***This review contains some spoilers***
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“Supergirl” season 5 is a bit of a mess, with a barely coherent plot that has too much going on, not to mention that the show practically reboots after the big crossover. However, some of these tweaks do fix a few flaws from earlier in the season. But at the end of the day, it’s Lex Luthor to the rescue.
There is just too much going on in the early part of season 5, and it never quite fits together well, There’s the big bad with Leviathan. While we see that they have a lot of power and influence, their plans are just too vague to feel like a threat. The bigger issue at hand is Lena’s plot to rid humanity of violent tendencies. While this is a noble idea, there seems to be a million ways it could backfire. And on top of that there’s Martian Manhunter’s brother directly threatening our heroes. His story fizzles out surprisingly quickly, and since he leaves earth afterwards, it’s all mostly forgotten by the time the crossover rolls around. The new reality created by “Crisis” is mostly a good thing. While there are some contradictory story elements about how things work in this new universe, the show uses this as an opportunity to revamp some plot points and characters. It’s a little confusing at times, but the new status quo seems to work. And with Lex back, the Lena story and Leviathan story start to mesh. Ultimately, the Lena stuff never ends up panning out, so all the chips are on the Leviathan plot. And it fails. The villains are too poorly defined in both their origins and their abilities. Even there evil plan doesn’t make a ton of sense. But, just when all seems lost, Lex pulls it all together. Similarity to what happened in season 4, we see here how Lex has been pulling strings and maneuvering everyone exactly where he wants them. Jon Cryer has turned into one of the best interpretations of Lex Luther, and when he’s involved in the show he elevates the material. Thanks to not only the COVID-19 pandemic, but also Mellissa Benoist’s pregnancy, this season lost three episodes. They did a solid job overall making the finale feel like a finale, but the ending was a too abrupt and too confusing as a cliffhanger.
The rest of the cast doesn’t always feel like they have a lot to do. Brainiac’s story starts off strong, but once he turns into an errand boy for Lex, he loses all the gains from his character arc. Manhunter has a lot to work with early in the season when his brother is involved, but after that he just doesn’t have a lot of interesting stuff to do. Alex has a nice arc about reinventing herself, but that ends with her new anticlimactic vigilante persona. Dreamer showed a lot of promise last season, but too much of her story this time is about her relationship issues with Brainy. After years of trying to prove to her friends and the audience that’s she’s not like the other Luthors, Lena takes a bit of a heal turn that she just barely manages to pull herself out of by the season finale. The new character of Andrea Rojas falls flat. She’s just too unlikable even with her somewhat tragic backstory, and she never becomes much of a threat as her super-powered alter ego.
“Supergirl” season 5 just doesn’t click, even with some help from the big crossover. Only the scene-stealing Lex Luthor and his masterful game of chess with all the players saves the show in the final stretch.
** out of *****