You know. After the pilot ended I still kept asking myself one question. If she was determined to live a normal life, then why did she go around in glasses that she didn't need?

 

In the same vein, if her sister hadn't been on that plane would she have even tried to save it from crashing?

 

Oh my god, that was exactly what I was thinking in that scene. I'm not sure if that was the show's intention, but it sure as hell came across that way. Which begs the question, what the hell was that supposed to imply?

 

Think her sister being in there changed the situation from "someone has to do something" to "I have to do something".

After all, there was no guarantee that she could save that plane. Still, interesting thing to consider, maybe a launching point for fanfiction.

 

That was... slightly better than the pilot in some ways, and yet even more disappointing in others.

The govt guy's distrust of Supergirl is getting pretty annoying. Like, I get why he thinks she shouldn't be out there yet, and it's a good point, but if you think she's untrained, then train her! It shouldn't be that big of a leap. The thing that she did with her friends is what she should have been doing with those guys from the start, getting experience and actually growing into using her powers efficiently.

On the flip side, why the hell did she throw such a bitchfit about getting some decent training? She tells her sister, "now I know you're out there risking your life". I would have responded with "yeah, and like I said, I trained 12 hours a day for six fucking months before I was cleared for that". Superman's gotten lessons from both Batman and Wonder Woman, and Supergirl's too good for a kickboxing class? Exacerbated when she suddenly flashes back to "use your opponent's strength against them" and then just does it, because that's not a technique that needs to be learned or practised at all. To her credit, she does realise the merits of training after that fight, so at least there's that.

The fight scene between Kara and her aunt... man, that was horrible. I don't remember the last time I've seen something so awkward. Given how other shows seem to be doing so well in this particular area, this stands out. The flying, the superspeed, the entire fight choreography sucked ass.

That scene where they try to trap the alien guy also got pretty annoying. How did they even make the logical leap from 'chlorine-based lifeform' to 'he can only eat this particular thing'? Why didn't they booby trap the truck where you're trying to lure the alien menace? They start shooting at him right away so it's not a concern about killing him, so why not place some mines between the containers? Why does he specifically take the sister, when they didn't have her do anything to make the sequence of events seem less contrived?

Meh. I think I'll give it one more episode, and if it hasn't improved I'll drop it until the season ends and, if reviews say it's good, binge it then.

 

Well, second episode, and I concur, it wasn't much better. So many dumb, little moments. Like, fair enough, Supergirl needs more training but she never really made the situations worse. Without her, the plane would have crashed and the tanker would have exploded. So yeah, maybe she didn't solve the situations in an optimal way but the analogy was stupid.

She can't exactly let the official plane catcher guys take over, now can she? What, was she supposed to let the plane crash into the city because she didn't feel ready enough? The firemen didn't exactly say "go away we got this", they needed the help, even if the guy was a douche the way he asked for it.

Like I said, fair enough, she needs more training and I liked the montage of her applying her powers better and getting tips by her sidekicks on how to handle each situation, but saying she should have stayed away from the major catastrophes was just idiotic. She didn't cut off Superman as he was going to save the plane, no one was doing anything, could do anything, so she acted.

What did they have a room with a kryptonite emitter for? Training room for Supergirl? But the sister said she trained there, why would you have a training room that has radioactive, well, radiation in it? How much kryptonite do they have, seeing they have knives (why didn't the idiot plunge it into the face of the aunt and how could the aunt fly away with a kryptonite dagger in her arm?) How come Superman is still alive if the government has kryptonite emitters, what, luthor thought that was cheating?

On the whole training thing, still don't get why they didn't tell Kara years ago so she could properly train and prepare for the convicts gunning for her. And now they bitch at her for not having enough training while at the same time, the training they are providing is extremely lacking.

Agree, not sure where Kara's delusion on her fighting prowess came from, seeing that she was beaten like a red headed step child in round 1 against that alien and barely eked out a win in round 2.

You know I had to laugh at the scene where Jimmy Olsen told her that the city needed a hero.

"Yes, Kara, this American, wealthy city needs all the help and heroes it can get. Not the cities in Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey, or in many nations in Africa or Asia, heck or even in Ukraine and others in Europe. Or South America. It’s this city that needs heroes and help from super beings. Truly, you are doing the right thing here. Warlords, drug cartels, civil war, extortion, child labour and slavery, forced prostitution and child soldiers and all other things, they are all fine. You are needed here, to get pet snakes from trees or stop hot topic robberies.”

