Supergirl Season 2 – Still More Miscellanea

I recently posted two articles where I listed a lot of miscellaneous thoughts I had about the CW show Supergirl following its season 2 finale. Apparently two wasn’t enough. So, to add to the comments, observations, and questions found in Supergirl Season 2 -Random Miscellanea, Part 1 and Supergirl Season 2 -Random Miscellanea, Part 2 I present to you still more miscellanea.

Fists…Really? – In her fight with Queen Rhea, a Daxamite with limited powers on Earth compared to a Kryptonian, why in Rao’s name does Kara not lead with heat vision or freeze breath? A few seconds of either and the battle is done. Easy peasy.

NatC-ers Have Common Sense – In a departure of a lot of hero shows where bystanders stand by and watch or record super-beings battling, NatC-ers have the good sense (and given the PA announcements, a civil defense protocol) to usually run away when possible when Supergirl is fighting someone or something with powers. In her fight with Superman, the people ran like any sane person would when Kryptonians are fighting.

Kill Zone – Despite some idealistic protestations in season 1, Kara seems to be willing to kill. Parasite and Rhea are very notable victims of Supergirl’s acceptance that taking the high road isn’t always the optimal solution. It could possibly be argued that they weren’t direct kills and that the victims were at least partially responsible for their fates, but that’s trying to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle. Supergirl hasn’t directly killed a human yet, though it could be argued that by choosing Winn and James over Kelly when they jumped off the CatCo building while under Non’s thrall that Supergirl indirectly killed her (honestly, Kara, catch Winn and James and then fly under Kelly to break her plummet before she splats…you’re fast enough).

Twenty-something Women Are Fierce – It’s key to realize that with Alex at 28, Kara at 26, and Lena but a bambina at 24 — National City is primed with some major warriors from the distaff side who should be influencing this town for maybe half a century. Amazingly, they all still quake in the shadow of Cat Grant…as of course naturally you would.

Kelex Rebirth – I wonder if Kelex’s replacement will look and sound like the one Supergirl had to destroy? Will there be modifications? Will mechanical genius (and Supergirl BFF) Lena have a hand in building it — or at least making it more hack-resistant against attacks by, say, her mother and her minions?

Hypocrite – Superman feuded with J’onn for years because J’onn maintained a stock of green kryptonite as a defense against wayward Kryptonians. Dispersing weaponized lead (basically Daxamite kryptonite but more lethal) to deal with the Rhea problem didn’t faze him at all. Guess to the Man of Steel it’s only a WMD if it’s against you and the people you like — much like his uncle Zor-El justified as well.

Lead – I know it’s comics canon, but how stupid is being deathly allergic to lead? As the end product of the decay of most heavier elements, it’s ubiquitous and increasing in the universe. This is unlike the kryptonites, which seem to be a result of the Krypton cataclysm — much like how the very real Trinitite was created in the wake of atomic bomb tests — or synthetically produced. The only saving feature is that simple contact with the element doesn’t seem to do much harm — it needs to be ingested or otherwise inserted into the body.

Beam Me Up Before I Go Go – It’s curious that Rhea didn’t get beamed back up to a Daxamite ship as (most of) her minions did. Did she not have a “run away” button on her so they could lock onto her location or something? It doesn’t seem like she was noble enough to willingly sacrifice herself.

Motorvating – In The Adventures of Supergirl #8 (issued after season 1 as a canonical continuation), Supergirl rides in an SUV with Alex and says, “You know, I’ve never ridden in one of these before? They’re cramped. Flying’s way better.” That is amazing. In more than a dozen years at that point, Kara had never ridden in anything smaller than a school bus? Really? I guess having a driver’s license, then, is out of the question. DId no one ever think it odd that Kara didn’t just hop in the car with someone in all the time she was in school? Guess the public transportation system in Midvale and whatever city Stanhope college was situated in* was really good.
* Either 50 miles west of Metropolis or in Leesburg, VA.

