Television,  Uncategorized

Recap: SUPERGIRL S1 Finale “Better Angels”

 WARNING: This review contains spoilers.

The season has finally come to a close, and boy it was a doozy. We pick up right where we left off. Alex and Kara are in a battle to the death, and it’s very reminiscent of the fight in a certain Blockbuster movie released last month. Anyways, the fight is over fairly quickly and it ends with Mrs. Danvers giving a speech that brings Alex from get mind control. This leads into the symbol of Hope speech Kara gives in her broadcast across National City.
I’m kinda iffy on the speech Kara gives; in fact this whole scenario fell flat. The entire city is going to become a mindless army, and our plan is a very inspiring speech? That didn’t really do it for me. Another negative I have is the fight between Alex and Kara. It didn’t have a place in the last episode, and it just felt forced here. Thankfully it ended quickly and we were able to move on.

Non and Indigo are defeated by Supergirl’s words, and have to move to plan B. This time instead on mind controlling everyone; there gonna blow them up, Kingsman style. They want to make Kara suffer because they can’t get what they want. This is basically Man of Steel all over again. Zod wanted to make Superman suffer; just like Non and Indigo want Kara to suffer. This entire season has been giving us little nods to the Superman film, and looking back on it—I wish it was talked about more. The way this show handled these easter eggs is so amazing and I love it. The plan of destroying earth has been done to death, but it works good enough here. My biggest problem with this season is Non. He doesn’t bring anything to the table, he’s emotionless, and he’s uninteresting. In the beginning it worked well because Astra was the big bad, but once he stepped into the forefront he was the series’ biggest weakness, and sadly this episode doesn’t do anything to change that.

With everyone’s head about to explode in the next few hours, Supergirl must come up with a way to stop them. This is when things started to take a turn for the worse. J’onn is injured and Superman is knocked out, only Supergirl can save the day. The use of Superman in this episode is by far the most irritating of the season. You get close up shots of his boots at least three times, and when she needed him he’s never there. They could’ve just written him out of the episode, but I guess they like torturing us. I suppose this is their way of saying she doesn’t need Superman, but it could have been done a little more seamlessly, it felt forced at times.

Kara knows that she might not come back from this, and decides to say her goodbyes to everyone she loves. This lead to a string of touching scenes between her and Cat, Winn, J’onn and James. Even Max got in on the action and gave his version of encouragement (wasn’t very good but at least he tried). These scenes brought the feels, and it added a certain level of drama needed for the episode.
J’onn knows Kara needs help, and even though he’s injured, he’s still willing to help (unlike Superman). The two go out and fight our foes in the longest five minutes in TV history. It was a great action scenes and it was nice to see Supergirl and Martian Manhunter fight side-by-side (without Superman).

After they finally beat Non and Indigo they need to move their base of operations (Fort Rozz) off of the planet. Indigo mocks our heroine because she’ll have to lift the entire base off world. How can Supergirl possibly lift a giant alien prison into outer space?Kara finally talks to Alex one last time, and tells her that she loves her and their parents. Like I said earlier, longest five minutes ever. Once Supergirl is about to lift the ship, Superman flies in to give her a hand. No? Well that’s a missed opportunity. Thankfully the Girl of Steel was able to hold her own. She somehow manages to lift all of Fort Rozz into space—saving the world. Sadly, she’s loses consciousness and is on brink of death. We see a ship in the distance, and it’s Alex flying Kara’s kryptonian ship! She’s able to save her little sister and return home.
While I love Supergirl sacrificing herself to save the planet, and having the strength to lift Fort Rozz—the Alex thing was a bit too much for me. She was able to pilot the ship, grab Kara (without an oxygen mask or helmet), and they both fit in this ship? It’s just too unbelievable. I know this is a show about an alien who crashed on earth, but even that was a stretch for this series.

Once Kara wakes up she gets her happy ending. James and Kara are apparently a couple now, Cat gives her a promotion with an office, Hank is head of the D.E.O. (with Lucy), and probably the biggest surprise of all was when Cat called her Kara instead of Kira. Yep, everything’s going great for our heroine, and she even has a cute conversation with Clark, via email of course. It was a nice ending to a very good season. It’s going to be interesting seeing the show’s dynamic going forward. The status quo has been changed for the better, and it should make for some new and exciting adventures. Now we just need to know what was in that pod…

Guys, while this wasn’t the strongest episode of the season, it’s still a good season finale. The show was able to give us solid characters and make them likable, an awesome female character in a leading role, good villains, freaking Martian Manhunter, Bizzaro, a crossover with The Flash (a show on a different network), and great adaptation of a popular Superman storyline. What I’m trying to say is; while season one was far from perfect, it gave us so much and it did it all well. I didn’t plan on watching this show, let alone reviewing it, but it won me over because it gave us everything it had. The producers, actors, writers, directors and everyone else involved deserves a huge thank you. I can tell they gave it everything they could, and that’s something that should be celebrated. Hopefully we’ll see more from the Girl of Steel in the Fall.

Supergirl will return.

Follow me on
Latest posts by Michael Thomas (see all)