Supergirl, 2.05 - "Crossfire"

Warning: SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED.

With one day left until the next Supergirl (and Jane the Virgin, sigh, I'm so behind) episode, I thought I'd finally share my thoughts about the previous one.



James finally gets a prominent amount of screentime, in which he desires to shrug aside his sidekick status to eventually become the vigilante known as Guardian. His feelings of uselessness begin when he fails to stop the bad guys with alien weapons, obviously supplied by Cadmus. While I'm glad I'll be seeing my favorite Supergirl main character in action more, I'm annoyed that the writers couldn't figure out how to make him productive at Catco. If Cat Grant could inspire and influence Supergirl from behind a news desk, James can too. The writers just don't want to bother with coming up with new creative ideas, especially when they gave Winn a bigger role as a DEO employee. Sigh. It was especially hurtful when the writers have Winn telling him he would be a bad hero since he's not superhuman. What kind of hypocrisy is that? Cough, cough, Arrow, anyone? Even some of the LoT members are just regular humans? What hurt even more was that Kara didn't even bother to check in with how James was dealing. Listen, Supergirl writers, I know you want to forget the hard work you spent building up Karolsen over the first season, but I haven't. Even when they were just friends, Kara and James would always encourage each other to be stronger. So it's not only unbelievable, but kind of racist, that everyone wants to ignore or put down James. Also, where was J'onn? He wasn't even mentioned. He could've been helpful in stopping the villains, but alas, we can't have too many black characters with prominent screentime at once, can we? The day when I will not need to call out the CW's racism in every DCTV show review I write will be one I look forward to.

Meanwhile, Kara tries her best to prep Mon-El for his internship at Catco. Unfortunately, he turns out to be super lazy and even hooks up with James' assistant. Look, I know everyone wants to fall for this mediocre, average-looking white boy, but that's just it - he's mediocre. Laziness should never be excused, and it's definitely NEVER attractive, especially when people like James and Kara have to work twice as hard to get half the praise and attention. Even if Mon-El's passion isn't journalism, he should still make an effort to do the work, or else find a new job. Also, it just makes me ship Mon-El and Kara less. If I actually have to see them kiss on screen, I'll definitely be needing a mental cleanse.

Lena Luthor seems to have a taken a peculiar interest in Kara and invites her to her fundraiser. And by invites, I mean begs; she claims Kara is her one true friend out of the greedy and fake one percenters. I can understand not wanting to be around pretentious rich people, but why gravitate toward a random reporter (that just happens to be Supergirl)? I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel about that. Mon-El (annoyingly) invites himself, and since the writers don't care anymore, Lena's fine with it. Lena also asks Supergirl to come and watch over, and Kara struggles to not let Lena discover her secret. Kara and Mon-El also share a dance at the gala, and while I'm sure it was completely platonic, James and Winn's conversation about how neither of them could win her affections, but Mon-El could pissed me off. James DID win over her affections, writers. You just didn't feel like writing towards their relationship anymore, because apparently you can only let one character of color at a time be happy. Anyways, it turns out that Lena is as smart as everyone says she is - she set up a device to stop them. It also turns out that Lena inherited her brains and cunning from her mother, who happens to be the leader of Cadmus. I didn't see that coming until the last 5 minutes of the episode, to be honest. I only just started suspecting when the scene of Supergirl and Lena talking in her office began.

The show's one shining star amongst the garbage is Alex and Maggie's continuing, budding relationship. It's funny watching Alex pretend to be sad when she finds out Maggie and her girlfriend broke up, and she is the definition of Not Being Subtle (yes, I had to capitalize that). She keeps trying to get Maggie to hang out with her, which was super cute and amusing to watch. Maggie realizes that Alex likes girls, something Alex vehemently denies - at first. However, eventually, Alex accepts that she never liked intimacy with men and starts considering the fact that she might be gay. (Is she gay? Or bi? I'm not sure.) Alex's coming out speech was very realistic and moving to me. The fact that a lot of people have started the show simply because they saw representation of themselves is so important. Alex and Maggie's relationship is something the writers have somehow managed to nail right on the head, and they better not screw it up, like they did with Kara and James.

Supergirl could and would easily be the best CW DCTV show right now if it weren't for their problematic treatment of its characters of color, most notably James. James deserves so much better, and it's something I can't look past, no matter how hard I try. Fix yourselves, Supergirl writers. Your show has potential, but don't mess it up by being unable to write for more than one minority at a time. I'm already tired of having to bring up in every review.

Rating: 7.8
Extras that didn't make it in: I just want Karolsen. And for Mon-El to leave, to be honest. And bring Lucy Lane back!!!! Last I checked, she was part of the DEO!

*My next review will probably be of Jane the Virgin or Pitch. See you then!