Superhero Weekly: Supergirl’s Welcome to Earth, Flash’s New Rogues and Arrow’s Penance

Spoilers will appear in a training montage with some 80’s rock music.

I love how Kara is more of a goof than a superhero in Supergirl. However, too much of a good thing is also an issue. We don’t want Kara to become a cartoon. That might have been the only issue with this cheery episode, that has a bit of a dark undertone, except for the Daxam thing. Also, we have a Mos Eisley Cantina moment! That bar was just so darn cool. Aliens must love Dolly Parton. Nothing remarkable about the baddie of the week. The most remarkable thing was the shining introduction of Madam President Olivia Marsdin (Lynda Carter).

I have to add that I did like how Lena Luthor suddenly demonstrated how potentially dangerous she could be to Supergirl if she were to follow her brother’s ways. Also, if Kara damaged the device with her heat vision, two things should have occurred: 1) That device shouldn’t light up at all and 2) Lena should’ve gotten her hand burned when she touched it. Instead Kara’s heat vision conveniently makes it work as if Kara was from Earth. That’s not what heat vision does.

Did anybody else cringe when lovable Kara expressed her feelings in less-than-nice overtones about Daxam? The message is hammered in, almost to a ridiculous degree. However, I felt like an opportunity was lost. The show was bringing in Mon-El to illustrate how even Kara can be racist without realizing it. He was supposed to be another extraterrestrial race. In the beginning, it was hard to understand why they didn’t use an actor to play him that was of another terrestrial race. Then I understood. If Mon-El was anything other than white, Supergirl might not have been forgiven by her audience that easily.

That being said, I would like Mon-El and Kara to show more complexity between their supposed centuries-old conflict instead of “fixing” the issue of racism in literally one conversation. Hopefully there’s more to them dealing with their past worlds’ legacy.

The Flash takes Jessie Quick for a spin. I guess her name will not mean much to people on Earth-1 and that’s why it’s not a big deal for her to just use it as part of her superhero persona. They’re both on to take Mirror Master and Top. It’s a fun team-up although Barry gets trapped in one of MM’s mirrors and unable to phase out until someone helps him. Yes, we’re getting really close to Killer Frost making a comeback.

Perhaps one of the central stories of this episode was the re-invention of Harrison Wells. We’ve already seen two versions: the tech mogul with a dark side that ended being Eobard Thawne/The Reverse Flash and the curmudgeon mad scientist but loving father of Jessie Quick. So, what’s next? Well, apparently someone more upbeat. The thing is, how do you not know if you’re going to end up bringing another version of the Reverse-Flash into STAR labs? After not messing with the timeline, I’m a little reluctant to go shopping in the multiverse for alternate casting.

And then there’s Arrow. This week brought us “Penance”. In this episode, Wild Dog does something stupid and Oliver doesn’t trust his team so he goes on a dangerous mission alone. That’s what the entire season has been about so far. There’s a few developments though. Lyla recruits Oliver to break out John Diggle from prison because of course she does. Mind you, in this prison there’s places a plenty for Oliver to crawl through so very unlike a prison at all. Yes, John Diggle is a free man. It feels like there was a longer expectation for this side story that had to be cut short so we had to undo whatever was planned.

Ragman aka Rory quits the team and rejoins again after deciding to forgive Felicity. I’m not sure why we set that storyline if we were done with it in two episodes. Then again, I’m willing to give Rory the benefit of the doubt because he’s the best established character of the new recruits, although not the one mostly featured. That title belongs to Wild Dog who seems to be the one mostly in the secondary spotlight. Curtis aka Mr. Terrific is somehow playing second fiddle although we know him longer. How does that work? And finally, there’s Evelyn. Evelyn Sharp has the codename of Artemis and a bow. I should be seeing her making arrows fly left and right but most of the time she’s given nothing to do. She needs somewhat of a storyline and no, last season doesn’t count.

Ragman is the most powerful character, yet in this episode he’s only used as a shield. Mr. Terrific is supposed to be the smartest, but so far he seems to be used as comedy relief. Evelyn Sharpe is not used even though she was a force back when she was pretending to be Black Canary so what gives! And I’m not sure why Thea is staying on the sidelines.

Highs/Lows/Daxamites

Lynda Carter as President Olivia Marsdin. “You should see my other jet” was a nice nudge nudge wink wink. She wouldn’t be able to see it though, right? Also, Kara doing that twirl to put out Scourge’s flames. Yes, it was on the nose but who cares.
Maggie Smith (Floriana Lima) is brought to the screen by getting on Alex’s nerves and then helping her know the secret bar where the aliens come to relax. Alex returns the favor later. Did I see a spark? Definitely something should happen between those two.
The Dollywood Bar. I don’t know what it’s called, but let’s call it that for now. I half expected Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes playing in the corner (the cantina band from Star Wars, who else?). More scenes have to happen here.
Mon-El, the Daxamite. The whole Daxam thing was a ham-fisted approach to an anti-racism PTA ad. The idea is that even someone like Kara might not realize she’s been racist? I don’t think this one worked too well. That being said, I wish they’d keep exploring this angle a bit rather than fix racism in one episode.
Snapper Carr gets puts on his place by Jimmy. Eventually. Still, I support Snapper giving Kara a hard time so she can become a reporter. Can we assume Kara has studied journalism? Should we clarify that so that people don’t believe that you can be anything you want as long as some big and powerful rich person just gives it to you?
Jessie Quick! Finally she’s her own, but as much as I understand the whole training stage it did felt weird for Flash to tell her to “just stay here” as if that was any kind of alternative.
Caitlin Snow using her freezing powers to complete the process so that Barry can escape. Show of hands, who didn’t know she would do that after Cisco and Harry said they needed to freeze the mirror?
I’m a bit on the fence with the whole “let’s switch Wells for Wells” trans-dimensional approach. Shouldn’t that cause more space-time continuum issues? Guess that only applies for timeline alterations.
Ragman aka Rory Regan (Joe Dinicol) stopping bullets. How cool is this guy? I would expect Ragman to take on someone like Tobias Church with little to no trouble, but I guess we have to play Church up. Ragman is terribly underused for a character that is powerful enough to take on several guys at once.
And speaking of Tobias Church, Chad L. Coleman is doing a terrific job. Definitely less of a square than Neal Donough’s Damien Darhk and I do find him more charismatic. Also, please let him remain just a street level thug and not become a supernatural foe.
Wild Dog aka Rene Ramirez (Rick Gonzalez) is getting on my nerves when he talks down to Felicity. Manners, people. Lack of them don’t make you cool. He screws up really bad this time, enough to get caught. I don’t see him learning anything, so chances are he’ll remain the same. So far he’s not really an asset.
Artemis aka Evelyn Sharpe (Madison McLaughlin) needs a storyline. Also, she needs to still be part of the team when she doesn’t have one.
Mr. Terrific aka Curtis Hold (Echo Kellum) needs more points in badassery and less in comedy relief. We know he can be smart, so time to hang back and create a few gadgets. You need to be prepared Curtis.
I think the team needs a more disciplined trainer than Ollie. I say bring back Nyssa, let her take the recruits to the mountains and train them for a few episodes. More than one, less than five. She’d be one to whip them into shape. They’d come back solid.
If John Diggle and Lyla stay in the show, and we also have Quentin Lance and Thea and now Adrian Chase (Josh Segarra) who could be the future Vigilante… Well, it’s getting a little crowded in here. I really expected John Diggle and Lyla to be living the civilian life somewhere else.
Under other circumstances, I would be interested in Ollie’s past adventures joining the Bratva. I wish they’d somehow could be watched separately from the rest of the series.