Editor’s Note: The reason this review is posted 9 days after the episode aired is totally the fault of the site webmaster Craig, who forgot it was in his inbox! Blame him, not Louis!
Verdict: Supergirl keeps up the pace from last week in a thrilling yet thoughtful installment that dives headfirst into the main conflicts of season two.
Review
Last week, I said that Supergirl at the CW felt just like Supergirl on CBS – some sets were different and the exteriors looked less sunny, but the show still felt the same, and almost all of the characters remained in recognizable relationships. This week, I don’t think that statement is true – Supergirl on the CW is a different show to what came before. The true extent of the changes to the status quo that the network move has brought about is revealed in The Last Children of Krypton, but none of those changes feel damaging to the show. Instead, it’s clear that the writers have used the huge shake-up behind the scenes to quietly retool Supergirl from top to bottom, almost entirely for the show’s benefit. From the small things, such as the more convivial dynamic at the DEO thanks to Winn’s addition, to the de-emphasis of the romantic relationships, to the episode’s most notable change in the swap of Kara as Cat Grant’s assistant to Kara as a budding reporter under Snapper Carr, this was most definitely Supergirl 2.0 making its full debut.
Kara’s story, again, is a crucial part of The Last Children of Krypton’s success, because it builds upon the premiere’s great foundations by completely taking apart all of the blanket statements and bold commitments that she made in the premiere. Life is more complicated than just choosing a dream job, and The Last Children of Krypton’s story with Kara understands that so well, forcing Kara to grapple with the real consequences of her decisions, doubt them, but come out the other side committed and wiser about the challenges she faces. Supergirl has really begun to nail the dramatic side of its stories, and that’s because it’s doubled down on its aptitude for telling uncomplicated stories with a heart and emotional realism that justifies the simplicity.
Kara’s story centres around the influence of two mentors, one entering and one exiting her life, and her story of shifting into a whole new paradigm governed by an entirely different mentality neatly mirrors the shift that Supergirl is undergoing right now. Cat Grant represents the show as it was on CBS – built to last for seasons on end in roughly the same role, dependable in her clear role as the maternal figure and mentor for Kara, but ultimately only able to be one thing as a character, and that meta-textuality goes a long way towards justifying her huge decision here. It’s the most explicit change that Supergirl has made with its move to the CW, completely mandated by logistics, so I’m surprised just how right it felt as a decision for the show to have made.
Part of that rests in, as mentioned, the fact that it’s very much a statement of intent that Supergirl itself is breaking from the comfortable practices of the past, but it’s also the result of solid storytelling that takes everything that has been unsaid about the character and makes it into text, creating a storytelling move that, while mandated by outside factors, feels true to the character. Cat has always felt like a character who existed in one particular place and not a lot more – aside from that brief arc with her son that mostly took place within CatCo anyway, she has been wholly defined by her job and her attitudes towards it. It’s smart writing not to walk back on this in her exit, but instead to commit to it and make it into a plot point as Cat notices the narrowness of her own life. This helps to avert the easy trap that so many forced character exits fall into, which is just to pluck something out of the air to move the character away. Calista Flockhart will be sorely missed, and she was a key part of what got Supergirl off the ground in the first place once the show realised what an asset she was as more than just a quip machine, but I’m not sure the show needed her in the same way anymore, with Kara’s character having developed far beyond the quiet, meek secretary we met in the pilot. I’m glad she got such a believable and emotional exit when it could so easily have been a deus ex machina that made no sense at all – and, thankfully, it does leave the door open for any time Kara needs a helping hand in the future.
Cat’s replacement, meanwhile, represents the new, different Supergirl, with an emphasis on ‘different’. It’s easy to see the surface similarities between Snapper Carr and Cat – they’re both outwardly abrasive and difficult with people – but as the episode shows with Kara darting back and forth between the two mentors, they couldn’t be more different on the inside. Snapper is mostly introduced in broad strokes here, with the basic bullet points of his character communicated well by Ian Gomez’s enjoyably brusque and irritable performance, so there’s not a great deal of complexity behind his, ahem, snappiness. Yet his character holds a lot of promise as a means to push Kara way out of her comfort zone, as someone who does what he says on the tin and doesn’t offer a whole lot of reassurance that there’s a softer side beneath. The Last Children of Krypton is all about coming to terms with frightening change, and Snapper’s introduction smartly reflects that theme by taking Kara’s professional life and removing all the certainty and reassurances from it to offer something a whole lot more unclear. I’m looking forward to seeing how Snapper and Kara’s relationship develops, too, because there’s an enjoyably spiky undertone to their final scene that offers a new kind of rivalry and personal challenge for Kara – if it allows her to improve her insults, then that’ll definitely justify Snapper’s introduction.
I can only ignore the big blue boy scout for long – The Last Children of Krypton gave us a whole lot more Superman, and it was just as delightful as last week. The opening montage with Kara was a particularly delightful encapsulation of why this Superman works so well, as he expresses so much joy in working with his cousin and helping people, even after 12 years on the job. There’s no cynicism, no ulterior motive behind his character – he’s just utterly likeable and good-hearted, something which Supergirl conveys with a pleasing lack of irony or caveats. However, the episode does a little more than just deliver more of what worked last week, and manages to dig a little deeper with this incarnation of Superman.