Well, that was a disappointing meeting between Aunt and Niece. That’s it? Rather unemotional. If they had this childhood together, why would the Aunt want revenge from Kara? it’s not like she is some criminal that doesn’t know either. Seems pointless.

Agree with @Moridin, the fight scenes, special effects in general like explosions and flight scenes, it really doesn't look very good. Maybe they blew most of their budget on the plane...

Also, wow, Superman is a bit of a douche, isn’t he? No monthly visits to the Fortress of Solitude to have Kara speak with the kryptonian ancestors. Wow, what an asshole. Also, bravo that the sister kept the mother hologram/AI from Kara for over a decade, apparently. Nice going.

So, yeah, disappointing stuff. Will stick to it, because I honestly want to like this and there is some potential there, they just need to stop having these dumb scenes and have some real character interactions. Like, Kara needs to have a real talk with her sister and chew her out for good, because she keeps doing shit to her that borders on being an enemy.

 

Kryptonian history is hazy (blame decades of comics rewriting what they were), but you can take it for granted that at a certain point in time the Kryptonian people were an expansionist empire that warred with similar civilizations before being beaten back to their homeworld, with their colonies abandoned. A civil war occurred in their history as well involving clones, and as a result of these two events Krypton turned towards isolationism and self-introspection, abandoning space-flight and trusting to automated AI defenses like the Eradicator to protect them from alien threats. Unfortunately the planet was already doomed by then due to sustained geological damage, and it was too late for the House of El or anyone else to build large enough space-ships to flee the planet, instead gambling they could build smaller ones for their children.

 

The thing I dont get, Jimmy knows Superman is an alien, but in the first ep Linda's best friend said there was no such thing as aliens. So wether he's not gave an interview?

Also her comment about her cousin not working with others, uh, I thought she didnt even really know him? Because the Clark we know works with others when he needs to.

 

I feel like if they actually took away the "girl power" aspect the show would be less cringy. I really dont enjoy when something is brought up over and over again... a lot of tv shows like to link certain thing into the episode, like loyalty or trust or something. But, atleast i dont feel like its shoved in my face every 5 minutes like i did watching this.

 

This episode was better too, which implies a trend upward. That's good. It's still not particularly great, and Supergirl is still spectacularly whiny, but eh.

Spoiler

I didn't like the whole bit where she was mad at Olsen for calling in the big guy. I mean, if he had come before the fight, then I could see it, but after? She got her ass kicked and he saved her life, so it's pretty clear that she couldn't handle threats at that level. At the same time, I can see that she's irrationally annoyed because she wanted to be the hero, it'd just be nicer if the show made it clearer that it's her inferiority complex and not some kind of moral failing by Olsen.

I am surprised, pleasantly so, by the level of Superman's inclusion in the show. I didn't think we'd ever get this far, especially since so much is made of the restrictions on major characters. Plus, if the sister's heavy handed foreshadowing is any indication, there'll be more of him in the future.

Ironically enough, one of the things I liked most about this episode was Superman himself. The little glimpse we get of him was cool, and judging by the conversation at the end it seems like he's a nice guy who actually has kept in touch with Kara to a great extent, even though we don't see him much in the show.

I still don't get why 1) encasing her hand in lead turns off the nuclear reaction, especially when it didn't even cover it completely, and 2) Superman could never think to do that. It's possible that the latter could be explained by the whole 'my cousin works alone' thing they did last time, but it's still super contrived.

Edit: Also not a fan of the love triangle, I really thought superhero shows had grown beyond that.

 

Yeah. Episode two she moaned Superman didnt work with other people, and she did and thats how she won.

This episode was how he dosent get to know his enemies life stories.

She seems very negative on the Superman front.

 

I'm a bit confused about why Kara is annoyed by how people react to her. If she really wanted to be regarded as an awesome hero, she needed to put some work into training. In fact, why the hell hasn't she trained her powers in all the years she's been on Earth?

