Supergirl - Season Four

Still no news about her Russian doppelgänger

 

Keep your enemies closer?

That would show a humpwhale worth on restraint to maintain a close friendship with Kara, while plotting the "neutralization" of Supergirl.

The line that bothered me this week.

Nia: "I know myself really, really well... Always have, but once in a generation, some of our women get this genetic Oneiromancy: They can dream the future."

Did the writing room just fuck up big time?

 

Yeah that was weird. Perhaps their alien transitioning surgeries are more advanced, but then again, if it fully turned you into the opposite gender, you wouldn’t be transgender.

 

also "once in a generation" implies that this happens once, but no, this psychic upgrade happens to "some" of their women, once in a generation. "Some" could be anywhere between 3 and 33 percent of the female population, considering that several generations generally coexist depending on the life span of the species and what constitutes a generation for that species.

The dictionary says that a generation is the length of time between birth and when you star having children, so a human generation is 20 to 30 years, meanwhile a horse starts squeezing out foals at four years old, so ymmv.

 

Disappointing episode last night. The whole vibe of the show is very off. This doesn't feel like it belongs in a Superman/Supergirl universe.

It's like the writers think they are writing for the X Men universe. This isn't DC, or even Supergirl Season 1. I would like to see a new show runner.

At least the teaser to the crossover looked strong.

 

What are the implications of Kara no longer working for the DEO? Presumably, Supergirl can still do mundane stuff like save people from a burning building, she just cannot get involved in anything the DEO is working on, right?

 

Other questions--was she getting paid by the DEO?

If so, did they write a check to Supergirl? Did they set up a social security number for her? Was she paid in cash? Does she pay taxes?

If she wasn't getting paid, then it seems like it was more of a mutual arrangement.

Superman works alone. Is he a special case? Are they going to have the world turn on Superman too?

It's unfortunate, but I feel like they are moving more toward the same direction the DC movies moved--at least on Earth 38, and that is not a good thing.

 

The Flash and Supergirl are swapping places for the week. All three parts will be at 8 PM, The Flash on Sunday, Arrow on Monday, Supergirl on Tuesday.

Of course, it's all one big connected story with the same lead cast in all three, but I gather that this year, unlike last year, the individual parts will be somewhat more distinct and tailored to their particular shows.

 

If she was getting paid, then I have to think that she reported it and paid taxes just like every other law abiding citizen. Supergirl does not seem like the kind of person to cheat on her taxes. It would also imply that Kara has two separate bank accounts, one for Kara and one for Supergirl. After all, she could not deposit her Supergirl paycheck into the Kara Danvers checking account without revealing her secret ID. Supergirl getting paid would make things very complicated for Kara.

This has always been my assumption. It would be much simpler for Kara. And it also seems to be how the show has presented it so far. Basically, Kara was volunteering her help as Supergirl to the DEO since she was close to Alex and wanted to help out with threats that the DEO could not handle on their own.

If it was just a mutual arrangement then Supergirl should be free to do whatever she wants. If she was never an employee of the DEO then the DEO should not be able to impose any restrictions on her after she leaves.

The president's line about not going to war with the DEO could be foreshadowing that they will go to war this season. Supergirl is not going to stop trying to save the world and this new DEO seems to be taking an anti-alien and anti-vigilante stance. Supergirl and the DEO are going to butt heads. Honestly, it will probably come down to this: this new DEO has essentially turned "bad guy" and Supergirl will have to stop it.

 

This makes all the sense in the world, but you need a valid social security number to get paid. As a law abiding citizen, she can't have 2 numbers, so what does she do?

The social security number thing is a bigger deal than the bank account thing.

I just hope they don't make this president some evil type, in a thinly veiled attack on all conservatives, especially Trump. It should be noted that this president was the VP under Lynda Carter's character, so they should be very aligned.

And that would be a shame. I hope it's not that black and white, but this is a bit too similar to the plot of Marvel Civil War with a government discriminating against metas/aliens.

It just doesn't feel right for DC, especially a show involving Superman or Supergirl.

 

I suspect the idea is that she won't have (easy) access to the full resources of the DEO the way she's accustomed to. No task forces assigned to researching cases, developing gadgets to stop the villain-of-the-week, etc. "Brainy, I need you to locate the source of that signal!"

