Supergirl
Recap
Obsidian’s VR lenses attract the attention of, essentially, an alien Unabomber. Lex decides protecting Leviathan’s assets would be a good way to get close to them, so he orders Supergirl to protect the CEO from the attacks.
Spoiler Level: High
Review
The Arrowverse often turns to comics for inspiration and content. After all, they have decades of writing to draw from. Even if some of the big names are on the no-no list for TV, they still have some of the biggest and most iconic characters to re-interpret. It can be very fulfilling for fans to see the stories from their childhoods. Or, well, from a few years ago? Last year “Supergirl” did the very bold move of picking up the organization Leviathan from comics, which is a very new and still ongoing story. In the comics, Leviathan is a shadowy organization with confusing goals. “Supergirl” went in a different direction and made their Leviathan…a shadowy organization with confusing goals. But…different. Yeah.
It doesn’t quite help that the writers seem to have decided that explaining things is for chumps. Recently Brainy and Lex acquired Toyman’s “immortality code”, which allows one to upload themselves onto the internet and live forever as data. Now apparently they’re going to…inject the code into members of Leviathan, who are apparently techno-organic aliens, and somehow the code will make them not immortal in real life? This is one step below Obsidian’s VR lenses allowing wearers to acquire nutrients from eating virtual food. And last we saw Lex was talking to Gemma Cooper in her position as a board member of Obsidian North, now he’s fully aware she’s actually Gamemnae of Leviathan and they’re trading favors.
In more understandable news, an alien terrorist is trying to stop the launch of the VR lenses. Turns out her partner got addicted to VR and killed himself because reality couldn’t measure up, so she’s written a manifesto against it. Lex, as head of the DEO, assigns Supergirl to stop her as a favor to Leviathan. Kara can’t defeat the alien’s power-draining gauntlets, but she uses her other superpower: Heart. She simply tells the alien that if she blows up Obsidian innocent people will be hurt, and the alien -apparently only now realizing that- immediately surrenders. They have a conversation about how technology prevents us from living authentic lives, without any tangible pros or cons mentioned. Heidegger would be proud.
In the B-plot, Lena tries her “Non Nocere” tech on prisoner volunteers. As designed, it removes the violent impulses of the more aggressive ones…but with the danger of beatings gone, one prisoner who used to be a wimp suddenly gets an urge to take revenge for all he’s suffered and BECOME the bully…an urge he physically cannot act on. Lena suddenly realizes that people don’t just lash out for no reason, they have a sense of injustice, and her pacifism tech will disarm the oppressor and the oppressed alike. She deals with this problem by…just disabling people’s sense of injustice too! Congrats Lena! Now you’re thinking like a Luthor!
Final Thoughts
This mess of an episode is only salvaged by the quality of the acting, but it can’t hide the fact that the writing is all over the place. A scene perfectly encapsulates the state of the show: Brainy wishes to speak to one of his dopplegangers, who were uploaded to the Big Brain, so he fully projects a hologram into the corporeal world – even though Brainy now has a link to the cloud and we know he can create and operate in a mindspace. That’s what we do now, we need special effects just for someone to talk to themselves. Ignore the plot, focus on the shiny!
Supergirl S5E14 – Won’t Somebody Think of the Billionaires?
- Writing - 4/104/10
- Storyline - 7/107/10
- Acting - 8/108/10
- Music - 7/107/10
- Production - 8/108/10