team's inspiration altered from the printed origin.

I guess it will not be long before Braniac 5 shows up in 3B or 4, and its back to Teen Nicking, Legion style..

"Holiday party." Looks like a Christmas party to me....

Hall & Oates "Jinglebell Rock"--no. Just no.

The Reign action scenes were so erratic. The shaky camera business is so 80s, and was not effective at all.

As usual, the fight FX were terrible.

GRADE: C

 

[The Realist]

^ If the term "hate watch" didn't already exist, somebody would have to coin it for you and Supergirl. I'm tempted to wonder why you waste time each week watching and writing about a show for which you evidently feel nothing but scorn and disgust, but it's not my business to question your life choices.

 

[Christopher]

Weird that Ruby said Sam went on her trip "yesterday." Even aside from the fact that "Crisis on Earth-X" took 2-3 days in the interim, it's unlikely that such a long trip would take only a day. Although I suppose there could've been a time jump between that opening scene and the rest of the episode, considering that it's suddenly Christmas Eve. But that doesn't explain why the characters are only now getting exposition from Mon-El and Imra. It's like "Crisis" never happened.

Amy Jackson (Imra), meanwhile, is gorgeous, and has one of the sexiest, silkiest voices I've ever heard. I'm having trouble pinning down her specific accent, but her bio suggests there's some Liverpool in there, although a lot of her acting career has been in India. Anyway, I like their variation on the Legion's origin story. In the comics, the Legion was inspired by Superman's example from the history books. Having Mon-El create them following Supergirl's example is a nice variation. Although the dystopian, anarchic future they describe seems rather revisionist. Anyway, when do we get to see Saturn Girl in costume?

Speaking of "Crisis," that's two weeks in a row that we've seen a stunned Kara falling Earthward in slow motion. The first time, she fell clear from the edge of the atmosphere after being right next to a nuclear explosion, and that just dazed her for a bit (although Steel catching her at ground level somehow cushioned her fall, by comic-book logic). This time, she only got beat up and fell off a skyscraper and it almost killed her? Well, maybe she's still weakened from the previous fall.

Did anyone else have problems with the picture? There was extensive digital interference throughout for me, lots of posterization and images bleeding into each other and what I would've called static back in the analog days.

 

[The Realist]

A pretty good mid-season finale, I thought -- they've had stronger episodes this season, but the final battle was appropriately dramatic and brutal, and between the show's closing moments and the glimpse of the Legion flight rings in the preview, I'm already impatient for mid-January.

It's interesting to me how comfortable I've become with this season's darker tones, considering that the series' sunny optimism was one of the things I liked most about it. I think it may be because we've had enough time to become invested in the show and its characters so that the darkness has weight and meaning, and doesn't just feel like empty grim 'n' gritty posturing.

One thing that was weird, though, is that the episode seemed to follow directly from "Wake Up," as though "Crisis on Earth-X" never happened. The early DEO scene with the team talking to Mon-El and Imra about their backstory seemed to flow immediately from the scene at the end of "Wake Up" when Imra first regained consciousness, plus Ruby said Sam had just left on her trip the previous day. Seems sloppy to just ignore the whole event that way. (And I see that Christopher beat me to this observation, but what the hell, I wrote it so might as well post it.)

 

[DigificWriter]

I can't figure out if the writers want us to forget that we already saw a Legion Flight Ring in Superman's Fortress of Solitude, meaning that he's met them before and that they had to have existed BEFORE Mon-El went to the future, or if they themselves have forgotten that fact, but it's a little weird.

I don't know exactly how Reign was able to beat Kara up badly enough to make her bleed and put her on death's doorstep, but I don't really care; seeing Kara get the tar kicked out of her was intense as heck, and one of the craziest visuals I think any of the Arrowverse series have given us to date.

Speaking of Reign, I love her; she just might be my favorite Arrowverse villain to date, and there've been some pretty good ones. I was expecting to feel a bit more gut-punched when she first showed up due to the fact that immediately prior to her official arrival, we'd seen Kara telling Lena and Sam that they're her best friends and she's so glad to have them, but there ultimately wasn't as much connection between Sam and Reign as I thought there might be, and not enough of a 'transition' between the two personalities to really make things 'hurt', which is kind of sad and strange.

I don't know about anybody else, but I love James and Lena together, romantically or otherwise; I also love that James has a portable Guardian shield, although where he keeps it is a question I don't think we'll ever get the answer to.

I'm not sure why they chose to end the episode - and the mid-season - on Ruby potentially being in danger when a more effective 'cliffhanger' would've been Kara's health deteriorating, but that's really neither here nor there.