 

Yeah, it's a big problem. "Supergirl" and "Kara Danvers" can't have the same SSN because that would give away the secret identity. But they can't have two different numbers because that is illegal. And "Supergirl" can't just go without a SSN either.

Which is why I think the only way the whole secret identity thing can work, is if Supergirl works pro bono. Basically, the secret identity works as long as Kara Danvers is the real person with a SSN and Supergirl is the fake person who just saves people but does not do anything that requires a government ID. The instant Supergirl earns an income separate from Kara Danvers, it requires that either Kara or the DEO break the law somehow.

I think that is a given since Supergirl was essentially fired from the DEO. You can't keep using your company's resources after you are fired. Of course, Alex will probably secretly share DEO info with Kara or even covertly use DEO resources to help Kara behind her boss' back.

 

Am I the only one glad that Supergirl has left the DEO and hope that it's permanent? It never felt right having her work directly for a Government agency.

 

A great winter finale to cap of a very strong start to the season, and a nice shake-up in the status quo to carry us forward with Kara leaving the DEO. Loved the team-up of Nia, Brainy and Kara, though Brainy showing regard for the space-time continuum was a bit late after they completely rewrote the future by defeating Reign last season...

Kara's identity not being known to anyone at the DEO is a Ralph Dibny level stretch considering the past few years, but I'm fine with it.

Can't wait for the crossover.

 

This has been a big change in superhero shows over the last decade or so, arguably going back to Smallville. They no longer seem to fight crime alone--they have a team of people that help them out.

Superman seems to be an exception in the Arrowverse.

It would be interesting to see Kara follow in Clark's footsteps and how much things would change.

 

You're not alone in that. I mean, I like the way the show decided from the start that what makes Kara different from her cousin is that she's more of a team player. But I always figured she was just volunteering her services at the DEO. This season's revelation that she's literally an employee there seemed off to me.

As far as operating without DEO resources, it would be a shame to lose the Danvers Sisters' teamwork. But Kara has other resources -- J'onn, James, Nia, Lena. Of course, only the former two of those currently know her identity and could be full team members, but that might change with Nia.

Well, that time, they deliberately rewrote a catastrophic future to make it better. I guess he doesn't want to risk screwing that up. Granted, the new future is worse for AIs like himself, but if he does want to change it, he probably wants to do so in a calculated way rather than just making random changes and hoping for the best.

I'm assuming most of the old guard knows her identity but is choosing to keep mum about it. Although that could be a problem if Col. Haley or President Baker ordered them to disclose it.

 

If the showrunners have guts, they will have the series framed by a version of--



What better way would the president be able to have greater access to / control of aliens with superpowers, with this also serving to calm the nerves of the human population (making an opportunistic politician seem like he's "doing it all for you"). Further, if said showrunner guts were in place, the president (or perhaps the Luthors) would make Supergirl regret her "go to war" exchange, as any head of government would feel that's a threat to national--or global security, thus thinking he's completely justified in putting any anti-superpowered and/or alien directives into action all thanks to her making a stand.

 

(underlining mine)

No. It did not. Far from it. It's might even be subtly insightful, if they intended it that way.

I'm not even sure what you are implying here—are you by any chance suggesting oneiromancy is a trait only exhibited when a specific pair of heterozygous alleles is present in the X chromosomes and, like tetrachromacy, wouldn't occur in trans women?

Any questions about the genetics notwithstanding, there's nothing odd about what you highlighted. Nothing prevents genetic traits affecting women to be carried by all people. Oneiromancy surely sounds like a condition that affects the brain and the brain only, so if it affects only women, it would affect all women—trans and cis alike—because, um— they would have women brains. It's really plain and simple.

You could even scratch plain and simple, it's likely. Outside of the ridiculously specific and rare genetic traits like that tetrachromacy example, or unless Nia's species carry ZW/ZZ chromosomes her species would be like us: no genes exclusive to female individuals, us males carrying all the female genes, with that small Y patch so tiny it barely counts. All things women, or affecting women, you would likely still find in “male” DNA, and could be expressed together with anything woman.

 

It seemed like the writing room forgot that the character is trans.

If you have to write a small essay, to explain why one line of dialogue means the opposite of what it superficially seems to mean on camera, then the writing room fucked up.

I am not attacking the character.

I thought the writing room was forgetting who they were writing lines for, which is an insult to the character and the community.

 

Two sentences is small essay now?