Was Cryer cast simply because he was in Superman IV (as Lex’s nephew)? I mean, he seems like an odd choice, but certainly not as odd as Jesse fucking Eisenberg.
Not that big pole thing. I meant the small, hand-held, white-and-gray plastic thing that looked like it was taken from the set of Star Trek TNG.
Oh.
It was the big pole thing in disguise, wasn’t it?
The House of L promo: - YouTube
LEX LUTHOR CONTINUES TO WREAK HAVOC - In the wake of Lex Luthor’s (guest star Jon Cryer) return, the show flashes back to what he’s been doing for the last two years and how his secret machinations and plans have affected Supergirl and Lena.
Hmm. Apparently CatCo doesn’t do background checks on their employees, or they might have noticed that Eve visited Lex in prison days before being hired.
Lex-as-a-hologram gives off a Dr. Manhattan vibe.
I was pleased to see that Red Daughter is not just a dupe or puppet of Lex - she’s already showing some independence and thoughtfulness.
The guy who is playing Otis Graves is definitely evoking the Ned Beatty version of Otis. Fun for the fans of Christopher Reeve’s “Superman.”
The introduction of Lex Luthor has made an already interesting season at least an order of magnitude more interesting. As with last week, when I was surprised that Miss Tessmacher! was working for Lex all along, I was also surprised this week when we found out that Lex was involved with Red Daughter as well as being behind Ben Lockwood. I shouldn’t have been, because it all makes sense now, but I was still greatly surprised. Also Lex knows that Kara is Supergirl, yet somehow Lena still doesn’t. Who’s smarter now?
[I think we can dispense with spoiler boxes now.]
The writers have done a lot of homages to Christopher Reeve’s Superman. In the very first episode, they referred to Clark’s “glasses and a slouch” method of maintaining a disguise. When Kara was affected by red kryptonite, they recreated the bar scene where Superman flicks peanuts at the speed of bullets, smashing glasses and bottles. During the Crisis on Earth-X, Supergirl asked her Nazi counterpart, “General, would you like to step outside?”
What kind of jobs do you apply for that check a person’s life at that level of detail? Especially for a receptionist/executive assistant role?
Even if her being way over-qualified raised a flag, the question “have you ever visited someone in prison, and in particular a super-villain?” is not likely to come up.
Krasnaya Dochʹ = Red Daughter
Okay, maybe I was overreacting. Still, you’d think Lex Luthor was a big enough deal that a lot of news organizations (like CatCo) would be following up on his imprisonment with human interest stories like “So who is visiting Lex in prison those days?” and would notice that someone on that very short list got a job at a media firm. And Lena should be paranoid enough, after taking over LexCorp, to hire a PI to thoroughly investigate someone before hiring them as a personal assistant.
This is the Cyrillic that replaced the Supergirl title, right? Very cool indeed.
Not sure how I feel about making Lockwood a patsy. He was an interesting villain in his own right but I enjoyed the last two episodes (watched them both back to back). After a few decades of legitimate businessman Lex it is fun to see outright Super villain Lex again.
This also felt like a retcon because i am pretty sure it wasn’t planned from the beginning but it’s okay.
Did they ever explain how Otis came back? I thought he died.
Melisa Benoist was great as Red Daughter. She reminds me of SMG on Buffy where her acting get under appreciated because it is a genre show.
I don’t think Lockwood is a really pasty. But Lex is, no doubt, secretly funding the Children of Liberty as well as supporting the organization in other ways. He probably has a Putin-style army of trolls fomenting anti-alien sentiment on social media.
All About Eve promo: - YouTube
SUPERGIRL FACES HER BIGGEST CHALLENGE YET - Supergirl must deal with the destructive aftermath of Lex’s (guest star Jon Cryer) nefarious plans. Shocked at what Lex has created, Supergirl faces her biggest challenge yet.
For an episode entitled “All About Eve”, there was surprisingly little of Eve Tessmacher in it. No matter. As Lex’s flunky, she was extremely effective in upending Supergirl’s life more than it already has been. I wonder when they will realize that Kara has a double flying about?
J’onn got sidelined once again. It wouldn’t do to have two superpowered individuals looking for the most dangerous man on the planet, would it? They even contrived an excuse to get him off-planet. Is he even going to get back in time for the inevitable final confrontation with Lex?
I thought at first that Jimmy was getting superhearing, a manifestation of his getting superpowers. Nope. Turns out he just has PTSD from getting shot. He’s going to be even more useless now.
Any excuse to show J’onn flying through space in his car is worth it. Lena has become my favorite supporting character since Willow Rosenberg. Katie McGrath is so good she’s constantly on the verge of upstaging Melissa Benoist, no small task. Eustacia has been having us watch every episode of Merlin, and the presence of Katie McGrath is what makes it tolerable for me.
Crime and Punishment promo: - YouTube
WILLIE GARSON GUEST STARS - Supergirl and Lena head to Stryker’s Island to search for clues on how to defeat Lex. At the prison, Supergirl tries to befriend a nosy prisoner, Steve (guest star Willie Garson), who may have insight into what Lex was doing, but he and all of the prisoners regard her as a traitor to the country and refuse to talk to her. Lena realizes Lex left behind clues for her and deciphering them could be the key to his whereabouts. Meanwhile, Kelly (guest star Azie Tesfai) encourages James to talk to someone about his PTSD, and Alex faces off against Ben Lockwood after he storms the DEO and acquires some powerful weapons to hunt Supergirl.
I always like it when they show Kara being a reporter, like she’s supposed to be. She really should have gone into the prison with Lena as a reporter in the first place rather than as Supergirl. Then they could have had a great sequence where she had to protect Lena and maybe Steve while not giving away her secret identity. Still, there was a great moment where Metallo-Otis, chasing after Supergirl, rounds the corner and sees Kara. I guess Lex doesn’t see fit to tell his henchman all the details of their target.
It turns out Jimmy may not have PTSD at all but rather may be developing superpowers as I expected. He may turn out to be not entirely useless after all.
Metallo had a surprisingly deep critique of crisis reporting…
American Dreamer promo: - YouTube
American Dreamer scene: - YouTube
DAVID HAREWOOD DIRECTS - As Kara doggedly works as a reporter to clear Supergirl’s name, Dreamer picks up the slack as National City’s protector, which leads to a showdown with Ben Lockwood. James takes drastic measures to relieve his PTSD.
I was lamenting last week that we didn’t get to see Kara surreptitiously using her powers while maintaining her cover. Well, we got that this week. It’s like the writers could read my mind. It was a great sequence, too, until James had to go and ruin it all. Kara, Dreamer, and Brainy had the situation well in hand, Jimmy. They didn’t need you to butt in.
I wanted this episode to be more about Nia, who interesting to me, and less about Jimmy, who isn’t. Why’d they have to go and give Jimmy Olsen superpowers anyway?
Jimmy Olsen with superpowers is a stock plot from the Silver age (not that that makes it a good idea here) - but I did appreciate the show coming up with a suitably horrible traumatic memory for James.
I wish Kara had thought of the idea of adopting a different superhero identity for a while. It would be interesting to see her as (for example) a red-wigged superhero called Flame of Justice.