Supergirl says goodbye
An emotional series finale stumbles through some messy plotting before delivering a pitch-perfect farewell
TV Reviews Supergirl
When Supergirl premiered, it felt like we needed her. Female-led superhero movies like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel were still years away, and we were barely out of that strange period of asking celebrities whether they considered themselves feminists as some kind of “gottcha” question. At a time when our cultural image of female strength was at a tipping point, Melissa Benoist’s dazzling portrayal of the Girl of Steel offered a different kind of empowerment story. One that prioritized hope, help, and compassion for all—a mission statement the show took to new heights in response to the 2016 election, when Supergirl became more overtly political in its storytelling.
Over the past few years, however, Supergirl’s place in the ever-expanding, ever-diversifying live action superhero landscape has become a little less unique. Female-led
superhero projects are no longer a novelty, which is perhaps why the past two seasons of the show have struggled to recapture the driving purpose of the first four. Plotwise, tonight’s two-part finale is a bizarre end to a bizarre season, with villains and storylines that are dispatched so casually it’s almost comical. And yet part of the magic of Supergirl is that even with those flaws, I can still come away impressed by how well the last half of the show’s last episode stuck the landing emotionally.
That’s because Supergirl is the definition of a show that’s greater than the sum of its parts. It never had a perfect season, and it only really had a handful of truly perfect episodes (I’m looking at you “Human for A Day”). And, yet, on the whole, I’d still consider it one of the most inspiring, emotionally rich series in the CW canon—particularly as its simplistic
vision of feminism evolved into a more complex, intersectional one. Even when the storytelling faltered, Supergirl’s stellar cast and optimistic spirit always soared. So going out with some terrible plotting coupled with some massive emotional highs? Well, at least Supergirl stayed true to itself until the very end.
The first episode of tonight’s two-part finale, “The Last Gauntlet,” is one of the weakest episodes of the season, if not the series as a whole, and The CW was smart to pair it up with “Kara” in order to wash the bad taste out of our mouths as quickly as possible. The whole thing hinges on Lex and Nyxly trying to extract the Love Totem from a kidnapped Emse and then use her as a bargaining chip in order to get the other five totems from the Super Friends. It’s hard to say which is the weirdest plot swing: The way Brainy casually mentions that he can harness the power of the sun to supercharge Kara in exchange for the sun no longer working for six months. Or the fact that Kara nearly goes through with the plan before some pleas from the terrified population change her mind.
Whatever season six was trying to do with its “accountability for the Super Friends” angle never really worked. And while I’m all for storylines that highlight Kara’s flaws, the sun debacle is way too big of a swing this late in the game, especially when the next hour starts with Kara pulling one of her classic “empower people with a speech!” moves, which feels like it would’ve been far more effective if she hadn’t, you know, almost just destroyed the sun to get her niece back. Though it’s my understanding that season six was crafted as a final season, in practice it feels more like the writers had to hastily rewrite a pre-existing storyline to make it work as a series finale. After all that time spent on Nyxly’s potential redemption arc and her romance with Lex, in the end both villains are dispatched so unceremoniously that I almost wonder if The CW already has plans to bring them back on some other Arrowverse show. (Superman & Lois, maybe?) Ah well, at least we got some good Lillian Luthor content before she tragically sacrifices herself to save Lex. R.I.P. Mama Luthor.
Indeed, it would be easy to spend most of this review dissecting the many, many things this finale does wrong. And given that those missteps make up about 2/3s of tonight’s two-hour special, it might make more sense to do so. But as a wise time traveler once said, “Sprock logic!” When I think back on this series finale, the stuff I’m going to remember is the second half of the final episode, “Kara,” which takes place on and around Alex and Kelly’s wedding day. Despite its season-long plot stumbles, Supergirl miraculously manages to come up with pitch-perfect emotional endings for just about all of its characters. And, yes, that includes having Brainy decide he’d rather be with Nia than safe-guard the future and surprise her at the wedding, which is the moment I first started crying and basically didn’t stop from there.
“Kara” neatly avoids all the pitfalls I’d been afraid might come to pass. Kara doesn’t wind up traveling to the future to marry Mon-El. (In fact, this episode brings back Chris Wood largely to definitively close the book on his time with Kara.) Nor does she lose her powers, which is where I was afraid we were headed with that whole sun debacle. The show even manages to nod towards the importance of Kara and Lena’s friendship in a way that honors why fans are so drawn to that pairing but stays true to the show’s world as written too.
In fact, one of the best things about “Kara” is that it doesn’t try to manufacture an artificial endpoint or preclude any future possibilities. Instead, this finale puts the idea of change and evolution right at its very center. As Lena tells Andrea, all of us have the power to make amends for our wrongs, choose who we want to be, and live a meaningful life. She’s living proof. And the idea of change becomes a central part of Kara’s story too—first through Orlando, a young man she helped mentor, and then through Cat Grant (Cat Grant!!!!!!!), the woman who helped mentor her.
Though Kara has delivered many a heroic speech before, watching Orlando become a beacon of hope for others helps change her focus slightly. She decides to empower people to become their own heroes, both to themselves and to others. Her vision is a future where superheroes don’t just punch bad guys, they serve as civil servants who tackle issues in a systemic, sustainable way—whether at Nia’s Dreamer Center for LGBT Outreach or J’onn’s new peace-oriented DEO. And it’s Cat who helps Kara see that she deserves to practice what she preaches too, as a fulfilled, fully integrated version of herself who doesn’t need to constantly toggle between her two identities.
Of course, having Kara decide to reveal her identity runs the risk of making the show’s previous ardent defense of her secret identify moot. But I like the way Cat frames it: “It doesn’t take Freud to see that you have a secret and it’s obstructing your life and it’s not serving you anymore. So screw it!” Just because there was a time and place for Kara’s secret identity doesn’t mean she has to hold onto it forever. As the circumstances of her life change, she’s allowed to evolve and make new choices too. It’s an idea that echoes this finale’s decision not to put some big, definitive endpoint on its storytelling. While Kara revealing her identity (and taking a job as CatCo’s editor-in-chief!) starts a whole new chapter for her, in many ways things are still the same as they ever were, with bustling family game nights to prove it.
More than anything, this finale gives its characters hope for the future—sometimes literally, as when Winn casually reveals that J’onn and M’gann have a son in the future. (It’s a shame the show couldn’t get Sharon Leal back, but I’ll take it!) Supergirl ends with a much more nuanced message than the clunky “girl power” theming it started with: Embrace your power, live authentically, prioritize your happiness and the happiness of others, and don’t be afraid to change. Considering how often this season (and this series) felt like it was building the plane as it flew, there’s something empowering about watching Supergirl get to end on its own ambitiously unambitious terms. While it might not have been a perfect show, the strongest moments of tonight’s finale capture why I’m sad to see Supergirl go up, up, and away one last time.
Stray observation
- Some moments that made me cheer: Mama Danvers firing a shot gun. The fact that the show kept Calista Flockhart’s return a surprise. Lena’s entire wedding look.
- Some moments that made me smile: Mon-El telling Kara that her speech changes the course of the future. Kara and Winn dueting on “We Belong.” The dancing montage. That sweet scene where Kara calls James and Winn the original Super Friends.
- Some moments that made me cry: Esme calling him “Grandpa J’onn.” James giving Kelly a beacon watch. Basically everything about the wedding, including the reveal that Alex and Kelly were in J’onn’s flying convertible.
- Some moments that made me laugh: J’onn saying: “I always knew Lex was dangerous, but this has gone too far.” The fact that Kara’s big plan to empower people also involved using magic to manipulate their minds and remove their defense mechanisms. Lex and Nyxly randomly changing into weird dinosaur monsters and the show barely addressing it. Never change, Supergirl, never change.
- On a personal note, thank you so much for following along with these reviews over the years. Supergirl was the first show I ever covered regularly at The A.V. Club, and save for one fill-in (thanks LaToya Ferguson!), I’ve reviewed every single episode of the series. Across three apartments, three presidents, and all sorts of career ups and downs, Supergirl has been one of the most consistent elements of my life over the past six years. It’s bittersweet to say goodbye, but it’s been an honor and a pleasure to grow alongside Kara Danvers—and to keep up with all your insights and riffs in the comments! If you’d like to stay in touch, you can follow me over on Twitter. Otherwise I’ll leave you with the Zor-El family motto, “El mayarah” a.k.a. “Stronger Together.”
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It’s probably not a good thing that my first thought when the finale was over was “What was the point of any of that?”There’s just so much that happened here and during this final season that really annoyed me. They knew that this was the final season and this is what they put out, there were no real endings for most of the cast. J’onn got nothing to do in the end, other then a future kid with M’Gann (Who never showed up on screen), Brainy and Nia are still together but honestly so much about Nia like her career as a reporter and her personal life just got completely ignored by the end. The villains turned on each other and just got sucked into the Phantom Zone and that was the end of it. Even Kara got a pretty half assed ending. Like, this is even worse than how Black Lightning ended because they were at least blindsided by the cancellation. The Supergirl team got even longer to handle their cancellation and this is what they put out.But anyway speaking of Kara, what the hell was that ending? That’s one of the worst reasons I’ve heard for someone unmasking. Because it was inconveniencing her? Yeah I’m sure it was but like it’s like that with every superhero and there’s a lot of reasons why Kara was keeping her identity secret (Whole episodes even), because she had people to protect (And also journalistic integrity I guess but lol, that’s not a thing on this show). Nice of Calista Flockhart to come back for a cameo though, and for Cat Grant to save Catco from Andrea, who fortunately was barely in this episode and disappeared after the big battle (If she showed up at the wedding I didn’t see her).This finale didn’t really do anything to set up Supergirls place in the Arrowverse’s future either. I can’t really blame it for not explaining what was up with Superman & Lois because that show exists in its own weird bubble but what’s the reason Kara isn’t going to be around for the Flash crossover?I don’t know, there was stuff I liked about this show but in the end, it was a mess and I’m just not going to miss it.
It’s not that she was inconvenienced. It was that her entire life she was told she had to either be Kara or she had to be Supergirl, but she couldn’t be both at the same time. Being told you can’t be who you want to be for your entire life is mentally draining especially when the world has changed to a point where you don’t NEED to hide your true self anymore.
That wasn’t really her core dilemma though. It was her inability to be both Kara Danvers and Kara Zor-El on earth. She didn’t just have to hide she had to bury half of herself to become Kara Danvers, because no one on earth including Alex understands that side of her identity. And now I guess no one ever will, and Kara Zor-El is gone forever.
