Season 6 of Supergirl is set to premiere on March 30. Note the change in schedule. It will air on Tuesday, after The Flash, replacing Superman and Lois in its timeslot as the latter show goes on spring hiatus. As previously announced, this will be Supergirl’s final season.
Season 6 Trailer
It’s been so long since the pandemic cut last season short, I’ve almost forgotten what happened. I remember Lex Luthor used Crisis to make everyone think he’s a Good Guy and put himself in charge of the D.E.O. Kara, Alex, and the Superfriends left to form a resistance against Lex. There was also some weird stuff about aliens hidden on Earth since before the pyramids were built, that I’m still not sure I entirely understand.
Cast changes
For the final season, there are no changes to the main cast. Jimmy Olsen resigned from CatCo early last season, so we won’t be Mehcad Brooks again (except as a Very Special Guest). Jon Cryer will be continuing his role as Lex Luthor. David Ramsey will guest to reprise his John Diggle role from Arrow; he is also slated to direct an episode.
SEASON PREMIERE - As Brainiac lays close to death after trying to stop Lex, Supergirl and team soar in to save him, engaging in an epic battle with Gamenmae (guest star Cara Buono). After beating Leviathan, Supergirl turns her attention to Lex who has used the Obsidian platform to brainwash half the world to love him and follow him at all costs, no matter what horrible things he does. Knowing how dangerous this makes her brother, Lena enlists the entire team - Alex, J’onn, Dreamer, Kelly and Brainiac - to help, but Supergirl realizes that the only way to truly stop Lex is to sacrifice herself.
Based on the state of Supergirl’s bangs, it looks like they had at lead 90% of the episode in the can before production was forced to shut down. By putting Supergirl in the Phantom Zone, they had even arranged a way for Melissa to exit shooting early, go on maternity leave, then come back late to next season’s production.
I really wish they had been able to complete the season finale, because viewing this stuff having watched Superman and Lois was positively painful. The difference in quality was quite startling. It also highlighted even more just how overstuffed Supergirl’s plot was. Lex! Lena! Leviathan! Andrea! Brainy! M’gann! MISS TESSMACHER!!!
The highlight of the episode was Lex singing and dancing in the Fortress of Solitude.
THE BREAKING POINT - As the stakes with Lex are raised higher than ever before, Lena must decide how far she is willing to go to stop her brother. Meanwhile, Supergirl and the team are faced with a challenge unlike anything they’ve ever dealt with before and it brings Alex to her breaking point.
I thought there would some sort of time skip, but apparently this episode begins almost immediately where the last left off. So one odd side effect of the Phantom Zone is that your bangs instantaneously grow out.
The Superfriends are looking for a way to get Supergirl out of the Phantom Zone, which includes asking a vampire from the planet Transylvania how to get in. Even Kelly is bringing in Big Belly Burgers. Meanwhile, Kara’s Very Good Friend Lena is cooling her heels, relaxing, not even planning to testify against her brother Lex until the prosecution’s case fell apart. What kind of case, especially one as large as that against Lex, hinges on the testimony of a single individual? The prosecution deserved to lose. [These Arrowverse writers really, really don’t know how to write courtroom drama. Witness the Trial of the Flash.]
Kara new friend in the Phantom Zone, Nxy???, is played by Peta Sergeant who has been added to the cast as a series regular. It’s an odd writing choice to add a new main character in the final season. Shouldn’t they be trying to wrap up the existing storylines? Or have they just given up on William, Andrea, and Nia? And the one storyline they could have neatly wrapped up, Lex Luthor, is inexplicably allowed to keep on going. I loved Jon Cryer playing Lex but I am done with his character now.
Speaking of odd writing choices, I just realized that Alex must have told Kelly about Kara and Supergirl off-screen. This, after how much emphasis they made in the premiere about Alex having to tell Kelly. What, the writers couldn’t figure out a way to milk any drama out of the revelation?
SUPERGIRL FINDS A WAY HOME - Supergirl finds an opportunity to escape from the Phantom Zone but it comes with some dangerous strings attached. Meanwhile, Lena joins the Super Friends on a mission but finds she disagrees with their plan of action against the Phantoms and wonders if she is truly ready to be a part of the team.
