Review 565: Supergirl (Season 5)

It's been a rough season for Supergirl to say the least. Whilst the show has retained its ability to tackle weighty themes and tell topical stories, Season 5 wasn't quite as consistent in its delivery as previous seasons, nor was the storytelling as focused.

Two themes that seem to be at the centre of Supergirl (Season 5); How technology is impacting the way people engage and giving them an escape not to engage. The other seems to be a "fight for Lena Luthor's soul" The later of which would be an interesting conflict if the show didn't feel so at odds with itself. 

 

Whilist the show has never known to shy away from tackling, topical subject matter and themes Supergirl's descision to explore technology felt a bit random and on the nose even for this show. Compared to last seaon's themes of Fear vs Hope, Season 5's focus on technology lacked that sense of urgency and relevance and didn't feel as natural a fit for Kara's ethos.

Despite being teased at the end of Season 4, it took far too long for Leviathan to emerge as the clear Big Bad of the season, and longer still before it became clear what threat it posed to National City. Too often, throughout the season, the organisation was too vague and intangible.
Representing the Leviathan threat for the duration of the seasons run were Rama Kahn (The X-Files' Mitch Pileggi) and Gemma Cooper/Gamemnae (Cara Buono). Neither proved to be particularly compelling villains in the long run. Rama Kahn only appeared in a handful of episodes, and generally came across as a one-note character. Buono, on the other hand, brought an appropriately cool and calculating presence to the part of Gemma Cooper, but the character never amounted to more than the mysterious blonde haired leader, and their collective dullness is only amplified by Lex Luthor's presence. At least Pileggi looked like he was having fun hamming it up. They kept hyping Rama Kahn up as a major force to be rekoned with but I never felt the threat of him because so little time was given to developing him.

There was a meandering pace to the way the first half of the season was structured and they didn't feel like they were building off of one another and it honestly felt like the writers were just throwing storylines at the wall and seeing what stuck. The post-crisis half of the season was an improvement in some areas if  True, the recent Covid pandemic forced the production to hurry up and wrap some of the storylines but it still felt like the writers were bascially spinning their wheels before ushering in the final confrontation between the superfriends and Leviathan. Whereas Arrow and The Flash skillfully and intelligently integrated the impeding crisis into their proceeding episodes, very little of the first half of Supergirl (Season 5) felt like it played into the Crisis on Infinite Earth and instead settled for killing time

Another apparent problem, that bogged down the season as it went on, is its handling of the main cast. There are just too many characters for the show to juggle. On top of the already established Kara (Melissa Benoist), Alex (Chyler Leigh), Lena (Katie McGrath), Brainy (Jesse Rath), Nia (Nicole Maines) and J'onn (David Harewood), bumping up James' sister Kelly Olsen (Azie Tesfai) to a series regular, along with the recurring presence of Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer).
The show also introduced two new key players into the mix, Andrea Rojas/Acrata (Julie Gonzalo) and intrepid British reporter William Dey (Staz Nair). Neither of them brought particularly much to the table. Rojas, in particular, was never really developed beyond her initial set up of being a terrible boss. 

Dey had an interesting start to his storyline, being a reporter who was trying to get close to a Rojas to uncover a conspiracy. But, during the post-crisis half of the season, William's storyline just stopped, and despite the season seemingly positioning him as Kara's love interest, the relationship was never given much development, in the long run, and sparks never flew between them. Whilst the former felt underdeveloped, the latter, too often, felt superfluous. Obviously, Andrea is important because she's the CEO of Obsidian North, which is a big focus of the season, but the writers never worked to develop her beyond the initial setup. Her Acrata persona was only sporadically touched upon.

Nia, in particular, felt criminally sidelined throughout this season to the point where it felt like she had no purpose. Whilist she did get her own centric episode in Ep. 15 Reality Bytes which took a bold swing at looking at the struggles of the trans community, the execution was ultimately let down by the shows adhearence to the Arrowverse cliches.

 

Another character who felt oddly underutilized this season was Kelly

David Harewood  He had a small subplot in the first half of the season concerning the return of his long lost brother Malefic J'onzz (Phil LaMar) which played into preparing him for the impending Crisis. I'm not quite sure wether we needed to introduce another lost member of J'onn's family. 

Whilst James Olsen (Mehcad Brooks) departed the show 4 episodes into the season, it still wasn't enough and the show's hugely stacked cast still needed trimming. It didn't actually feel like there was any great reason to write James out of the show (From what I read, Brooks was just ready to move on).

The show really needs to trim its main cast going into Season 6, when it eventually rolls around.

 

Then there's the issue of Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath). Her arc was arguably the most uneven of the season. A lot of fans were upset at Lena's descent into evil becasue they had hoped that the show would not take this approach and make her a villain instead of letting her be a positive role model. Seeing a fan favorite suddenly deliberately betraying and hurting her friends (while at the same time trying to forcibly remove the ability for others to do the same) has been described as hard to watch. Likewise, fans who wanted Lena to go evil, as well as fans who dislike Lena, were annoyed that the show still does not want to make Lena a true villain, opting instead to make her more of a sympathetic Anti-Villain/Well-Intentioned Extremist and were upset that the show might redeem her out of nowhere.

Personally, I didn't mind her descent into villainy. Taking a character who'd been taken into a notirious family, been lied to and taken advantage of her whole life when she'd desperately tried to prove she wasn't like the Luthor's would have made for a wonderful Breaking Bad esque character arc. To often, unfortunatly, her arc felt unfocused and was in desperate need of streamlining.

 

Not helping matters is the fact that it takes seven full episodes for Kara to figure out that Lena is manipulating her. By that point, we've reached the midseason finale and the end of the "pre-crisis" half of the season. In the "post-crisis" half of the season, Kara and Lena hardly share any scenes together, and in 13th episode, "It's a Super Life" (also the shows 100th episode), Kara decides that she's done being responsible for Lena's descent into villainy, and cuts ties with her which is a great development but writers did little to further that conflict beyond the initial setup.

At this point, it's important to note some of the other things Supergirl did well in its fifth season. The Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover was a definate high point this season
The 100th episode "It's a Super Life" was also a high point. Using Kara and Lena's friendship as the backbone was definitely a smart choice and seeing former series regulars, Chris Wood, Odette Annable, Sam Witwer and Jeremy Jordan reprise their roles as Mon-El, Samantha Arias/Reign, Ben Lockwood/Agent Liberty and Winn Schott was definatly a worthwhile treat. Adding in comedian Thomas Lennon as an alternate Mister Mxyzptlk into the mix certainly was certainly a lot of fun.

 

Ep. 17: Deus Lex Machina proved to be another standout episode elevated by Supergirl herself Melissa Benoist at the healm and putting Lex Luthor front and centre and focusing on his activities post-Crisis.

 

Ultimately, Season 5 suffered from its inability to create a conflict worthy of Supergirl and her band of superfriends. 

Directors Jesse Warn, David McWhirter, Eric Dean Stanton, Tawnia McKiernan, Gregory Smith, Marcus Stokes, Alysse Leite-Rogers, Shannon Kohli, Alexis Ostrander, Melissa Benoist herself and David Harewood's direction is  the cinematography is grogeous and captures the
the production design is terrific, the costumes are terrific, the score by Blake Neely and Daniel James Chan is rousing