But having a public superhero identity is going to wreak havoc on Kara’s love life. I can see the hesitation of “normies” asking her out. Her loved ones are mostly either superpowered or superpower adjacent. So I think they can deal with the constant threat from supervillains. Lois Lane and Steve Trevor handled years of being abducted and tied up by villains.
Exactly. The villain threat was diminished now that Supergirl wasn’t one of the few people fighting them. Much less of a target on her and her loved one’s back. So that obstacle was removed. Plus aliens in general were much more widely accepted, so that obstacle is gone too. It made sense that now was the time she could come out as herself.
Even that feels off because… why didn’t she just ask for advice from Clark? Again, I get that Hochelin can’t be on set all the time, but the first season showed her texting Clark all the time. Why not have her talk to him over the phone or text each other again?
Beauty of doing it at the literal last second is they don’t have to deal with any of the practical problems involved.Like, no way she can keep that apartment, and CatCo’s gonna need REALLY upgraded security. Otherwise, I give it a month before some supervillain tears the building down trying to get to her.
Yeah I get that but the metaphor doesn’t really work here. The reason she had a secret identity was to protect herself and her family. And just because most of them are superheroes too doesn’t really help. It just means that everyone’s going to be looking over their shoulders now forever because they know the significance of who they are.
they spent the whole 100th episode explaining how the world would burn if she’d told just one person her secret identity sooner, then the whole penultimate episode of the series showing how dangerous it is when villains target Kara’s loved ones, THEN THEY DECIDED TO TELL ALL THE VILLAINS EVERYWHERE EXACTLY WHO HER LOVED ONES ARE.
Total and complete nonsense.
It was complete nonsense. Supergirl has always had trouble with continuity, but that was beyond the pale. THEY HAD A WHOLE EPISODE ABOUT IT THE PREVIOUS SEASON.
I agree with those who say, they clearly wrote this season originally believing they had another and then they learned it would be their last and had to rewrite the end of the series.
The fact that the show kept Calista Flockhart’s return a surprise. I think the biggest reason they were able to pull it off is that she was very obviously not filming in Vancouver. Very easy to keep her a secret when she isn’t on set with everyone else.
I suppose it’s basically the same as what happened with Chyler Leigh on Grey’s Anatomy. She shot her scenes as Lexie in Vancouver and they stitched them into the show.
– This fucking show.- “Lex has gone too far this time!” He was INTRODUCED turning the sun red just to fuck over Superman. Does that not count anymore?- “I would never hurt an innocent child!” Nyxly, you didn’t really care that much when you leveled an apartment complex a while back.- “You’re not a monster, Andrea!” No, just a jackass and a waste of a character, right to the end.- Everyone crying over William. Imagine if they actually killed a good character off. – Missed opportunity not to have the statue holding the Destiny Totem look like Charlie from Legends. – I don’t know what made me laugh/really annoyed more. The fact that Alex somehow traveled thousands of miles as fast as Kara, that they never bothered to explain it, or that Kara didn’t question it at all. I will say, however, that it was admirable to keep Alex consistent. She started the show making the worst/stupidest decisions ever, and by golly, she kept that up consistently over all six seasons and right into the finale. – This is in-character, I guess, but damn, you’d think Alex had adopted Esme back in Season 2. And Esme was essentially forced upon her by Kelly, at that!- This fucking show.- If Lex was simply using Nyxly and not in love with her, wouldn’t the Truth Totem have showed that last episode? Why was that not directly brought up here? – “I had to let her go.” You’re a dumbass, Kara.- Most of the episode could have this, but during that entire “vaporize the sun for six months to supercharge Kara” stretch, you could just have Linkara’s “Of course! Don’t you know anything about science?” chanting non-stop in the background. – “No one will ever love you.” I do. Lex has been the best, most entertaining character on this show and I shudder to think how these last 2.5 seasons would have gone without him.- It takes a hilariously long time for everyone at the bridge to wonder why the sky is getting darker, especially Nyxly and Lex.- I know the meta reasons and this show has had this question a lot, but where the fuck are Barry and Clark? Clark especially should have appeared once the sun started going dark. – What exactly happened to Kara’s strength already absorbed? Just because they cut off the beam a few seconds short (which shouldn’t have mattered, because Brainy paused and the plan should have completed anyway, but I guess if someone isn’t counting down it doesn’t count) doesn’t mean the energy Kara already absorbed disappears.- How did literally everyone survive a bridge exploding (to a flat plane with no cliffsides for said bridge to connect to) with not only no broken bones, but not even ANY cuts or injuries? – This fucking show.- …Why did Nyxly and Lex turn into lizard people? Is that why Kara was so useless during the river fight?- “Titans fight.” I don’t see Raven or Starfire anywhere.
– “Soon they’ll be lost forever.” HOW? You JUST revealed last week that the Totem energy can’t be erased. Fuck, it’s elementary school science that energy doesn’t vanish, it just changes forms. Nyxly and Lex absorb emotions to fuel their laser beams, they shoot their laser beams, and the emotion energy… fucks off for Bermuda? It should just go straight back to the humans after being expended.- Hey, hey, hey. Remember when Brainy stated that literally every planet had a set of Totems?- When they tried to humanize Lillian, I couldn’t help but have Bender’s “laughing, ask if Leela’s serious, then laugh harder” meme pop into my head. – I legit cheered when I saw Calista Flockhart in the credits. That being said, it was hilariously obvious they filmed her on some random WB soundstage in front of a green screen. – Why are Lex and Nyxly staying in National City instead of rumbling across the globe?- Sentinel and Guardian actually holding their own against Parasite and Metallo. Just… argh. Also, Guardian somehow gets super strength? Wha?- The Actor Allusion was cute, but where did Eliza come from? Was she already in town? Did she bring a shotgun with her from Midvale?- I am legit angry at how lame that final battle was. Yet another example of Stargirl doing it better. – This fucking show.- “I love you, Nia. Fuck that whole ‘My race will all die if I don’t join them’ thing. They’re off-screen characters, nobody cares. Like your cousin said, that problem is over there, and over there has to take care of their own problems.”- I like to think Alex didn’t invite Barry out of fear he’d bring another group of Nazis and supervillains from another Earth to crash the wedding. She also didn’t invite Clark as petty revenge for him not inviting her and Kara to Martha’s funeral.- They finally mentioned M’gann, but never bothered to say where she was these past 13 episodes. Presumably, she is back on Mars, but that is never stated anywhere.- Didn’t Cat Grant already reveal that she knew Kara was Supergirl back in the Season 2 finale? Is that another Crisis retcon? – Do the writers not know that depression isn’t the reason for most crimes to take place? Like, the way the characters are talking, it’s as if Supergirl giving sappy speeches brought about world peace.- Like, I get why Tyler Hochelin didn’t appear. But to not even have Kara talking with him over the phone or having a line saying she discussed revealing her identity to the world with Clark beforehand is honestly really detrimental to the character. It’as not going to take a genius to connect Kara Danvers to her cousin Clark Kent and him being Superman. And having her identity known, and having her still active, makes already frustrating continuity with Superman & Lois even more frustrating.
– I will say the wedding was overall a nice stretch. Seeing Winn, James, and Kara reminisce about Season 1 was nice. And it’s the first time an Arroeverse wedding went off without a hitch. – There were apparently some deleted scenes from the wedding. James gave Esme a camera, Lena became Esme’s godmother, and Nia used her powers to catch the bouquet. There’s also a shot of Kara and Lena kissing, but I don’t know if that was actually scripted, or just something the cast and crew did to troll SuperCorp shippers.- I have many, many feeling about this show. Some positive, some negative. Lots of facepalming. But I think my feelings about this show could be summed up pretty well in three words: This. Fucking. Show.
“a shot of Kara and Lena kissing”Wait, what?
The inherent flaw of the Arrowverse after Crisis was that everyone ended up on the same world. It created impossible holes in storylines that could never be filled. Why would a superhero ignore a worldwide crisis? The excuses became so ridiculous that they just stopped mentioning them. Its the same issue that is going to make upcoming Flash five episode “Armageddon” arc tedious. Someone is here to destroy the world and Superman is nowhere to be found? Alex somehow traveled thousands of miles as fast as Kara, that they never bothered to explain it, They did actually explain it a little. At the end of the scene Alex moved off camera toward a pink glow and that portal sound effect. Which of course raised an issue for me: if everybody has access to this portal thing (Lila exited through a portal a couple of times in the finally) why the fuck are they flying around to get places.
This is my exact argument why it makes no sense why people want Agents of SHIELD to be in the main MCU movie universe. In the later seasons, the Agents face threats that are world-ending yet they never even think to call Iron Man to help out.It’s nice to have a connected universe but the downside is sometimes your smaller shows / threats have to be just that or it starts feeling like the whole “connected universe” is super contrived.
The thing is, the “Where are all the other heroes” argument is as old as comics continuity itself, and to see it keep coming up always surprises me. My suspension of disbelief about that has just been so fully put into my body by experience with other narratives like it that I just don’t know how other folks get so twisted about it. They’re “over there” doing “something else”. You don’t even need an absurd oath like the Eternals’ to say that. It’s just part of the milieu. And at this point, for me at least, it’s about as intentionally obtuse as wondering why their hair doesn’t get messed up flying around at those speeds: just repeat to yourself “It’s just a show, I should really just relax”.
Now, I understand that these specific characters are fairly important to this specific storyline/main character… but then again, are they? Technically, I think Superman and the Flash were in five or six whole episodes each.
The difference is that hairstyles don’t affect the plot. Whether Superman (etc) exists or not is a massive plot hole – you can’t have him sometimes exist and be directly relevant to the plot, yet other times not exist (or may as well not exist). It’s incoherent, and prevents the audience from thinking about what might happen, or why things have happened. Since we don’t know what CAN happen, and we don’t know why any characters do anything (since we have no way to explain why they don’t do certain things).
It’s only “incoherent” if you’ve not dealt with the slightly-coinciding narratives of shared universes before. Literally every DC/Marvel comic, Star Wars episode, and special crossover on TGIF has “dealt” with this. Dr. Strange should also be consistently interested in what happens with Wanda, Loki, or the Phoenix. The Enterprise likely should have fought at the forefront of the Dominion War. The Russians, Americans, and Chinese should be far more prevalent in the James Bond series. The FBI and US Attorney’s offices should probably be involved with a FUCKTON more cases on all the myriad Law and Order series. For many folks, though, this simply does not a knicker twist. We just GET that the show ain’t about those other things.I’m mean, you’re essentially arguing that Superman is Poochie: that everyone should always be asking “Where’s Superman?”. But knowing that a guest character likely won’t show up in a show they don’t star in and aren’t the point of, no matter how supposedly powerful or intimate they are with the main character, is like knowing that those stage lights over the stage (or the frame around your TV) aren’t part of the show: it’s just part of the artifice of the medium when shared universes are involved, and the majority of us are experienced enough with it to let it be fundamentally invisible even if we can realize they exist in retrospect. Further, if that’s the sort of thing you’re thinking about while watching the show, either the show is so terrible that no one could help but focus on such architectural minutiae (which may be fair to argue), or you’ve brought that particular anxiety into the show with you. And I would argue that that isn’t the responsibility of any artist to assuage, much less it being within their power.
