'Supergirl' Recap: 'We Can Be Heroes'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

Unfortunately from time to time, our favorite television shows stumble when it comes to storytelling. Sometimes the characters make strange decisions that don't make sense at all considering what we know about them and sometimes the story simply isn't strong enough or it's clear that a particular episode is outright filler and sadly...Supergirl turned in a flawed episode last night, one that met all of the criteria that I just laid out. 

It's frustrating to see such a thing happen on this series, especially considering the fact that it tends to deliver quality storytelling week in and week out, but clearly, something went wrong with 'We Can Be Heroes' and that's a shame because a story that featured the return of Livewire should have turned out to be a fascinating character study, one where Kara had to deal with the mental strain of having to face off against her nemesis once again...but instead it became a story filled with selfish, head scratching moments, so let's not waste anymore time and dig deep into what went wrong with this particular episode...starting with some of the strange decisions the characters made.

Because what was truly off putting about this episode, was the fact that it basically pulled a giant about face when it comes to one of the central themes that the show has been slowly building up over the past year and a half, in that we are stronger together in any cause and working as one means we can accomplish anything, and all of that was left shattered in this episode with the Guardian and Mon-El sub plots because it was simply stunning to see James and Winn and Mon-El put their own agendas ahead of anything else. It's almost as if all of a sudden they've learned nothing from Kara or what she represents and I'm still uncomfortable with the closing moments of the show where everyone basically parted ways to do their own thing. 

But the problems with this episode didn't quite end there. I made mention of the fact that Livewire's return could have made for some incredible television and I stand by that because when all is said and done, her appearance last night on the show was simply wasted since she was relegated to nothing more than a glorified cameo, which is irritating considering that she was a cunning, intelligent and outright fascinating villain during her first appearance on the show last year and to see her strapped to a chair to serve as nothing more than a plot device to a more forgettable villain is quite the disappointment.  

If anything, I really just don't get what this story was trying to accomplish, and I can't get over the fact that every character was so selfish and angry...for no particular reason last night. Even J'onn was quite the jerk since he was willing to let M'Gann nearly die to hang onto his vendetta. This episode was basically Bizarro World and well...it's clear now that the series needs to introduce another big bad or something to give this team a sense of purpose or direction so this kind of infighting can come to an end. Either way, Supergirl snapped it's long running streak of quality episodes and that's okay...it does happen, I'm just hoping that this particular one is a pure one off storytelling wise and that next week the show returns to form. Until then.

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