I was genuinely surprised at how good this episode was! I'm sure I don't have to tell you how bad this season's been so far. There's no consistency from scene to scene, we have random gay vampires showing up everywhere, and their cgi budget clearly isn't what it used to be. Maybe I've just been bombarded with so much lackluster media from the CW this year, but I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, even despite some of the random cringey parts in there.
For starters, I like how Brainy and Nia were handled this week. Nia's (finally) struggling with her powers again, and it's awesome! And Brainy is still in his extreme panic state, which is allowing him to gain a lot more development on how he'd handle stress. They both felt like actual characters this week, and that's a welcome change.
Onto the Midvale stuff, I've never been a fan of these flashback episodes with no real stakes on the story at large, but if anyone could sell me on one of these, it would be Izabela Vidovic. Easily one of the best young talents in Hollywood right now, and far too talented for a CW show, especially at her age. She kills the role of Young Kara Danvers in a way nobody else ever could. I also don't mind Olivia Nikkanen as Young Alex Danvers. They actually shared a really good scene during this episode too, and I hate admitting that since this is a flashback episode at heart. That scene where Alex just unloads on Kara is so well delivered, and also so truthful to Alex's situation that I can't not love it!
Naxim Tork is... Weird. I forgot about his character entirely after the first commercial break, but I thought that Chris William Martin did a good job with the character overall. I didn't even mind that the acting was pretty over the top. The character himself isn't very deep, but he doesn't really need to be. He serves his purpose in the plot. He's fine.
And then we get to CJ Grant... Okay, nobody can replace Calista Flockhart as Cat Grant, but Eliza Helm really nails a lot of Cat's mannerisms, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. She was very well cast in my opinion. Of course, this brings up the question about whether Cat always acted this way instead of growing and changing over time, but they did pretty good here. CJ is trying to make a name for herself and step out of Lois Lane's shadow. It's a good setup despite, you know, not needing to exist.
Sure, there's some things you could nitpick like Kenny Li being alive Post-Crisis after we saw him die in Supergirl's third season, the fact that this episode is part 1 of a 2 part episode or the fact that they could get Kara's DNA by LITERALLY GETTING HAIR OFF OF HER HAIRBRUSH, COMPLETLEY ELIMINATING THE NEED FOR THIS EPISODE, but overall it was a fun, albeit cringey ride to go on this week.
Congrats on having your best episode since your 100th, Supergirl writers. You've officially cleared the second lowest bar in the Arrowverse: Writing something passable.
8 / 10
btw, the lowest bar is writing something better than Batwoman.
For starters, I like how Brainy and Nia were handled this week. Nia's (finally) struggling with her powers again, and it's awesome! And Brainy is still in his extreme panic state, which is allowing him to gain a lot more development on how he'd handle stress. They both felt like actual characters this week, and that's a welcome change.
Onto the Midvale stuff, I've never been a fan of these flashback episodes with no real stakes on the story at large, but if anyone could sell me on one of these, it would be Izabela Vidovic. Easily one of the best young talents in Hollywood right now, and far too talented for a CW show, especially at her age. She kills the role of Young Kara Danvers in a way nobody else ever could. I also don't mind Olivia Nikkanen as Young Alex Danvers. They actually shared a really good scene during this episode too, and I hate admitting that since this is a flashback episode at heart. That scene where Alex just unloads on Kara is so well delivered, and also so truthful to Alex's situation that I can't not love it!
Naxim Tork is... Weird. I forgot about his character entirely after the first commercial break, but I thought that Chris William Martin did a good job with the character overall. I didn't even mind that the acting was pretty over the top. The character himself isn't very deep, but he doesn't really need to be. He serves his purpose in the plot. He's fine.
And then we get to CJ Grant... Okay, nobody can replace Calista Flockhart as Cat Grant, but Eliza Helm really nails a lot of Cat's mannerisms, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. She was very well cast in my opinion. Of course, this brings up the question about whether Cat always acted this way instead of growing and changing over time, but they did pretty good here. CJ is trying to make a name for herself and step out of Lois Lane's shadow. It's a good setup despite, you know, not needing to exist.
Sure, there's some things you could nitpick like Kenny Li being alive Post-Crisis after we saw him die in Supergirl's third season, the fact that this episode is part 1 of a 2 part episode or the fact that they could get Kara's DNA by LITERALLY GETTING HAIR OFF OF HER HAIRBRUSH, COMPLETLEY ELIMINATING THE NEED FOR THIS EPISODE, but overall it was a fun, albeit cringey ride to go on this week.
Congrats on having your best episode since your 100th, Supergirl writers. You've officially cleared the second lowest bar in the Arrowverse: Writing something passable.
8 / 10
btw, the lowest bar is writing something better than Batwoman.