I don’t think “many other stories also have crippling flaws, so crippling flaws are great, actually” is quite the trump card you think it is. Are lots of superhero comics bad? OK, maybe they are, but that doesn’t mean that TV shows should be bad too.
Because yes, if the premise of your story is that one of your characters is an all-powerful demigod whose will is invincible, but it’s OK because he uses his power to save the world whenever a terrible threat arises, then YES, whenever a terrible threat arises all the other characters SHOULD be asking “where the fuck is superman? isn’t this his fucking job? he could at least damn well show an interest I mean this is the only reason we don’t keep him locked up in a kryptonite guantanamo, precisely so that he can solve this exact problem if it ever arises, and it’s arisen, so where the fuck is here, how come he hasn’t even sent a ‘you guys good?’ text or anything?”… because if they’re not, then that’s a fundamental plot hole that makes the entire character incoherent. It means your character is not acting in a way that would make sense for that character, and the people around them are not acting in a way that follows organically from the established plot to that point. And it’s a plot hole the arrowverse shows have in the past at least attempted to address explicitly, so it’s not like they’re not aware that it’s a problem.
[is it narratively inconvenient that people expect your demigod to do stuff? Yes. But that’s the whole point of having a demigod as your protagonist. You can’t seriously explore what it means for them to be a demigod if you DON’T consistently address issues like this.][[fwiw, I assume the Enterprise DID fight in the Dominion War – there’s no reason to think it didn’t. Apparently the fleet it was in did fight a battle. Although given that the ship had recently been in combat against the Borg and presumably needed refitting as the war broke out, and that Picard was a diplomatic specialist, it’s possible it was used for diplomatic and logistic missions rather than battle. The fact that fans can have coherent discussions about what it might have done and the evidence for and against is part of what people like about Star Trek: it tries (at least, the TNG/DS9/V era tried) to maintain continuity. Conversely, the fact that the Law and Order series inconsistently and unrealistically depicts the law enforcement system is part of why the shows are not highly regarded…]]
Personally, plot holes aren’t the be-all end-all, but I do appreciate when writers make an effort to cover them up. To be fair, I imagine the consistent excuse would be ‘he’s busy’ or something like that, lol.Also it’s funny to see ‘this fucking show’ used in a negative light.
The whole point is, you assume he’s dealing with other world-threatening events.
YES but Barry and Clark’s interactions with Kara were consistently freaking gold. Imagine Clark showing up and absolutely going AT IT with Lex while Nxly and Kara battle for the fate of all mankind. Instead they get sucked into a portal and we get nothing cool about that fight.
Maybe it was covid or whatever, but the arrowverse not doing team ups after crisis was the biggest facepalm lost opportunity of these shows. To the fans, that was the entire point and they just could never do it. Wasted opprtunities
The problem with the shared world comes from the comic book territory. Even the MCU with it’s huge budgets isn’t immune to it.
The portal sound effect for Alex was so hilariously done in post, I kind of loved how shoddy it felt.
Cat Grant revealed she knew to the audience in that ep years ago- it’s right after Kara is out of earshot that the audience hears Cat say, “go get ‘em, Supergirl.”
Considering Supergirl’s super hearing, you’d think she’d have heard it.
you would think SO MANY THINGS, but enjoying Supergirl frequently meant not thinking through what they were doing.
Super hearing, like krpytonian super speed, is one of those powers that only exists when the plot demands it, and is completely forgotten about all the rest of the time…
I don’t think her super hearing is something that is always set to on so to speak. She doesn’t hear every word spoken around her. For her to hear Cat she would have to be focusing on her.
Given that Cat says “Supergirl” you might think so, but even then she whispered it and Kara had just run off to save somebody. You and I do not focus on every sound around us. We are selective and so are Kryptonians one would assume. Usually our names or selective words that have meaning to us might stand out in background noise at a party.
The season 1 episode she had Kara take off her glasses and so she probably knew for sure then.
is that the one where Kara asks J’onn to impersonate Supergirl to fix her cover with Cat? That was the first time the writing on this show made me want to throw things.
Is someone with superhearing ever really out of earshot? ;)Thanks for reminding me about that episode, it was driving me crazy trying to remember when Cat had mentioned knowing Kara’s secret identity earlier in the series!
Superman and Lois explains this bit – it’s a focus thing or else they get overwhelmed.
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you make a lot of good points but as for Helen Slater’s showing up at the fight? No surprise, she would have come in town early for the wedding,
the injoke of being a Kryptonian “only in the movies” was a nice nod.
I wouldn’t have minded if they had a scene in the previous episode of Alex or Kara on the phone talking to her.
Early for the wedding, WITH A SHOTGUN.
Well, they DO have a child already. Gotta preserve Alex’s honor.
That was neat, though a bit fanwanky. Since this was the finale’ it’s fine though. Just because the film is lousy it really wasn’t Helen’s fault (I gave it a rewatch a few years ago).
And she brought a shotgun. You know, for the wedding.
“- What exactly happened to Kara’s strength already absorbed? Just because they cut off the beam a few seconds short (which shouldn’t have mattered, because Brainy paused and the plan should have completed anyway, but I guess if someone isn’t counting down it doesn’t count) doesn’t mean the energy Kara already absorbed disappears.”Agree with this, but this just reminds me of every show where a character is poisoned and has 24 hours to live and then 23.5 hours later they are given the antidote. They would still be severely fucked up at that point regardless.
“”No one will ever love you.” I do. Lex has been the best, most entertaining character on this show and I shudder to think how these last 2.5 seasons would have gone without him.”Jon Cryer carried this show on his back for seasons and yeah I don’t want to imagine how dire the show would’ve been without him.
“I have many, many feelings about this show.”No shit…?
It’as not going to take a genius to connect Kara Danvers to her cousin Clark KentHave Kara and Clark ever been publicly identified as cousins in their secret identities? Even if they were they could always pass it off as Kara’s earth parents being cousins of the Kents.
While a lot of your complaints are valid (and hilarious) I’ll mention that, as far as the world at large knows, Clark Kent and Kara Danvers are not related at all. At least, I don’t think there’s supposed to be any blood relation between the Kent and Danvers families; the Danverses were just some people Superman knew who could take in Kara.
“I love you, Nia. Fuck that whole ‘My race will all die if I don’t join
them’ thing. They’re off-screen characters, nobody cares. Like your
cousin said, that problem is over there, and over there has to take care
of their own problems.”Unfortunately, so many TV shows now, even those that portray themselves as progressive or activist – like Supergirl – ultimately have their moral theories boil down in this way to “if it doesn’t serve YOU anymore, screw it!”. It’s an extreme individualism in the guise of moralism. It’s the self-help approach to ethics. Is it purely a narrative contrivance to make simpler storylines? Or are the goop-swilling hollywood (/vancouver…) class just unable to see beyond this sort of selfishness-as-virtue ideology?
So what’s your point?
So what’s your point?
“I would never hurt an innocent child!” Nyxly, you didn’t really care that much when you leveled an apartment complex a while back.There is a difference between hurting a bunch of faceless kids when you knock down a building and intentionally hurting a child directly.This is in-character, I guess, but damn, you’d think Alex had adopted Esme back in Season 2. And Esme was essentially forced upon her by Kelly, at that!Given what we know Kelly wouldn’t have had to push that hard to “force” the kid on Alex and I doubt she would have done so if Alex really objected to adopting her.The Actor Allusion was cute, but where did Eliza come from? Was she already in town? Did she bring a shotgun with her from Midvale?Presumably she was in town for the wedding. I have no idea where she got the shotgun from but it wasn’t likely something she brought from Midvale.“I love you, Nia. Fuck that whole ‘My race will all die if I don’t join them’ thing. They’re off-screen characters, nobody cares. Like your cousin said, that problem is over there, and over there has to take care of their own problems.”This bugged me a little bit too. That said the thing about time travel is Brainy could stick around for 50 years and still arrive in the future at the same time thus not hurting anyone off screen.
This is the greatest post ever made about this show. This last season in particular was a TRAINWRECK of a storyline. Nothing made sense. A massive mess. How you don’t get some scene with Clark and Barry is ABSURD. Mon-El returning literally to tell her “I’ll never be back”? Brainy rejecting his ENTIRE RACE- not even saying he was so smart that he fixed it and was able to come back?
Flockhart stopped playing Kat because she wouldn’t split her time between living with Harrison Ford in LA and filming in Vancouver, after the show moved to CW from CBS where it was filmed in LA in season 1. No doubt to get her back for this they would have told her she wouldn’t have to go anywhere.
It’s Flockhart’s birthday today! She’s probably praying Ford isn’t going to take her on one of his plane rides.
“- …Why did Nyxly and Lex turn into lizard people? Is that why Kara was so useless during the river fight?”
What? Was with?? Them becoming lizard people?!
Someone please answer this, I feel like I’m going crazy
I thought it was pretty self-explanatory. They were evil and wanted to destroy the world, like lizards do. And then they stole people’s emotions and used them as laser beams, just like lizards.
Institutionalize me
“And it’s the first time an Arroeverse wedding went off without a hitch.”Ray and Nora beat them by two seasons on the Arrowverse’s red-headed step child, Legends of Tomorrow.
The Kara/Lena kiss is a (very bad, very obvious) manip. I don’t know why anyone thinks it’s real other than delusion.
“Didn’t Cat Grant already reveal that she knew Kara was Supergirl back in the Season 2 finale? Is that another Crisis retcon?” She did, but it was after Kara had left the scene, so she revealed that she knew to the audience, but not to Kara or any other character.“There were apparently some deleted scenes from the wedding. James gave Esme a camera, Lena became Esme’s godmother, and Nia used her powers to catch the bouquet.” These weren’t deleted scenes – those were all in the final episode.
Lena’s wedding outfit was powerful indeed. I thought nothing would top Alex’s suit but, welp.Yeah, the literal plot had a lot of issues, story just seemed to get away from them this season. But dang if they didn’t do right by the characters. Kara giving up her secret identity makes sense to me- she was terrible at concealing it anyway and her family is strong as fuck so the old “the villains might target the people who love you!” thing is kinda pointless. And just yeah, it was super sweet, we got to hear Kara sing again!That’s the thing with this show, it had its rough spots but Kara Danvers/Zor-El always just has been this nice ray of sunshine. Melissa Benoist’s casting was perfect from the start, even as they were figuring out most of the rest of the show, and this is a character many, many comics creators have struggled to make work. This is not to shortchange the ensemble, of course, they had a very strong overall cast.It was a fun time during some rough years and I’ll always credit it for that. I wish everyone involved the best.