She Pack a Gun – We all love Alex’s nifty, ray-shooting, alien pistol, although nowhere nearly as much as Alex does. I can’t help but wonder if she has to plug it in every night along with her cell phone? Did it come with an adapter? Does Winn know enough to keep it in good working order? Are they trying to replicate it? Will Alex let anyone other than Maggie touch it (though, after that attempted prison break, maybe not even Maggie anymore).

Beddy-bye – As humans are prone to nights of fitful sleep, what with their thrashing, weird dreams, and other craziness, I can’t help but wonder how that manifests itself for Kara and Kal. Does a super-thrash result in broken beds, furniture, or non-durable partners? Do they float or fly about the room, damaging walls as they crash into them?

No Place Like Home – What is life like on places that aren’t Earth? Clearly there is a thriving slave trade. There are also a lot of planet-wide invasions, it seems. And with phrases such as “crossing galaxies”, how far does it all extend? Is Earth the oasis; is that why the refugees flock here?

Taps and Chops – Something that was welcome in the Flash crossover episode “Duet” was toward the end when Kara and Barry danced during their original number, Super Friend. What a joy to see performers who aren’t faking the dance moves. Years of lessons and practice definitely show.

Kryp-dude is Goin’ Down – In the second season finale, when Supergirl and Superman were taking their fight from Rhea’s cool throne pad to the streets of National City, there were a couple of things I didn’t get. First, when they plowed through the solid roof of a building and dived through several floors, why did they end up falling through a skylight? What’s a skylight there for — for elevator patrons to gaze upon the vistas of the floor above? Then moving on to when they first settled in the water: their first move was to heat vision. While maintaining that, there was then a tiny puff of smoke where the beams met, they each shifted their gazes and heat rays away toward the water before flinching away after the heat vision stopped. I’ve been trying to explain it away, but it really just looks like fight choreography that seemed so good on paper just didn’t work in the CG cubicle so they did the best they could hoping to bluff their way through.

Roundin’ Rao – It seems like the people on the two “civilized” planets orbiting Rao, Krypton and Daxam, were, to put it bluntly, assholes. To be fair, we don’t get a good perspective on Krypton being that it was all dying and stuff. It’s unlikely we’d have seen people at their best. As for Daxam, it kind of seems like the stories Kryptonians told children were not only true but actually fell short. Kal and Kara were probably lucky to get out when they did — Krypton blowing up was the best thing that could have happened to them.

Mixy – The comics I grew up with were mostly silver age (and some lingering golden age hand-me-downs). Mxyzptlk featured fairly regularly in Superman and, later, Supergirl comics, so I was happy to see the bored and malevolent trickster appear on Supergirl. This version did not disappoint. Well, it didn’t disappoint me. A lot of reactors were confused as all get out, which was both amusing and annoying. I guess Mixy isn’t as big a deal in the current rebootful age of comics.

Freedom – One thing Alex did in “Exodus” always bothers me. When she boards the ship, she pretty much ignores the prisoners until Lyra grabs her attention. What if Lyra hadn’t been paying attention or had been standing at the back of her cell? Would Alex have just left everyone in their cages with no hope of escape. (Yeah, the escape was thwarted, but still.)

Keep Thinkin’ That – In Rick’s manipulation of Maggie in “Alex”, he says that Maggie can just walk into the SuperMax prison his father is in and let him out. I don’t think Rick understands the concept of SuperMax. There is no way that Maggie, a city detective, even with fancy toys, is getting far enough inside the prison to achieve the goal. Also, as the clock ran out just as she was ushering Thompson out, how did she think she had enough time to deliver him to his son and then have time to save Alex? Is the prison next door to the DEO building?

Love Advice-giving – On subsequent viewing, knowing that Cat knows Kara’s secret, Supergirl and Kara’s discussions with Cat where she mentions her boyfriend in the last two episodes of the season gain a lot of layers. From Supergirl, Cat learns that Supergirl’s boyfriend is trapped in an evil alien spaceship. Later, when Kara is all sad-faced about losing her boyfriend and her fear that she’ll never have a relationship, we now know that Cat has a fair idea of what went down and likely what it cost the Girl of Steel. So she said the pain would fade and then deflected by appealing to Kara’s ego with praise for her reporter work (peppered with allusions of superheroing). Cat deftly handles the two sides of her surrogate daughter in one talk without giving away what she knows. She’s good.