Clark is much more of a participant in the character drama than he was last week, and he has two very important roles that link nicely into the overarching themes of change and unity. Clark’s conflict with J’onn last week never quite cohered with the episode as a whole and felt mostly like an afterthought, but it comes to fruition this week as The Last Children of Krypton fleshes out their ideological conflict in more depth. The debate isn’t a wholly complex one, and in many ways some of the interesting nuance of whether deterrents of that kind are justified is skimmed over, but it works because both characters have a justifiable viewpoint that can be empathised with. That allows The Last Children of Krypton to play on that crucial theme of unity, or the lack of, in how division and conflict is just an impediment to progress. Their debate is ultimately futile and hollow, and it’s that realisation of the need to compromise that allows them to win – as ever, ‘stronger together’ is a crucial touchstone for a show that thrives on co-operation and support of others, and there’s a real catharsis in Clark and J’onn’s decision to put aside their issues and pool their strength to defeat Metallo. It’s a strong, thematically relevant story that does a good job of reflecting the episode’s central themes, helping to strengthen the point that’s being made within the main story of Kara’s conflict.
The other function of Superman is indirect, but no less important, which is to provide a reason for Supergirl to dive back into the Alex/Kara relationship. Their sisterly bond is a vital one to Supergirl and the stories it tells – arguably the most important relationship on this show, so it’s always powerful when there’s a rift between them. It’s interesting how, with Alex and Kara’s conflict, that the downsides of Superman’s presence are brought to the fore. As the other family member in Kara’s life, it’s true that he does detract from that key familial bond between the foster sisters, and The Last Children of Krypton cleverly turns all that warmth and joy within Kara and Clark’s scenes back on itself by pointing out how it’s all a bit self-absorbed and exclusive, shutting out everyone who doesn’t fit into the super-club. I like how, for once, Alex was unabashedly the mature adult in the room in her scenes with Kara and the voice of reason as the typically grounded Kara plotted her impulsive move to Metropolis just to avoid all the change in her life. It’s another sign of Supergirl’s confidence that it tilts our sympathies away from our title character and towards Alex, showing its improvement in considering other perspectives, even it makes the central hero look just a little bit foolish. I’d like to see a little more of Alex outside of her relationship with Kara and job at the DEO, but her role in reflecting this show’s themes of family and unconventional bonds is vital, and the story that The Last Children of Krypton tells acts as a reminder of how the sisters are, essentially, the core of Supergirl, with just about every other story stemming from their bond.
I’ve spent a lot of this review praising how Supergirl has improved itself and cast off its past approaches to things, but one aspect in which it seems to be tethered to its past is the villains. Supergirl has always had a villain problem – it says something that season one’s best villain was probably Kara herself in the Red Kryptonite episode. Yet it’s a shame that this refreshed version hasn’t done anything to fix the problem, because it’s something that holds back The Last Children of Krypton. Metallo was more or less a bust – as a puppet of Cadmus, brainwashed to do whatever his masters say, there’s no dramatic depth to the character, meaning that he’s a hollow husk of a villain whose only real perk is the solid visual effects used to depict his powers (it also doesn’t help that Frederick Schmidt seems to constantly be waking up from a really, really deep sleep in all of his line deliveries). The larger problem is that the Big Bad of this season, or at least the first part, isn’t a whole lot more compelling. Cadmus does link into the basic themes of this episode logically – they play on division in their thinly-veiled xenophobia and battle tactics – but besides that, there’s really not much to them. There’s time for them to be developed further, but their introduction portrayed them as villains who are pretty much solely defined by rhetoric. Brenda Strong’s doctor gets a couple of speeches about aliens and the need to create progress, but florid speeches can’t be the sole basis for a villain, especially when the speeches are just a patchwork of traditionally villainous ideas, with barely a fresh idea to be seen in their dialogue. A good villain needs mystery, nuance and weight behind their words, and Cadmus lacks that sense of well-roundedness, which means they come across as flat and unremarkable antagonists in their first round.
The Last Children of Krypton, on the whole, proves that the strength of last week’s season premiere was no fluke – Supergirl really has come to its new home a stronger show. It’s an episode that’s full of action that looks just as great as it did on CBS, but it’s defined by characterisation that’s richer and more compelling than anything the show offered up in season one, and by a changing of the guard from Cat to Snapper that’s done with impressive seamlessness. The Last Children of Krypton shows that Supergirl is taking some bold steps forward and leaving a lot of its old ideas and characters behind. If that’s a risky move, then, from the looks of it, those risks are definitely paying off.
Odds & Ends
Louis Rabinowitz is a British online writer, and a fan of all things superhero and sci-fi. His favourite show is, and probably always will be, Doctor Who, but he also enjoys shows like The Flash, Arrow and The Walking Dead. Never ask him who is favourite superhero is, unless you have an hour or two free while he decides. Follow him on Twitter at @Rabinovsky.
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View Comments
Good review. But I would comment that Alex did not come off well at all. Her petulant cry about all that she gave up for Kara was childish. Kara never asked Alex to give up a medical career. Or anything else. That was ALEX'S decision and she should take responsibility for it.