There Is Little "For Good" In Lillian's Return To Supergirl!

The Good: Lena Luthor manages to not go over to the Dark Side, Well-directed, Fine performances
The Bad: Simplistic and contradictory characterization, Simplistic plot, Not a lot of big character moments to afford interesting performances.
The Basics: Supergirl limps through "For Good" as it attempts to find a good use for Lena Luthor.


Ensemble pieces are tough to find a good balance for. Supergirl is an ensemble piece that began with two different ensembles - Kara Danvers's CatCo Worldwide Media coworkers and Supergirl's DEO coworkers - and has slowly blended the two. In the third season, Supergirl seems to be making a desperate attempt to re-establish two ensembles, with Lena Luthor taking over CatCo, which also is making James Olsen relevant again (since his Guardian character arc pretty much fizzled out). But, as the DEO is overrun with more characters (with the appearance of the Legion Of Super-Heroes from the future) and Kara's CatCo job life has been entirely minimized this season. The CatCo ensemble gets the a-plot in "For Good."

"For Good" follows on "Fort Rozz"(reviewed here!), though it diverges from the main plot of that episode. The Reign plotline, which was front and center in "Fort Rozz" is continued as a b-plot in "For Good." While the search for the Worldkillers mentioned in "Fort Rozz" starts out "For Good," the episode follows more on Lena Luthor than Reign.

Opening with Reign, Purity and Pestilence (the Kryptonian Worldkillers) descending on a burning Earth in Kara's dream, Kara returns to the DEO where Schott indicates that the Kryptonian heat signatures are not traceable, like Kara and Kal's. While the DEO searches for a correlation between Kryptonite and Kryptonian pods that crashed to Earth, Alex takes Samantha to L-Corp for an MRI. When James Olsen and Lena Luthor are out for breakfast, they run into Morgan Edge. Moments later, Edge's car drives itself into the river and explodes. Edge survives and accuses Luthor of trying to kill him at CatCo. At L-Corp, Alex is unable to find anything wrong with Samantha's brain on the MRI and she performs a blood test.

At CatCo, an attempt is made on Lena's life and Kara flies her friend to the DEO to try to save her life. When she regains consciousness, Lena listens to Olsen's description of the assassin used by the barista and she recognizes the technology used to kill that assassin as coming from Luthor Corp. Lena visits the manufacturer of the dissolving bullet and finds her mother there. While her mother encourages her to let her kill Morgan Edge, Lena leaves her mother and returns to CatCo. Lena enlists Kara to help her save Morgan Edge's life.

Morgan Edge's return to Supergirl serves to bring Lena Luthor back to the show's forefront. Luthor's main character conflict has been to avoid falling into the anti-alien villainy that has characterized her family. Luthor wants to avoid the anger that Lena and Lex were consumed by. In the second season, Lena was interesting when she was used outside the simplistic "will she go bad or won't she" type storyline. "For Good" has her irritated and egged on by Morgan Edge. Unfortunately, "For Good" reverts to the familiar conflict for Luthor, where she is irritated by Lillian and encouraged by her mother to kill Morgan Edge. Lena's assertion that she would never act on her instinct to kill Edge is easy to take at face value and boring to watch. It is impossible to suspend disbelief that Lena would take a meeting before calling the police with a tip about Lillian Luthor's return as opposed to believing that Lena is going to simply let her mother do her own thing.

"For Good" is a weird episode of Supergirl on the character front. Kara is sloppy - flying over National City as herself - and while it is mentioned within the episode, it is not satisfactorily dealt with. The amount of time it takes Kara to change into Supergirl is insignificant compared to blowing her cover in a city filled with people likely to be looking up to see Supergirl. Alex Danvers is oddly written as well in that she suddenly has incredible medical skills and no broken leg (which she had in the prior episode). Having recently been watching the first season of Supergirl, Alex Danvers's characterization never included such advanced medical training as the ability to diagnose multiple poisons on sight. And the return of Guardian rather suddenly feels more plot-convenient than organic for James Olsen . . . who acts more like Batman than an ethics-driven vigilante.

The oddities in the characters in "For Good" reach their peak with Samantha Arias. Arias has a support network of both Danvers women and Lena Luthor who refer to Samantha as "family." That definition for the relationship seems like a dramatic overstatement. Connecting Arias (Reign) to the main cast feels forced and rushed; if Maggie had been developed as Reign, the sense of character betrayal would actually work when the inevitable revelation comes.

"For Good" is unfortunately simplistic on many fronts. The drones used by Lillian Luthor miss multiple shots, Morgan Edge has the Digital Voice Recorder in his possession for well long-enough to delete the incriminating evidence and Lena Luthor is supposed to be smart enough to know that a confession gained under a literal threat of death would never be admissible - even to a grand jury! "For Good" hints at a moment of genuine complexity, but then backs horribly away from it; Lillian Luthor heavily implies in one of her lines that she is actually behind the attempt on her daughter's life, but Edge never backs away from his coerced confession. As well, Kara roughs up a bouncer at a party with the crowd-pleasing line "don't touch women" . . . when it is the guy's job to stop people from entering the party behind him. This is not a feminist issue, but it is treated (rather ridiculously and simplistically) like one.

The result is that Supergirl is hampered by its own bloated cast; Lena Luthor is a wonderful and intriguing character who is well-performed by Katie McGrath, but the writers and executive producers seem unable to figure out how to use her in a compelling way.

3.5/10

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

© 2018 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"Luthors" Manages Not To Mortgage The Potential Of Supergirl!

The Good: Wonderful performances, Interesting characters, Good pacing
The Bad: Some serious plot problems, Editing
The Basics: "Luthors" brings Lena and Lillian back to the Supergirl narrative with only minimal inclination that it could all go wrong for the supporting character and Kara Danvers!


