Supergirl Season Four Premiere | Review

Welcome back to The nerd shelf!

Today's post is going to be my review of the season four premiere review of Supergirl. If you have never watched Supergirl the show is based on the DC comic of the same name. It centers around Kara Zor-El or Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist), supermans cousin, who must embrace her powers after previously hiding them when someone she loves is in trouble and become the hero she was meant to be. If you like any of the other DC comic shows you'll love this.

I love all the DC comics show but this one is probably my favorite. I just love that they made this show have more levity instead of darkness but they still can make you cry like a baby. This season premiere did not disappoint, but I do miss some characters that left by the end of last season.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

So last season ended with a lot of people leaving who I didn't want to leave. Jeremy Jordan, who plays Winn, decided to not be a series regular anymore to pursue other things (probably Broadway), and I already miss him. Winn is one of my favorite characters on the show, who I personally think the writers have misused over the years, and I want him to be there. But Jeremy has said that he will be back in season four and I CAN'T WAIT! Chris Wood, who plays Mon-El, also left the show. Both Mon-El and Winn went to the future in the finale of season three to fight a battle there. Chris was always only supposed to be on the show for two years but they left his story very open so he could be back. I've loved Chris Wood since I first saw him in The Vampire Diaries. The thing that I dislike though is the fact that in every show that he has been in that I've seen he has only been there for a season or two. He is an extremely versatile actor though and maybe he likes to do different projects. We find out in this premiere episode that Sam (Odette Annable) had moved away and I don't think we are going to see her this season. I really loved Sam and the friendship that her, Lena (Katie McGrath), Kara and Alex (Chyler Leigh) developed last season and I really liked her character but what can you do.

So let's get into this episode. By the way, I haven't watched any other episode that has aired yet since the season premiere, I have just been really busy and haven't had the time to write this post and I didn't want to watch more until I did.
The cold open shows a newspaper that says "Supergirl is everywhere" and it seems like she is. Kara is multitasking like crazy between her Supergirl and CatCo duties. We see her in Madrid catching a thief, and then she stops a train in Kaznia from going off a cliff when a bridge collapses. And then she's off to National City where the president is holding a press conference and she's now in her reporter uniform. Kara even says that it's the first time in her life where she has everything under control and when she sais that I just said: "oh now you ruined it for yourself!". That is some obvious foreshadowing that things are going to get messy. And I mean it's Supergirl. If you didn't think shit was going to happen then what show have you've been watching?

So J'onn (David Harewood) is at this alien support group meeting. There is a guy there who just want to share that he is happy and for the first time since he arrived on earth he feels like he fits in. He bought an image inducer that changes his appearance and he got a job because he looks "normal". There is a doctor there, Dr. Rohan Vose (Vincent Gale), who thinks that they shouldn't have to look "normal" or hide. He has these tusks on his arms that he doesn't want to hide. I get where he's coming from. This is something we talk about every day, if it's not about skin tone it's about a disability or your weight, or something that makes you stand out, like having a lot of tattoos or piercings. For someone with a physical handicap like myself, although no one really notices mine, I think about this often, especially in job interviews. And I know that some of my friends think about it daily. Should we have to hide something that is "not normal" just to please other people? No. But I do understand wanting to do it to make it easier for yourself and I wouldn't blame anyone wanting to buy an image inducer.
We then see Dr. Vose at his lab and the two bad guys for at least some part of the season come in, Mercy (Rhona Mitra) and Otis Graves (Robert Baker). First off if you've read my posts on The Last Ship you'll know how much of a fan of that show I am and I haven't seen Rhona Mitra in anything else since she was on that show. I loved her on The Last Ship and she was a hero on that show so imagine my excitement when I found out that she is going to be a villain on Supergirl. I just love her as an actress. And then Robert Baker, who I've seen in so many of my favorite shows, Grey's Anatomy, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Riverdale, The Originals and now Supergirl. He's great at playing creepy villains so I was so excited to see him walking around the corner.
Mercy and Otis are siblings and Otis seems to be the muscle in this team, he shoots Dr. Vose with some kind of energy gun and then he cuts off his tusks while laughing. This is what I mean about Robert Baker is really good at playing a creepy villain. This scene is so disgustingly perfect. You can tell that Otis has a grudge towards aliens right away. They are there to steal an EMP but if he can torture an alien while they're at it he's more than okay with it.

The whole argument between J'onn and Kara this episode was really interesting. He tries to tell her that this is more than just theft but Kara wants the world to be as good as she thinks it is. She doesn't want it to be a hate crime. She wants the world to be as accepting towards aliens as it seems like it is since they've gotten equal rights. But J'onn makes a great point. With something like that there comes fear. It's human to be afraid of something that you don't know, the problem is some people can't let go of that fear. It's the same thing with judging. We all judge people but the problem is if we keep judging them after that first interaction. How long do we keep it up? If you judge someone recognizes it and let it go and let them show you who you are. We fear things that we don't know because we don't know what's going to happen. We are afraid of doing things that are dangerous so that we don't die. But fear towards people who you don't know is dangerous. That's what can create extremists and hate groups. Kara wants to ignore the fact that this is a bigger problem than she thought, even after the bombing at the bar. And she's frustrated at J'onn for going on about it. She wants to have hope for the world. But Alex makes a great point, J'onn is not an alarmist and if he tries to tell you something you should listen. I mean Kara should know by now, and I think she does, that he doesn't just tell her something out of him being a pessimist. He wants the world to be great too but he sees it for what it is. It's not until Kara gets to the warehouse that the Graves uses that they are connected to a hate group. There are tons of messages on chatrooms on different computers about people wanting to take out aliens and how they want advice on how to make weapons.

