TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Supergirl Season 02 Episode 04: Survivors

Hey everyone, we’re back! Sorry for the gap last week, that Monday was crazy for me. In short? Last episode was good, Lynda Carter is awesome, what else needs to be said?

Moving on to tonights episode, “Survivors” had some nice parallels between stories that have been building up over the last few episodes. Including the arrival of Mon-El, M’Gann, and the numerous aliens that now are all in National City.

What made this episode fun for me, was that this episode pulled from two classic stories from the “Justice League” cartoons. Two episodes from those series had Roulette doing just this, having the “upper class” bet on fights between superpowered beings. The only difference here is that it was aliens fighting and not just superheroes/supervillains. It was a nice twist, and one that was very believable. After all, we are the race that used to praise gladiator matches, why not this?

The other thing was the arrival of Draaga, who was in the “Warworld” storyline from Justice League. Although he was very one note here, it was clear his inclusion was intentional, and I appreciate that. Mon-El even mentioned that his family saw him fight on Warworld…which would mean Mongul is out there…

The second strong part of this episode was the friction between J’onn and M’Gann. You could see that the tension between them was real almost from the start last episode, but this one really sold it. J’onn has lived for years thinking he was the last Martian, and then M’Gann comes along and puts that on its head. So it’s totally understandable that he wants to connect with her both for her sake, and for his. But as we would learn, M’Gann didn’t really want that, she has survivors guilt, and even went to Roulette’s club to fight because she thought she deserved it. Her betrayal and battle with J’onn was very poignant, and helped cement the relationship they’re going to have going forward.

Mon-El also had a short but fun story here. As he was still getting used to his powers, and was thus a threat, Hank and Kara wanted him to stay in the DEO for his own protection…aka…everyone elses protection. Being the Daxam he is, he tricked Wynn into taking him out. It was funny, and I feel bad for Wynn, but it helped show how different Mon-El is from Kara. As well as helping Kara figure out that its not fair to avoid him any longer.

Sadly, the rest really didn’t hold up. What was the point of the Kara/Snapper story? Some of it was literally the same point over and over again and Kara just didn’t seem to get it.

Also, last episode, Maggie Sawyer (yet another Superman character) came to the show, and it was instantly obvious that they were going to try and make her and Alex a couple…then this episode came along and REALLY laid this out. If the CW does one thing really awkward, its relationships, and this one is no better. Now to be fair, its better than the love triangle that was played out all last season then ditched on all sides once it came to CW, but not by much.

Also, while I loved Draaga, he was shown to totally kick Supergirls butt in a few moves, then be taken down by two hits after Mon-El’s tip came through. Really? This guy went up against Mongul AND Superman and last quite a while, why did this fight seem so lopsided? Also, did J’onn get taken down by a stun gun??!?!?!? Really?

All in all, it was a solid episode for Supergirl, and with Roulette freed because of her connections, she’s hopefully going to come back. Oh, and they got to do the “reveal” of who Miss Martian REALLY is, which was really fun to see. I hope they don’t wait to bring that arc fully to bear.