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Supergirl season 5 episode 4 review: In Plain Sight


This review contains spoilers.

5.4 In Plain Sight

Good job, Jay Faerber & Jess Kardo, aka the writers of this episode. In Plain Sight represented Supergirl season five’s best episode yet, seamlessly juggling the slow-burn Leviathan arc and J’onn’s family drama with the aid of some stellar character work, while also giving James Olsen the calibre of departure storyline he deserves.

After J’onn’s discovery last week that he was the person who wiped Malefic’s existence from the Martian collective memory, our favourite Green Martian is living in his own personal hell, which is to say: he is in incredible pain, and he is not lessening the weight of that burden by confiding in anyone about it—not even when the topic comes up directly.

J’onn’s discoveries about his brother’s motives are incredibly relevant to the mission Alex, Supergirl, and Brainy’s mission to capture Malefic, but J’onn can’t bring himself to tell them the truth about his brother’s motives, so scared is he that it will change how they see him. As is so often the case, the cruel thoughts J’onn is having about himself are so much worse that anything his found family would actually think let alone say out loud to their loved one.

When Malefic incepts Alex, Male-Alex confronts J’onn with the truth, and his worst nightmare. Alex calls him a monster, leaving him to believe that J’onn’s worst feelings about himself are true. While I don’t like to see conflict within this family, Alex’s confrontation would have held so much more emotional weight if the words were honest. While I don’t think Alex would ever view J’onn as a monster, I do think Male-Alex’s anger about J’onn’s fear-driven selfishness over not telling others the truth about Malefic would have been understandable.

J’onn fears the reaction of his family because he is understands that what he did was terrible and wrong. And by continuing to lie about it when that withholding of information is affecting the mental state (in Alex’s case, who is blaming herself for the danger Kelly has found herself in) and safety (in all of their cases, given that Malefic is specifically trying to turn J’onn’s family against him because of the nature of J’onn’s betrayal) of his loved ones is another bad decision. Family members can be angry with one another without removing the promise of love and support; this would have been a good opportunity to explore that nuance with Alex.

That being said, the confrontation scene between Male-Alex and David was still heartbreaking, mostly because J’onn thinks it is real—and because Chyler Leigh and David Harewood act the hell out of it.

The “confession” scene between J’onn and Kara is also quite good. While it doesn’t have the space to breathe that the Male-Alex/J’onn one did, nor does it reach the emotional heights, it is allowed to be much more emotionally nuanced because Kara is in control of her feelings and actions.  

“But you remember now,” Kara tells J’onn when he worries that what he has done is unforgiveable, and has not only cost him his relationship with is brother, but his relationships with his Earth family, too. I like that she doesn’t tell him that what he did was OK, but she assures him that that one action is not all that he is, and that he still has the power to help his brother. To make different choices. It’s an incredibly powerful, underrepresented message: that we can make mistakes and still have the choice to be good, but also that we must take accountability for the ways we have wronged others, and try to atone when and where we can.

Meanwhile, surprise! Supergirl was faking us out with Toxic Jerk William Dey. It turns out his soup kitchen identity was the true William all along! This all comes to the light via some excellent journalistic (and astral-projecting) work from both Nia and Kara, the latter of whom follows William to Mexico to find out what the fishy reporter is up to. It turns out he has been undercover for two years, investigating a “criminal conspiracy bigger than Al Capone” (whatever that means) that he seems to think the Rojases are at the centre of. Presumably, this is Leviathan, though that word is never used.

While William asks Kara to quit this line of investigation before she gets hurt (ha!), I think we can all agree that Kara is going to go full-tilt in helping William get to the bottom of this, using the many resources at her disposal. And, frankly, William’s investigation just got a heck of a lot more promising because of it.

In addition to spilling seemingly every single detail about his previously super secret investigation in the Rojas’ criminal empire, William also goes on a compliment attack, praising Kara’s journalistic skills and integrity like this will be his last chance. We get it, William. She’s a talented writer. (We get it, Supergirl. You want Kara/William to be a thing.)

In an effort to keep Kelly away from Malefic, Kelly and James return to their hometown (because Malefic would never think to look there?), which is where they moved when their dad died. They find Calvintown apparently much more economically-depressed than when they left it (um, what was it like before—it doesn’t seem to have any industry), and weirdly surprised by that reality. Were they never curious about what was going on in their hometown? This would have been easy to explain away with a line like, “I knew times were tough in Calvintown, but I didn’t realise how bad it had become…”

How bad has Calvintown become? Hilariously, there are abandoned cars everywhere—like, a weird amount of abandoned cars. Also, a soup kitchen that is so sad that it doesn’t even have its own building; people just ladle out soup in a parking lot.

While I may be poking fun at some of the ways Supergirl tries to show the economic instability of this town, I appreciate the effort the show is taking to engage with the reality that not everyone in Supergirl’s world lives in National City, which seems to be an affluent city with lots of opportunities for the people who live there. It also calls into question the idea of who has the privilege of being saved by Supergirl and her team.

During James’ goodbye speech, he notes that he has been saving the world from his corner office, which denotes a degree of self-awareness that, while he has been spending him time being a Good Person™, he has never before considered giving up a certain degree of privilege and comfort to do so. It’s a pretty nuanced, honest, and relevant point for a CW superhero show to be making. 

James’ decision to buy the Calvintown Gazette is not only a fitting departure for his character, who speaks about wanting to live “amongst the people” again, but also an inspiring example of how privilege can be used to make real difference. In a less nuanced portrayal of corruption and the acceptance that allows it to continue, newspaper guy Nelson would have been more villainous and less sympathetic. Instead, he points out that, unlike James, he didn’t have the resources of CatCo or Supergirl to back up his idealism. Intention can only get one so far if you don’t also have the resources (time, energy, connections, money) to turn it into action.

I will miss James Olsen as a series regular, as will everyone at the bar. Supergirl hasn’t always known what to do with him, as his start as Kara’s love interest initially proved, but his unique flavour of heroism, different from everyone else on this squad, has been a welcome addition to Supergirl‘s message about what it takes to make a difference.

Read Kayti’s review of the previous episode, Blurred Lines, here.

Read about the new sci-fi, fantasy and horror TV shows coming to US TV here.



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