Supergirl is a show that has, through all of the ups and downs of its three seasons, done only one thing consistently: Waste its great resources. Season one put the title character, Supeman's cousin who goes by the secret identity of Kara Danvers, in the middle of a silly love triangle between nerdy Kara-worshipper Win Schott and hunky James Olsen. So the talent that Melissa Benoist brought to defining her role as a young woman trying to cope with a vision of herself as powerful and free to guide her own actions was wasted in order to move Schott into the friend zone and gaze wistfully at Olsen.
Season two opened with a Tyler Houchin run as Superman -- he's Supergirl's cousin from Krypton who got here first -- that every DC moviemaker ought to be required to memorize. It flits around through the season until disintegrating into a sloppy mess of an alien invasion storyline that has everyone, Superman included, proclaiming Kara the bestest everything ever.
As we open season three, Kara remains deeply affected by the loss of Mon-El, the man she loved who had to be sent away from Earth to avoid its atmosphere. In order to thwart the invasion, lead had to be spread throughout the earth, and it is deadly to Mon-El's race of Daxamites. Kara's pain is only magnified by the engagement of her stepsister Alex to police detective Maggie Sawyer; she mourns her loss while Alex prepares to begin a new life. But over the course of the season, Alex and Maggie's relationship will founder as they discover they have different goals, and Kara will learn that Mon-El is not as gone as she had thought he was. J'onn J'onzz, the last green Martian who helps run the agency tasked with defending the Earth from alien menace, will learn he may not be the last after all. James Olsen will find out that not every Luthor is as awful as Lex, and the whole world will find out that lost Krypton may not be lost enough.
It turns out that a secret Kryptonian cult sent three beings called Worldkillers to Earth just before the planet exploded, and their plan is about to come to pass. The Worldkillers will cleanse Earth of its life and allow a new Krypton to be established. The leader of the Worldkillers is Reign, but she is still fighting to emerge from her human identity of Samantha Arias -- Kara, Alex and Lena Luthor's friend.
On hand to fight against the Worldkillers -- to some degree, anyway -- are Mon-El and two members of the Legion of Superheroes, a team he helped found when his escape ship went a thousand years into the future. They want to stop Reign and her partners so one of them does not end up becoming Blight, a villain who will almost destroy the galaxy in their time. It's no happy reunion for Mon-El and Kara, though, because one of the Legionnaires who came back in time is Imra Ardeen -- Mon-El's wife.
Although all of that seems like it would make for a lot of juggling and perhaps be too much to handle, the season's 23 episodes should have been enough of a palette to make the picture happen. It wasn't. It might seem reasonable to lay some of the blame on the loss of showrunner (and creator) Andrew Kreisberg, who was let go in late 2017 after credible allegations of sexual harrassment came to light. But the problems predated Kreisberg's departure and none of them cleared up after he was gone. Outlining the plot holes and lack of focus in which Supergirl was drenched throughout this term would take a couple of blog entries themselves, and even then it probably wouldn't be exhaustive.
This is a show with some top talent in Benoist, Chyler Leigh as Alex and David Harewood as J'onn J'onzz, and plenty of above-average talent like Mehcad Brooks as Olsen, Chis Wood as Mon-El and Odette Annable as Samantha Arias/Reign. It's got a great context with CW's "Arrowverse," a well-received set of shows with DC superheroes that brings goodwill and a considerably brighter tone than the gloomy DC cinematic offerings. But it never uses those tools properly for any length of time. For every great moment from Benoist or Leigh, there's a pointless episode on the history of Win Schott. There are episode arcs that invest great time and energy in plotlines or characters that will disappear one or two weeks later. There is truly lazy writing.
If you want to dismiss my complaints as personal, feel free, but it's my personal feelings that keep me hooked on a show long past the time I should have ditched it. I think Benoist nails the Super-person/Secret Identity tension better than anyone has since Christopher Reeve and I love to watch her play with it. I am a Legion fanboy and seeing Legionnaires with flight rings on my TV, fighting evildoers, sent 9-year-old me into hyperdrive. Casting Carl Lumbly, the voice of J'onn J'onzz in DC's animated shows, as this J'onn's father is a great touch. Those kinds of things keep me watching in spite of episodes like "Not Kansas," possibly the worst episode of sci-fi-oriented television I have ever seen. And I watched a hologram cop save Laura Branigan from mobsters in an '80s show called Automan.
Maybe season four kicks off with the kind of bang that can regenerate the goodwill this show should have. Maybe the CW actually rejects some lousy scripts instead of filming everything that comes over the transom. Maybe someone says, "We've got a cast that can handle some heavy lifting. Why don't we see what they can do?"
Maybe. I hope.
"If he can make this turn, so can we!"
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