TV Show Review

TV Review: SUPERGIRL: Season 2, Episode 19: Alex [The CW]

Floriana Lima Chyler Leigh Alex Supergirl

Supergirl: Alex Review

The CW’s Supergirl Season 2, Episode 19: ‘Alex’ has been getting better this season, but the show continues to struggle with stability in developing their villains. It’s the only constant flaw to say the least. However, seeing as to how the show handled their new villain this week and the new threat coming from Rhea (Teri Hatcher) proves the amount of improvement that Supergirl has made dealing with this regular problem.

This week’s episode suddenly went into a completely murky route. We see that Kara (Melissa Benoist) and the team are subjected to being part of a game that tested their mentality. The way the team handled the kidnapping of Alex (Chyler Leigh) kept us on the edge of our seat and became much more intense than other episodes of the series so far. The trick is that the episode wasn’t actually trying to be dark. By the end of the episode, Kara learned that she had to think before she can act on dangerous situations such as this.

It was great to have the DEO facing against a normal villain who isn’t a metahuman nor an alien and yet proved to be just as deadly. The villain, Rick Malverne (David Hoflin), had been planning this revenge scheme for quite some time by studying Kara and her friends. This is just the kind of villain that Kara will have a difficult time trying to stop.

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Seeing Rick’s state of mind was something that a mad man would react. We had to take into account that this bright young man has been so psychologically messed up that he spent an entire year stalking Kara and Alex while planning this sophisticated scheme to stop them. He even outsmarted J’onn Jonzz (David Harewood) when he blocked the alien from reading his mind and even designed a death trap for Alex in case things went wrong. If it took all this time to plot his revenge, why didn’t Rick just use his mind to come up with a plan to save his father from execution?

Other than that small complaint, Malverne did turn out to be one of the show’s most memorable villains we’ve had in a while. Hoflin did an amazing job hiding the grief and volatility that his character faced whole he was younger. He also managed to cleverly portray a man who seemed so calm and calculating but is also plagued by childhood abuse by his mother. As difficult as it is to believe all that he’s done, Hoflin got to make him a convincing villain.

The cat-and-mouse game that Malverne put together has also managed to bring out some of the best work out of Floriana Lima and Melissa Benoist. We got to see both of their characters in constant disagreement over saving the woman they loved. They almost had a hard time working together at first to come up with a plan to save Alex by blaming one another. Maggie’s frustration over how Kara does things may have been too much, but it did draw the idea that Kara can cause more trouble in her path than she cares to admit when she heads straight into danger.

Otherwise, both Lima and Benoist brought out some of their best performances of the season in this episode. We always tend to see Benoist in a good mood, so it was a great opportunity to see her being all helpless and ruthless for once. The best moment was when Kara told J’onn that she was trying to hear Alex’s voice was the most fearful we’ve seen from her. Lima also did a wonderful job giving a powerful performance during that reunion between Maggie and Alex.

With all this going on during the hour, the show also took advantage of setting up some big developments for the end of season two with the partnership between Queen Rhea and Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath). It’s no secret that the Cadmus storyline will soon be brought back into the forefront later in the season. It has been weird that we haven’t heard much about that since Lena’s mother Lillian was incarcerated for her involvement in the project. However, it’s good that the writers are looking to bring the Cadmus arc in full circle.

It also helped that this new alliance with Rhea and Lena has been enjoyable to watch. It was entertaining to see Teri Hatcher return with a better look at her villainous character after suffering from a stiff performance in the past few episodes. In this week’s episode, we see Rhea trying to blend into society when she paid Lena a visit. It’s been really vague on what’s happening to Lena as she falls into the Luthor family curse and evolving into the villain of Supergirl’s story. We do know that Lena is just doing what she feels is right. It’s just that Lena has no idea about the kind of person she’s working alongside with, and we can see that Kara would be partly to blame for not being by Lena’s side during her time of need.

The only fear we have with this partnership of these two powerful women is if the season two finale ends up being just like the first season’s ender. Having another alien trying to build a doomsday device on Earth is awfully similar to what went down last year. Adding more cast members for the last few episodes coming up doesn’t do anything to dismiss that conception. Here’s hoping that the endgame will be much different than the first season’s finale.

‘Alex’ ended up going into uncharted territory in this week’s installment. It was a nice change of pace with this being much darker than a normal Supergirl episode. It may have been a bit gloomy, but it was necessary for the story that the show was developing. These intense scenes and conflict brought in some amazing performances throughout. The final moments with Lena and Rhea teases what’s to come as we enter the final batch of episodes for the season.

Leave your thoughts on this review and this episode of Supergirl in the comments section below. Readers seeking more TV show reviews can visit our TV Show Review Page, our TV Show Review Twitter Page, our TV Show Review Facebook Page, and our TV Show Review Google+ Page. Readers seeking more Supergirl can visit our Supergirl Page. FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, “follow” us on Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, and Facebook.

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Mufsin Mahbub

**Fired from FilmBook for Plagiarism** Mufsin is a freelance writer from New York who has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism at Long Island University. He has written for publications like HollywoodLife, Clubplanet, and Heavy. He is an avid lover for everything related to TV and film. He has gone to dozens of film screenings, press events, and loves to attend New York Comic Con every year. He gives an honest opinion on every TV show or film that people are going to be talking about.
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