Supergirl The City of Lost Children review S2, Ep. 20
This late in the season an episode like City of Lost Children felt weirdly out of place. The episode was devoted to the show’s afterthought character and established the season’s big bad’s end game.
James was having super power envy again. He saw how easily Supergirl inspired people with her heroics while his efforts as Guardian only instilled fear. It’d help if Guardian was dressed in his more heroic primary colors blue and yellow comic book outfit. Winn and James had a cute mention of Batman as Clark’s friend or frenemy. The TV and movie setup for the DC characters is so weird that Batman can’t even be named let alone make an appearance. Still, it was silly for James to get all emotional when J’onn blew him off while handling a case. It’s not like Guardian got a DEO membership badge.
[irp]
Kara meanwhile was catching up with Lena. If you never watched the first season or the early episodes of this season, you’d never know Winn and James were Kara’s best friends. The writers have largely scrapped the low tech Team Supergirl for the DEO, but at least Winn got a gig with the DEO. I kinda feel like Mehcad Brooks had to piss off Melissa Benoist to be relegated to such third tier status this season.
After an alien unleashes an uncontrollable telekentic attack, James tracks down her son (Lonnie Chavis, This Is Us). Just like the Alex coming out subplot, Supergirl fails to create a strong opposing viewpoint for potentially controversial subject matters. Everyone in National City is perfectly cool with aliens walking among them. Cadmus is the extreme response, but no one even acts shocked to see aliens in the park or restaurants. So of course the kid walking into CatCo with strange marks on his face doesn’t get a second look.
At least, Lost Children brought up how James could relate to alien discrimination from being black. Supergirl has been all over topical issues like politics, feminism or coming out, but the writers have been far more reluctant to discuss race. James playing a father figure to Marcus didn’t connect as it felt like another outta nowhere decision.
Mon-El is also settling into being a non-factor. This week he decided he actually did care and miss his mother. That’s a hard sell considering how he blew his parents off upon their initial reunion.
Lena is hard at work on a machine for Rhea. This played out odd as Rhea guided Lena, but acted like she needed her help. Turns out Lena’s machine is having the unwanted side effect of spazzing out the alien telepaths. Good thing Winn was able to whip up a device that helped But that’s not it’s true goal. Rhea suckered Lena into building a portal to summon the Daxam armada. Welcome to New Daxam baby.
Rhea was ready for this moment. She’d whipped up a mental prison from some white martians to put Martian Manhunter in a catatonic state and distracted Supergirl long enough to get Mon-El to stand down. Teri Hatcher continues to be the best part of the home stretch of this season. Rhea might be unhinged, but at least she’s making sensible decisions.
If this plays out similar to the New Krypton arc in Superman, this could make for a great string of episodes. Unfortunately, at this point in the season, a cliche alien invasion seems far more likely. City of Lost Children set up what would have made a sensational mid-season cliffhanger and a intriguing dynamic for the season’s second half. But at this point, I don’t have a lot of confidence.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Photo Credit: The CW