They find out that Mercy and Otis are going to attack the alien summit art camp David that the president (Lynda Carter) is holding. Kara goes to J'onn for help and I really like that she doesn't have to apologize, she just tells him that he was right and now she needs help. J'onn does not want to fight though. I mean he quit the DEO for a reason. He doesn't want to physically fight anymore. He wants to fight this battle in another way. Kara gets frustrated and I get why. She needs help and he, who tried to convince her that this was going on, tells her that he doesn't want to.
Kara goes to the Whitehouse to try to convince the president of canceling the summit but she refuses. So the secret service and the DEO comes up with a plan. Mercy and Otis have a plan too and Kara finds two agents unconscious without their uniforms. Alex and Mercy have a fight and I loved this one. I loved seeing Rhona Mitra fighting. I loved the choreography of the fight, I loved everything about it even though it wasn't a very long one. When they are transporting the president out to the car Otis is there and he shoots at her. Kara stops him but something felt off. It was too easy. Mercy and Otis go off on motorcycles and Kara follows them. Mercy gets into Karas com and she tells her that she is trying to save the world and that she will do anything to do it and to prove it she shoots her brother. He goes over a cliff and he's basically just bait for Kara. It was their plan from the beginning. He wanted to be caught. He says something about the fuse being lit and it going off tonight. And boy oh boy was he right. We have known for a while that the president is really an alien, and now the world knows as well. The backlash from this is going to be huge. The hate for aliens is going to increase. I don't know how this is going to play out but it's not going to be pretty.

Alex is having some trouble at work with Brainy (Jesse Rath). Brainy doesn't really understand what she wants all of the time. She tells Brainy that she wants him to warn her before the president comes to visit them and he does but just before she enters the room. Alex is completely unprepared and she blames Brainy, and honestly, I don't blame her. They are having a communication problem. He is annoying her because every time she tells him to do something he either does too much or too little. I love that we have Brainy on the show though. We need that comic relief since Winn left. Brainy figures out that it's not really about him. He does things his way and it's wrong, he does things Alex way and it's wrong, he does things the legion way and it's wrong. The problem is that he isn't Winn. Alex and Winn were close. She misses him and she took it out on Brainy. So Brainy tried to be Winn instead. They come to an understanding. I like them together, it just creates so many funny moments. And the actor that plays Brainy, Jesse Rath has such good comedic timing.

James (Mechad Brooks) and Lena (Katie McGrath) are still going strong. I love their relationship. The DA is possibly inditing James for being the guardian and Lena is worried about it. Lena knows some people at the mayor's office and they think that they could sway the DA with some leverage but James doesn't want her to get mixed up in all of it. It's really sweet because he doesn't want her to do it because of how hard she has worked on separating herself from the criminal element of her family. And it seems like she's going to stay out of it until she a contact tells her that it's looking worse for James. When we first saw her with her mother at the prison I didn't put it together but of course, she was playing her for information. I believed her in some way especially when she tells Lillian (Brenda Strong) that she wants to reconnect with people that she has lost touch with and that it includes her mother. She was very convincing.
Lena goes to the DA with a bigger case than James. And she gets what she wants, James goes free but he doesn't know what Lena did. That is obviously going to come back and bite her in the ass. She not just going to get away with it. And I think that James is going to be really hurt by it. He has been very honest about his life from the beginning of this relationship so I think he will probably feel betrayed even though she did it for the right reasons.

So there are new reporters starting at CatCo and Kara is going to mentor one of them, Maeve Nal (Hannah James). I like Maeve. She is definitely a young Kara. She wants to just be good at her job and she's somewhat insecure. She has this great idea for a story about National Citys new fashion district and she has this great monologue about why she wants to write it. But when push comes to shove and they are in the pitch meeting someone else pitches her story. Maeve was too afraid to fight for herself and I feel like fear is the theme of this episode. But Kara gives her this great pep talk. I love this storyline and I want to see more of it.

The second to last scene we get is of Fiona (Tiya Sircar), the woman who held the alien support group meetings, tied up in a chair. Someone in a mask is talking to Mercy and then he goes over to Fiona stabs her. Who the fuck is this?! I guess he's going to be the big bad for this season.
In the last scene, we are back in Kaznia in some tunnel under the train that Kara stopped at the beginning of the episode, and Kara is there punching a rock wall. I don't know what to make of this. Is this in the future, or is it a clone? I don't know. But I can't wait to find out.

I loved this season premiere. They brought up an important topic and I love the side plot of CatCo and Maeve. I'm excited for the rest of this season.

/Johanna