Verdict: Supergirl sticks the landing on the CW with a terrific second season premiere that retains everything that made the show work while adding some great new elements into the mix.

Review

There was a time a few months back where Supergirl’s future looked like it was hanging in the balance. The show never quite clicked with CBS, and its budget made it clear that it wasn’t going to survive on its original network. And while the CW did swoop in eventually to save Supergirl and bring it under the same roof as Greg Berlanti’s other three superhero shows, many people’s nerves never quite subsided. Would the move to the lower-profile CW hit the considerable effects budget? Would all the characters show back up? And would the show have to undergo a huge revamp that would stifle all its momentum that it had built up by the end of its CBS run?

If The Adventures of Supergirl is any indication, I think it’s safe to say those worries were unfounded. The only tangible differences are aesthetic – a new DEO set and exterior scenes where it’s cloudy outside thanks to the move to Vancouver. Other than that, it’s an absolutely seamless transition that keeps all of season one’s momentum and impressively builds upon it. There’s a fresh confidence evident within this premiere, reflective of a creative team that have hit upon what makes this show good, and now are simply striving to make it great. It’s a mix of exciting progress that promises a huge shake-up of the familiar status quo from season one, and comforting familiarity – the beating heart and sunny optimism that distinguished Supergirl from the get-go are still absolutely at the core of this show, but they’re presented within a more robust and compelling story. Oh, and there’s Superman, who is awesome.

But, quite rightly, The Adventures of Supergirl is Kara’s story first and foremost, so we’ll return to Clark Kent later. The premiere sets up Kara’s character journey for this year in no uncertain terms, promising that this will be a season all about what it is to be Kara Danvers. That’s a smart and logical place to take Kara after she finally realised her goal of becoming Earth’s hero in last year’s finale, and The Adventures of Supergirl pushes Kara into this journey of self-discovery in a really interesting way. Crucial to Kara’s journey, of course, is Cat Grant. Cat has always been central to what Supergirl means, and she plays a vital role in this premiere that reminds us of how much of an asset she is to the show while offering some sly, subtle hints of a sea change for her character that comes in the midst of her typical mentoring to Kara. Cat gets the lion’s share of the episode’s big speeches, and they benefit from sharp, incisive writing that really gets to the core of Kara’s strife without seeming clumsy or overly obvious in the way she essentially spells out the problems Kara is feeling – this is a really fun and light episode of the show, but it also illustrates Supergirl’s knack for being heartfelt and sincere where it really counts. Kara’s arc is refreshing because she’s surrounded by influences like Cat who only want to help her and spur her on – it’s a story that leans heavily on the cooperation and genuine empathy that has always abounded in this show. That also means her arc is streamlined and effective, and doesn’t get dragged down in self-recriminations or brooding that other shows traffic in – thanks to Cat’s pivotal role, Kara sees her problem, worries about it, but ultimately seeks help and pushes through to a place where she’s happy. It’s simple A to B stuff in its construction, but Supergirl recognises the benefit of a simple character story that’s well-paced and hits its points loudly and clearly. Melissa Benoist is as consistently likeable a lead as ever, and it’s thanks to her warm, increasingly equal and cooperative dynamic with Cat that Kara’s struggle absolutely works. The conclusion of Kara’s journey here is a really satisfying end, because it takes all of the elements that the episode has been juggling and factors them a self-realisation that induces the same ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ feeling as Kara. Kara becoming a reporter just makes a whole lot of sense for all the reasons the episode efficiently sketches out, and it’s a satisfyingly different new role that breaks down the slightly arbitrary divide a little between the DEO and CatCo, allowing Kara to get into peril and track down bad guys in both her Supergirl and Kara Danvers personas. It’s a great example of the way in which The Adventures of Supergirl takes stock of what could be improved from season one and capitalises on that awareness, shaking up a part of the show that never quite felt as strong as the superhero action, Cat Grant excepted, and changing it (hopefully) for the better.

