CBS’ Supergirl is still going strong into its second week. The CGI is exquisite and of cinematic quality. Being the latest offering of a DC character, a female DC character nonetheless, means that all eyes are on Supergirl. Much like the title character, the show is new and must prove itself to gain respect and maintain viewers.
In the beginning half of the second episode, “Stronger Together,” Kara is facing doubts about just how “super” of a girl she is in every part of her life. When the episode opens, she is enduring a series of tests at the DEO to prove she is strong enough for field work alongside the DEO. In a training exercise, Kara learns for the first time about the effects of Kryptonite on her body. The Kryptonite weakens her body and allows her human sister/DEO agent sister, Alex, to physically overtake her. Once she discovers that she is not completely indestructible, she learns that she needs the DEO’s training and knowledge.
Kara also realizes that she has a lot more to learn about being a superhero when she is faced with the impact of her rescue efforts. When she tries to keep an oil tanker from exploding, she first tries to put out a fire with her super freeze breath. When it does not work, she tries to move the tanker, but she ends up pulling it apart as she pulls it from the fire, spilling oil, and polluting the water. Distracted by her recent mishaps, even Cat confronts her about having her head in the clouds and needing to get her personal life in order because it is spilling over to her professional life. I thought this move was uncharacteristically kind of Cat. Perhaps she was depicted as too cruel and backbiting in the pilot episode. Self-serving Cat is back when she threatens to fire James Olsen if he does not exploit his friendship with Superman to secure an exclusive interview with Supergirl.
Kara is downtrodden that the superhero life is not as glamourous as she always dreamed. She does not take criticism well, but, to her defense, the people of National City come across fickle, indignant, and ungrateful when they criticize Supergirl. Kara learns from her mentor, Cat, that Supergirl should start slow and low with her rescues and respect the learning curve. One she proves to National City that she is reliable and does more good than harm with her rescues, National City will embrace her as their hero.
Just like the pilot episode, we are introduced with more escaped alien prisoners from Fort Rozz who want to exact revenge against Kara. This week, a Hellgrammite (Justice Leak), an insect-like alien that possesses super strength and the ability to disguise himself in humanoid form joins forces with Kara’s aunt, Astra (Laura Benanti), to lure Kara by kidnapping Alex. Benanti appears in a dual role as twin sisters Astra and Alura. They may look alike, but that is where their similarities end. Alura had sentenced Astra to Fort Rozz. Astra longs to rule Earth before humans can destroy the planet.
The similarities between Supergirl and the Superman mythos are incredibly similar to each other. Superman’s nerdy alter-ego works for the Daily Planet while mousy, unconfident Kara works at The Tribune under Cat who once worked for Perry White. Kara has the help of coworkers James Olsen and Winn Schott, Jr. who both are possible love interests for Kara which parallels the help Superman received from Jimmy Olsen (actually the same character) and Lois Lane who served as his own love interest.
A laundry list of similarities is expected from a spinoff character. Kara receives her own Fortress of Solitude of sorts complete with an Artificial Intelligence hologram of Alura to guide her. I can forgive that the pilot and second episode work hard to introduce the characters and tell the origin story, but writers must take heed not to rely on Superman’s popularity to win over viewers. The writers will have to do more than name drop her cousin’s name to get us to like Kara. That being said, the name “Superman” was used more often in this episode and seemed much less awkward than in the pilot.
Writers are also required to do their homework and be even more diligent because the Superman universe is so well known. Fans and viewers are less apt to forgive glaring mistakes. In the pilot, it is mentioned that Kara has flawless skin and has never been hurt, but actress Melissa Benoist has what appears to be a Chicken Pox scar on her forehead. This would be a costly flaw to fix with CGI, but perhaps it could have been worked into the story. It seems though that it will just be ignored by writers. Secondly, this episode contains a scene between Kara and Alura on Krypton, but Krypton’s sun is shown as yellow when, in fact, it should be red. I still have trouble buying super suave James Olsen over dorky, second fiddle Jimmy Olsen, but that is just a personal preference.
Supergirl delivers in cinematic quality visually, an exceptionally talented cast that mesh, but the writers must be careful not to ignore well know, established facts of the Superman franchise and lose the respect of savvy viewers and fans. It is still gaining momentum and I was disappointed when the episode ended. It left me wanting more.