Did J’onn really equate the Phantom infestation to a global pandemic? So that means we just need to find the source of coronavirus and stab the chrysalis with some magic crystal. It’s probably in some cave in China.
They are really taking their sweet time getting Kara back from the Phantom Zone. At least this episode focused solely on the Phantoms and the Phantom Zone. No William (thank Rao!), Andrea, or even Lex.
THE FLASHBACK TO MIDVALE INTRODUCES A YOUNG CAT GRANT - Nia and Brainy attempt to save Supergirl from the Phantom Zone by time traveling back to Kara’s home in 2009. While determined to secure the item needed to help Supergirl, Brainy is worried about keeping a low profile so as not to alter the future timeline. However, when their ship crashes upon arrival, a young Kara Danvers (guest star Izabela Vidovic) is the first on the scene. Meanwhile, a young reporter named Cat Grant (guest star Eliza Helm) sets her sights on Midvale as she suspects there is a big story in the small town.
Prior to Covid shutdown last season, the plan was undoubtedly for Melissa to continue to film some scenes while Kara was trapped in the Phantom Zone for the next (this current) season, prior to her going on maternity leave. This episode and the next, with only young Kara appearing, would have allowed Melissa to extend her leave for a couple more weeks. But then the lockdown came and bollixed everything up.
Not that I’m complaining about this return to Midvale. The actresses playing young Kara and Alex continue to amaze with how well they capture the mannerisms of their older counterparts. They even found a way to get Kenny back through some Crisis magic, albeit played by a different actor. Kara and Kenny exhibited more chemistry in this one episode than did Kara and William in the entirety of the previous season.
Speaking of chemistry, this was Nia and Brainy’s time to shine. Could we get a spinoff featuring the adventures of Dreamer and Brainiac-5? Maybe they could move to Smallville? Join the Legends in space?
Finally, there was young Cat Grant. While she had the older Cat’s acerbic wit, she didn’t display any of her charm. Of course, she didn’t really interact much with any of the main characters (especially Kara), so I’ll reserve judgement until we see more of her.
The young actresses playing Kara and Alex were fabulous. They weren’t phoning it in like their older counterparts. I hope this arc takes a long time, this was the best SG episode in quite some time.
I loved Supergirl when it premiered. I thought Melissa Benoist was almost supernaturally well-cast and just absolutely nailed the character. I thought Calista Flockhart was fabulous as the acerbic but genuinely insightful and basically decent Cat Grant. I loved that it was a hopeful superhero show.
Sometime later, maybe during the second season?, the show lost me. It seemed like was more about relationship drama than superheroes, and I realized I didn’t care about any of the romantic relationships, and I just stopped watching.
I picked it up again this season, and it was…ok. Part of that, of course, was that I didn’t know who half the characters were. But it seemed like they were dealing with actual plots, so I kept watching. It was enough to hold my interest, but barely.
This episode, though, was fun. They really seemed to be channeling Legends of Tomorrow, which is no bad thing. Brainiac-5 just seemed like a dull character previously, but I really liked him in this episode.
And I agree, the actors who portrayed Young Kara and Young Alex were really impressive in their ability to capture the mannerisms of the older versions (I thought Young Alex was better than Young Kara, but they were both good).
I do have a couple of questions for those that have been watching the show over the last few seasons.
Brainiac-5, in the comics, is an alien from the 31st Century, which seems to be the origin they’re using in Supergirl. So why do all of his cultural touchstones seem to be 80s movies? I realize the meta-answer is that those are the cultural touchstones of the writers, but is there an in-universe reason why he references Ghostbusters and Back to the Future?
Did bringing Nia along but rejecting J’onn and M’Gann make sense? I get the point of not wanting to cross timelines. Brainy makes sense - he doesn’t exist in the 2009 timeframe. I get rejecting Alex - it would be far too likely she’d run into her younger self. But why would J’onn and M’Gann be a problem if Nia isn’t? I thought maybe she was the Dreamer from the 31st Century Legion, but apparently she’s a contemporary (the ancestor of Dreamer?), and exists in 2009. So why did Brainy think bringing her along made more sense than J’onn or M’Gann? In 2009, Hank Henshaw shouldn’t have been anywhere near Midvale, right? Or have we seen him interacting with Young Alex and Young Kara in that timeframe in previous seasons? And was M’Gann even on Earth in 2009? I thought no one on Team Supergirl even knew she existed until recently.
