TV Review: SUPERGIRL: Season 2, Episode 5: Crossfire [The CW]

Supergirl: Crossfire Review

The CW’s Supergirl Season 2, Episode 5: ‘Crossfire’ has continued to bring in a lot of good changes in this second season. However, there are still some things that the show is still struggling with – the poorly written villains and where James Olsen (Mehcad Brooks) fits into the story following Cat Grant’s exit from CatCo. Having this week’s episode focus so much on what’s going on with James and the sinister plans from Cadmus justified the weak points going into season two.

It’s great that Supergirl is going deep into the Cadmus storyline this season. It makes sense that the alien immigration and the paranoia surrounding it would result in Cadmus taking action against those like Kara (Melissa Benoist). Going into the alien hysteria is a great element to put into the show, but their way of handling it isn’t working in some places. The episode got pretty heavy in everything that’s going on like tackling real-world issues like the right to bear arms. The idea of questioning the use of advanced weapons against alien threats was good on paper but it might’ve been too tough for the writers to convey that message on the meaning of acceptance.

It certainly isn’t any use of having the leader of Cadmus coming off as too evil. Having a good villain means that the audience has to believe in what they’re doing and showing that they also want to be the heroes in their own right. Despite having that mentality coming off of Brenda Strong’s character, her portrayal of that on screen doesn’t seem to match up. She means well when she wants to protect her family and humanity in general from alien threats. However, it seems that she has no problem supplying alien weapons to criminals and costing civilian lives in the process. There’s a difference between sacrificing a few people for the greater good and causing genocide. The point is, it’s hard to feel something for a villain and what they’re trying to accomplish when the meaning isn’t there.

Hopefully revealing that the Cadmus doctor just so happens to be the mother of Lena (Katie McGrath) and Lex Luthor will change that. Her belief in the alien threat does match with Lex, and there’s certainly some friction in her relationship with Lena. It’s also great on the writer’s part not making the obvious choice of having Lena as the major villain for the new season. It’s better to have Lena try to salvage the family name as a force for good than following in her brother’s footsteps. It will be interesting to see how the mother and daughter relationship works out moving forward.

The villains that were picked for this week’s episode felt lazy on the writer’s part because they could’ve went for someone compelling and instead went too generic. The gang became a catalyst for James to make his transition from photojournalist to costumed vigilante. We haven’t seen James become Guardian yet, but this might not be a wise decision for the character to get into. James and CatCo still remain to be the second season’s weakest points as far as plotlines go. Why is James suddenly in need of becoming a hero all of a sudden? He’s already doing good work running CatCo, so what will he accomplish if he wants to bag some bad guys every day? Although, it would be cool seeing James and Winn (Jeremy Jordan) working together on this. Maybe this would be better suited in a spin-off with these two rather than cramming this into the many plot points going on in Supergirl?

Not everything went down the drain this week. The relationship between Kara and Mon-El (Chris Wood) started to grow and became one of the highlights of the episode. It was fun seeing Kara try and fail at getting Mon-El to adjust to civilian life. It was fun to see Mon-El becoming Mike in the human world as he learned about having a human job and also getting flirty with James’ assistant. It’s also good to see Kara and Mon-El’s relationship slowly build, so we may see some romantic tension coming up soon between them.

Speaking of romance, even Alex (Chyler Leigh) and Maggie’s (Floriana Lima) relationship started to grow this week as Alex tackles with her own sexuality. The way Alex handled her coming out was done pretty well, particularly after hearing her talk about her hardships in dating and intimacy. We have seen Alex as this tough character who is trying to look out for Kara. Plus, it was clearly a given that Alex would be the one to come out as a lesbian, so it’s nice to see this side to Alex that we have never seen before.

All that can be said for this week’s episode is that it clearly was one of the weakest episodes we’ve seen so far this season. The storyline regarding Cadmus still remains to struggle with it’s recurring villain as she doesn’t come off as convincing enough in her cause, but her revelation may change that. Even James’ higher calling as a superhero won’t help him get the attention he needs. However, Supergirl still has some investments with some of the relationships we’ve seen develop this season.

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