Of course, we have to talk about Superman, who dominated a great deal of the CW’s marketing barrage for this season. Superman has been a contentious character of late, mainly due to Henry Cavill’s divisive portrayal of the character coming under fire from those who see him as overly dark and brooding, missing the key appeal of Superman in the first place, but also due to a contingent who voiced concerns, not without merit, that he could overshadow his cousin in a show that’s about Kara’s attempts to define herself. Thankfully, I would hope both doubting camps have been assuaged by what I thought to be a slam-dunk of a take on Superman. Tyler Hoechlin hits all the right notes for a traditional, back-to-basics Superman, from the affable, clumsy Clark to the warm-hearted and empathetic Superman, and he instantly establishes a warm, familial rapport with Melissa Benoist that’s utterly charming to watch. There are so many great individual moments with Superman that it’s hard to really pick one (from his wink to the family after he shields them from gunfire to his decision to shake everyone in the DEO’s hands), but I think it’s most important that The Adventures of Supergirl finds that delicate balance between giving Superman his dues and keeping him firmly as a secondary character. Clark is only in the episode for as long as he needs to be, and the vast majority of his scenes are spent with Kara factoring into her journey – though Superman was undoubtedly a great marketing hook for the CW move, his role as the fully-formed, experienced hero and therefore something of an example for Kara made a really good case for his role purely on a dramatic level. Clark and Kara are always presented as equal partners here, utterly trusting one another’s judgement at all times – for one, that’s a dynamic that’s simply more fun as they get to playfully spar and banter on a level footing, but it also avoids the all-too-easy trap of diminishing Kara just to make her more famous cousin look more impressive; Supergirl is too good a show for that, and I’m glad. There’s also an interesting skew in their relationship in which Kara is almost the older sibling to Superman as the one who spent more time on Krypton, and there’s a really nice moment that’s ripe for dramatic exploration where Clark sincerely asks to know more about his parents – he accepts that Kara’s more of an authority than him on that subject, and that’s quietly subversive in a TV environment that’s still pretty clumsy at portraying equal male-female partnerships. Hoechlin instantly makes an impression and I’m delighted that he’ll be in next week’s episode too, but I think two episodes is just right for now – large enough to explore all the nuances of this take on Superman, but small enough so that he stays as a supporting character in Kara’s story.

Another new element here was the introduction of Lena Luthor, who seems to be fulfilling a similar role to Maxwell Lord as a vaguely shifty, morally ambiguous businessperson with enough resources to take down Kara if she saw fit. The Adventures of Supergirl doesn’t have enough time to fully sketch out Lena, but it’s a promising introduction for her character nonetheless. Katie McGrath (who made a great villain on the BBC’s Merlin) plays Lena well as someone who’s could be playing a far more complex game than she’s letting on, but she’s sincere and likeable enough to make it plausible that she really is just attempting to shift the company into a force for good – either path is possible for now, and I like how the script and McGrath keep things very much in the middle of those extremes for now. Lena also links nicely into Supergirl’s continuing themes, as a clear parallel to Kara herself – fittingly for an episode where Kara’s famous cousin is present, we return to the core idea of a woman struggling to escape from the shadow of a famous male family member and carve out an identity for herself. It’s a smart way to play off the Lex Luthor character while keeping him off-stage for the time being, but it also naturally points our sympathies just a little towards Lena as someone who Kara can very much empathise with – when she evades the poisonous influence of her brother as embodied by the assassin he sent to quash her attempts at going her own way, it’s hard not to take it as a victory. In doing so, The Adventures of Supergirl manages to link last year’s occupation with Kara Zor-El with this year’s focus on Kara Danvers. It calls into question the value and problems of a family name like last year did by instantly making us suspicious of Lena due to her family name than proving us wrong, but it also parallels Kara’s own current journey of attempting to craft a new identity that’s true to her own beliefs and wants. The Adventures of Supergirl does a solid job of teeing up further intrigue to come as the season progresses with Lena, while making her just a little bit more layered and thematically relevant than the similar Maxwell Lord was.

