Supergirl
Season
Four
Supergirl,
however, keeps getting better.
The
wonderful thing about this series is that it's about diversity and
tolerance, and moreover, fighting for tolerance. In today's world,
particularly today's America, this is the most important message.
This is as broad as it could be, but the core targets for its focus
are feminism and immigration, two things bound to make a lot of white
guys very angry and send them to the internet spouting rage-fueled
bile. The feminist aspect was a given, of course, given that this is
a series focusing on a female superhero, but the immigration angle
has been as important since the start, with the showrunners
remembering that Supergirl and Superman are the story of All-American
Heroes who came to the States as refugees.
For
a while now, the universe of Supergirl
(Earth-38,
as it happens) has been a rather more utopian one than our own, where
the President is a woman who very clearly beat Trump (or his
Elseworlds analogue) and leads an America that welcomes
extraterrestrial immigrants. While there have been anti-alien
elements throughout, the series has been broadly consistent in
portraying a world that accepts aliens. Two things have forced this
to change. Firstly, real life politics can't be pushed aside
forever; it's impossible to really comment on the state of the US
today by going, “Wouldn't it be nice if the world were more like
this?” Eventually, Supergirl's
America had to begin to reflect the real world equivalent. Secondly,
the alien acceptance angle sits awkwardly with the fact that the bulk
of the villains on this series are alien criminals or invaders. It's
hard to imagine Joe Public squaring this with a view of alien
acceptance, so it's something that had to be addressed.
To
this end, season four introduced a new character, Ben Lockwood,
played with superb conviction and charisma by Sam Witwer. The TV
version of Agent Liberty, Lockwood's story is powerful and chilling
because it is so plausible. Indeed, it's the sort of thing we see in
reality all the time, and his fall from grace is so upsetting because
there are points where the viewer comes very close to agreeing with
him. Lockwood never had a problem with aliens, but his father was a
backwoods, anti-alien kind of guy. Only slowly, after catastrophe
after catastrophe, does Lockwood turn from a tolerant, accepting man
to a mouthpiece for the Far Right and subsumed by his hatred for
alien beings. The major turning points are the Daxamite invasion of
Earth and the attempted terraforming by Reign, the cataclysmic events
that rounded off the previous two seasons respectively, which lost
his his home and then his father.
This
would have been convincing enough if that had been all that pushed
him over the edge, but it's the little things that make it so much
more effective. It's easy to see the parallel between the alien
invasion driving people to hate alien civilians, just as Islamist
terror attacks have led to a huge increase in hate crimes on ordinary
Muslim citizens. It's the smaller things that slowly chip away at
Lockwood, though, such as his father's steel business being pushed
out by alien alternatives, and alien workers proving better at jobs
than humans. It's not subtle, but this sort of thing isn't asking for
subtlety. It's all the more effective for an American audience, I'm
sure, in a country where “alien” - a terribly dehumanising word –
is still the preferred term for a foreign national.
The
anti-alien sentiment is given a huge boost when the existing
President (Lynda Carter) is revealed as an alien herself, the sort of
Republican wet dream that ran through the Obama administration when
the opposition were desperately trying to come up with some evidence
to support their claims that the POTUS wasn't legally American. It
leads to a right-wing populist President, who happily uses Lockwood
as his mouthpiece. Given that the core characters work as reporters
and magazine editors in their day jobs, the line between the press'
commitment to unbiased reporting and the moral commitment to fight
for the right cause becomes a major sentiment.
However,
there are more aspects to the series and its agenda of outspoken diversity. Most notable are the two new hero characters on the
regular cast, Jesse Rath as Brainiac-5 (pushed up to main cast at the
end of last season) and Nicole Maines as Nia Nal, aka
Dreamer.
I don't think there can be any question that Rath is playing Brainy
as if he's autistic; although this isn't something that can
necessarily be said to apply to the character, being an alien android
and all, his delivery of lines, tendency to not focus on the other
cast's eyeline and the writing of the character as struggling to
navigate emotional relationships and everyday conversation can only
be read this way. Is it right to characterise a robot like this? One
of the worst things that autistic people hear is that they're
perceived as “robotic” because of their way of communicating and
expressing themselves. Nonetheless, Rath's performance is beautifully
understated, utterly charming and very funny without the humour ever
being at his expense, so personally I'm in favour of the approach.
Nicole
Maines, on the other hand, truly breaks ground as the first
transgender actor to portray a transgender character in this genre.
To the best of my knowledge there has never been a trans superhero
onscreen, and it's very rare to see it in comics. Gratifyingly, while
her gender identity is very important to Nia and a significant aspect
of her character, it's not all there is to her. She gets to be a new
hero on the show, the precognitive Dreamer, and is also an alien
settler. At first I wondered if this was really necessary, making her
trans and an
alien, but there's no reason that a character needs one defining
characteristic as the “other.” People are complex and varied and
can differ from the assumed “normal” in many ways. Maines gives a
strong yet vulnerable performance as a character who is still finding
her place in life, and she shares amazing chemistry with Rath. Take
away the extraterrestrial topcoat, and you've got a story about two
immigrants, one trans, one autistic, who slowly learn how to tell
each other about their feelings. It's beautiful and it's bloody
brilliant that we have genre TV willing to try these things.
Among
the sterling work done with the new characters there's almost no room
to praise the continued development of the relationships between
Kara, Alex, J'onn and even boring old James. Although every
relationship gets its moment, the core of Kara's story this year is
her complex friendship with Lena Luthor (Kate McGrath). While it
really stretches credulity at some points to believe that this genius
can't work out that Kara is Supergirl (the phrase “galactically
stupid” comes to mind), the edge it lends to their friendship is
palpable. Into this the writers drop Lex Luthor, who was bound to
show up eventually, but they wisely kept him aside until his presence
was required to push things over the edge. While I love the tradition
was of recasting actors from various Superman productions in new
roles, I was absolutely ready to throw out the idea of Jon Cryer,
formerly Lenny Luthor in Superman
IV: The Quest for Peace,
as the new Lex. And I like
that
film, even if nobody else does! However, Cryer absolutely knocks it
out the park, playing Lex with a huge chip on his shoulder and a
desperate need for validation that propels his fight for power. It's
a dead-on characterisation and his antagonistic relationship with
Lena works well.
Of
course, there's no point bringing in Lex if you're not going to have
him mastermind some ridiculously complicated scheme. Adapting the
classic Red Son
storyline, albeit liberally, the season see a parallel plot with
Kara's clone, the Russian-born Red Daughter, set up as her dark
mirror. As well as giving Melissa Benoist the chance to show how
flexible she can be in performance, it ties in nicely to the
anti-alien storyline, a sentiment that Lex naturally would want to
stoke. The season ties together with panache, accepting the odd
slow-burner episode that could have been trimmed, and the finale
packs a real punch. Plus we get Lex in his green-and-purple battle
suit, and they even call the finale “The Quest for Peace.” That
takes some guts.
Best
episode of the season: “Man
of Steel” - Lockwood's story.
Most
pointless addition: Otis
and Mercy Graves – Luthor's annoying henches.
Best
monster moment: Menagerie
as a knock-off Venom.
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