I loved that Lena went for an evening glam look at a daytime farm wedding. I’m guessing the Luthors just don’t do country chic, ever.
The biggest bright spot for me is that I discovered Melissa Benoist through this show. She is such an incredible actress and I will watch anything she is in until the end of time.Nicole is also super impressive considering this is her first proper role.
When Lena thanked Kara for helping her become “who she was meant to be” I thought she was about to finish the line as, “… a solo Stevie Nicks tribute act.”And then the show ended with “Landslide”, which I felt pretty much cemented it.
The last half hour of the finale is the best this show has ever been. And I find that extremely frustrating because THIS is what this show should’ve been focused on, and what this final season should’ve been focused on. Stories about family, smaller interpersonal stories. The problem with this show has always been it wanted to be a genderswapped Superman. I understand that’s what the character was initially created as, but this was a chance to do things different, and it didn’t achieve that potential until the last half 15 minutes of this episode. That moment Kara decided to start living her life DIFFERENTLY from the way Clark lives his is the moment Supergirl stepped out from under Superman’s shadow. Cat Grant is the best character on this show, and letting Calista Flockheart walk away in the second season was one of the worst decisions the showrunners ever made. This episode proved it, and I will die on that hill. That last half hour was the best not just this show has ever been. But the entire CWverse has ever been. It’s why with this show ending, I’m done with the shows. It’s just a reminder of how far everything else has fallen in quality (yes, even Legends). The bar for the entire CWverse has become “at least it’s better than The Flash?”, and that’s not a high bar to clear.I am so frustrated at that last half hour. Why couldn’t the rest of this season been that good? Like the redesign of Supergirl’s costume, this season has been boring and uninteresting with glimpses of something better hidden underneath.
Calista Flockhart really doesn’t like filming outside of LA. They would have likely had to pay her RDJ money to keep her on. And if the show stayed in LA, we wouldn’t have gotten Lena.
Fair enough. I’d be ok without Lena to be honest. Maybe it was just Katie McGrath. Though funnily enough, since the show ended with her having magic, this show is now canonically a prequel to Merlin.
I would trade Lena for Cat Grant anyday of the week. The show was much, much better in season 1 and never recovered. Plus, Lena is just overrated as a character, sorry. Shippers always hyped her up way more than it was deserved and I also will always think changed her role for the worse as they had to make her “good” to keep her around
I agree. Lena is … fine but not as amazing as some fans hyped her up to be. I honestly think that the fault with her character is that they were so hellbent on constantly teasing her as a potential threat and then as soon as they got close they immediately backtracked , like “Whoa what? Lena would never go EVIL !?!” . I would have much rather had Cat Grant or at the very least she should have just stayed in a guest role or actually committed to being an antagonized. Once they decided that Lena would be Kara’s BFF they kind stifled her.
How does it feel to be this wrong
Is that because her husband insists on saving money by flying her to the locations himself?
I was happier to see Helen Slater back anyway.It was a well done version of Supergirl over all. Better than what DC is doing in the actual comics anyway. Even with a tv lead in they still managed to misunderstand and cancel Supergirl 3 times in the same time period.I liked Mama Luther’s electric high heels. Every vigilante woman should have those.
Helen Slater has really been good on this show I think & the last couple of seasons have suffered slightly from her absence, especially from the second Midvale flashback storyline
I liked the nod to the 1984 Supergirl movie there at the end with Helen Slater.
While my brain knows that, my heart still wants to watch Cat look at Cryer’s Lex with her perfect mix of contempt and impatience.
I checked out on Supergirl in the 5th season. I kept up with Legends until the middle of the 6th season and then just checked out of that as well. Flash, Arrow, Black Lightning..the same.
Too much CW can be draining.
There were some flaws but I think the finale at least worked better than the season as a whole. I was very surprised that Cat Grant showed up for three scenes. Calista Flockhart obviously filmed those scenes from Los Angeles but I didn’t even think that was going to happen. I did like the show ending with Kara revealing her identity. I wish we got more of an arc surrounding that but it at least felt like the right decision for the character to me. I thought she was going to end up going into the future for Mon-el and I am surprised how hard they slammed the door shut on any possibility of those two getting back together. He made it clear he was never returning in this lifetime. Kara and Alex had too many scenes fighting these last episodes but I did really like that we got one last scene between them in Kara’s apartment. I think they only had two of them the entire season. The show sidelined this relationship too much in later seasons but I will miss it.It wasn’t clear to be what positions Alex and J’onn will have at the new DEO or if they were completely quitting being superheroes. Maybe they were being intentionally vague about that but with Alex taking part in the Flash crossover as Sentinel I assume they will occasionally still be heroes. They didn’t tell us where M’gann is but at least we know J’onn and M’gann are still together and will be having a son.Melissa Benoist and Jeremy Jordan sounded really good in that duet. Wish we heard them sing more on the show.Brainy and Nia’s goodbye scene and kiss was good and I loved that he came back to the present. They needed more development this season but their ending was great. They probably should have developed Alex and Kelly more as a couple if they were going to be this important in the finale and last episodes. I found out they cut a make out scene between them and that is so typical of the show’s treatment of this couple. They could have used more scenes where they acted like actual adults in love. But their wedding was still sweet and I liked that scene between Alex and Eliza before it.
Yeah lex better be back in S&L.
I think there is a good chance that he will appear on that show.
If nothing else I appreciate that this show made it clear that while Lex considers Superman his arch-enemy, Supergirl FUCKING HATES him.
Fucking hell, what the hell did I just watch? I’ve defended this show for years. It’s sometimes been an uphill struggle, but this season, it finally managed to hit rock bottom. Not even Flash or Arrow have descended quite so far, and Arrow went out on such a high too. A show that ended being about Oliver Queen, and had a season laser focused on everything he had done and what that meant. Wish Supergirl could have had a season about Kira rather than trying to cram it into about 10 minutes at the end.
Again fucking hell, I’m so cross I wasted my time with this.
Ah well, least there’s Legends of Tomorrow which is currently on peak form to wash the taste of this out.
Seriously a quick Tyler cameo would have been so much easier than the Cat Grant cameo.
But Cat was much more important to the history of the show, so if the choice was either Clark or Cat the show made the right decision.
Oh for sure but a quick video chat scene with Clark would have brought Kara’s arc full circle to the days Superman only appeared from behind or via texts.
The finale was missing a shot of a pair of red boots, I’ll grant you that.
I have a feeling there were some contractual issues and payment for an appearance that kept Tyler off set. I also suspect they blew their cameo budget on Calista.
They wouldn’t even need a cameo. I’d have been satisfied with Kara getting a text message from him.
I am really glad the show didn’t end with Kara dying or losing her powers or anything. If only because it keeps the door open for her to return in future crossovers in the Arrowverse. Heck, maybe she DOES appear in Armageddon and the only reason previews and posters left her out was because they were waiting for the series finale to be over?The finale basically sums up the show as a whole. A mess, but an earnest, earnest mess that still manages to stick the landing where it counts.
I would be surprised if Melissa Benoist appears in Armageddon but I like that the ending made it easy for her to return for a guest appearance.
I don’t expect too many surprises like that, but I am wondering how Alex Danvers can be there without some mention of Supergirl. Then again, there was no mention of Barry Allen when Kara, Jimmy and Winn were talking about first hearing about the the multiverse.
I was so happy this ending kept the door open for her and the others to return in crossovers.
Maybe there is some way of bringing Lena to Legends of Tomorrow & she & Astra team up to better understand their magic witchy powers
Good idea. Better idea: Mon-El! [no, I don’t like Mon-El. But he’d be hilarious on the waverider…][still think they should adopt Black Siren, mind you…]
The main problem with having Black Siren on the Waverider, and I speak from experience here, is that older siblings will never take orders without question from younger siblings no matter what the circumstances. Sarah is the leader, no questions, and any version of Laurel around would mess that up.
It might be nice to introduce a little family conflict again. I’m glad Sara and the others have evolved from S1 days, and I don’t like shows that revel in melodrama for the sake of melodrama, but sometimes a little friction can help build the stakes.
It might be nice to introduce a little family conflict again. I’m glad Sara and the others have evolved from S1 days, and I don’t like shows that revel in melodrama for the sake of melodrama, but sometimes a little friction can help build the stakes.
I thought exactly the same thing! Great minds think alike.
excellent idea
As series finales go…that was one of them.I don’t know how to feel about this finale, but I guess it doesn’t matter in the end. They wrapped it up how they wanted to wrap it up – with schmaltz and cheese and Huey Lewis and the News singing in the background in perpetuity.It’s been fun reading these reviews and chopping it up with y’all, though.
Pluses from these episodes?Cat Grant coming back (even if it was outside of any group shot).Return of Winn and Jimmy Olsen (even if it was just as a “father figure” for Kelly).Eliza and her one pun.Multiple openings for some sort of spin off, if they wanted (J’onn and M’Gann? Maybe Dreamer and Brainy since it’s confirmed that he will be staying in the present? An opening to something with Lena and magic?)Not killing off Lex so there is a chance he could somehow play a role in S&L (Nyxly also a possibility, but they could hand wave that she resigns herself to being stuck in the phantom zone forever.)Negatives?No crossover characters (I guess Superman wouldn’t show up for a “distant relative’s” wedding or even Barry bringing ice cream).The ending deviated from what I expected of Supergirl to go with Mon-El and as a result, still made her available for S&L (unless somehow her public reveal is a danger to Superman’s identity?)
NO ONE wants Barry or Felicity at their weddings after the Earth X incident.
I loved how Ava made it explicit to Sara that while she understood that Sara loved Barry, he was definitely not welcome at their wedding, that was an obviously unacceptable risk
But Ava still had an alien invasion at her wedding, so it wasn’t quite as succesful. At least no Nazis ….
There is a zero percent chance that any characters on this show will continue. The CW is ending the Arrowverse. Flash is now in its last year and Legends is surely right behind it. They are now all about Superman and Stargirl. The arrowverse had its run.
Who said it’s Flash’s last year? CW shows almost always make a “Final season” announcement before the season starts and I haven’t seen that for the Flash.
I’ve never watched an episode, but I was sad once I googled to see that the dude up top was not in fact Zibarro.