I understand her wanting to lead a normal life (ya know, a normal undercover alien lol), but she could have explored her Kryptonian heritage in secret. If I was aware I had powers, you can bet everything that I would make sure I knew how to use them in an emergency. This just seems super negligent.

She's trying to sprint before she can even crawl, and it's starting to get really grating when she whines about her failures. I'm going to power through though, and suffer through her (hopefully) temporary naïveté to get to a point where she is tolerably competent.

I'm completely aware that superhero stories can start like this, and that's fine with me except... she's been a superhero for years and did nothing about it. Unlike most origin stories, she didn't just get her powers. That's the main reason I'm finding this a difficult watch.

 

Not a bad episode. Some lines were cringy - "Live and wired!", really? - but some were also pretty great - "Congratulations, you have the wit of a YouTube comment". Dean Cain was a nice casting touch, kinda reminds me of Henry Allen from Flash. I also liked how they fleshed out Cat a little more, hopefully they don't go too overboard and keep her bitchy elitism to some extent. Also, we get the first hint of something outside of the evil alien aunt plotline, which is definitely good, hopefully that won't drag on for too long though.

 

Still annoyed that they played Supergirl out of order in respect to the Paris terrorist attacks.

A disclaimer like Homeland did would have been enough in my opinion. That or just delay the episode a week.

Out of order episodes bother me greatly.

 

Yeah, it was a little odd. Imo a disclaimer would have been enough, but I can see where a new show doesn't want to take that risk.

 

I think it was a big mistake to structure the Supergirl series like they did. We really should have met Kara on Krypton first, like an episode or two or three there, to get to know her, as a normal, well, kryptonian, without powers, what she is like, what her family is like, what her homelife, society and planet is like. To see her mother sentence people, like, one extended trial, for crimes against this society that Kara grew up in. (if they are all different aliens and if Krypotionans don't have adult sized spaceships, how did they come to Krypton?) Then maybe go a bit into the destruction, without all this Zod bullshit, or maybe he could have been worked in, see her interacting with her baby cousin.

You know, to feel the weight of the inevitable loss everything. And then her planet is doomed, she has to escape in a pod, with the duty to protect her baby cousin (why they couldn’t build a spaceship that could hold a family instead of two children sized pods is beyond me but maybe the Kryptonians don’t believe in space-faring adults. Not exactly buying the "they didn't have time argument, seems lazy).

As such, we would feel the loss. Kara is rather happy go lucky for someone whose home planet was destroyed alongside all of her family. It’s not like Superman, who doesn’t remember anything. Kara was in her teens when that happened. Would be a nice parallel to the current situation of people being forced to flee their home country.

Then we see her land on earth, with the time skip. We see her having to acclimate to earth, especially with her developing powers, with the prisoners her mother jailed escaping and causing havoc, having to come to terms with her cousin having no need of her protection, something she had mentally prepared herself for, resenting that if anything, she might need his, simply because he is older, more experienced and had already established himself there.

Having to get used to a primitive society. Like, bad example, coming from a lifestyle where you have internet and other luxuries to a place that barely has electricity. That sort of culture shock. If they wanted girlpower, that might have been a working way to introduce this, maybe krypton didn't have gendered marketing or whatever(just one example, you know what I am coming at). Like, Kara would feel like what someone who grew up in London might feel if they went to Saudi Arabia in 1865. That could have worked, to make us, through Kara feel that culture shock, to see her adapt to a completely alien society where little is similar.

She doesn’t know anyone, her cousin is a complete stranger who doesn't quite understand their kryptonian customs and she can't exactly talk about their memories because he doesn't remember. Kara, in turn, doesn’t know anything about earth, not the history, not the language, not the customs, not anything. Little things like no books she read or series she watched or music she listened to. All new and different and she has to get used to all of that.

Then she has to adapt to all of that, plus she gets her powers, plus she has to connect to her new family and sister and maybe deal with the prisoners.

I think that would have been a more rewarding, more distinct narrative than simply using the same shtick as Superman and Flash.

 

Hey guys, I might have missed it but is there an in-universe reason why Superman doesn't just solve all of Kara's problems?

 

She wants to do it on her own. He respects her wishes.

 

She wants to do it on her own? What kind of stupid reason is that. She's perfectly happy to risk hundred's of peoples' lives everyday just to prove herself?

Wow.