Supergirl (TV Series) Luthors (2017) User Reviews

Checkmate

[ThomasDrufke · 8/10 · 13 February 2017]

As if this show hasn't taken enough from the Man of Steel already, this episode felt like it was straight out of a superman comic or episode. Luckily, it mostly worked due to strong performances from Katie McGrath and Brenda Strong as Lena and Lillian Luthor respectively.

Yes, the fact that the Luthors are even on the show is probably pushing the limits of a Supergirl show without Superman, but so far I've enjoyed their presence this season. But we've yet to have an episode that solely focuses on them and details just what Lillian is up to at Cadmus. So far, Lena has been portrayed as someone caught in a family that can't seem to do anything right. Her (step) brother Lex is in prison and her mother is probably the most wanted criminal in National City. On one hand, she's easy to sympathize with as she's done nothing wrong, but it's also easier to think she's involved with her mother at Cadmus when her family has done nothing but spread a bad reputation.

That was the center of the episode as Kara had a "blindspot" when it came to her friend Lena. It's a storyline that CW has recycled several times over with its heroes. I can't tell you how many times Barry or Oliver have gone through the same old problem with the villains of their respective shows. The difference being that Lena is actually a good person and being framed as someone with evil intentions. By the way the episode structured Lena's final shot, it sure seems like Lena will eventually make a turn for the dark side. It's unfortunate, because she's been the biggest bright spot of the season thus far.

The other arc this came expectedly came from Mon-El and Kara's shocking (not shocking) romance. At this point I'm ready for the relationship to just begin. I still think this show needs a little work in the writers room for the romance material, Maggie & Alex not withstanding. But at least it seems like we're done with Mon-El and Kara moping around acting like they don't want to date each other. Or are we…

But besides that nonsense, I really enjoyed all of the chaos caused by the Luthors and Metallo. It was faithful to who those characters are and original enough for it not to feel like a complete copycat version of what goes on in Metropolis. Plus, we got a glimpse into Lex's battle suit that Lillian had stored away, although it seemed like that was destroyed forever with Metallo's Kryptonite explosion. Speaking of which, is he dead? So overall, it was a fun episode and set up plenty more to come.

+McGrath as Lena continues to impress

+Felt like classic Supergirl/Superman material

+Mon-El & Kara are finally a thing

-Let's not make Lena a bad character

8.2/10

I coulda sworn CatCo brought out a magazine like Vogue...

[RavenGlamDVDCollector · 7/10 · 18 April 2019]

Just a note to say that this Snapper Carr dude's been talking from the onset as if they're working for a newspaper. And back in Cat's days (better days, when Calista Flockhart was still there) it was a glossy magazine. Now I can tell you one thing for sure: the worlds of newspapers and magazines differ entirely. And covers shown represent magazines, but content are made to sound like hard news in daily newspapers that keep up with current events. A magazine cannot do this, it takes several weeks to go into circulation, hard news gets old pretty fast. Snapper talks about "tomorrow's edition" and in a previous episode, about the umpteen times Supergirl made Page One, all of this refer to newspapers, yet this CatCo is known for a less serious publication, Lena referred, with some derision, to its typical content being your style of jeans when she was first interviewed by Kara. And that was early in this season.

Screenwriters are mixing up newspapers and magazines. CatCo didn't put out a daily newspaper in Season One, and that's not something that could just be launched overnight from the magazine sector.

It suited Season One to have CatCo producing a magazine. This season, they're all of a sudden running a newspaper. And unless I missed an episode - and I didn't - Serious Plot Development Goof!

Supergirl - S02E12 Luthors

[j_forbesy · 7/10 · 13 February 2017]

At the mid season point of this season of Supergirl, this show was on the up and was knocking out of the park, and I think much of that was the storyline they were taking with the Luthors. In a show were they don't have Superman as the main feature, I thought it was a good match up to see the least known Luthor be the drive behind the show. With that, I was excited to be jumping back into more Luthor stuff in Supergirl. In the past few weeks since returning, the show has barely even touched on this main storyline and I've felt like the show has been on a big drop in quality, so I was hopeful that this episode could bring back what we had been getting in the opening half of the season.

What this episode did really well was give a form of origin to Lena. This was done through both flashbacks at the start and from Lillian telling Lena about her past. I thought that these two ways worked hand in hand because we got the flashbacks at the start which showed Lena joining the Luthor family, but then the content in which Lillian talks about give a whole new meaning to what we saw in the flashback. I'm always one for a good origin story and I've really liked how they started to set up Lena's backstory in this episode.

However, most of the positives for this episode end there. As mentioned before, for me this show has been on the slide since its return, and that disappoints me because I really did like the first season and I thought the opening half to this season was on a high. Towards the back end of the first half of this season, we started to see a little more relationship drama start to come to the forefront. While there always has been relationship drama happening, I found that most of the time, apart from the Alex and Maggie storyline, the relationship drama is comes as a second to the main story arc. Since returning from the break, I've felt a lot of this drama, not only with relationships but friendships, has been one of the key focuses. I'm not sure if it's because we haven't had a strong storyline to be focused on, but I don't ever want a show like this to have an opening scene of two people who are into each other play the, will they won't they game, which is what we opened with this episode with Kara and Mon-El. We have seen Arrow go down the emotional path and not work out well. I'm scared that Supergirl is going to follow this trend and the chase for love suddenly becomes the main mission.

Something else I had a problem with this episode was what seemed like the stupidity of Kara. While I'm all for believing in your friends and all that, I think the writers crossed a line with Kara this episode, and then they back it up by moving that line. I knew the Lena was not guilty as soon as Kara put her foot because Kara going against the odds was such a big point of this episode. I have no problem with her going against the odds, but I don't like when she always wins. In this episode, Kara came of as a little too confident in Lena. While we have seen their relationship grow throughout the season, the fact that she was even going against video evidence (which one a side note was stupid, it would of been better if the "uncorrupt" video was Lena picking up an apple and then the video was edited to look like it was Kyptonite) made Kara come off as a little cocky. She then went up against Snapper and James, who are both her bosses, and then rubbed it in their face when they were wrong. This season there has been a focus on Kara having a career while being Supergirl, which is a great message of young girls who watch this show, but in a real work environment, to go against your bosses like that when all evidence point to you being wrong, is a message that shouldn't be spread. Overall, while this episode was a little up from the last couple of weeks, it still has me worried. For me, the writing is the biggest concern of the show while it seems like they still don't have a clear direction in where they want this second half of the season to go. Is Luthor going to be the big bad or are those people coming for Mon-El going to be our end game?

7/10

True friends

[Jackbv123 · 10/10 · 29 May 2017]

I love superheroes and Supergirl represents the best of the breed. While Kara is unrealistically altruistic and hopeful, she also has some of the purest good values of any of the superheroes currently on the big or little screen.

On the other hand, I frequently struggle with her childishness and tantrums, but that's a subject for different episodes.

I loved this one. Lena may not be the villain her mother is, but the world still loves to hate her. But not Kara. I can't put it all into words, but watching Kara stand up for Lena, no matter how bad it looked because Kara knew she was right about her. That's what friends are. I wish I had even one friend half as faithful as Kara. That's part of being a real superhero.