Mediocre Stratagems Undermine The "Hostile Takeover" On Supergirl!

The Good: Good performances, Decent fight sequences
The Bad: Stretched use of the ensemble cast, Plot convenience trumps sensible character direction, Lack of emotional resonance for the characters, Continues the forced romantic subplots
The Basics: "Hostile Takeover" is a mixed bag of a Supergirl episode where Cat Grant and Supergirl fall into boring traps the same way.


The first season of Supergirl had villains aplenty and by the time of "Hostile Takeover," the season was finally starting to come into focus with how the different adversaries would relate to one another. The basic plot of the first season of Supergirl followed the idea that as Supergirl was rising in National City to be Earth's second Kryptonian super hero, her aunt Astra came into direct conflict with her, the DEO was hunting extraterrestrials on Earth who had been released from their prison on Fort Rozz by Astra and in her mundane life, Kara was finding conflict with Max Lord, who was waging a propaganda war against Supergirl. In "Hostile Takeover," Astra returns, with her sidekick Non and her agenda against Supergirl becomes more clear.

"Hostile Takeover" picks up immediately after the events of "Human For A Day" (reviewed here!), which found Kara powerless. Barely recharged, Kara is assaulted by Astra and Non and "Hostile Takeover" begins there. "Hostile Takeover" also takes place immediately after Alex Danvers has learned that her boss at the DEO, Hank Henshaw, is actually J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter.

Astra squares off with Kara and tells her that she wants to team up with her niece to change the face of her plans. Returning to CatCo, Kara learns that the company has been hacked and Cat Grant is now on the defensive. Grant's lawyers advise her to be patient and Kara urges her to fight, which leads her boss to task her with reading all of her e-mails with James Olsen and Winn Schott. At their headquarters, Non and Astra discuss their allegiances and Astra claims to want to save Earth from an environmental disaster. Non promises Kara will join them or he will kill Astra's niece. At the DEO training facility, Alex tries to figure out what attachment Kara has for Astra, but her sister is tight-lipped.

Meeting with the Board, Cat Grant discovers that one of the members is working against her. While Schott and Olsen search for the proof that Dirk Armstrong is behind the hack, Supergirl takes to the skies where Astra is hovering to goad her into a fight. After incapacitating Astra, Supergirl brings her aunt to the DEO where she is imprisoned. James Olsen participates in an operation to bug Armstrong's computer in order to get the proof that he is behind the CatCo hack. When Kara meets with Astra at the DEO, she learns that Kara was trapped by her mother using Kara as bait. As Grant works to survive the attempt to oust her from her own company, Lord Industries comes under attack by Non.

Astra is characterized in "Hostile Takeover" as an environmental activist who tried desperately to save Krypton from ecological disaster. "Hostile Takeover" works to redefine Astra as an adversary as Kara's aunt claims to be working to save Earth from a similar environmental disaster as the one Krypton suffered.

Supergirl seems to be trying so hard to be hip in "Hostile Takeover." Cat Grant went to Burning Man and eats candy in her office in a way that seems ridiculously age-inappropriate for the character who is a workaholic. Grant references Idris Elba, a Jekyll And Hyde musical, and Anderson Cooper in a way that tries far too hard to namedrop and seem fresh and cool. But "Hostile Takeover" suffers for the same reason that people who insist that they are cool fail.

"Hostile Takeover" also keeps alive the painfully forced love triangle between Kara, James Olsen (who is working on his relationship with Lucy Lane) and Winn Schott. Schott is useful in "Hostile Takeover" and it is refreshing to see Lucy Lane used for her legal skills instead of just being a prop in a romantic subplot.

Cat Grant is the focus of much of "Hostile Takeover" and her choices as a mother reflect Kara's angst over learning the truth about her own mother. Grant, as it turns out, has another child and Dirk Armstrong plans to use her secret child to take Grant down. Grant is a shrewd business leader, but in "Hostile Takeover," she not only has a ticking time bomb for her private life that is about to be set off, but she requires the help of a team of novices to corporate espionage to save herself. It is hard not to wonder just how Cat Grant survived for decades before this particular team popped up in her life.

The DEO is similarly hampered by plot-convenient failure to think tactically and that is disappointing.

The performances in "Hostile Takeover" are good, though. Melissa Benoist steps up to play both Kara and Supergirl well and she plays Supergirl's newfound rage with realism that is enjoyable to watch.

Ultimately, "Hostile Takeover" is a well-dressed episode of Supergirl that plods along at a surprisingly slow pace and falls apart under even minimal scrutiny. The result is an aesthetically enjoyable episode that is objectively disappointing.

For other works with Malina Weissman, please visit my reviews of:
A Series Of Unfortunate Events
"Livewire" - Supergirl
"Stronger Together" - Supergirl
"Pilot" - Supergirl

4/10

For other television season and episode reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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In Advance Of Ultron: Ward Turns Up As "The Frenemy Of My Enemy!"