I really liked seeing Thomas Coville again; Chad Lowe is a great actor, and really brings just the perfect amount of creepiness to the character and his obsession with Supergirl/Kara.

Both of the posters ahead of me were confused by the timing of everything in regards to what happened on Earth-1 with "Crisis on Earth-X", but I personally didn't really see much of a discrepancy there due to the fact that we know that time doesn't move the same across the Multiverse.

Between Kara getting the crap beaten out of her and the impending official debut of the Legion, I really wish we didn't have to suffer a hiatus between now and January, but it is what it is.

 

[The Realist]

I can't figure out if the writers want us to forget that we already saw a Legion Flight Ring in Superman's Fortress of Solitude, meaning that he's met them before and that they had to have existed BEFORE Mon-El went to the future, or if they themselves have forgotten that fact, but it's a little weird.

Except that "before" doesn't really have much meaning in the context of a time travel scenario. Mon-El goes to future, creates Legion, then sometime later (from their perspective) they travel back in time to a point before Mon-El left and meet Superman. No contradiction or inconsistency there at all.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ At the point the Legion would have had to have met Superman, Mon-El and Kara wouldn't have even been on Earth yet (Mon-El would've been stuck in the Well of Stars and Kara would've been stuck in the Phantom Zone), so even going "it's time travel" doesn't make things less weird as far as the logistics and the Legion origin that both Mon-El and Imra told in tonight's episode, which is why I can't figure out if this is a retcon or a continuity error.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Given the vague rules of time travel perhaps Clark has not met them yet from Mon-El's perspective. If he regularly time traveled with a Legion ring like in the comics, Brainiac 5 has not evented that feature yet either. Otherwise they could have just sent Mon-El back in time to Kara.

 

[Christopher]

I can't figure out if the writers want us to forget that we already saw a Legion Flight Ring in Superman's Fortress of Solitude, meaning that he's met them before and that they had to have existed BEFORE Mon-El went to the future, or if they themselves have forgotten that fact, but it's a little weird.

The whole existence of time travel requires causality to go both ways, for an effect to appear to come "before" its cause, or for two observers to disagree about the order in which events occurred. If time travel exists, then "before" is relative and subjective, not an all-caps absolute.

After all, that Legion ship has been buried under the site of National City for 12,000 years. So we know that the thing Mon-El creates in the future has ripple effects extending into the past, long before the date when he went into the future. Heck, we've been seeing that dynamic in the Arrowverse since the early days of The Flash, since Barry's whole backstory involved a man from centuries in the future coming back in time to get revenge on him by killing his mother.

I don't know exactly how Reign was able to beat Kara up badly enough to make her bleed and put her on death's doorstep, but I don't really care; seeing Kara get the tar kicked out of her was intense as heck, and one of the craziest visuals I think any of the Arrowverse series have given us to date.

Well, that's pretty straightforward, isn't it? Two Kryptonians fighting would be like two humans fighting. The superpower advantage cancels out. The only thing that bugged me is that it didn't have more effect on the surrounding environment. Their punches should've created shock waves, like Kara's "Hulk clap" at the wedding last week.

 

[The Realist]

At the point the Legion would have had to have met Superman, Mon-El and Kara wouldn't have even been on Earth yet (Mon-El would've been stuck in the Well of Stars and Kara would've been stuck in the Phantom Zone), so even going "it's time travel" doesn't make things less weird as far as the logistics and the Legion origin that both Mon-El and Imra told in tonight's episode, which is why I can't figure out if this is a retcon or a continuity error.

It's neither. As noted, it doesn't matter a lick where the 21st century incarnations of Mon-El and Kara were at the point Mon-El presumably met Superman after traveling back in time from the 31st century -- just like it's not a contradiction that he has been in suspended animation aboard a disabled ship for 12,000 years before he ever arrived on Earth.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I'm kind of hoping Black Lightning will be set on Earth-38, partly to flesh out that universe a bit more, partly because BL was originally a Metropolis-based character with supporting cast in common with Superman (specifically Inspector Henderson, who's in the upcoming show). If that were the case, then maybe we could have a Supergirl/BL crossover next season with some of the Earth-1 characters getting involved too.

No need to be on Earth-38 when they can use a portal to create a portal to crossover whenever they need to.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Inconceivable. Kara was once able to beat his cousin Superman in a fist fight (and he was fighting at full strength), but she didn't stand a chance against Reign?!? Better alert the DEO and DOD to mobilize their Kryptonite WOMD, or National City - heck the whole planet - is in big trouble.

I don't see how this Sam/Reign character, whom we've seen in only a few episodes, gets to be on Kara's best friends list. Kara and Lena, I can understand, but they haven't known Sam long enough, not even the fact she's a Kryptonian killing machine.

