Supergirl S02E02 “The Last Children of Krypton” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Sky 1, new episodes every Monday
Writers: Robert Rovner, Caitlin Parrish
Director: Glen Winter

Essential Plot Points:

• Superman and Supergirl are working well as a team, defeating bad guys and saving the day in National City all the time. When Corben returns armed with Kryptonite and an upgraded metal body the pair have to find a way to defeat him.
• Superman and J’onn continue to argue with each other about the DEO’s decision to keep Kryptonite, and the emergence of Metallo only proves Superman’s point that the substance is dangerous.
• Kara starts to feel like she belongs with Clark, and that the pair should remain a team – even considering moving to Metropolis. Alex is unhappy with her sister’s remarks, feeling like her efforts over the years are being ignored.
• Winn continues his work for the DEO, upgrading Kara and Clark’s suits briefly so that they can withstand Metallo’s Kryptonite attack. He also can’t stop fanboying over Superman – it’s cute.
• Cadmus decide to do what Kara and Clark least expect, make a second Metallo and set him loose in Metropolis. The pair then decide to team up with Alex (Kara) and J’onn (Clark) to defeat both villains in their cities.
• Kara meets her new boss Snapper Karr and starts her job as a reporter, or at least that’s what she thought. Snapper won’t accept her as a reporter because of her lack of credentials, and refuses to let her work with the team. Kara decides, with a little encouragement from Cat, that she will prove him wrong.
• Cat decides she needs some time away from CatCo to find herself, and so both Kara and Supergirl must say their goodbyes.
• Clark returns to Metropolis; the team-up was nice while it lasted. Hopefully we’ll see more of it sometime this season!

Review:

Supergirl is having a great time with its new home on CW. While the first episode of the series did a good job of introducing us to the new look, this episode is finalising the changes to the series, particularly when it comes to the line-up.

But first, Superman is still in town for this episode so why not have a good old-fashioned team-up with Supergirl to start things off? The pair help stop a fire in a burning building before stopping two would-be thieves from getting away from the crime scene by blocking off their exit, and damaging their car as a result. This leads to possibly the best line of the show so far: “If the bullets don’t work, why the punching?” a quote that just adds to charm of the show.

It would be great if he could stick around for the rest of the series, but it’s clear in this episode that he’s needed just as much in his own city as he is by Kara’s side. After defeating Corben in the last episode, Cadmus have made him and one other person into Metallo to attack National City and Metropolis, so it’s clear that both cities need their hero. The villains are also armed with Kryptonite no less, which continues to increase the rift between J’onn and Superman, whose worse fears have come true. The events of the episode have just proven that his disapproval of the DEO hording Kryptonite was warranted, and it gives us the chance to see Tyler Hoechlin turn on the anger. He’s quite versatile in the role, and it’s interesting to see him and J’onn go at it before they settle their differences and work together later on.

Enough about Superman, though; this episode was Supergirl’s to own. While we spend a lot of time seeing her and Superman team-up, her growth as a character is still the key feature here. Where we particularly get to see this is during Kara’s interactions with Snapper Karr. It’s clear the cut-throat journalist is replacing Cat as the sharp-talking no nonsense person in Kara’s life, and it seems like she will have to prove herself to be an asset once again this season. Although she is yet to get herself a chair, at least she’s determined to show Snapper what she’s made of.

This episode sees many changes with the cast of supporting characters around Kara. Cat has decided to leave the company to find her purpose again, James is replacing her which will hopefully give him a better storyline than the brief love interest, and Winn is now working for the DEO. Hopefully it doesn’t take long for Kara to get used to this change, but it seems like she will do just fine. At least changes to the network are working out quite well for her, and the show. Fight sequences are seamless, the special effects are better than before – particularly when it comes to Supergirl and Superman’s flying sequences – and the plot is developing quite nicely. Kara may have said she doesn’t deal well with change, but this episode continues to prove that change is a good thing.

The Good:

• Supergirl and Superman’s team-up has been brilliant so far; they’ve had some great interactions and worked really well at defeating the bad guys together. Their fights against the two Metallos also worked really well, because it showed that they could work well with other people as well as each other.
• Cat and Kara’s farewells were pretty emotional; it proved to be a nice send off to the character and really highlighted the strong bond between the pair.
• It’s nice to see James is getting a new role; his character seemed a bit lost after being dumped by Kara only a few days after things began.
• Winn is adorable; seeing him fanboy over Superman was just so funny this episode and it seems like he’ll be a great addition to the DEO team. His skills will be put to far better use there then at CatCo.
• The effects in the episode are really good, probably even better than they were in the first series.

The Bad:

• While there’s hope that Cadmus will be a good rival to Supergirl and co, their unnamed leader seems to be quite a typical villain. Hopefully over the course of the series she will be given some character to make the new storyline stand out.

And the Random:

• When James Olsen says that he’s filling Cat Grant’s position, Kara calls him “Chief” and James says he likes the sound of that. In both the George Reeves TV series The Adventures of Superman and the Christopher Reeve movies, Jimmy Olsen (Jack Larson and Marc McClure respectively) would call Perry White (John Hamilton and Jackie Cooper respectively)  “Chief”, which Perry wasn’t keen on.

Written by Roxy Simons

• Read our other Supergirl reviews