The Adventures of Supergirl is a packed episode, as one might expect, and so there are a lot of subplots percolating through that aren’t as significant here as the intertwining roles of Kara, Clark and Lena. Some work nicely as set-ups for what’s to come – the pod mystery from last year is given its dues with a cold open that gives us our reveal of Chris Wood’s character, but it’s wisely put on the back burner for now with a few intriguing clues to whet our appetite for that story coming into fruition in a few weeks’ time. Others are a bit functional and bland in the here and now, but offer promise for the future – like the introduction of international assassin John Corben, who made for a relatively dull villain here but should spark to life once he’s powered up as Metallo in the here and now. And some are kind of entertaining, but ultimately feel superfluous – it’s a fun geeky moment to see that there’s history of Superman and J’onn working together before, but their spat over Kryptonite feels like one conflict too many and isn’t given enough screen-time to register as something we could truly care about in the here and now. All of these are fine, functional stuff, part and parcel of the need for a premiere to front-load conflicts and plot points to tee up everything that’s to come.

The only real bum note here occurs with Kara and James. Shipping is a thorny topic, and I’m sure there’s a multitude of opinions on whether they’re better together or not. For the record, I was never fully convinced by a romance that always seemed a little forced, but, to its credit, Supergirl put a lot time into establishing their romantic attraction last season and got to an end-point that made sense as a culmination of their relationship. For the most part, The Adventures of Supergirl does a fine job of continuing from where CBS left off and keeping going on that path, but this is the one case where the show has completely U-turned from where it was heading at the end of last season, and it’s done in a slightly clumsy manner. I appreciate the intent of the writers in getting rid of something they believed didn’t work, and Kara’s decision to walk their relationship back does link well into her overall journey of re-evaluation and moving forward. But I don’t think there was any way to reverse as a big a development as this without it feeling like a retcon of what came before, and that’s the case here – it requires Kara’s motivations to change drastically in a way that doesn’t really cohere with how she felt in the finale, and as such it’s all too easy to see the hand of the writers in Kara and James’ scenes. In such an engaging, seamless premiere, it’s the one thing that pulled me out of the experience and reminded me that this is a retool where things are going to be changed with not a lot of reasoning. Perhaps staggering this development over a couple of episodes would have worked, just to build up Kara’s crisis and establish the shaky and forced nature of their relationship a little better, because it’s just a bit too rushed to take as a truly natural development of their storyline here

On the whole, however, this was a truly encouraging start to season two. The move to the CW seems only to have been beneficial creatively, and the feeling that Supergirl is now where it was always supposed to be is reflected in the premiere’s confident, relaxed feel in which it’s able to skilfully combine the optimism and heart that are this show’s trademarks with compelling personal drama in a way that, above all, is just plain fun. Supergirl already seems to have recaptured the quality of its strongest episodes last year, and it’s hard not to be encouraged that that level of quality was reached in an episode that had so much groundwork to lay for the episodes ahead. This was a strong start, and there’s absolutely no reason not to believe that the show won’t keep striving forward and improving – let’s just see how high it can get…

Odds & Ends

• Winn is now working at the DEO! Jeremy Jordan is a lot of fun in his brief comic-relief appearances, and it’s clear that the character works a lot better when he has more characters to spark off.
• We get our first look at Cadmus in the episode’s stinger, who will be our Big Bad for the time being, and it looks… fine. I’m reserving judgement until they fully appear, but it does appear a little mad scientist cliché from the looks of it.
• Lots of Superman mythology references here – Lois and Clark are going strong, Lex Luthor caused an earthquake and got sent to jail, and Superman once worked with the DEO on missions. These were really fun references, and a great way to world-build this corner of the multiverse.
• Cat looks to be having her own existential crisis, as evidenced by her realisations during her pep talk with Kara and her request to make some calls. I’m assuming this is how she’ll be written out by leaving CatCo, but what’s she looking to do?
• “We’re moving back to Gotham.” – That… that is a terrible idea.