Supergirl (TV Series) The Darkest Place (2016) User Reviews

Cadmus Makes Their Move

[ThomasDrufke · 8/10 · 21 November 2016]

Out of the 4 CW superhero shows, Supergirl has perhaps the weakest titles. "The Darkest Place", really? That's the most creative thing you guys could have come up with? Luckily, the title doesn't matter at all, because this was a pretty fun episode all around. Keeping my hopes up for the crossover next week.

It seems like this season is trying a lot harder to build up the supporting cast. So not only did Kara get to face Cadmus/Cyborg Superman, but James and J'onn also got their own individual villains this week. I'm still not entirely sold on Guardian as James' alter ego, nor the vigilante team up with Winn, but at least Mehcad Brooks can pull off the dialogue reasonably well. It's far better to me then what Flash is doing with Wally. Gosh, I hate that character.

We knew it was coming, but I'm glad that J'onn taking on Miss Martian/White Martian turned out alright. It's far from over either, but I'm more just pleased that David Harewood is able to do some actual acting this year. Heck, he even got to play another character, Cyborg Superman in this very episode. The idea of Cyborg Superman being Cadmus' main baddie along with Lillian Luthor is exciting, though I will say him saying "Hank Henshaw is dead, I'm Cyborg Superman" was painfully on the nose.

Amidst all the Cadmus chaos and Kara attempting to save Mon-El, we got the abrupt but welcomed return of Dean Cain as Jeremiah Danvers. Apparently he's been trapped there for 15 years? Yet, he looks pretty clean shaven and surprisingly unharmed by anyone? Whatever the case may be, I'm sure this will play into the latter half of this season. And to be honest, I really enjoyed Cadmus' presence in the episode. Luthor's intentions still seem rather bland, but this was clearly the best showing they've had of the season thus far.

There wasn't much progress in the Maggie-Alex romance other than that they have agreed to be friends, but we all know how that's going to end up. With that said, I really love that dynamic and I'm starting to just enjoy the dynamic of everyone on Supergirl. Time has been shared much more wisely this year, and it's making the show loads more enjoyable. (and yes, that Batman reference in the beginning from Kara was top-notch easter-egging. Love it!)

+Writing is spread out well

+Sanvers

+Cadmus makes their move

+Harewood

8.2/10

Cadmus strikes

[athenabvb · 9/10 · 22 November 2016]

Although Supergirl herself didn't have a lot of action (for obvious reasons) the plot was nicely spread among the other characters of the story. Jonn's arc was interesting, form the illusions of his family, imagining one of his DEO agents was a white martian to his starting to shake and finally finding out who Megan really is. His anger, resulting the fight between the Martians (although Megan didn't give much of a fight, obviously not wanting to hurt him and trying to make him understand that she isn't an evil person) was justified. I am proud that he didn't kill her, but locked her in a cell instead. That way when he releases her we will have the real, known Miss Martian.

I don't know much about Supergirl, Superman and Martian Manhunter when it comes to their comic book arcs, but it was interesting to see Cyborg Superman even for a little and i have a feeling that he'll play a bigger role in the upcoming episodes. I really liked the idea of him being the... original, let's say, Hank.

My feelings are mixed about the Guardian. I didn't like James in the first season, but in this episode his lines came across fine. We'll see if his character improves as the season continues. His story line though reminded me a lot of the episode Arrow aired last week. A vigilante (inspired by our hero vigilante) has a different view of justice and starts killing people, which our hero vigilante considers wrong and wants to stop him. Despite the similarity between the episodes Supergirl didn't make the mistake Arrow did while proceeding to capture the vigilante and forgetting that he needs to capture the bad guys (who the bad vigilante tried to kill), who he is supposed to take down in the first place.

When it comes to Alex and Maggie this story has turn cold for me. There was a spark in the beginning, but they lost it. Either way there wasn't much going on about them in this episode.

While all of this is going on Cadmus has make the first move (technically not the first, but the first direct to Supergirl). Capturing Mon El to lure Kara. Mon El's fight to escape was smart - I was impressed- and all for him to be deceived to surrender under the impression that Cadmus has capture Jonn. The whole Kara needing to use her heat vision to that helmet didn't make sense to me in the beginning. At first, I thought that they wanted to store her heat vision and use it somehow. But i was proved wrong, as it was just a way to weaken her, so that they can take her blood. Lena's mother (the big brain behind Cadmus i'm guessing) proved to me that she is a crazy fanatic. From what little she said, she loves her spoiled, little, insane, only son ,Lex, so much she has convinced herself that her boy couldn't be wrong. That he isn't a menace and that Superman is deceiving everyone that her precious son is evil. A crazy overprotected mother who refuses to see the truth is the worst of them all. I've read somewhere that the best villains are the ones that believe that they are saving the world. The best part about this episode was Jeremia. I am so glad it wasn't him they made Cyborg Superman. Although his meeting with Kara was brief, when he rescued her and Mon El from Cadmus. The state he was in is also suspicious. He seemed well-fed, shaved and in good health, which only makes me wonder what the hell has Candus been doing with/or to him the years they have him.