The various elements of the DC Television Universe have a number of aspects in common, but Supergirl has been a fairly pleasant surprise in a lot of ways. The DC Comics Television Universe has a tendency to use reversals in the stories and too many times, the reversals have been predictable and obvious, as opposed to surprising and audacious. If one is doing a reversal, predictability is the bane of good storytelling. Supergirl has set up some reversals that have been well-executed and one of the most pleasant surprises in the second season has been with Lena Luthor. Lena Luthor is the adopted daughter of Lillian Luthor, who grew up with Lex Luthor, but rejects her family's anti-alien agenda. Lena has been played as a genuine young woman who truly wants to do right in the world and counteract her family's destructive influences and Katie McGrath has played her so well with those qualities that she has made the viewer believe completely in Lena Luthor's integrity and motivations. As such, genre fans have been waiting for the groan-inducing moment when Lena Luthor is exposed as a fraud; many of us are so jaded that we expect to be disappointed by the writers and executive producers of Supergirl because they seem to have a real issue with making an actually good, fully-upstanding person who is already part of an arc of redemption and rejection of evil. Fortunately, when it looked like Lena might make that very obvious betrayal, the writers of Supergirl stepped up and kept the integrity of Lena Luthor intact. With "Luthors," Lena is given yet another opportunity to go over to the Dark Side.

Fortunately, Supergirl maintains some decently high standards by not going in that unfortunate and obvious direction.

"Luthors" picks up after "The Martian Chronicles" (reviewed here!), but does not follow directly on the story from that. Instead, "Luthors" starts to deal with the ramifications and consequences of "Medusa" (reviewed here!), which saw Lillian Luthor going to jail. "Luthors" returns Lillian Luthor and Metallo to Supergirl.

20 years ago, Lex Luthor is playing chess with his mother, when Lena is brought home to be his younger sister. In the present, Lillian Luthor's trial continues and the DEO team hangs out together at the alien bar. Alex comes out with Maggie and discovers most of her friends are supportive of her. Lena is ostracized during her mother's trial, especially after she testifies against her mother. Visiting her mother in jail, Lena learns from Lillian that Lionel Luthor is her biological father. Elsewhere, John Corben, is given his cybernetic elements back while in prison.

While testifying at Lillian Luthor's trial, Corben lashes out as Metallo, disrupting the trial and freeing Lillian Luthor. When the window for Metallo getting the Kryptonite needed to power himself is narrowed down to the time frame when Lena visited Corben at the jail, Maggie Swayer arrests Lena. When Metallo comes to spring Lena, The Guardian shows up to stop him. Failing that, Lena is broken out by Metallo and her mother and no one but Kara believes that Lena is innocent of aiding Lillian. Lena is taken to a secret LexCorp facility where Lex stashed anti-alien weapons, much to her horror. When Metallo's heart threatens to explode, Supergirl springs into action to save Lena.

"Luthors" does a good job of creating family angst with Lena's character arc. Katie McGrath continues her extraordinary performance as Lena by making the young Luthor woman seem strong, independent, and emotionally-conflicted. McGrath manages to never seem whiny in the role of Lena Luthor and she also exhibits incredible physical control during her performance. McGrath plays off Brenda Strong expertly. Strong plays fuming and angry in their first scene together, while McGrath has to play cold and tactical opposite her. McGrath plays quiet pain like a pro.

Brenda Strong is scary with how well she plays a raging narcissist in the form of Lillian Luthor. Strong is much more frightening as Lillian Luthor than Frederick Schmidt (Metallo) and David Harewood (Cyborg Superman) combined!

Supergirl does a fairly good job of illustrating how real journalists tend to work and "Luthors" features a pretty compelling scene with Kara fighting Snapper Carr and James Olsen over the Lena Luthor story. Kara Danvers might be an alias for Supergirl, but "Luthors" does a good job of making Danvers seem like an actual reporter. Danvers fights with integrity for her viewpoint on not publishing an article that implicates Lena Luthor and that "reads" as very real and authentic for a legitimate journalist. It is also refreshing to see heroic characters who fight with words and not merely strength!

"Luthors" has a simple problem, simple solution that is somewhat troubling. Kara stands up for Lena Luthor and that is refreshing to see. The astonishing aspect of "Luthors" is that Kara needs her friends and allies to believe in her belief in Lena Luthors integrity, but she does not take the most direct, painfully obvious approach. Kara works for J'onn J'onzz, who is a telepath, and he has a vested interest in protecting aliens on Earth. Danvers does not ask J'onzz for help in a way that might actually prove her faith to be justified or not.

The Kara Danvers/Mon-El "romance" subplot is somewhat forced in an episode that is packed with more than enough substantive plot points. With Metallo suffering from the effects of Cadmus-manufactured Kryptonite, Lena Luthor being used and having to take a stand and Kara standing against her friends in her steadfast belief that Lena is upstanding; adding Mon-El to the mix is not bad, but it is a distracting elements for the episode.

Also distracting are some of director Tawnia McKiernan's cuts. Noticeable is an incredibly awkward shot wherein Metallo blasts Supergirl and the hit is not actually shown - even the effect is somewhat truncated. But, one truly bad cut does not undermine the episode. While the last scene with Lena Luthor implies that the whole rest of "Luthors" might get annoyingly undone, that does not happen in this episode and there is still time for everyone's faith to be rewarded.

"Luthors" is a solid episode of Supergirl that continues to pleasantly surprise the viewer!

For other works with Desiree Zurowski, please visit my reviews of:
Horns
Fringe - Season 4
X-Men III: The Last Stand

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Supergirl - 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 of the Kryptonian superheroine here!
Thanks!]

8/10

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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