Season 2 x 09 Supergirl Lives

Why no comments on this episode? Good, but not great episode. Did not quite live up to the hype.

The episode was another "more to being Supergirl than powers". There will likely be at least one of these a season. This crowd fighting back scene played much better than the one in the Flash/Supergirl episode of last year. For one, she actually needed their help as she was without her powers.

There were some nice character beats -- even if they were predictable. ex: editor giving Kara a hard time, with the atta girl mumbled as she walks away. The Alex/Maggie moment at the end. I did like Maggie figuring out Supergirl's secret. These are little things the shows do much better than comics. I think people who spend time around Supergirl and Kara would eventually figure it out.

Mon-el is slowly growing on me, though enough of dancing around, we know he's the Prince, just get to it. He's still a bit awkward around Kara, but I think this is on purpose.

Props for Bonus James Urbaniak (Dr. Venture yo!). Kevin's Smith's Daughter managed to do her job OK.

I really liked the Solar Grenade. It was inveviable what it was and that it was going to be used. I liked the effect, and the highlight on Supergrl glowing. And then she got to take out a space ship. Even though they were backing up that Supergirl is more than her powers, they need to show her using her powers/etc. This was nicely done with the time constraints.

Hopefully they're getting over the "Supergirl must be rescued" bit -- she managed to get out of the cell on her own, though the supporting members had their role to play. The balance was a bit better in this episode.

Some of the effects were shaky (van chase at the beinning). Some were pretty good (Spaceship at end). I still don't think they've quite found their place here but I think they are slowly figuring it out.

Nothing stellar here, but it did what it needed to do.

Have to agree. I found the episode....functional is the word I would use.

Neither great nor terrible and did what it had to do. Supergirl is back.

To be fair, I too think it didn't live up to the hype. There were some nice "Kevin Smith" touches, but if I am truly honest, I did expect a little more.

I think its the same with all three (Flash, Legends and Supergirl, I don't follow Arrow sry, but I assume it did the same thing). They all did a good job of setting out the road map for the second half of their seasons. Though I would say Flash and Legends certainly felt a LOT more like that then this episode of Supergirl though. And I must confess, I found both of those much more enjoyable and intriguing.

But, plenty of episodes to go and I am hopeful for better things to come. Looking forward to them

Peace.

/K

I enjoyed the episode. Not great but i enjoyed it.
Supergirl leading the escape was welcome but then the DEO showed up anyway.
I would have liked to have seen her lead the group all the way back to the gateway.

I am sick of Mon-El.
He is the James Olsen of this season dragging the show to a screeching halt everytime he is on screen.
The show is titled SUPERGIRL, it should be about Supergirl.

Good to see Wynn in the DEO uniform.
Always bugged me that he would show up for work in his civvies.
Since Alex operates out in the open it would make sense for her to wear civilian clothes yet she wears a uniform and changes when necessary.

OK, I wasn't going to say anything about the solar grenade but since someone else brought it up, I will get it off my chest. At the distance Kara was from it, how much energy would she absorb? Imagine the surface area of that sphere compared to Kara's. I doubt she would even make up 1 percent. To the best of my knowledge, she is not a light or energy magnet. But my wife liked it so I kept my mouth shut!

Woodclaw wrote:

ace191 wrote: OK, I wasn't going to say anything about the solar grenade but since someone else brought it up, I will get it off my chest. At the distance Kara was from it, how much energy would she absorb? Imagine the surface area of that sphere compared to Kara's. I doubt she would even make up 1 percent. To the best of my knowledge, she is not a light or energy magnet. But my wife liked it so I kept my mouth shut!

This is what I meant when I said a credible pattern: when Kara and Mon-El stepped through the portal and got under the red sunlight they instantly lost their powers, when Kara got exposed to the yellow sunlight again she immediatelly regained her powers. While this is not my prefered solution, it established that kryptonian and daxamite cells don't "hold" any charge in either sense, but the sunlight act as a on/off switch, making very likely that Kara would lose her powers again as soon as lingering radiation from the grenade dissipated.
If, on the other hand, we would have seen the characters growing weaker over a prolonged time, but then Kara getting repowered in an instant I would have called bullshit as well.

The yellow sun thing NEVER makes any sense. There isn't enough energy hitting a human size object on Earth to power Supergirl's powers. Just compare the output of heat vision vs. the input. Can't work. The other powers are just as bad.

Supergirl also established that if she burns out all her stored energy (by pushing it all out as heat vision), it takes a day to recharge. She also doesn't seem to get slowly stronger through the day, it was "no powers" until close to the end when they snapped back on and then over a short period seemed to be full strength. This makes the story better (longer time w/o powers), but is a bit problematic with the 'instant on" idea. There is _some_ kind of battery at work, and the powers need a minimum charge to begin to work.

(My take is that the yellow sun battery actually powers some connection to the REAL power source. If it sputters out, no power flows through => no super powers. But it's not directly powering heat vision/flight/strength/etc because there isn't enough energy for that.)

My other theory is the red sun futzes with the solar absorption/battery. It inhibits storing any new energy and interferes with using any stored energy. That means, powers futz out, but there is still energy stored away, it just can't be accessed. The Yellow Sun Grenade just shocks the red sun out of the system with a giant flash, and temporarily allows Supergirl to use her stored energy. An interesting question for the show is what happens if she heat visions herself empty and someone tosses one of these are her? (I think she shouldn't get her powers back, but it shortens the time before she does.)

They could send her into space to nude sunbathe and shorten the recharge time.

I also like the red sun effect to take a bit to happen (seconds), and not be instant. I think that might have been the case here, and also why after the Yellow Sun Flash, she had powers for a few moments afterwards.

But I just turned my brain off. I like the scene for it's symbolism and lighting Supergirl up. The show SHOULD show her as powerful and beautiful, and that's what that scene did. Supergirl is much more enjoyable when I ask all those pesky questions AFTER the show, so I just sit back and enjoy it.

I also think she was shown being stronger/tougher than a human would be even without her Yellow Sun powers. She seemed to resist the shocks better than the Earth Humans (or at least, someone might have tried more if it took that many shocks to put them down.) It would make sense though, Krypton is a high G planet, she SHOULD be stronger/tougher than an Earth Human.

Slightly off topic, but I always wondered if Helen Slater in the 1984 film would retain her powers and abilities after returning to Argo City with the omegaheddron - I like to think she would have, making her 'unique' amongst the citizens there, rather than her powers fading over time.