Mon-El telling Kara that her speech changes course in the future: she will relocate to Jamaica.
I sampled it during its first season, and turned it off, never to watch it again. But we do enjoy Superman and Lois.
You will never, in a million years, convince me that this was Rovner and Quiller’s ideal plan for the final season. In my head I think they were expecting to go for at least another season past this one and all the stuff with Kara taking increasingly more and more drastic, and unpopular, measures to fight Nyxly was setting up their actual vision for the final season where Kara regains her legacy as the Paragon of Hope. Then Benoist said she was done so they had to rejigger, which honestly is far more in keeping with the history of the show. And of course all of that could be entirely wrong, and for some reason this was the writer’s perfect idea for a final season. And I’ll just agree with Caroline and everyone else in saying the conclusion of the season’s plot was…less than good (and not for nothing, but the reason Overgirl was dying in Crisis on Earth X was because she super charged herself with solar radiation so that was just a heap of bad decisions all piled one on top of each other Kara), but wrapping up the series was perfect. I love that Kara and Winn got to sing one last time. The beat with Kara, Winn and James as the OG’s was great. Alex’s suit, Brainy’s suit, Lena’s outfit. Cat showing up again. All of it was great. I got a little teary and it wasn’t entirely because of the second glass of scotch. That being said, while I get what they were going for with Kara outing herself at the end, on an aesthetic level, it stuck in my craw. Partially because that’s not how Superman stories work, and I grant you that’s a terrible reason. Mostly though as I turn it over in my head, it doesn’t really solve the problem. Just because the world knows Kara is Supergirl doesn’t mean it will be any easier to be the Editor in Chief of CatCo and also having to save the world. People might know where Kara is going when she ditches pitch meetings at a moment’s notice, but she’s still ditching pitch meetings. So the metaphor of living your authentic life rings true, and it’s a good moral to end the show on, I just don’t think it fully applies in this situation.
I might be wrong but I think they thought the show would probably end in the 7th season. It felt like they thought of some of the plots when they didn’t think this would be the final season. The finale was better than I thought it would be but this was one of the show’s weakest seasons.
It wasn’t that it would make it easier to be Editor in Chief, it was that it would be easier for Kara psychologically. The split was taking a psychich toll on her that she couldn’t live with anymore.
Presumably, as Editor-and-Chief, she can delegate a lot of her responsibilities as needed, and if everyone knows the reason she’s delegating is because she has to go stop a bridge from collapsing, they’ll probably be cool with it.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure the role of the editor in chief at most major publications is to pound their fist on the desk and yell “Someone get me pictures of Spider-man!”
No, that’s the Publisher’s job. The Editor-in-Chief’s job is to try to stop the publisher from hiring mad scientists to unmask Spider-Man.
“That being said, while I get what they were going for with Kara outing herself at the end, on an aesthetic level, it stuck in my craw. Partially because that’s not how Superman stories work, and I grant you that’s a terrible reason.”That’s your issue right there. Supergirl series always was a subversion of grossly overrated and tired traditional superhero tropes. Uniting Kara’s oft-dueling self-identities makes much more sense than always continuing to be in denial about one of them.
there’s something empowering about watching Supergirl get to end on its own ambitiously unambitious terms.The finale certainly left me thinking Supergirl died as it lived: villain plots that don’t make any sense, Benoist making the most of an Inspiring Speech Moment, some great Danvers sisters scenes (though not quite enough), one last egregious queerbait, and a major plot development that contradicts something they’d previously established and will never actually be explored. We got all the thrills and contradictions that made the series so watchably frustrating.
Just don’t understand how this could be her ending. It doesn’t solve her core dilemma, which wasn’t about her secret identity really, it was about the fact that she can’t be Kara Zor-El on earth, not just because it’s dangerous but because Kara Zor-El is fundamentally alone on Earth with no way to express that side of her identity here. Even to Alex, the closest person to her, she’ll always be Kara Danvers. Even CLARK doesn’t understand that side of her because he had no memories of krypton. And now I guess she’ll never be understood, never have normal life since everyone she loves has just been put in danger (did they forget in ep100 that doing EXACTLY THIS got everyone she knows killed?) And also she just outed herself as the world’s most unethical reporter, using herself as a source and lying about it for her whole career.Forget too about her long standing fears she’d never find love and partnership, presumably that’s off the table now too. It’s not like Supergirl is ever gonna be able to go on dates like a normal person. And the one person she ever loved who actually understood her the way she dreamed of being understood is never coming back. So I guess that’s the lesson for Kara: love is selfish, women heroes can’t actually have it all, that’s only for Barry and Clark and Oliver and whatnot. So much for feminism.I just wish they hadn’t intentionally, explicitly framed her search for love as part of her having it all, it feels cruel to get the audience invested in that only to have her fail completely and most likely permanently.
Can anyone explain what’s wrong with my comments that they can’t get approved? I didn’t curse, I didn’t attack anyone. I can’t be the only one frustrated that Kara’s storyline failed to pay off the feminist question it posed way back in season 1.
Because of the way it showed on the CW app I accidentally watched part 2 first and didn’t even notice I had skipped a full episode until it ended 😂
I only intermittently watch this show. Why does Kara wear an armored suit when she’s in space? I’ve found that really odd.
They took the same approach as Superman: The Animated Series when it came to space, and Kara needed a special suit to function in a vacuum.
Thanks! And wow. That’s a really dumb reason.
It’s probably so stunt doubles can film more of the role, but it makes her look far weaker than her cousin.
Ehhh, I wouldn’t say that. they first introduced the anti-Kryptonite suit when Benoist was unavailable due to a commitment on Broadway, and then used it very sparingly after that.
It’s mostly been to cover for Melissa Benoist’s absences and pregnancy this season – they can replace her with a CGI double like they do with J’onn all the time. (That’s why David Harewood wears the full Martian Manhunter suit in later seasons – so that they have on-set references and can just do a head replacement if needed).Nyxly and Lex inexplicably turning into weird monsters was almost certainly another effects decision, so that they could swap them out with CGI models without needing to do face replacements, which is often unconvincing and can’t really be done well on a network TV budget. Thankfully we didn’t get too many close-ups of them scrapping in the city.
So the series ended with Supergirl becoming Supergirl. I’m actually okay with that.
The two villains banded together after being pitted against each other and then were thrown into the phantom zone all in the space of 15 minutes and after Lex declared that the portal to the phantom zone couldn’t be closed after it was opened it just closed itself. There were 40 minutes left in the hour and I thought tv rules would say it can’t just be over so easily. I was wrong. But I’m okay with that because every moment starting with the wedding was perfect. Also loved the cameos! Great to see everyone. Also wondered where M’gann was myself. And I’m not worried about Kara dropping her secret identity. She had it to protect her family and every single one of them is a BadAss Level 11 who can now take care of themselves.Thanks for covering the show! I love your write-ups of this show and everything else you do here!
Thanks for this “spot on” review!
The season was the worst of the lot, but the last 30 mins or so of the finale left me with a smile in my face.
They were many WTF moments (really Alex? frak up the whole planet to save your daughter?) but at the end we had the wedding (even if the brides never had any love chemistry between them) and we also had Cat!
I wonder how different this show would have been with Cat never leaving it.
Anyway, overall the show was good and entertaining, sometimes uneven, Benoist is a true star and well, I will miss it.
p.s.
For such a “liberal” show, the whole “let’s invade people’s mind, shut down their defense mechanism so they can listen to our message” was quite unsettling ..to say the least.
For such a “liberal” show, the whole “let’s invade people’s mind, shut down their defense mechanism so they can listen to our message” was quite unsettling ..to say the least.they never think about the implications of anything. that spell is basically Non Nocere all over again, but magic instead of tech and with the Superfriends’ knowing support, so that makes it OK instead of maniacal.
The difference between this and Non Nocere (which I will forever think of as No no cherry) is that the spell was a temporary thing that wasn’t meant to overwrite people’s personalities. It was also the only way they could top Kara’s Big Damn Hero Speech to everyone hooked up to Obsidian North.That said, it and everything related to the Allstone was way underbaked.
– or Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast saying, “non non cherie.”
the temporary part is an improvement, but it’s explicitly done because people might ignore Kara if they’re left the choice! it’s real bad.
Am I remembering this wrong? Isn’t this the third time that they’ve defeated the big bad with a Hope Speech in the season finale in this show.
I always imagined Lena was good friends with Neneh Cherry this whole time. Just hanging in a buffalo stance.
Yeah, but they ended the show by limiting the powers of their allegedly benign demigod (who just tried to destroy the sun) by… …making them also control a powerful media company. So… authoritarianism is good if we do it?
Alex: “I’ll do anything to get my daughter back. Even if it means sacrificing the planet. Which, I suppose, my daughter lives on, and without which she’ll die or freeze or suffocate or something. So I guess I’ll do whatever it takes, even if it means sacrificing my daughter.”
I mean, it’s only unsettling if you haven’t already dealth with it in Wonder Woman 1984….
The highlight I didn’t even realize I needed was:Wynn and Kara’s duet at the wedding. I nearly forgot what a great singing voice Jeremy Jordan has.
I’m glad that once they had Cat Grant, they used her really well (long distance notwithstanding). Still, makes me wonder if this and other CW shows are required to blow all their surprise cameos in the opening credits. The thing with the sun-power satellite was interesting in premise, but I think we needed more feel for how the Earth/Galaxy would have been screwed otherwise. Plus, they were vague as to how diminished the Sun would be for 6 months – like still functional at 1/2 power? Mostly functional but not able to recharge Kara (which is how I read it at first) … or fucking dark. I mean, heck, okay let’s do this … then build four more satellites and redirect energy from a distant Sun or two – snip snap problem solved. Kara more powerful than Nxly -rock on. It seemed like an idea they would have used for 6 or 8 episodes in a future season, but used here because they were blowing out all the remaining ideas on the shelf.
It’s not just the CW, TV law is extremely strict about credits; they have to include all guest stars in the opening credits even if that spoils reveals later on in the episode. Shows can get wavers — The Americans did it once — but it’s apparently such a PITA that most shows don’t bother, and count on people not paying very close attention to the guest stars listed in the opening.
I had that thought too. They have a spaceship and various portal devices at their disposal, Kara could have popped over to an uninhabited (yellow) star system and sucked down its power instead. But then there wouldn’t have been any conflict in the episode, so…(And yes, I’m aware that I dinged The Flash for overusing the “oh look it’s the MacGuffin from a previous episode, we can rewire it to solve all our problems” plot device in its last season… but some reference to continuity on Supergirl would have been welcome, especially as they let the VFX team pull out all of their old CG models for the big fight scene!)