In Brainy’s time, the Earth had been devastated by a civilization-ending apocalypse and much of previous history had been lost. Much knowledge of the past had been brought by the time-travelling Mon-El, who we know really liked Bon Jovi and undoubtedly other contemporary pop-culture touchstones.
J’onn J’onzz was tasked by a dying Jeremiah Danvers (he got better) to watch over his daughters. While his oversight was discreet (i.e., we never saw much of him), J’onn directly intervened in the sisters’ life twice that we know of. Once was when Alex landed in jail after a DUI. He told her to get her life in order and recruited her into the DEO. This was an older Alex, though.
However, J’onn also directly interacted with young Kara. This was in fact during the Midvale episode, the first time we were introduced to these actresses playing young Kara and young Alex. Kara was investigating the death of Kenny Li (the self same Kenny who is now alive and Kara’s boyfriend). J’onn disguised himself as FBI Agent Noel Neill, who looked suspiciously like Kara’s mother Alura. J’onn told Kara that the FBI was aware of her and her cousin, and that using her powers could Alex’s (and Eliza’s) life in danger.
But Brainy is a Coluan, right? Or did the CW version grow up on post-apocalyptic Earth? I suppose him getting his “contemporary” Earth references from Mon-El makes some sense, but then we’re still left with the cultural references being to touchstones a generation or two older than the actors seem to be. I guess maybe Mon-El for whatever reason grew up watching 80s movies…
Ok, so ruling out J’onn makes sense. But what about M’Gann? Or Lena, for that matter? Again, he took Nia, who actually exists in that timeframe, and in fact we got a whole subplot about the complications ensuing from that. It just didn’t make any sense to me why Nia, out of all the other characters, would make sense.
I know I’m overthinking this. The point is just to split Nia and Brainy off and give them a fun plot where they’re interacting with each other but isolated from the rest of Team Supergirl. But Brainy made a big deal about not taking anyone into the past who could interact with their past self - and brings Nia along, anyway, with no reason I could see why she’d be a safer choice than, say, M’Gann.
M’gann is a Martian. While she did disguise herself as a human bartender tending an alien bar, she really has no cultural context to hide out in the cultural milieu of a 2007 high school. Also Brainy prefers Nia.
CHYLER LEIGH MAKES HER DIRECTORIAL DEBUT - Part two of the flashback episodes pick up where things left off - Young Kara (guest star Izabela Vidovic) experiences kryptonite for the first time, Nia and Brainy are trapped by invading aliens, and a young Cat Grant (guest star Eliza Helm) may be the reason Supergirl never gets out of the Phantom Zone.
Over in Legends of Tomorrow, which premiered on Sunday, when they learned that Sara had been abducted by aliens, their first thought was to call the D.E.O. – not that it did them much good as it had been destroyed at the end of last season by Rama Khan. Still, a show that destroys the timeline every week actually cares about continuity. Meanwhile, on Supergirl they travel back in time without even trying to contact the Legends, resulting in them traveling too far back and causing multiple timeline and continuity errors. At least it was just a day this time and not 12,000 years like the first time they did it.
I didn’t think this second part worked quite as well as the first part as they had to wrap everything up in a bow – get Kara’s blood, capture the aliens, break up Kara and Kenny, and reconcile Alex and Kara. Best Easter egg, if a tad predictable, was Nia giving inspiration to Cat Grant to start calling herself “Cat” and establish CatCo Worldwide Media. The actresses playing young Kara and young Alex were once again great to watch. Young Alex especially was an almost perfect impression of her older self.
how to get in. Even Kelly is bringing in Big Belly Burgers. Meanwhile, Kara’s Very Good Friend Lena is cooling her heels, relaxing, not even planning to testify against her brother Lex until the prosecution’s case fell apart. What kind of case, especially one as large as that against Lex, hinges on the testimony of a single individual? The prosecution deserved to lose. [These Arrowverse writers really, really don’t know how to write courtroom drama. Witness the Trial of the Flash.]
