Supergirl - Season Four

[Romulan_spy]

He's just a murderer who faces no legal consequences. J'onn and Supergirl both know that, yet no action Is taken against him (because he's the showrunners' proxy prosecutor of the pro-immigration issue). This is not like MCU's Bucky while under Hydra's mind control, so one could argue that his taking life was not his fault. No, Manchester Black is simply a mass murderer, and all of tears shed for his girlfriend do not justify that...but again, I'm guessing he will never face any legal consequence for that.

We don't know that Manchester Black will never face consequences. It is still very early. Kara and J'onn only just now learned of his crimes. There are plenty of episodes left for Kara and/or J'onn to confront him. We've seen other villains get killed or arrested for their crimes. It is probable that Kara and J'onn will confront him and stop him. They clearly don't approve of his actions.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yep, J'onn and Supergirl learned of Manchester Black's crimes only in the last few minutes of the most recent episode. I think it's quite a bit too soon to be making proclamations about whether he will face justice!

As to why J'onn was so emotional at the end of the episode, I assumed he might still be suffering from the effects of the empathy amplifier thingie.

 

[Christopher]

The problem where Manchester is concerned is that their only evidence that he committed the murders is J'onn's telepathic contact with him. I doubt they could get any judge to issue an arrest warrant based on psychic impressions. And since Manchester is human, he'd be outside the DEO's jurisdiction.

Then again, he is guilty of abetting an assault on Supergirl, so he could probably be charged with that.

 

[The Realist]

Do you really think Manchester Black will spend even a moment in a court, jail or just in handcuffs for being what amounts to a serial killer?

Actually, I do -- either that or end up dying as his penance. I suppose we shall see who's right as the season unfolds.

Not at all. I don't support murder, but Gambi was acting in the service of protecting people who had their lives changed by his participation in the ASA/Green Light program, which is quite different than some guy running around murdering people for purely self-serving reasons having nothing to do with a greater problem (and he's not really making that argument, either), though the showrunners are using him as the stand-in for their feelings about anti-immigration advocates.

Your bias is still showing. The people Black is killing are not innocent "anti-immigration advocates," but violent domestic terrorists who are attacking people on the street, assaulting families in their homes, and bombing public property. Black's main target, Lockwood, is not only the organizer and instigator of all this, but a hands-on murderer himself several times over. If killing Proctor is defensible, I don't see how Lockwood and his Children of Liberty are meaningfully different.

I interpreted it the other way.

I took the line to mean she felt she had abandoned her detachment and dispassion in response to Adam's emotional plea, and thereby doomed him.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I took the line to mean she felt she had abandoned her detachment and dispassion in response to Adam's emotional plea, and thereby doomed him.

I really don't think she believes that opening up to him altered the experiment.

 

[dahj]

Most baddies on these superhero shows only get the "getting caught" part of the due process.

It's assumed that once their villainy is foiled the proper legal proceedings happen off-screen, so frankly I find the insistence that he must be show arrested, tired and incarcerated in this instance kinda bizzare.

 

[The Realist]

I really don't think she believes that opening up to him altered the experiment.

Specifically, she had intended to halt the experiment, but acceded to his emotional urging to continue. In doing so, she abandoned her objectivity -- i.e., "moved the spider."

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Specifically, she had intended to halt the experiment, but acceded to his emotional urging to continue. In doing so, she abandoned her objectivity -- i.e., "moved the spider."

Yeah, I understand what you're saying, but I don't think it really makes sense as any kind of analogy.

First of all, Lena doubted the whole time that she would be improving Adam's position. It's probably why she didn't want to get emotionally involved, and the reason she stopped the experiment in the first place was because she was concerned for the harm it was going to do to him. Further, the conditions of the spider thought-experiment involved being unable to communicate with it to know what it wanted, which was not the case with Lena and Adam. She didn't make a decision for Adam without any communicated input from Adam himself. Moving the spider in the thought-experiment meant making a judgment that the person would be improving the spider's position or in other words heroically saving it, without knowing what it was that the spider wanted. None of that was analogous to going ahead with Adam's experiment.

Maybe what you're saying is how the writers intended it to be heard, but I thought it made more sense to suppose the intended meaning was that Lena's instincts were to try to save the spider all along.

I mean, here's a different analogy. If you think of the spider as "humanity" and the bathtub danger as "alien presence" and lifting the spider out of the tub as being "leveling the playing field by giving humans super powers," then I think it makes a lot more sense. It describes Lena's motivations to a tee.

