TV Review: Supergirl (Season 6)

**This review contains some spoilers**

Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube

The sixth and final season of “Supergirl” gets off to a rocky start, and while the back half of the season has much more purpose, the plot starts to get repetitive and make less and less sense.

Due to COVID and Melissa Benoist’s pregnancy, season five had to abruptly wrap itself up. But, that still left loose ends to start off the new season. The premiere zipped through those loose ends to finish up the old storylines, and then also had to set up a way for Kara to be separate from the rest of the cast for a good handful of episodes. Her Phantom Zone stuff never really clicked and neither did her friends attempts to rescue her. It just felt like they were just spinning their wheels until they could bring everyone back together. Luckily, the trial of Lex Luthor was more entertaining. The second part of the season had a much better concept, but the execution just wasn’t there. The quest for the totems quickly became tedious, as none of them really stood out. And it didn’t help that the gauntlets barely made sense, and the totems powers were really vague. While the Lex and Nyxly pairing seemed to come out of left-field, it actually started to work for me, until the love-sick Lex Luthor started to wear thin.

The character arcs were kind of all over the place this season. Kara was kind of an emotional mess. We rarely got to see that inspirational version of her that has carried this show for six seasons. The return of her father fell flat, and she just didn’t have any chemistry with Nyxly. (Kara usually can find a redeeming factor in the villains, and while Nyxly seemed to have one, Kara gave up on looking for it.) Nia didn’t get anything too special to work with, as her failed attempts to control her dream abilities is something we’ve seen before. She did get some nice emotional moments with her mom and her sister, but the character didn’t seem to grow all that much in the end. Last season seemed to set up a new status quo for Brainy after he removed his inhibiters, but aside from being green more often, the “new” Brainy never really made an impact. Alex’s love life also took steps forward this season, but the addition of their adopted daughter was a nice touch. Kelly’s storyline was fairly strange. They really didn’t seem to know what to do with her, and while the social worker stuff seemed like a decent fit, but it never felt like a good catalyst for her to transform into a vigilante out of the blue. The strangest arc belonged to Lena. Her stuff early on with Lex was good, but then there was this seemingly random plot point that her mother was a powerful witch, and now Lena can do magic too.

As far as the villains go, things were kind of weak. Lex’s best moments were a little bit rushed, and then he was moved off the table until the final few episodes. The smitten version of the character that returns just never quite worked, and only when the manipulative Lex returned did he truly feel like a threat again. Nyxly never ended up working as a character. She was a complex villain with incredible powers, but they seem to refuse to give her any redemption arc, and they neutered her powers at almost every turn.

The show looked on par with previous seasons. With some really good special effect mixed with some mediocre ones. The Phantom Zone looked uninspiring, and we spent most of the season in either the tower or Mitch’s ship.

“Supergirl” ended its run by spinning its wheels the first half of the season before moving onto more interesting things. But the repetitive and vague nature of the totems made things grow stale pretty quickly. We had a decent send off to the characters in the end, but it wasn’t as satisfying as it could’ve been.

*1/2 out of *****

Movie Review: Eternals

Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube

A fairly enjoyable movie that suffers from an overlong runtime and too many characters. This could have been a pretty solid film by trimming some of both. The plot is fine, but the multiple threats facing the heroes never properly flow together, and things slow down for some massive exposition dumps. While some of the main characters work better than others, with ten superheroes getting introduced here none of them get enough time to get fleshed out enough to really care about any of them. (And that’s not even getting into the villain’s half-hearted motivational arc.)  The action scenes are solid, even though some of the characters powers aren’t as useful as others in a fight. The effects look good overall, but there’s some noticeable CG, especially on the more humanoid characters. The finale is a little too convoluted, and the film ends in too much of a cliffhanger. Besides that, there is a mid-credit and post-credit scene that may leave people scratching their heads.

** out of *****

TV Review: Stargirl (Season 2)

***This review contains spoilers***

Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube

Moving to the CW network from the old DC Universe streaming service, “Stargirl” has to not only deal with a reduced budget, but also COVID restrictions. For the most part, the show succeeds with a pretty good season, but ultimately ends up suffering from bringing in too many characters and concepts that they don’t have time to payoff properly.

The plot is strong, but takes a little bit too long to really get going. The new ISA plotting to take on the JSA is interesting, but it makes Eclipso’s importance seem diminished after all the hype. However, after the two teams finally throw down, the show reveals its true potential. Eclipso isn’t all that terrifying, but he creates some creepy moments that keep our heroes on the defensive. Unfortunately, a lot of other plot points get thrown into the mix and none of them get their time to shine. Jade, Thunderbolt, an upgraded STRIPE, and most noticeably, the returning Starman all set up cool concepts but feel more like distractions to the main story than part of it.

Initially, it looks like all the returning characters are going to have strong arcs, but ultimately they mostly fizzle out before they can get going. Courtney seems to be on course to deal with the fact that she has a dark side that she doesn’t want to acknowledge, but while it ends up being a major plot point, it’s resolved even quicker than it’s introduced. Pat has some new backstory introduced on how the sins of his past have come back to haunt him, but none of that has any lasting effect. Wildcat probably has the strongest arc, but it’s too hard to determine how much of it is truly her conscience, and how much is Eclipso’s meddling. Rick also doesn’t get much to do. His befriending of Solomon Grundy is a nice touch, but it takes too long to get to the point, and then mostly gets dropped till the finale. Beth’s story line also feels like it could be better. “The kid that’s sad because the caught in the middle of divorcing parents” is a little too cliché, especially how over the top she is trying to get them to work it all out. Mike’s always had the hardest time finding a way to fit into these superhero storylines. Every time it seemed like they found a way to properly work him into the fray, nothing comes out of it. Controlling Thunderbolt, tricking out the STRIPE armor, and training with Pat all mostly lead nowhere for him. Cindy starts off as the season’s big bad, and gets some solid backstory and characterization, but her redemption arc falls just a little flat. And characters like Sportsmaster and Tigress, Artemis, the new Fiddler, and Jordan all are presented like a major part of this season before they basically get kicked to the curb.

On top of that, we have a few new characters that have joined the show. Eclipso is that biggest edition, and he works pretty well. We really don’t see a lot of him in his true form, but his child form is creepy as hell, and even when he’s not on screen his presence is felt. Thunderbolt is introduced early on and seems like he’s going to be big part of the show, but then he’s put on the backburner till the final few episodes. Jade was also introduced early on, but she seemed to have very little use besides setting up some conflict for season three. The biggest surprise was Shade, who’s introduced as yet another villain for this season, but ends up being a complicated character.

One of the most disappointing things about this season is the reduced budget. Season one had many shots of both Courtney and STRIPE soaring through the air, this time there’s only one or two quick shots. And while Gundy was well-realized last season, he looks a lot worse this time around.

Overall, season two of “Stargirl” is a solid ride, but adding too much stuff the mix not only takes away from some of the character arcs, but also keeps a lot of the new stuff from making an impact.

*** out of *****