TV Review: Supergirl (Season 4, Episode 3)

The idea of a villain’s origin story squeezed into a measly 40+ minutes doesn’t sound too good on the outside, but ‘Man of Steel’ wasn’t that bad. Not as exciting as last week’s episode, but just as important to the narrative.

At first, I was high-key excited to see what would go down after Kara’s exposure to kryptonite but, to my surprise, this was just a stepping stone into the episode.

Image credit: Bago Games, Flickr

The real focus followed professor Ben Lockwood and his obnoxiously xenophobic dad. We’re instantly propelled into his life 2 years previous, and the first thing we see is the fight that breaks out.

Look, I don’t know if it’s because I cry at everything or if it’s because it hit home, but that scene where the workers started attacking the alien because he is simply an alien struck a chord. Supergirl is getting realer every episode and I’m so here for it.

We follow the deterioration of Ben and how his dad’s prejudices are influencing him. It makes sense, contextualises a lot of the hatred the ‘people’ are feeling, and it’s interesting. A bit of a filler, but interesting.

Once again, all I can seem to notice is the distinct similarities between the show and real life. Ben’s dad hating all aliens because of the Daxamite invasion is literally what certain people do when they see a person of colour committing a crime. Group together a minority, pin them all as immigrants, and think it’s okay.

Anyway, following these random characters had me missing the OG’s a little, so when Kara made an appearance at the Dive Bar, sporting her usual happy-go-lucky attitude and putting Ben in his place, I couldn’t stop smiling. It was a lovely touch, especially since Ben turned out to be a real butthead.

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Even though his character bugged me immensely, I do appreciate how the writers showed how his experiences shaped his beliefs. Ben lost his job, house and dad, so of course he had to go and lose his mind, too. It explained his xenophobia, but it didn’t justify it.

This elongated flashback also allowed us to see what was going on with my fave, Lena Luthor, and I loved it! I was always curious about what she was doing before she was introduced in the show and I’m still fangirling if you can’t tell.

Can I just say that anyone who claims she’s ‘an evil Luthor’ can leave now because this episode literally showed how caring she is? I’m just stating facts, my dudes.

Let’s also not forget that she helped Supergirl at the end, even though they weren’t on good terms. (Which reminds me – how on earth hasn’t she realised Kara is Supergirl? She literally saw how worried Alex was and still hasn’t put two and two together??)

Anyway, weekly Lena rant is over, back to the review.

I think it’s because I’m slow, but even when the Graves siblings made an appearance, I wasn’t sure what the correlation between them and this random professor was. Not until we find out he’s Agent Liberty. Did everyone else pick up on that straight away? Because that revelation didn’t hit me until he literally had the suit on, oops.

The ending brought the origin of Agent Liberty to a nice close and the writers got what they wanted – we all hate him. And Kara is slowly healing from the kryptonite attack, I hope, but she’s doing it in a wannabe-Power Rangers suit which is killing me. I can get around that because of the good plot though (I think).

All in all, it was a nice filler that contextualised a lot for future episodes.

Episode 4 airs on 12th November on Sky One.

TV Review: Supergirl (Season 4, Episode 3)

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