The Good: Melissa Benoist's performance, Decent final battle sequence
The Bad: Stiff writing, Poor characterization for J'onn J'onzz, Predictable plot development
The Basics: "For The Girl Who Has Everything" is unfortunately erratic Supergirl, taking a pretty basic science fiction trope and executing it in the stiffest, most predictable, way.
One of the nice things about hiatus time is that I finally get to catch up on things that have either slipped by the wayside or I'm working to catch up on. Before the third season of Supergirl began, I was working to catch up on reviewing the first season episodes of the show. I was not into Supergirl to begin with, but through the show's second season, I got into it and I reviewed it - as I do with many other programs - as it went along. So, I was going back to the first season and when the third season began, I had to put those reviews on hold. Fortunately, with only one current show airing new episodes, I have a chance to go back to finishing the first season. My return to the first season comes with "For The Girl Who Has Everything."
"For The Girl Who Has Everything" follows on the final scene of "Bizarro" (reviewed here!), which found Kara returning to her apartment and being attacked by something on her ceiling. "For The Girl Who Has Everything" is, essentially, an alternate reality episode of Supergirl that finds Kara trapped in her own mind living out an alternate existence.
Kara wakes up after being attacked by the parasite on her ceiling and she finds herself in her bed on Krypton, being ministered to by the Kryptonian medical droid. Kara is surprised when her mother tells her that she is recovering from Argus Fever. At CatCo, Cat Grant demands Kara show up - believing that she is hiding because she broke up with Cat's son - and Olsen and Schott check in with Alex Danvers, who informs them that Kara is not out in DEO business. Finding Kara at her apartment and bringing her to the DEO, the team discovers that Kara is under the influence of an alien parasite, the Black Mercy. At their lair, Non admits to Astra that he set the Black Mercy on Kara in order to keep her incapacitated so they could proceed, unimpeded, with their Myriad Project. While Kara is on Krypton in her mind, Cat Grant demands that Winn Schott produce Kara, so J'onn J'onzz impersonates Kara to help her keep her job.
While at Kara's apartment, Astra appears and gives Alex the information needed to save Kara. While Alex works with Maxwell Lord to enter Kara's hallucination state, Schott joins the DEO team to form a theory as to what Non might be doing and why he might need the planetary satellite network off-line. As worldwide solar flares knock the planet's satellites off-line, Alex meets with Kara in Kara's mind to try to convince her to reject the Black Mercy's false reality.
"For The Girl Who Has Everything" makes a stab at fleshing out the characters, but has a weird way of undermining them. Alex Danvers talks to the Alura hologram and makes a lot of explicit character type remarks. The dialogue in the scene is painfully predictable, as Alex bares her soul to the hologram in an unfortunately clunky way. The attempts Alex makes to express herself sound inorganic, like exposition and character descriptions, as opposed to dialogue from a real character.
J'onn J'onzz is unfortunately weakened by his characterization in "For The Girl Who Has Everything." J'onzz is a powerful telepath and in "For The Girl Who Has Everything" he is treated like a complete chump. First, while impersonating Danvers at the office, J'onzz is unable to anticipate Cat Grant's needs or preferences, which makes little sense for his abilities. When Grant demands to know what the most important thing that Grant asked of Kara when she interviewed her, Grant would naturally be thinking of the answer. J'onzz should have been able to read that thought and answer correctly. Similarly, the whole Black Mercy villain is an intimidating one, but using Max Lord and a technological connection to the story makes far less sense than J'onn "mind melding" with the incapacitated Kara and incepting her with the idea of leaving the hallucination. Until the episode's final scene, J'onn J'onzz is woefully misrepresented.
Non continues to be a pretty generic villain in "For The Girl Who Has Everything." Non's agenda, Myriad, is utilizing Maxwell Lord's technology for its next step, with the solar storm as a smoke screen. The purpose of Myriad remains unclear in "For The Girl Who Has Everything," but Non and Astra continue to pursue it violently.
Ultimately, there is nothing truly special about "For The Girl Who Has Everything" until the final act, where the episode becomes a pretty basic and simple resolution to the prior character conflicts that Supergirl had been wrestling with.
For other works that have characters trapped in alternate realities, please visit my reviews of:
"Far Beyond The Stars" - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
"Duet" - The Flash
"A Little Song And Dance" - Agent Carter
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.
| | |
No comments:
Post a Comment