 

[The Realist]

^ Well-argued, and certainly the line is ambiguous enough that differing interpretations are possible. Still, the fact that your reading requires detailing at such length works against it to me. Lena is speaking from an emotional place of guilt and regret, not delivering an intellectual thesis statement. The point is, "I broke my own rule, and you died." At least that's what makes emotional and character sense to me.

 

[thribs]

We all know Black gets his ass handed to him by Superman later on. I wouldn’t worry.
I remember that was the case for Lena in Smallville but I don’t remember her goring a half sister in this.

 

[Guy Gardener]

A child that did nothing while her mother died.

Inaction.

35 years of guilt.

Bio-Mommy is the spider.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

A child that did nothing while her mother died.

Inaction.

35 years of guilt.

Bio-Mommy is the spider.

Good read, dude. Maybe that's where she came up with the idea that she and Adam gave the same answer? Not on a screening test in her case, but during the event of the death of her mother?

 

[Guy Gardener]

We all know Black gets his ass handed to him by Superman later on. I wouldn’t worry.
I remember that was the case for Lena in Smallville but I don’t remember her goring a half sister in this.

Manchester black is human.

He can't fight Superman "well".

It's not like there's someone on the show right now trying to give a human being invincibility, so that Manchester can hold his own in a fight against a Kryptonian or a Martian in a fair fight.



(Agent Liberty is going to get powers first, but then Manchester gets powers to fight Agent Liberty, who is moments away from murdering Supergirl.)

 

[Christopher]

I just figured out why Adam was called that by the writers. It ties into the episode title, "Rather the Fallen Angel." They're both from a line in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the Creature's monologue to his creator: "Remember that I am thy creature, I ought to by thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed." I guess the reference was to the Frankensteinian nature of Lena's experiment, although it's maybe that Lena sees herself as fallen. Although the title could also reference Manchester turning out to be less angelic than J'onn and Kara thought, and even James almost sacrificing his reputation and/or his principles. I love a meaty, literate title with multiple meanings.

 

[dahj]

^^
Ellis Island is also called Shelley Island here.

 

[Finn]

Alright..Adam definitely has brown eyes


Anyway nice episode

 

[DigificWriter]

^^
Ellis Island is also called Shelley Island here.

Shelley Island is basically the West-Coast version of Ellis Island, but designed to process literal aliens.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Actually, I do -- either that or end up dying as his penance. I suppose we shall see who's right as the season unfolds.

At best, he might find himself temporarily in cuffs or in cell, only to escape and never face justice of any kind, and I seriously doubt he will die..

Your bias is still showing. The people Black is killing are not innocent "anti-immigration advocates," but violent domestic terrorists

That's no bias--unless its yours as you are using the actions of Liberty's group to justify Black committing murder. He has no right or authority to take the life of anyone else, butthanks to his girlfriend's death, he is playing judge, jury and executioner, and was willing to sacrifice Supergirl to continue his bloody, campaign of mass murder. ...and before anyone argues that he "rescued" Supergirl, he could not know just how, when, or the timing of the planned explosion, which means he did not care about her life, until that ham-fisted, last-second shooting of the devices.

If killing Proctor is defensible, I don't see how Lockwood and his Children of Liberty are meaningfully different.[/quite]

Proctor and his organization are part of that world's government, which abused its authority to experiment on the innocent; Gambi's actions are only based on his direct participation in the programs and an attempt to stop what he helped set into motion. He's taking the responsible position short of trying to expose the program through political means, which I'm guessing he knows will go nowhere (as most are in the same bed). He's not some self-serving mass murderer. On the other hand, Manchester Black is not doing anything in the service of justice by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[The Realist]

^ Not trying to justify Black's actions, just noting that your moral condemnation is inconsistent depending on series/murderer/target -- even where, as I pointed out, the targets on both shows richly "deserve" killing. And no, that doesn't mean I condone it; it just means defending and justifying Gambi while damning Black is moral hair-splitting at best. They're both playing judge, jury, and executioner on people who are themselves murderers and monsters.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

^ Nope.

You're using false equivalencies to support MB's mass murders. Gambi is trying to clean up a problem he was involved with--that's just part of atonement. Black is just a revenge-minded killer. The only bias present is the showrunners using MB as their fantasy reaction to anti-immigration advocates, and I'm not just talking about a stand against Liberty types, but anyone, since there has not been an honestly balanced, in-series debate about the subject (and there needs to be) since the Lockwood "origin" episode.