It was satisfying episode, the stories evenly shared across the characters. I'm very eager to watch the next episode Medusa as it is the last thing Cyborg Superman says, while in the fortress of solitude, when he activates something using Karas blood. And because it is the beginning of the four night crossover with Flash, Arrow and Legends of tomorrow.

Supergirl – S02E07 The Darkest Place

[j_forbesy · 10/10 · 22 November 2016]

After a slower episode of Supergirl last week, I was excited to jump back into the swing of things with a Cyborg Superman episode. Overall I really liked this episode. This is one of those episodes that happens every now and than and reminds you why you watch a show.

The main focus of this episode was around Supergirl in being caught in Cadmas. It's been a few weeks since we have felt a proper presence from Cadmas so it was nice to be adding more to what I am guessing will be the major story arc for this season. I'm going to jump straight to the end of the episode here and talk about Cyborg Superman going to to Fortress of Solitude with Supergirl's blood. Since they were introduced, we never really knew what the motivations behind Cadmus was. In this final scene we got a hint. Medusa is an Egyptian god which has made several appeances across many different films and TV shows as well as being a big villain in the DC universe. What we have seen with these DC shows is that they are prepared to go and tackle to big characters so I'm interested to see how far into Medusa they are going to take this story arc. I'm sure we will find out more in the coming weeks, but to have a name drop this well known, is something to be excited about.

While at Cadmas, we got to see the return of two characters from the past, Jeremiah and Hank Henshaw. Jeremiah was of course Alex's father and Kara's adopted father who went missing when they were younger. After being revealed that he was still alive at the end of season 1, we hadn't even touched on him prior to this episode and I had honestly forgotten all about him. With his reappearance, I hope that this sparks his story back to life and we get to see it play out more over the course of the season.

The second return was Hank Henshaw, who is the human identity that Martian Manhunter took over after we believed Henshaw had died. In this episode we see him return and working with Cadmus with one small difference, Henshaw is now Cyborg Superman, a title he had in the comics. Going into this episode, I thought that Cyborg Superman was going to be our one off villain, similar to Bizzaro last season, however it appears that he may be hanging around for a while. I touched on earlier that he was the one to visit the Fortress with Supergirl's blood and learn about Medusa, so I don't see a character to do something so important for the series to simply be done with so quickly. Just to touch on David Harewood, he is the Tom Cavanagh of this show. There is something about him that is so compelling to watch that in my books, the more roles we give him, the better.

At the moment I have a real love/hate relationship with the Guardian story line. For the most part, I really liked the origin of James becoming the Guardian and liked everything that came with it, but this episode left me a little unsure, and I don't think it had anything to do with what happened itself. Last week's episode of Arrow was written around taking down a vigilante who is killing people however wants to work with our hero, only to be told that their ways was not right, which in term sparks conflict between them and our hero. Sound familiar right? While it was a compelling story line for the episode itself, the fact that it was basically rehashed from what Arrow did last week really took away from what they were trying to accomplish. A story arc I've really enjoyed this season is the relationship between Miss Martain and Martian Manhunter. I really liked how they were following what I thought was a successful story line in Young Justice where it revealed that Miss Martian is indeed a White Martian. In Young Justice, Martain Manhunter was very accepting for Miss Martain, however I knew that this Martain Manhunter was not going to react the same way. Based off the emotion we have seen from Martain Manhunter when he talks about what White Martians did to his family, the response we got when he discovered Miss Martian's true identity was what you would espect. My guess is that over the next few weeks and after the break we will see him come around and take sides with Miss Martain, but for the meantime, seeing this emotional reaction from a character that I've grown to love over the season and a bit he has been present, is in a way heart wrenching and satisfying. I have only recently watch Young Justice and because of that I am a big fan of what Miss Martain can do, but even so, at this point I was rooting for Martain Manhunter.

I rarely really notice much of the craftsmanship in shows like this because it is often the content on the screen that is so much more interesting, however I notice a camera effect that I thought was used outstandingly in the scenes that took place in Cadmas. While in Cadmas, all the shots had a blur to them and the only thing that was completely in focus was the expression of the character that was speaking. I noticed it a few times and it really made the scene feel a lot more lonely, which reflected what was going on in those scenes.

Overall, I loved this episode. It did a great job setting up more on the plot line we have ahead while dealing with issues we have going on in the present moment.

10/10

Ugh, It just gets worse

[nettie-alford · 2/10 · 15 July 2017]

It's as if the current writers didn't even watch the first season of this show. They are reducing the title character to a love interest and they continue to not develop the Mon-El character into anything remotely interesting. And now they clumsily introduce Hank Henshaw as Cyborg Superman without explaining why he would call himself that, he just does and everyone accepts it. He's not dressed like Superman, in fact, they don't even bother to give him a costume. He's just dressed like Hank Henshaw with a Phantom of the Opera mask. There is literally no clue as to why he would be called that. I am just a casual fan of superheros and comics and I seem to know more about these characters than the current writing staff. It's baffling to see this show turn into this. The fight scenes are lackluster at best and the Kara who fought Non and Master Jailer last season, continues to get her ass kicked by just about anyone and everyone this season.