Bah, humbug.

 

[DigificWriter]

It didn't really register with me until right now, but the Supergirl writers made a MAJOR change to the mythology of the Legion by having Mon-El be involved in its founding.

Never before in the history of the Legion as a property has anybody other than Imra, Garth, and Rokk been involved in its founding, across any medium in which the team has appeared.

 

[Samurai8472]

Supergirl--
"Reign"

SG/Kara: Enough with the longing for Mon-El; he has a life, and considering how he spent years in the futut, should understand he's moved on...well, if the series does not screw up Mon-El's life just to "gift" him back to her.

"there's no such thing as the devil" Yeah, that's a mindset that's really working. Interesting how both she and Reign come off as atheists in this episode.

"the moment you start believing in something is when you give your power away" What kind of BS is that? Showrunner BS, that's what.

"Is she dead?" asks an onlooker. Oh, come on. This is Supergirl, not a series known for taking chances with series leads....well, this series lead.

Reign/World Killer: Reign's costume is horrible. For a second, I thought I was watching some nightmare combination of Halle Berry Catwoman mixed with the kind of costuming seen on cheap, syndicated superhero series of the early 90s.

Ruby's obsessive hero worship is annoying. Oh well, she will get what she's asking for after months of pestering her mother with said obsession.

Thomas Coville: Nutty as ever with his Kryptonian idolatry; his breathless prophecy--though relevant to the story--makes him seem less than believable. Chad Lowe should have played this in a more somber way, since he believes the end is near.

James & Lena: Although it was interesting to see, I have no faith that the flirtation/kiss/whatever else between James and Lena is real / will ever go anywhere that's not destructive. Considering the showrunner interests, I will not be shocked to see her pursue someone else (groan).

The Guardian sort of returns.

Morgan: It matters not how "evil" Morgan is supposed to be, but James, Lena, Kara and the rest lose all moral standing when they are not as dedicated to helping/protecting him as anyone else.

Mon-El / Saturn Girl: I'm suspecting the ship will be repaired thanks to some 31st century visitors.
Saturn Girl has no reason to placate Kara. She's entitled to her own life as Mon-El's wife.

Moreover, Mon-El should not be portrayed as awkward or regretting his choices, since he's not making some overnight booty call (like Alex), but he's in a real, developed relationship that existed longer the time he ever knew Kara.

J'onn: ...and why is J'onn (you know...a superhero) not taking to the streets/air to help uncover the Reign threat?

Alex: Her advice for Supergirl to "be alien"--in other words, forget any adopted humanity--has to be the most thoughtless, assbrained advice anyone could give to a super-powered being. Smells like SG will go through another "dark" phase (thanks to Alex) before someone has to bring her back to the light. If this series has a backbone, it will not be Mon-El (destroying his marriage).

NOTES:
The Legion finally named, but the team's inspiration altered from the printed origin.

I guess it will not be long before Braniac 5 shows up in 3B or 4, and its back to Teen Nicking, Legion style..

"Holiday party." Looks like a Christmas party to me....

Hall & Oates "Jinglebell Rock"--no. Just no.

The Reign action scenes were so erratic. The shaky camera business is so 80s, and was not effective at all.

As usual, the fight FX were terrible.

GRADE: C

Yeah Reigns costume looks like something made in the 90s

 

[Christopher]

Inconceivable. Kara was once able to beat his cousin Superman in a fist fight (and he was fighting at full strength), but she didn't stand a chance against Reign?!?

Makes perfect sense to me. Kal-El and Kara are both normal Kryptonians. Reign was evidently genetically engineered by the pre-Rao cult to be the Worldkiller. So it stands to reason that she'd be more powerful than a normal Kryptonian, on top of the power gain from a yellow sun.

I don't see how this Sam/Reign character, whom we've seen in only a few episodes, gets to be on Kara's best friends list. Kara and Lena, I can understand, but they haven't known Sam long enough, not even the fact she's a Kryptonian killing machine.

Kara makes friends easily. And the fact that Sam is actually Kryptonian might've created a subconscious affinity between them. As the same species, they'd have the same pheromones and nonverbal somatic cues and so forth, so even without consciously knowing they were connected, they might just feel subliminally "right" to each other.

 

[Kirk Prime]

Again, this is something that Superman would be ready to help Kara with, yet it wasn't even suggested to give him a call?

I realize they dumbed down Superman to make Kara look good, but he's still Superman, and should still be able to provide a hell of a defense against Reign. Even if the nonsense of Kara beating Superman is acceptable, Reign beating BOTH of them badly would be hard to believe.