Review: Supergirl 2×18-Ace Reporter

by Sean Blumenshine
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[Editor’s note: This review may contain spoilers.]

Director: Armen V. Kevorkian

Writers: Paula Yoo & Caitlin Parrish

Stars: Melissa Benoist, Mehcad Brooks & Chyler Leigh

Summary

Lena’s ex-boyfriend comes to National City to unveil his new technological breakthrough while Lyra wants to fight crime with Guardian.

Positives

I’m a big of iZombie so it’s great to see Rahul Kohli. And he’s great here; he is charming as usual but has a nice bit of menace and intrigue. There’s a tragedy to his character, Jack, that was actually compelling. It’s difficult to really make villains of the week sympathetic because there’s so little time in one episode but the writers manage it here as they often do. Additionally, I enjoyed Jack’s awkward moment with Mon-El; I was hoping that would turn into a bromance.

 

Any episode focused on Lena gets 1 billion bonus points for being awesome. This character becomes more compelling every time she’s in an episode and she was pretty compelling right from the start of the season. I enjoyed discovering a happier aspect of her past only for it to become morbidly tragic. Lena wants more than anything to be a good person and do go good things but the universe just hates her. Endlessly horrible things keep happening to her. Katie McGrath gives a wonderful monologue towards the end of the episode that is really well delivered and well written. There’s an interesting tidbit about the Luthor family when Lex was arrested. It’s bizarre, a little funny and also quite sad.

There’s a decent twist that I didn’t see coming at all. Hopefully, that surprised other people as well and I’m not just dumb. There is some nice foreshadowing to the twist in the discussion of bees between Jack and Lena.

The subplot with Lyra is pretty adorable. She’s been a fun character so far and I like the idea of teaming her up with Guardian mainly because it gives James something to do. I’m hoping Lyra’s presence will help lighten those scenes up so it feels more tonally in line with Supergirl instead of Arrow. James and Winn have a really sweet scene about their bromance which was cool.

Negatives

Kara should not be a reporter and she certainly should not get her job back. She is a terrible reporter. She only gets the information she needs because she breaks into an office with Mon-El. That’s not good reporting. It is wonderful work for a secret government agent/superhero but terrible reporting. Snapper is such a hard-ass but is so easily won over by her. I’m not even sure what the point of her getting fired was if she already has the job back. It’s nice that she learned a lesson and I liked that but I don’t think that she should be rewarded so easily. This would work better if it was gradual. She gets her name on the story and that’s a nice first step to eventually getting the job back.

Verdict

This is a solid episode. There’s a good antagonist with a great guest star giving a good performance. Lena is a major focus which is always the right call. The subplot with Guardian, Winna and Lyra is endearing. My only complaint is Kara getting her job back at the end. Other than that, this is really enjoyable.

 

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