The Good: Good plot, Good pacing, Decent special effects, Moments of character
The Bad: More plot-heavy than character motivated, Unremarkable performances
The Basics: "The Frenemy Of My Enemy" does not live up to its advertising, but does manage to be a surprisingly engaging episode of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. that uses the full, very broad, cast.


In advance of the newest Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster The Avengers: Age Of Ultron (reviewed here!), Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. was given the chance to lead into one of the big Marvel properties and the episode "The Frenemy Of My Enemy" was hyped as doing just that. For the bulk of the episode, the hype is vastly overstated; the tie-in to The Avengers: Age Of Ultron is the reference to the H.Y.D.R.A. leader Baron von Strucker, who does not appear in the episode. The reference to H.Y.D.R.A. having (essentially) two leaders is a cheat that allows The Avengers to have their own big mission that appears significant, while allowing H.Y.D.R.A. to remain the primary adversary on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D..

Picking up right after "Melinda" (reviewed here!), "The Frenemy Of My Enemy" tries to restore ex-Agent Ward to the series. The problem with Grant Ward has always been that he is not a particularly interesting character and so virtually everything that has been done with him has had a contrived feeling to it. As a result, when he was exposed as part of H.Y.D.R.A., he was momentarily interesting. When it became very clear - by the end of the first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - that Ward was more a rogue agent indebted to John Garrett than a H.Y.D.R.A. loyalist, the writers lost any momentum or intrigue for Ward. So, when "The Frenemy Of My Enemy" bothers to bring him back, the viewer has to wonder why they bothered.

Fitz eludes his tail and joins Coulson, Mike Peterson, and Agent Hunter. Using Fury's toolbox, Coulson prepares to make a deal with Ward, who is now a significant power in H.Y.D.R.A. While one of H.Y.D.R.A.'s new leaders, Dr. List, experiments upon Potentials, Skye reacts to having had dinner with her parents. After capturing (ex-)Agent 33, Coulson lures Ward into a meeting where he offers Ward a chance to walk away by getting him into H.Y.D.R.A. and letting him use the T.A.H.I.T.I. Protocol on Ward. Ward agrees, reluctantly, while Simmons tells May that Fury's toolbox is gone and she is shocked when May tells Morse.

At Jiaying's Sanctuary, Skye tries to convince her mother not to evict Calvin under the pretense that the world it too dangerous for Calvin to be out in it alone. Using Bakshi, Coulson plans to infiltrate H.Y.D.R.A., while Simmons tries to track down Coulson's team through Peterson's eye. Bakshi uses Peterson as a bargaining tool to endear himself to Dr. List, which leads to a standoff in List's office.

"The Frenemy Of My Enemy" does a decent job of utilizing the rather broad cast of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. in a way that the show has not managed to do that effectively before. Virtually everyone has a role to play in the episode, even if some of them are rather unremarkable, like Mack being used as a punching bag for Morse. That makes it a very plot-heavy episode.

In fact, the biggest character development in "The Frenemy Of My Enemy" comes from Skye and Calvin. Calvin Zabo is dropped back into the real world and Skye is determined to keep him from getting angry and exploding with his powers. Zabo becomes increasingly frustrated by all of the things in the world that are different from how he remembers them. That frustration continues to make Zabo more twitchy and it puts tension on the bond between Skye and her father.

Zabo is aptly played by Kyle MacLachlan. His performance as Zabo puts a lot of pressure on the reboot of Twin Peaks; MacLachlan's character there was just transformed into the embodiment of all evil in our world when last he was seen. If MacLachlan returns to that role, the challenge for him will be to differentiate it from Zabo, who is articulate, but twitchy, and barely containing his rage.

What "Frenemy Of My Enemy" does more than give Ward a decent return to the series or effectively lead into The Avengers: Age Of Ultron is undermine Skye even more than it has in the past. Skye recognizes that Calvin might go ballistic when she reveals that she is leaving him, but still she lets it slip that she is leaving. Instead of being cautious and waiting for her backup to arrive, Skye is not careful enough to keep herself in check, even when faced with mortal consequences for, frankly, her stupidity.

"The Frenemy Of My Enemy" is, essentially, a rescue mission and J. August Richards, Chloe Bennet and Kyle MacLachlan give the best performances of the episode. There is a "comedy of errors" aspect to "The Frenemy Of My Enemy" that leads to all of Coulson's plans going awry. While it makes for a well-plotted episode, it hardly leads into The Avengers: Age Of Ultron the way it makes the next episode a potentially indispensable one.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - The Complete Second Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season here!
Thanks!]

6/10

For other reviews of components of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, please check out my Marvel Cinematic Universe Review Index Page for a listing of reviews from best to worst!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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