Thanks Caroline for your reviews for all these years, you’ve been wonderful!This… wasn’t great, but damn that last 30 minutes was just filled with the best of the show. And Cat being back and encouraging Kara was what it really needed. Mama Danvers telling Alex that she’s already a better mom than she’s ever been??? Yeah… no… I don’t think you ever decided to have the entire world destroyed for your daughters.
Excuse me, I need ALL the gifs of Cat Grant’s facial expressions forever.“BIFURCATED.”
I need one of her saying, “And that would be interesting, because this is boring.”
I’ll miss the fake news.
Yeah ‘The Last Gauntlet’ was utter trash and wrapping up Lex and Nyxly was ‘meh’ but they at least landed the wrap up.
I remember enjoying some good parts of this show but on the whole I cannot be happier that it is ending. The past couple of seasons have ranged from rough to outright bad and I don’t think I would’ve made it through this one if not for sunk cost fallacy driving me through.
I watched a couple of episodes past Crisis, and then stopped. Are the back half of S5 and S6 worth checking out, or even just individual episodes?
Honestly not really. I’m tempted to say the back halves are worth checking out because that’s when Lex shows up but he can only drag things up so much.
If this hadn’t been announced as the last season I think I would have dropped it. The positives like Melissa’s boundless charm, the Nia/Brainy story, and Lex were outweighed by terrible plots, years of overly preachy storylines and general sappiness. My Arrowverse viewing is down to Superman and Lois, Legends, and Flash for the same reason I watched Supergirl – sunk cost.
I’ve found this season tough going. I absolutely loved the first 4 seasons, 5 had moments but 6 had been a slog. Uninspired, Lena witchy all of a sudden, tedious totems…. Yawn. However for me, this finale provided all of the magic that made me fall in love with the show. The villains were defeated in super quick time (which as a season resolution was a bit underwhelming) The OG superfriends moment was a lovely throwback although not a fan of Mehcad Brooks facial hair! Jeremy Jordan and Melissa Benoist singing together on a pretty wonderful ‘We Belong’ was great. Definitely want Kara to sing at my wedding (loved the song at Barry and Iris’ too.)Of course another fabulous thing was the return of Cat Grant. That relationship was the trump card of season 1. Flockhart had fun, but she also provided a great contrast to the super earnest Kara. Cat also tells it like it is when talking to ‘Kira’ and her words to Kara to find her identity showed why Cat is a great mentor and how her loss was a big one for the show. They moved J’onn into the parental role but he is no Cat! Yes, hopeless green screen effects but even in those few scenes Calista Flockhart killed.I’m not than invested in Brainy and Nia, but I’m glad they got a nice ending. The Alex/Kelly wedding was lovely. Helen Slater got a super-moment. Lillian Luthor was one of the series best villains and her malice was welcome but do we believe that offscreen death? No William style funeral for her?Talking of Luthors, there was lots of nice Lena/Kara stuff here. I wasn’t a fan of Katie McGrath’s goth wedding look, and for a few moments I wondered whether they were going to go there for the Supercorp shippers. Still, at least Mon Eli’s return wasn’t a romance revived. I’m extremely happy Melissa and Chris seem so happy but Kara and Mon El? No thanks..Overall, after diminishing success, the show put its focus back on Kara where it belonged and emotionally was very satisfying. I’m going to miss Kara and the gang.
Since the beginning of her series, Supergirl has yearned to destroy the sun It was good to see Mon-El again & sort of hilarious for him to abruptly say goodbye foreverI really liked Kara & Lena’s big scene at the wedding though I am sure it will not fully satisfy their shippers Cat is still a complete & utter delight I am not sure that Nyxley deserves to be exiled to the Phantom Zone again, though Lex for sure does
Oh, the scene at the wedding definitely didn’t satisfy SuperCorp shippers. They were furious and railed against the show for queerbaiting.
Hard for me to agree this show is “queerbaiting” given the groundbreaking coming out stories it gave both Alex and Nia & the commitment it made to both of their LGBT relationships
Yes, but Kara and Lena didn’t get married and have sex, therefore is was queerbaiting.
As other’s have noted there’s a world of difference between Supergirl’s sister being a lesbian, and Kara herself having being allowed to have interest in another woman.
Just look at the reaction to the comics when certain websites framed Superman’s son coming out as bi as if it was Superman himself, as they knew those headlines would get them way more clicks and reaction than a more honest one. The show also played up the Supercorp thing hard this season, and in my eyes were a hell of a lot more flagrant about it than other similarly controversial shows like Falcon and Winter Soldier. So yes I’ll absolutely call it queerbaity as all hell as they clearly didn’t have any plans to pay any of the stuff off that they knew a subset of the fans would sieze upon.
I do think no one initially planned that Lena & Kara would have such scorching hot chemistry. I saw a funny interview with Katie McGrath where she was initially surprised people read their scenes as romantic, because she was not playing them that way intentionally. But she said, at some point she went back and watched their scenes and was like, oh okay, I see it now
That whole scene was set up for Kara to be her true self- a queer Supergirl living her best life. I totally agree their chemistry was UNDENIABLE. Made Ross and Rachel look like toadstools
It’s the ol’ “oops, I accidentally fell in love with Melissa Benoist” excuse
Supergirl wasn’t always as progressive with them as it could’ve been but it did do some stories before other superhero shows did.
Even I was thinking “NOW KISS” during that scene.
I love Lena and Kara individually & would I’m sure love them together & think their chemistry is smoking hot. But I kind of like that Kara chose herself & not a romantic relationship as the big finale payoff
As a SuperBat shipper I also at least accepted Kara betting on herself as an outcome (if not the particular way she did it).
Eh, It kinda made me sad that she didn’t have a big final romance. It just seems unfortunate. All the other main arrowverse heroes ended their arcs with someone and/or will definitely have a HEA. I don’t know, the lack of romance kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. Kara hasn’t had a decent character arc since Season 3 so that’s probably why I still mentally reference those plot points. I wish she found love and I’m sorry but Melissa only had decent romantic chemistry with Chris so I kinda wish they ended up together or he came back to the present and we just got a brief shot of him with his arm around her shoulder.
Just because they didn’t give us a scene of Kara with her true love — potstickers — in the finale doesn’t mean she didn’t crush a tray of them at the wedding reception.
Starred for Burns…
I’ve deliberately avoided season 6 for fear it was going to end… well, exactly how this article feared it would end actually. But no, no they actually went with the Justice League Unlimited ‘and the adventure continues’ ending. For *once* Kara Zor-El doesn’t get absolutely screwed over in the DC universe! Now when’s the box set out again….There’s just one small scene that I do kinda want to shine a light on for a moment though. When Kara’s talking to Cat at the wedding. Not for plot reasons (though yeah, makes sense and is a lovely way to tie that up) but for Melissa Benoist. She’s being shot pretty much full frame and is acting to a *phone*. At best there’s someone off screen reading the lines (in my head, Chyler but IRL almost certainly a crew member). Yet you see everything that’s going through Kara’s mind written on her face. This show was so lucky to have her and I genuinely can’t wait to see what comes next. And, of course, if she ever wants to put on the cape again I don’t think many would object…
Regardless of this shows ups and (many, many) downs, Benoist has consistently been I think the best Arrowverse show lead.
Since my other comment looks like it’ll never actually get approved for whatever reason, I’ll just sum up as: Kara spent the first 3 seasons defining what she wanted for herself, then the second 3 ignoring her own wants entirely, only to have none of them actually get fulfilled. Instead the show shoehorned in a job she never said she wanted and a coming out they already established will inevitably get her family killed. So the takeaway for the audience is that women can’t really have what they say they want. Clark and Oliver and Barry can, but Kara can’t have it all. And I’m frustrated they got me invested in her story only to watch her never achieve happiness as she defined it for herself. That’s not feminism.
The whole Dreamer-Brainy thread was odd. Even when he was saying goodbye to her I was wondering why, with time travel, he couldn’t just wait until they had lived their lives and then travel to the appropriate time in the future to save the big brain thingy. It’s time travel, you show up when you want! Then he pops back in the last episode to casually announce the same thing as though it just occurred to him. It’s credit to the actors that they sold this nonsense as well they did.
He had to accept the illogic of the show’s time travel before they could be together.
This is probably the correct answer
I just sort of assumed they didn’t want to run the risk of Brainy dying in the past and therefore dooming the future, but they never explicitly said anything along those lines so who the hell knows.
That’s a good point. Although wouldn’t they know if he died in the past? It’s probably one of those things it’s best not to think about.
Unless the Big Brain needs Brainy as he is now, in his prime with his emotional issues mostly resolved, and if he waits too long he will be too old / slow / obsolete / damaged to save it.
Hmmm, you’ve come up with a plausible explanation and given it a lot more thought than the writers did!
This show fell into the trap that most stories fall into when dealing with time travel. They assume that if there are 2 different time frames (i.e. Supergirl’s present and the year 3000) then they are both progressing forward at the same rate, so after 1 day has passed in the present, 1 day has passed in the future time frame. So if one travels from the present to the future time frame, they will arrive there on the same day (i.e. leaving 2021 on November 1 you will arrive in 3000 on November 1, not days or weeks earlier).One of the conceits of time travel is that Brainy should be able to live with Nia for decades in the present and then (after he has lived a full life with Nia, and she has died of old age) he could travel back to the year 3000 1 second after he originally left the future and merge with the Big Brain (or whatever it was he had to do).The whole idea that he had to “rush” and leave the present right away to return to the future to do this Big Brain merge makes no sense when you realize that with time travel he could wait 50 years and then return to 3000 and it wouldn’t matter for the future.
True!
The first half was one of the most nonsensical things I’ve seen in a long time. It made Riverdale seem logical.- Alex was awful. In her quest to save her child she has had for 2 episodes, how many people had to die? You can’t tell me no one died as a result- Kara, because she was not brave enough to say no to her sister, was willing to turn the sun dark for 6 months. Again, how many lives would that have cost?- After they stumble in to a win because Lex was a moron, there is no self reflection or maybe recognizing how awful they all were prioritizing one child over everyone else.- If they were so worried about the child, why did they leave her with the on non superpowered person so they could have a party? They knew the villains were actively trying to get the totems. Even though they didn’t know the totem was in the kid, they couldn’t imagine that Lex may take the kid for leverage?The last half hour was a lot of fun but I found myself already heading the whole group of self centered supposed heroes by the end. The only silver lining was when all her friends end up dead because the villains now know Kara is Supergirl, she can lose her mind and become a super powered overlord.
At least they risked the entire world for Alex’s adopted daughter this time. A couple of years ago, they refused to off Reign to save the world, for fear of losing Samantha Arias, some rando they had known for all of about three weeks.
