Yes, this will free up more time for James Olsen to do his thing.
(Which is, as I understand it, “helping people fall asleep”.)
I’m glad I’m not the only one that hates this unneeded story killing angst. I now fast forward through any scene with them in it and Supergirl has become a much better show for it. Also the writing has been much better this year, rarely requiring Supergirl to carry an idiotball for the plot to work.
That’s what I have done, as well.
Same.
There was a more interesting story - and they didn’t see it. (Or they decided not to see it). They also gave the citizenry a very short memory (someone should have remembered the alien invasion). And Edge doesn’t make sense at all.
I kept waiting (and asking aloud, to the annoyance of my wife) for someone to ask, “Why only kids, and not adults, too?” Then, after the discovery of the cause: “So, no one has [been at location] since the kids in question were affected?”
I think about this stuff too much. :o
Kids, being smaller and having faster metabolisms, tend to get affected by environmental toxins before adults. They need smaller doses and their bodies process the toxins more quickly. Note that Morgan Edge also had a plan to poison the entire city, so adults would have been affected as well.
It looked to me like James Olsen the ‘thing’ is going to do is Lena. He did say she could call him Jimmy, and I think season one set that he doesn’t really like that name.
It being the CW, there needs to be romance somewhere.
So, is Sam a Kryptonian? My initial theory is that she is half-Kryptonian or something, and unaware of her heritage. We know she is adopted.
My current theory is that she is full Kryptonian, but hypnotized/mind-controlled in some way so that she doesn’t know about/use her powers. That explains her being bulletproof, and why she was able to lift the tower but unable to do strength feats when thinking about it (need to save her child overcame the block). And perhaps how she is tied to what is apparently a crashed Krypton sleeper ship in the bay.
Readers of the comics may already know who she is, of course, but I like the fun of ignorantly coming up with theories.
Apropos of nothing, while I don’t think the show has ever specially confirmed this, the Supergirl comic (which has made an effort to more emulate the TV show recently) confirmed that National City is in California. No one else cares but it bugged me they never really said where it was.
CW rarely, if ever, has gone for such nuance, and that story would take more than 42 minutes to tell. Still, how different was this from an armed man going to a pizza place looking for a child prostitution ring, or from people demonizing vaccinations because they want a boogeyman for things they don’t understand? People are gullible and irrational, and even a few can make a really loud noise. News stations love to amplify loud noises because it gets eyeballs on advertisements. It’s not only scarily plausible, we’re living in this age.
I dunno about that… there’s a difference between exhaustively exploring all aspects of a nuanced story, and presenting a nuanced story while telling only one small part of it.
How different is it? It’s utterly different. Completely different. Not remotely similar in any way.
Lena Luthor SAVED THE ENTIRE WORLD FROM EVIL MIND-CONTROLLING ALIENS!!!
That’s not something that people forget. Imagine in 1946 that some GIs start showing signs of some illness that just maybe might be related to a decision that Eisenhower made about how to best liberate Paris. That’s certainly an issue worth investigating, and there might be a few specific people who really really care about it. But you’re not going to have mobs of people surrounding Eisenhower’s house chanting “lock him up”.
People being manipulated through fear and deception into attacking someone is an interesting topic for a show, one that definitely could ring true if done right. But trying to link it to an action that is still fresh in everyone’s mind and very publicly saved the entire world from eternal slavery was a mistake.
If this was a one-off occurrence, I’d give this one to you. But the world gets saved from evil aliens once a season, plus we know Superman has done the same at least once, and probably more. This is a world where being saved from world-affecting events is commonplace.
I was expecting an episode in which Lena is accused, and the story is about her trying to prove her innocence. It was interesting how much the accusation devastated her, which provided insight into her character; that made up somewhat for the flaws previously noted, but it would have been better if someone had brought up the “we were in a doomsday situation” argument, even if Lena was incapable of making the argument for herself. If only there were a widely-trusted public figure in National City who was involved in the who Daxamite situation and could make that argument.
This week we get a flashback episode, depicting the adventures of young Kara and Alex in high school. The young actress who played Kara really looked like a younger Melissa Benoist. The one who played Alex, especially, captured Chyler Leigh’s mannerisms and speech patterns. Very impressive.
Unexpected Smallville easter egg: No, not Erica Durance’s appearance, but Clark’s hacker friend Chloe who also maintains a “wall of weird”.
I forgot to say: I wouldn’t mind watching a prequel, spin-off series Midvale, with Alex and Kara solving crimes in their small town. Kind of like Veronica Mars.
There was another Easter egg: Erica Durance’s character (actually J’onn incognito) gave her name as Noel Neill. Neill played Lois Lane in the classic Adventures of Superman series with George Reeves. But we all know that, don’t we? 
I was worried when the show started it was going to be an angst-fest[sup]TM[sup]pending[/sup][/sup]; but they really gave a pretty nice episode. Probably low budget as a bonus to help pay for the big cross-over event coming up.
The young actresses did a good as mentioned.
I greatly appreciated the acknowledgement of Chloe.
In real life, Allison Mack seems to be giving new meaning to “wall of weird”.
Tabloid story not confirmed by any other sources:
I agree about the young actresses. At first I was disappointed that they didn’t have the same actress who previously played young Kara (she’s in Netflix’s Lemony Snicket series), but this new girl really does look a lot more like Benoist and she quickly won me over. I, too, would watch a Danvers Girls mystery series.