Normal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but at least it’s done better than it was in Superman II.
What They Say:
Human For A Day – Kara and her friends must find the inner strength and courage to help during a disaster when an earthquake strikes National City, leaving Supergirl powerless. Meanwhile, Alex’s mistrust of Hank reaches a breaking point when they end up trapped in the DEO with an alien escapee.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While Supergirl had a kind of odd episode the last time around in some ways, particularly with the design of Red Tornado, I can’t help but to give the show props for actually trying to work with such a difficult character. Hell, my kids were excited for the episode simply because they knew the character from Young Justice when they were younger. The show is pulling its various pieces together in a way that’s still pretty much the method we’ve seen with Flash and Arrow in that there’re so many stories that can be told – as evidenced by decades of comics – that they don’t need to draw things out for a whole season. What continues to sell the show is Benoist and her very positive performance here, which took a great turn the last time around with her going all super-intense on Red Tornado in taking him down.
What that event caused, however, is for Kara to basically burn herself out for a while by using so much energy and that’s now turned her seemingly human and normal. At least, for the time being because we know it won’t last – and I’m giving it no grief for that. Again, this is usually a second or third season story/arc that we get, so hitting it up at this point certainly isn’t a bad thing and provides for a very early challenge for Kara. She, at least, gets a little help at the start from her “mother” in the form of the special room that has the stored information, but the real problem she has is that the DEO has been poking and prodding at her for a few days while she’s in this form. They’re certainly using it to their advantage. But knowing they can’t keep her there forever, she does finally get to get out and experience the world like everyone else, which includes catching a cold.
What makes this problematic for her is that there’s a decent little earthquake that hits National City and that takes Kara for a spin as she has to struggle with getting injured. Unbeknownst to her though is that one of the aliens that the DEO has been keeping in containment named Jemm, a hunter of some sort, has taken advantage of the earthquake to break free. That makes for some nice Aliens-like tension at the DEO as they basically go on a bug hunt to find him while losing some of their members along the way. What makes it interesting as it gets underway is that Henshaw ends up disappearing briefly along the way, which puts the speculation meter on full drive here as we potentially get closer to figuring out who he is.
With Alex not trusting Henshaw at all now, her going after him amid the destruction in the DEO ends up reinforcing that distrust as they find that Henshaw’s been lying about what happened. And with Jemm out there causing trouble and using his psychic abilities, it just makes everything even worse, isolating Alex even more. Which works to her advantage since she’s looking to get some answers from Henshaw and other DEO agents would be problematic. Her approach for dealing with Henshaw is just plain weird though as it plays out since she’s trying to deal with Jemm herself since she doesn’t trust Henshaw in the slightest. I totally get her competence and even if they force the situation a bit to put her spotlight I haven’t minded. But this one is the same problem we get with the whole male bravado element as well in that it’s just plain bad storytelling, especially with Henshaw showing up to save the day.
All of this leads to Alex and Henshaw together in private where she demands the truth and he gives it up easily, reminding her that she can’t tell anyone the secret. Revealing that he’s not Henshaw as the original Henshaw died years ago, it becomes a tale told about how the original Henshaw tracked the alien that he is all those years ago as an obsession and that Alex’s father is the one that saved him, hence his desire to help Alex and Kara in his own way. Henshaw also gives us the other piece of the puzzle in confirming that he’s a shapeshifter, but I’m still cringing at the whole Martian Manhunter thing because Henshaw has shown so much emotion in a way that J’onn J’onzz usually hasn’t. But that reveal that we get is pretty much freaking awesome since we get the full costume and everything. It was a secret that was hard to keep because they were so obvious for so long, but it’s good to get it all out there and to see what the end result might back.
Kara’s story is one that plays well enough in its kind of simplistic kind of way as she has to struggle post-earthquake with being ineffective. It’s not a bad plot point to work with, but it just gets so forced with Lord involved since he’s pretty blunt in his kind of rich man way combined with his confidence and weird kind of empathy. Kara’s empathy is a huge thing, conversely, and seeing the pain and loss around her and not being able to help does a number on her mindset. To make matters worse, the loss is magnified by Lord’s calling out of Supergirl in not being there to help, making her feel even more worthless. So it makes sense that she reaches for a way to feel empowered and to use what she knows she represents to do right. It may feel odd from our very cynical point of view of life, and especially the way things are seemingly working in the country today, but it’s the right kind of wonderfully inspirational material that makes you want it to be true.
I’m completely ignoring the James climbing up the elevator shaft subplot. It was just bad and I hate the way it just makes me weak in the legs in watching it. It’s naturally a point in time in which Kara gets her powers back and it allows her to save him and then to be a big part of helping a lot of people in the city, from a school bus tipping over the edge to buildings on fire and more. It’s a fun way to reinforce the range of her abilities and to show how she can be an inspirational figure. Which, naturally, frustrates Lord to no end. And that’s not a bad thing, even if I don’t want to see his grumpy mug any more than I have to.
In Summary:
Supergirl has some clunky material here that’s just more in our faces this time around, or at least for me, but I still get a great deal of enjoyment out of it because it does go for the inspirational elements. Which is what I enjoy in the Berlanti shows as they work it in a few different ways. Kara’s time as normal isn’t as overdone as I expected it to be and that’s to its advantage. But it comes at the cost of bad soap drama material with James and Winn. The DEO side is just a mess in general, but damn if it doesn’t pay off for those couple of minutes with Henshaw and his ultimate (but expected) reveal. The show looks to be going big for its winter finale next week as it returns to the Astra storyline, which it has danced away from for a while now.
Grade: B- (A- for Martian Manhunter appearance!)
Yeah, Maxwell Lord grates on me too & I’m starting to get a kick out of seeing him being one-upped by Supergirl essentially doing her thing (I.e. saving lives & making a difference in National City). I also agree with you on the reveal of the Martian Manhunter-That was awesome!