Has Supergirl been worth watching since Season 2? It changed too much for me with the move to Vancouver for production and eliminating the Calista Flockhart character changed the dynamics too much.
whether Supergirl is worth watching past S1 depends on what you’re looking to get out of it.The writing’s never going to make sense and they’re never going to successfully replace Cat with a journalism mentor. the Danvers sisters, especially before they had to write Kara out for Benoist’s pregnancy at the start of S6, never go too long without a heart-to-heart on Kara’s couch, so a lot of the show is worthwhile if you really value the sisterhood. Alex’s coming-out arc is especially heartfelt. IMO season 2 is pretty great overall- how do you feel about watching Teri Hatcher and Brenda Strong chew scenery as villains? later on, same question, but with Jon Cryer as Lex Luthor. some of the Arrowverse crossovers, especially Crisis on Earth-X, are great. I, personally, loved seeing Kara mentor Nia Nal (season 4 on) as both hero and journalist, though I wish we’d gotten way more focus on that. and most of Lena Luthor’s character arc (from season 2 on) as the one Luthor who doesn’t want to be an evil POS is electric.later episodes also tend to draw political themes from the real world without thinking very hard about how the metaphor works in a universe with near-omnipotent aliens, so if that sounds like something that will drive you crazy, be careful.for me- came to the show because of Alex Danvers in a leather jacket in the promos, stayed for the combination of Kara Danvers as a ray of sunshine, Alex as a bugfuck crazy overprotective loving sister, and their bond- I was alternately frustrated and exhilarated throughout, but I don’t regret watching.
The best seasons I think were seasons 3 and 4, with Reign & the Kryptonian Witches & then Lex & Agent Liberty as the villains I always wanted Calista Flockhart as Cat to guest star when the show was in Vancouver, partly because I imaged that she would crash with Melissa Benoist & would expect her to wait on her hand & foot & bring her wraps & smoothies around the clock
Not really, maybe season 4 but that’s it.
Echoing a lot of other comments here, the finale was a mess in terms of resolving the ongoing season 6 threads, but man did it stick the landing on the series finale as a whole. I think a lot of us predicted Kara would “give up” being Supergirl in some way, but I love how the ending subverted this and showed this concept in an additive way that keeps the potential for new stories possible instead of reductive by de-powering her/killing her/sending her off to the future. Seeing Cat Grant again, even long distance, really made the finale for me. Sure Tyler Hoechlin didn’t stop by, but he’s still got a series and Kara can still potentially visit so that’s less of an issue.But yeah, the haste to wrap everything up didn’t do any of the season 6 threads any favours. William gets a funeral, sure, but everyone seems to have forgotten about him otherwise. Andrea, for being listed as main cast, barely gets any more screen time than recurring guest Orlando (who I would say got a better arc this year than she did). All of Nyxly’s character development is ultimately moot as she’s sucked into the Phantom Zone along with Lex. Plus Alex’s misguided approach to getting Esme back and bizarre sun-draining plot. Overall the series was never a smooth ride, this season more than the others, but it gave us a great cast of characters and it’s still bittersweet seeing another pillar of the Arrowverse close up shop.
It’s really difficult to make a virtuous, near perfect heroine sympathetic and complicated season after season, but Benoist made it look effortless. But I don’t think I would appreciate her work as much if I hadn’t seen Benoist in a breakout supporting role in the movie Whiplash. She brought depth and subtlety to a character who by design was not gifted or special (unlike the obsessed talented protagonist of the film), allowing the audience to see the humanity, emotional intelligence and dignity of an “ordinary” person. That’s not a easy task either and is an indicator of Benoist’s skill.Kara and Lena deserve to be together. Both as characters and actors they make an interesting, passionate couple. Fan ‘ships can go overboard, but this is head canon i think really works.
Melissa Benoist as Kara/ Supergirl is still basically to me the best, most inspired casting possibly of all time & evidence that whoever is in charge of casting for the ArrowVerse shows should get a Nobel Prize
It’s definitely one of those performances where it will be hard to ever imagine anyone in that role.[along with, I’d suggest, Caity Lotz as Captain Lance]
I hope the movie version goes in a completely different direction with their Supergirl. The idea of recasting Kara Danvers is almost as unthinkable as finding a new Xena.
The casting criteria seems to be must fulfill at least one of the following: Were you on Glee?Were you on Smallville?Were you a hot talent or part of a hot project from the ‘90s or early 2000s?Are you Canadian? Seriously, the lead casting for Arrowverse shows has been smart most of the time: rising talent with demonstrated appeal, especially on the small screen, who are hungry for a lead role.
It is only fitting they brought back Cat Grant, as this was the only time that Supergirl the actual series looked so promising and people like me campaigned for its renewal. This show kind of proves that sometimes a show should be cancelled, even if loved, as it just never lives up to its potential. All of its flaws are well documented, but I cannot put blame on any one person as it seems the evidence is clear they all (cast and crew) willingly chose this path that crashed its ratings and made it irrelevant. The cute first season with its “girl power” ethos is what everyone liked, and more importantly played to who they cast and their strengths. When they made the decision to change it, it exposed all the bad writing flaws with none of the pluses.But they did give us Superman & Lois and the best Lex Luthor since Gene Hackman..they will always have that.
Thank you for your dedication in reviewing this show through its highs and lows, Caroline; I appreciate you and The AVClub giving Supergirl — and those of us who have followed it — this place to congregate for the past few years.That said, maaaaaaaan I cannot join you with a B here. Taken together these last two episodes were as overstuffed as the most fic-a-riffic RTD episodes of Doctor Who. It’s possible that wrapping the Lex/Nyxly mess in “Final Gauntlet” and giving the entirety of “Kara” to the wedding prep and the ceremony itself could’ve helped with the pacing and to see how this new status quo works. Lastly, I think it needs to be said: Kara revealing her secret identity to the public through an interview with Cat shoots whatever cred the company had right in the kneecap; if it comes out that Cat a) named Supergirl; b) directed the coverage of Supergirl; and that c) Kara reported on her own activities as SG without revealing it to the public, that’s as bad as Andrea’s shenanigans. Hopefully, Armageddon opens with Barry apologizing for not making the wedding.
Aside from perhaps Arrow and Legends, CW shows either die or live long to become the villain. I feel like all of them start out with a decent run (except Batwoman, yeesh) and then fall apart fairly quickly, dragging on for years, outstaying their welcome, squandering every drop of goodwill they might’ve initially earned. You still get the odd decent episode here and there, but when taken as a whole, the Arrowverse has just gotten exhausting and not worth all the effort required to keep current…IN MY OPINION (because gosh). I’d be ok with killing them all and starting over, or hey, maybe waiting a while. I wish they’d kept the Arrowverse to 2 or 3 great shows instead of spreading too thin and foisting endless mediocre ones on us.
Well, one thing I think we should credit the Arrowverse Project with is that each show did have its own distinct feel, so even if you didn’t like one show you might still like another. More successful in that, I think, than projects like the Defenders or the MCU.
I don’t think I can emphasize just how utterly baffling it is to me that anybody could have a (non-meta) emotional reaction to anything that happened during this finale – at least not without getting double-banned.You cannot explore morality or emotional truths in a prison made of insane dream logic and everythingbabble. You just fucking can’t.
I find it baffling that anyone who has watched this series could not have an emotional reaction to the last half hour of the finale.
And what about William’s funeral “logistics”?
First of all, how they reported his death to the police? If they reported it, since their “tower” is supposed to be too secret to get a visit from CSI.
If they did not report it how did they have a funeral? False death certificate? And why it took place in National City and not in UK? Where his folks in the funeral (I counted 6 extras – poor William, wasn’t very popular)? Did his folks ever learned the truth?
questions questions and more questions!
I assume they did the honorable thing and dumped his body off of the Supergirl Balcony of Deep Thoughts.RIP Balcony, I’ll always remember you.
Tell her Steve says bye, too.
I couldn’t have been the only person who thought that, when they mentioned about over charging Supergirl, that the last episode was going to be their version of All-Star Superman depicting Supergirl living out her final days could I?
What the Devil was going on with that solar satellite subplot?
Somehow breaking the Allstone doesn’t revert it back into seven individual totems. Decolorizing civilians is goofy. Too bad Nyxly didn’t bring back the big kitty:https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2021/11/10/supergirls-supersized-season-six-swansong/
It would’ve been more fulfilling if she was finally able to move past
her trauma by completing The Allstone & return home as a liberator
rather than a destroyer. The Fifth Dimension remains under the heel of
her psychotic tyrannical father, King Brpzx, whom the Super Friends
could’ve helped her depose. Lex Luthor is important enough that he’ll
probably be freed from the Phantom Zone, but this is most likely the end
of the line for Nyxly. Their Allstone shards can’t overcome the Phantoms or escape their dimension?
Nia catching the bouquet, James giving Esme a camera, & Dansen asking Lena to be Godmother were cut from The CW but not Showcase.
My doubt that they’d commit to SuperCorp was vindicated. Kara & Lena the Gothest wedding guest, however, have an intimate heart to
heart that really sounds like mutual coming out speeches. Since they’re
not getting together or exchanging any new information, it feels really
bizarre. The framing only makes sense for romantic declarations, which
these textually aren’t.
This should’ve been a season finale so we could witness Kara’s new status quo. This would work as a series finale if it was still isolated on Earth-38,
but it’s less satisying now that it’s part of Prime Earth. What will
the in-story excuses for Kara not pitching in for all successive
Beeboverse crises be? Will ditching her alter ego free Supergirl to
focus solely on deadlines?
Even when her show didn’t live up to her, Melissa Benoist was always super.
Farewell, Supergirl. You were wildly inconsistent, which we saw last night, but all your flaws can be forgiven simply by virtue of Melissa Benoist. A simply perfect piece of casting—she was Kara Zor-El in a way that few other actors comes to singularly represent their characters. I will miss this show.
Cheers, Caroline. Supergirl was a journey and for a lot of people (including me) your write-ups helped make that journey fly more smoothly. Now, on to the next adventure!
I’m sorry but I just can’t get on board with Kara going public. I’ve always thought that secret identities are there to protect loved ones. Kara going public puts he family in the crosshairs. JMHO. I’ve never liked the idea of superheroes going publicThat complaint this was a decent finale. It was dramatic and joyous and it brought back everyone. The last hour was total fan service and I believe that’s what finales should be.
Originally Kara had to keep her identity a secret to protect her supporting cast. But pretty much all of them are now superheroes so they can protect themselves, so who is Kara protecting?I guess her mother is the only one without powers/not a superhero, but she just needs to keep her trusty shotgun handy.
