Photo courtesy of The CW
Story by Abigail Miller / Contributing writer
“It’s kind of like the old place. Maybe better,” said bio-engineer Alexandra “Alex” Danvers on the new Department of Extra-Normal Operations headquarters, a sentiment that “Supergirl” fans can relate to.
In case you didn’t know, the sophomore season of “Supergirl” made its debut on The CW Monday night, moving from its previous home at CBS.
After Grant Gustin’s (“The Flash”) guest-star appearance as the speedy-titular character in the season one episode “Worlds Finest,” CBS and The CW decided it would be best to harness that success by moving from CBS and gaining the younger demographic that follows The CW.
Spoiler alert: They were absolutely correct.
However, the most noticeable change to the series (and the highlight of the season two premiere) isn’t the new network — it’s the appearance of Kara’s cousin, Superman.
“The Adventures of Supergirl” picks up where season one finale left off, with Kara (Melissa Benoist) and Hank/J’onn J’onzz (David Harewood) investigating a pod that has just crashed on Earth. Despite J’onn’s warnings to be careful and stay away, Kara immediately opens the pod and finds an unconscious humanoid alien. They take the mysterious visitor to the new DEO headquarters (which has moved from a cave to the desert) to be examined and tested.
Kara leaves him and returns to work, where Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart) is waiting for her to choose a new job – any job she wants at CatCo, in fact. After being given another day to think about it, she returns home to get ready for a date with James Olson (Mehcad Brooks). But as soon as he gets there, (with pizza and potstickers, Kara’s “most favorite meal”), Kara sees a news report about the Venture spacecraft exploding just minutes after it takes off for the first time.
Naturally, “Supergirl” rushes to save the people onboard the craft, when someone else flies up to help — Superman!
After the rescue mission, Kara brings Clark (brilliantly played by “Teen Wolf” alumni Tyler Hoechlin) back to the DEO headquarters, where everyone immediately loves him — except Hank, who discovered Kryptonite and kept it at the DEO instead of destroying it all like Clark asked him to.
While researching the Venture explosion, they learn that it had been sabotaged. The seat that had been targeted belonged to Lena Luthor (yes, she’s one of those Luthors), who mysteriously decided not to fly on the spacecraft that was partially built by her family’s company, LexCorp. Because of this, they begin to suspect that Lena (played by former “Merlin” baddie Katie McGrath) may be behind the attack. However, after going to investigate LexCorp, Clark and Kara find nothing.
Back at the DEO, Alex and Winn are still researching when they realize that John Corben, the assassin behind the attack, was actually targeting Lena, not working for her.
Supergirl and Superman witness this first-hand as they save Lena from a series of drones who try to kill her as she prepares to take off in a helicopter.
Two assassination attempts later, Corben, revealed to be working for Lex Luthor, tries again, this time setting off a series of bombs surrounding the LexCorp building, where Lex’s adoptive sister is speaking at a rebranding event.
Supergirl and Superman race to stop LexCorp from collapsing while Alex chases Corben, who is disguised as a police officer. He tries to shoot Lena but is then tackled before making a kill shot. By the time Supergirl arrives, Corben threatens to kill Alex only for Lena to shoot him.
After everything calms down, Clark and Kara go to visit Lena with a copy of “The Daily Planet,” featuring a front page story about Corben’s attack, and Lena thanks Clark for helping her distance herself from her brother’s violence by not naming her as the shooter. She then suggests that Kara should consider being a reporter.
Inspired by her cousin and Lena’s suggestion, Kara decides to finally tell Cat what job she wants at CatCo — that of a reporter.
Cat agrees and pulls out Kara’s resume, which has the word “reporter” written across it, telling her that she knew Kara was meant to be a reporter as soon as she met her. But the new job is bittersweet, causing her to follow her heart and break things off with James, both of them agreeing that they are better off as friends.
Meanwhile at the DEO, there are more exciting announcements: Winn, who recently lost his job at CatCo, is now an official member of the DEO team, and Clark has decided to stay in National City for a while.
All seems right and safe.
That is, until we find out that Corben is at the headquarters of Project Cadmus, a genetic engineering lab where experiments are performed on aliens.
Here, a woman injects him with a mysterious fluid while he is strapped down and helpless. While doing this, she states that John Corben is dead and has been replaced by Metallo, implying that Metallo is destined to be the season villain.
There are definitely a few things that were a bit off, which could be contributed to the network move.
For example, Cat’s characterization was a little odd and the Kara and James romance was over a tad too fast, considering that there was an entire season for buildup to it.
However, moving “Supergirl” to The CW was a great idea; it fits right in and feels much more natural than season one’s run on CBS.
Of course, the biggest highlight of this episode was Superman.
Tyler Hoechlin absolutely killed it as the powerful cousin of Supergirl. He’s awkward and clumsy, impressively charismatic and has perfect chemistry with Melissa Benoist. Many fans were worried about Clark potentially overshadowing Kara but, luckily, that didn’t happen. He was obviously there, but he never took over and kicked Kara out of the spotlight.
Overall, the strong start to the new season is reassuring to fans that were unsure of how the series would run after changing networks and adding the “Man of Steel.” Hopefully, the rest of the season lives up to the premiere.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Olivia Ladd email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com.
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