Pod People – The cockpits of Kryptonian pods are fantastically small. I can’t imagine it not becoming maddening after a few hours much less any appreciable time upto and including years. Even allowing that microgravity would remove the pressure points that make actually sitting for long periods a chore, it doesn’t seem that for any purpose other than a short-range shuttle it’s anything but torturous. Even allowing for 100% recycling to regenerate air, water, nutrition, environmental consumables, and whatnot, it seems that trying to engage in necessary bodily functions would be most unpleasant. Even an antiquated Soyuz capsule is roomier (barely). And what about entertainment? Surely there must be copious amounts of entertainment to occupy the solitary traveler as they slowly go insane.

Pod Redux – When Alex flew up in Kara’s pod to rescue Supergirl from space in the season 1 finale, where did she put her? Is there a cargo hold somewhere? Did they double-up after Alex quickly flashed off the cockpit bubble?

Repurposing – You know that machine from Lex’s vault that Lillian had Lena repurpose into a Daxamite genocide weapon? Now that it’s perfected and tested, what’s to stop mama Luthor from re-repurposing it to nix the Kryptonians? Hopefully Lena added a melt-down mode so it could only be one-use and couldn’t be reverse-engineered. So that would mean that only Lena and Winn had the practical know-how for killing all Kryptonians planet-wide.

Star Trek Lives – While Supergirl is rather generous with the Star Wars references, it is actually, in spirit, more of an homage to the original Star Trek. As Star Trek wasn’t shy about using the power of SF/F to serve up allegories of current-day issues (I know this firsthand, I was watching it as a first-run series while history was happening throughout the country at the time), so too does Supergirl take every opportunity to do the same. Now, as then, some complain about it — generally those whom the brush of allegory paints unflatteringly. Some argue that this isn’t the job of a silly little entertainment show. The same was once said of that other classic series, but fifty years on many of those episodes cited as the best or noteworthy were the ones that were issue-based. Who knew that this show would grow into something more than a showcase for Superman’s cousin?

Blood is Thicker – In 2×16 “Star-Crossed”, we see Mon-El’s guard on Daxam murdering a Kryptonian emissary — an emissary from the House of El. I can’t help but wonder if that is going to be an issue at some point. Also, how large is a family’s house? He might’ve been like a 4th cousin twice removed or perhaps Kara or Kar’s direct uncle. As the show could’ve used another family’s crest, it implies future consequences. Perhaps he isn’t quite as dead as most suppose.

My Dinner WIth Kara – While Krypton and Daxam likely have very different cuisines, it didn’t seem too alien to Kara when she feasted with the King and Queen of Daxam. Was this the first culinary taste of home in thirteen years?

Mater Lingua Franca – We’ve gotten a few scattered words/phrases of Kryptonian (vulgarly known as Kryptonese) over the course of two seasons: el mayarah/el mayara (stronger together); khao-shuh (loosely: to be continued…); u-th-aur (brother); etc. Being one for filling out the world-building when you have the chance, I’m really hoping that the creative team has partnered with a “conlang” (constructed language) expert or enthusiast to actually build something with some verisimilitude (a la Dothraki and Valerian from Game of Thrones). Sadly, it seems we’re also stuck with the mindlessly transliterated script of old…I was hoping for something that reflected Kal and Kara’s alienness.

Yep, That’s My Sister – It was a blink or you missed it moment, but when Superman told Kara that he was at full strength and she beat him, Alex indulged in a momentary glance of awe and pride at what her sister could do. I mean, she beat Superman — the legend who’s been saving the world publicly for 15 years or so. Respect.

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And that should be enough for now. When I accumulate more musings (you know it’s going to happen) I’ll once again gather them and post. Until then, khao-shuh.