Supergirl, Season 1, Episode 6, “Red Faced”
Written by Michael Grassi & Rachel Shukert
Directed by Jesse Warn
Airs Mondays at 8pm (ET) on CBS
What is most frustrating now, six episodes into Supergirl, is that so many of the show’s issues and foibles could be fixed with small tweaks. It is almost as if the show doesn’t care to pay attention to the small details that would immediately make it a much easier watch with more storytelling heft, which feels weird to say about a show with smart people like Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, and Ali Adler behind the scenes. Whether that is a result of the show being on CBS and hence being so tied to the strict procedural format, or a lack of understand at how much more Kara could be as a character, the show is clearly struggling to find a place where it can tackle emotional nuance as easily as it can handle weekly stories. The procedural elements of the show are standard but not always boring. However, they do have a tendency to not make much sense which is something that can be solved by letting each rogue alien be a more clear A or B-plot instead of always tying into Kara’s emotions week-to-week. This habit makes each episode seem more like an after school special than a comprehensive episode of television, as if it’s trying too hard to accomplish what it has set out to do.
This occurs once again with Kara’s confrontations with the Red Tornado. A robot built by the army to defeat Kryptonians and other alien lifeforms, it adapts to Kara’s emotional reactions as a way to work around her abilities. This could be a way to explore how Kara’s human upbringing but instead it focuses solely on her out of control temper, which is tied to her lack of a normal life, which is tied to Cat’s relationship with her mother and Kara, which is tied to Jimmy and Lucy, which is simply too much for one episode to suitably handle without botching one or more aspects of the situation. Not to mention that Kara’s annoyance at not having a normal life has already been covered more than once already, which is more than enough this early in the season. The show has already gone to that well multiple times that it’s close to seeming like it has forgotten that Kara chose to reveal herself of her own volition in the first place. Not that superheroes can’t be sad or introspective about their chosen life, but Kara is borderline whining without the show balancing that out by looking at it from a more emotional or thoughtful place other than “this is hard”. That the Red Tornado adapts to her humanity is an interesting concept, but by narrowing that humanity down to just her anger it becomes a trope. Yet another example of the show needing to spread things out over multiple episodes.
To wit, Cat’s mother coming to town is glossed over as a set of anecdotes and vignettes that would be much better without the necessity of tying them together with Kara’s insecurities. Cat is being granted more and more of a character background and corresponding motivations, but they are constantly tied to Supergirl’s adventure of the week in some way or Kara’s life. The arrival of her mother is a great opportunity to broaden her story and move ever so slightly away from just being Kara’s boss, and the show botches it. What’s the use of setting up a strong female character who runs her own company and is rivals with Perry White if nothing ever comes of that besides stories of the past and slight insecurities bubbling up now and then? It’s a shame to see Calista Flockhart being relegated to only a boss when there are so many ways to boost that character’s profile. A C-story of her own with her mom (whether accompanied by Margaret Atwood or not) is such a simple next step, and an obvious one at that, that it stings that much more when Cat ends up getting drunk off afternoon martinis with Kara and having awkward girl talk. Everything is so cramped together between the established characters that there is no room for anyone else to fit in even when they should work. The main six or seven people can’t be the only characters who have any sort of meaningful interaction on a day to day basis otherwise the world will become unrealistically claustrophobic and tight.
These details are just some of many that fail to click in “Red Faced”. Everything from the Red Tornado set up to the drama between Jimmy and General Lang is undercooked to the point that it is slight and lacking of any impact. The introduction of General Lang works as a setup for the main action, only to become a distraction as soon as it is revealed that Lucy works for him as a military attaché. Then, instead of committing to that reveal and using Lucy as a way to keep the action with the military after the General leaves, she quits by episode’s end and is back to just being Jimmy’s girlfriend. It’s a tease of a reversal and diminishes Lucy’s agency by reverting her to just someone in a relationship. This isn’t even touching on the actual battles with Red Tornado, which at worst make no sense and at best has some promising action sequences that suffer from poor choreography which betrays the way the punches aren’t landing.
The climax is predictable and not that exciting, except for Alex getting to save Kara with her own skills for once instead of the other way around. Without her initiative to go see Maxwell Lord and her DEO training Kara would have been in a bind, so it is nice to see the sisters closer to equal ground even though one of them is from outer space. Alex’s interest in her father’s death is probably the most important story beat of the episode as far as ongoing matters are concerned, and yet it is glossed over in favor of other priorities. Too much is being lost in the shuffle from episode to episode because of this apparent need to stuff every ongoing storyline into every episode. CBS gave Supergirl a full season commitment in advance of this episode so while the next few episodes may suffer from the same problems, there is hope that with extra episodes to full some of the excess starts to get stretched out to the end of the season.
Flybys
- So if Lucy declined the invite to game night it would have just been Jimmy, Wynn, and Kara? That seems boring and also like the most potentially awkward love triangle hangout ever.
- The scene where Cat tells Kara that she has to stay at work late and then scoffs at her attention towards Jimmy feels like it was missing the benefit a scene or two that was cut right afterwards in order to make sense.
- Wynn and Kara have been friends for years, and they’re this bad at game night?
- Henshaw is just walking around the DEO flashing his glowing red eyes like no one will notice. That probably isn’t the best idea for his wellbeing.
- Kara starts bleeding at the end of the episode, setting up next week’s installment where she doesn’t have her powers. Duh-duh-duhhhhh!