Despite her insistence that Kara’s glasses didn’t fool her, I’m certain Cat still has no idea that Clark is Superman.I really liked Winn greeting Alex, I totally forgot about their friendship until that.The solution to Brainy’s problem was pretty much exactly what I complained about last week. It’s the future, it’ll still be there later, it’s a non-issue.
Thank you Caroline, for all your coverage. This show has been frequently baffling, but I’ll miss Melissa Benoist, Jon Cryer, Nicole Maines, and Jesse Rath’s commitment to their roles, no matter how ridiculous their plotlines got.
One thing we can be sure of now is that, with Supergirl out of the picture, the crown for the worst Arrowverse show passes unquestionably to Batwoman.
Batwoman has held that title indisputably from about its third episode. Supergirl is The Dark Knight compared to that tripe.
If i may borrow a segment from the recaps of previous seasons of Legends, I think this Crazy Ex Girlfriend song is perfect for Supergirl’s Finale:
I’ll just share my top 5 6 reactions since most of them have been expressed already — I didn’t get caught up until yesterday evening:
1. I did not like the super-bold eye makeup choice for Lena’s wedding outfit. I also do not like the super-bold eye makeup that is part of Sentinel’s costume. I do not know why this is a thing people are doing outside of drag shows these days. I accept this is entirely a “me” problem.2. As we all know, you can’t watch Supergirl and expect it not to be earnest, and I’m on board with that, but when the dialogue becomes so unrealistic that every line is like a topic sentence from a self-help book — for me, it actually becomes emotionally draining instead of inspiring. (It gets even klunkier when characters repeat them back to each other or tell each other how profound they are.) The first 90 minutes of the finale were so full of this stuff that it was much harder to enjoy the wedding at the end: my earnestness batteries were nearly depleted and that’s not a great time to be listening to wedding vows.3. “Everybody needs to clap for Tinkerbell Supergirl!” is a well they’ve gone to time and again to wrap up the season-long conflicts, and I accept that, but the whole totems thing was just a mess. Like an ersatz Infinity Gauntlet, but made up out of tools that do not really work as part of an Ultimate Weapon: “Stay back, or I’ll Humanity at you!”, “Look out! She’s got Love and she’s not afraid to use it!” Also, you got every guest star under the sun but Mxy gets freed from the Imp-prison and flits offscreen, never to be played by Thomas Lennon again? Weak.4. Speaking of guest stars, I didn’t think I was missing Winn, but man was his return a breath of fresh air. He actually made me want to watch the first couple seasons of the show again, between twitting J’onn with information from the future, hanging with the OG Super Friends, and that great song at the wedding.5. I didn’t love the “Lena does magic now” arc, because the science that she used to do was basically magic anyway, and it made her a better contrast to Lex. Ultimately I felt that was the best use of her character, rather than ginning up a backstory where her secret history unlocks the key to yadda yadda. Lena’s just not that interesting to me unless she’s bridging the Luthors and Supergirl.6(!) I agree with everyone else that Melissa Benoist is the best thing to come out of the show, and I also came to enjoy Nicole Maines a lot more as she grew into the role of Dreamer. The sister stuff with Chyler Leigh was always a highlight; although Alex’s character was fumbled around with a lot as they tried to give her non-Supergirl things to care about, it wound up in a good place. Still not sure if I buy that she and Kelly are soulmates — the balance between the bold declarations of deep feelings and the quiet affectionate moments that make up a real love affair was always way off — but I’m willing to believe they believe it, and that’ll do.
Nicole Maines has grown a lot as an actress and she brings a lot of charm to the role of Dreamer. The sister relationship between Kara and Alex was a highlight of the series. I wish it had not been sidelined the past two seasons but at least they had some good moments in the finale. As I said down thread Alex and Kelly’s relationship needed more moments where they acted like actual adults who are in love. I don’t know if I buy that they are soulmates but I’m happy Alex is happy.
I’m the only one on the planet who feels this way, but I’ll say it: Mon-El’s exit was shitty and hamhanded. “And I’m never coming back for all of eternity, goodbye,” whatever. He and Kara had MADDDDD chemistry onscreen (nevermind they are married in real life) and SG the show always seemed embarrassed that Kara might like/want to have a romantic life. Like, Superman has Lois, Batman has Catwoman, etc, but a female superhero can’t have a love interest?
I’m furious that they cut this from the show.
and
Man this show fell off a cliff. Season 1 was so strong , mostly down to Calista Flockhart.
1) Glad they didn’t list Calista Flockhart’s name in the guest-starring part in the opening credits. It was a nice surprise.2) The show had just been so-so for me but I did like this as a finale. And I liked that they wrapped up the All Stone plot like 12 minutes into the second hour. I am a big fan of series finales being mostly denouement3) I thought Lena’s whole witch thing was out of left field and totally weird and, really, kinda dumb… but after seeing her look at the wedding-slicked hair, dark makeup, silk purple pantsuit—I want four seasons of a spinoff show now.
“Glad they didn’t list Calista Flockhart’s name in the guest-starring part in the opening credits. It was a nice surprise.”But they did. So it wasn’t a surprise if you watched the opening credits.
This finale was fucking awful. I don’t even know where to begin.Between Nia being a dumbass and letting Nyxly out of the Dream Dimension for selfish reasons, Supergirl coming up with the incredibly dangerous and reckless plan to take away people’s humanity so they can overload Nyxly with humanity, Alex being a dumbass and making a deal that requires trusting Lex fucking Luthor to keep his word, and Supergirl, Brainy, and J’onn thinking it was a good idea to BURN OUT THE SUN FOR SIX MONTHS so they could power up Supergirl, it felt like this whole season was actually telling the story of how all the main characters became supervillains.Seriously, Alex is a moron. I know they wanted us to be all “Wow, what a devoted mom,” but she’s known Esme for like, five days. Yeah, she’s cute and all, but if they really wanted that idea to land, then Alex and Kelly needed to adopt Esme much earlier in the season.BURNING OUT THE SUN FOR SIX MONTHS??? Yeah, let’s take away the foundation of the entire fucking ecosystem on Earth. Holy shit, I can’t even articulate how catastrophically stupid that plan was. The fact that they even entertained the idea for any length of time retroactively makes them all worse as superheroes and as characters.“We’re going to meet up on this bridge where there’s a dead zone for bullshit plot reasons and no superpowers or tech will work there.” Yeah, except the tech in those remote controlled explosives, apparently. And then once the bridge is blown, everyone’s powers work again. So was the power dampening field being generated by the bridge itself?Why did Lex and Nyxly turn into lizard people? And why did everyone around the world start looking like Pleasantville characters, except for the Super Friends, who were all conveniently unaffected by the power draining mumbo jumbo? It can’t even be because the Super Friends had previously been exposed to the Totems, because all the guest stars like Mon-El and Winn were in color, too.The one-liners during the big battle scene were physically painful.Why didn’t William’s family come to his funeral? Were they as bored by him as we were?I knew the show wouldn’t have the balls to actually break up Nia and Brainy and have Brainy go sacrifice himself or whatever, but I didn’t think they’d be so brazen about how much none of it mattered. After all the false emotion in those disingenuous goodbye scenes, their resolution to the whole thing was “Actually, I decided not to go back to the 31st Century because reasons.” Fuck off.So glad Cat Grant took some time out of her vacation on Greenscreen Beach to call Kara for a chat.So, no M’Gann, huh? We’re just gonna make one offhand reference, and that’s it? And is Mxyzptlk still stuck in that crystal ball, or what? Was Thomas Lennon unavailable, too?That signal watch Jimmy gave Kelly, does it come with a teleporter? Otherwise how are they supposed to show up and help each other, when they live in different cities? It’s not like they can fly around the world like Superman.Kara’s speech inspired people to be their own heroes and changed the course of the future, and I’m sure this idea will be explored at length on the other Arrowverse shows going forward.BURNING OUT THE SUN. FOR SIX MONTHS.
Oh yeah, and one thing I forgot to mention:“Lex has gone too far this time!”He tried to KILL HALF THE WORLD with Andrea’s Obsidian tech and was even put on trial for crimes against humanity, but sure, shooting one guy is going too far.
Supergirl was great at inception. Then… yep, sorry, just too much LGBTQ IDGAF for even this gay dude, and I nearly barfed at the line in the finale: “No touching without consent.” Not to mention the loss of early, good characters, especially Calista Flockhart. And plots that just materialized deus ex machina far too often, as evidenced in the finale, with Lex and Nyx getting sucked off into the Phantom Zone, all done, that was easy, let’s have a wedding! Ugh. I watched because Benoist is adorable – even a gay dude can enjoy that sweet face. I could see the ending coming a mile away, and I was cool with it. It was obvious Cat Grant would return, announce she knew all along, and that Supergirl would merge her identities. Fine, OK, nice. The rest was a yawn.
This show lost me a few episodes away from the end; I could neither get into the whole Nyxly arc nor warm to Kelly, no matter how hard the show tried to force me to believe that Kelly is the most bestest fantastickest wonderfullest character ever. All the good parts of the show took a back seat to the main plot and the (unfortunately) main character drama.Would rather the show had ended up on an arc that said something about what it means to be Supergirl and says something thematic. Like, consider “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”: it ended with them doing magic such that EVERY girl with Slayer potential got it activated. It really communicated, “it’s in every girl to change the world”. That was a thematically solid ending as well as a good way to stop the bad guy.King Beauregard says that, instead of trying to grab all the power from the sun, how about Lena discovered an incantation that can shield someone with the Power Of Hope, and they used their media power to get National City thinking hope at Kara? Let that supercharge her so she can shake off Nyxly’s magic. It’s just a thought, and maybe even not a great one; but I bet it beats nearly snuffing out the sun.
Still think she should’ve got sent to the 31st Century.
Good riddance. This is the most poorly written anticlimactic peace of television I’ve ever seen
Wow, you’re a lot of fun.
“The fact that the show kept Calista Flockhart’s return a surprise.”Well, the “Special Guest Star Calista Flockhart” credit during the opening credits kind of gave it away.I know that there are rules about guest stars having to be listed in the opening credits, but this is not a “can never be broken” rule. There are many shows that have kept a surprise guest star’s name out of the opening credits and included them at the start of the closing credits, so as to not give away their appearance – this can be done.While I suspected that Flockhart might return for the finale, it took the surprise of her actual appearance away when I saw her credit at the start of the finale.
Feels weird that Mxly never reappeared. I liked that he got a mention that he was all right, but for awhile I thought that he was imprisoned indefinitely (or whatever Nxly did to him) after she got thrown into the Phantom Zone.I did like that Nxly’s hired goon reappeared and got to stand up to her.