Recap: SUPERGIRL Gets a Shock. Twice.

Episode 105 “Livewire”
Written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Caitlin Parrish
Directed by Kevin Tancharoen

[Photos: Darren Michaels/CBS]

In the wake of the terrorist attacks last week, CBS decided to flip the schedule on Supergirl and run next week’s episode this week and this week’s episode next week, so we get “Livewire” instead of “How Does She Do It?” along with a better promo for that one coming out of the hour. My biggest question is whether this will have a Firefly effect on the story by running them out of continuity. Hopefully not too much.

The most glaring item on the table is the re-budding romance between Jimmy and Lucy. There’s obviously something we haven’t seen yet, leading to their decision to head off to Ojai for Thanksgiving. And of course Kara has mixed emotions about it. Because she’s a girl, and because according to the manual, the girl has to have feelings…. for reasons.

OK. Look. The fact of the matter is that we have a television show featuring a girl superhero. That doesn’t mean we have to have a television show featuring a girl. You can flip the channels at random and find all sorts of rom-com and drama offerings that center around romance, love triangles, unrequited love, and the like. CBS and Team Berlanti have a unique opportunity here to explore what it means to be a superhero living in the shadow of a more popular superhero, gender notwithstanding, and it feels like they’re going to give us tired rom-com tropes anyway.

Unless…

Maybe in the wake of the “Here’s Why You Won’t See Superman” arc, now the show is going to give us the “Here’s why we’re not a rom-com” arc. Maybe. It could be that Team Berlanti feels the need to address that particular expectation as it relates to both the audience and the suits at CBS. Because let’s face it: the suits at CBS are going to have a completely different mindset from the suits at CW. The CW folks, at least, have had time to work with Berlanti enough to give him a certain amount of trust. CBS is just now putting skin in the game, and they have a much longer history to inform their “we know what the audience wants” largess.

So, in the absence of seeing “How Does She Do It?” until next week, I’m going to assume it’s the beginning of a new arc that puts the kibosh on everything. At least for now. I may have to re-evaluate after episode 106 airs.

This episode gives us the origin of Livewire, who was introduced in the animated Superman series in 1997, and the origin is pretty much the same: radio “shock jock” Leslie Willis gets struck by lightning and turns into a villain with the power to harness electricity (and become electricity herself) by tapping into the electronics around her. In the animated series, she blamed Superman for the accident that caused her transformation. Here, it’s caused by lightning that passes through Kara’s Kryptonian DNA while she’s rescuing Willis from the danger of a helicopter accident.

Willis is there because she targets Supergirl on her show, and Cat isn’t having anyone attack her media darling. So because their contract locks Leslie into two more years at CatCo, Cat demotes Leslie to traffic reporter. Thus giving Team Berlanti to do the helicopter rescue, because it has to show up sometime, right?

The new Livewire has an axe to grind with Cat Grant, which is a shift from blaming the cape, but it gives us some insight into how Cat Grant works. Her relationship with Leslie — and by extension, everyone else — is complex, with layers that Cat only acknowledges in private, where no one can see under the mask she wears as CEO.

That mask gets cracked a bit by Kara, too, when she mentions having a foster mother. Cat, in learning Kara’s parents “died in a fire”, realizes that she doesn’t know her assistant very well at all, and in her realization becomes less of the tropey Devil Wears Prada boss and more of a layered character.

In terms of writing stories, new shows are always going to rely on visual and creative shorthand to get the audience in tune with characters and plot situations from the very beginning. It’s safe, and it gives everyone a “synch point” to have the same starting point in understanding the story universe. This is normal, and Supergirl is no exception. As Cat gets more material, more situations to face, she’s going to be a more nuanced character with some depth.

And that’s going to extend to her relationship with both Kara and Supergirl. On the one hand, Cat sees Kara as someone who’s never fully realized her potential, and is someone in need of protection. We see this as Cat puts herself in front of Livewire, making herself the target until Supergirl intervenes. On the other hand, she sees Supergirl as a not-quite-equal, also full of potential but in need of a mentor more than a protector. Given that Kara is both, her relationship with Cat is likely to derive some interesting benefits that I expect neither of them are anticipating.

But it’s not going to be a mother-daughter dynamic, as that’s adequately (and artfully) covered by Helen Slater (the original Supergirl) as Dr. Eliza Danvers, who gets to play disapproving mother to both Kara and Alex, but only because she’s got a secret she’s never told the girls. And it comes out after Alex, urged by Kara, reveals her relationship to the DEO.

Turns out (in flashback), Dr. Danvers and her husband, Dr. Jeremiah Danvers, were trying very much to keep Kara off the radar of the Department of Extra-Normal Operations. When Kara takes Alex on a “Can You Read My Mind?” moment, flying out over the water when they should be in bed asleep, Jeremiah and Eliza have a conniption fit. Eliza blames Alex, even though it was Kara’s idea. Nonetheless, Alex gets the brunt of the ire because she’s supposed to be protecting her sister.

So when Hank Henshaw and DEO agents show up at the Danvers residence, Dr. Danvers and Dr. Danvers have to face the possibility that Kara is about to be taken away to a lab or worse — but then Dr. Danvers the mister offers his services (and his research on Superman) in exchange for the DEO leaving Kara alone.

The reveal from Eliza is that Dr. Jeremiah Danvers didn’t die in any normal accident, but was killed during his time working for Hank Henshaw. So now, Alex and Kara have a mystery to solve without very many clues.

Just seeing the original Supergirl next to the current Supergirl is enough to watch this episode, and it makes me long for an episode where the two Supergirls meet in some Crisis-style scenario where John Wesley Shipp is still the Flash…

The resolution of the Livewire arc is satisfying as well: Cat working with Supergirl to capture Leslie, with Cat offering herself as bait while Supergirl uses a Ghostbusters Ghost Trap™ to harness Livewire. Even though it doesn’t work, and Kara has to fight through Sith Lightning to find a solution, ultimately she finds that simpler is better. Punching through the street, she uses a water main to short out Livewire, and the DEO now has its first non-alien prisoner.

You can bet that since she’s not dead, she’ll eventually escape. Because that’s what villains do — escape from prison.

Expect that to be a possibility with Winn’s father, too. He gets a mention this ep, with Winn saying he deserves to be in prison. Ultimately, of course, we’ll see Henry Czerny as the Toyman, and that’s certain to be an anti-Hallmark moment. Unless Winn decides to be Toyman’s sidekick because Kara doesn’t see him as a potential life mate at all. He’s clearly smitten with her, and she only has eyes for Jimmy, who’s spending too much time with Lucy…

 

ugh.