Supergirl S01:E09

Episode Title: Blood Bonds

Original Broadcast Date: 1-4-2015

Blood bonds us all. This motif threads through “Blood Bonds”, the return episode of Supergirl’s début season following the Christmas break, allowing the show to tackle deeper aspects of the character’s mythology. The last few episodes have hinted at things not being quite kosher for Kara’s Kryptonian mother, now represented in her deceased form by the vaguely not-quite-Fortress-of-Solitude hidden at the DEO. The arrival of Aunt Astra (Laura Benanti, playing the dual roles of Astra and her twin sister Alura) brought conflict through opposing views on Krypton’s fate, although initially we were led to believe Alura did a Jor El and gave Krypton a futile message to flee impending destruction – now, it would appear that wasn’t the case, with Astra’s increasingly believable argument that she was the one crying out in warning, only to be imprisoned with her husband, Non (Chris Vance) on Fort Roz, striking a chord with the young Kara. Like I said: appears.

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Supergirl S:01 E:08

Episode Title: “Hostile Takeover”

Original Airdate: 12-14-2015

Hackery and deception. Supergirl tackles two deceptive sub-plots in this episode; the first, a corporate hack into CatCo releases a load of damning information about Cat Grant as a conniving lawyer decides to remove her as CEO, and the return of Kara’s Aunt Astra provides the young heroine with new information about her mother that makes her, and us, question everything we’ve thought to this point. Of all the episodes in the show’s run thus far, “Hostile Takeover” deals with the sense of abandonment for Kara (Melissa Benoist) with as emotional a wallop as we’ve seen thus far. It also drops several bombshells; the most pressing of which is one of the show’s core cast discovering Kara’s secret identity.

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Supergirl S:01 E:07

Episode Title: Human For A Day

Original Airdate: 12-7-15

Trust. When you have it, it’s a powerful ally. When you don’t… well, that’s bad. Following the events of “Red Faced”, Kara’s powers are gone, and both she and her sister Alex (Chyler Leigh) still have issues of trust regarding DEO head Hank Henshaw (David Harewood) and his history with their father. When an earthquake strikes National City, a superpowered alien named Jemm (Charles Halford) escapes DEO custody, and Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli) goes on a PR rampage undermining Supergirl’s lack of presence in the aftermath. Without powers, and facing a crisis of confidence, Kara (Melissa Benoist) and Jimmy Olsen (Mehcad Brooks) discover that sometimes it takes more than super strength, heat vision or the ability to fly to be a hero.

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Supergirl S:01 E:06

Episode Title: “Red Faced”

Original Broadcast Date: 12-1-2015

Control. A well-established trope among the superhero comic fraternity is the constant fear of what happens when heroes lose control of. It’s been a long-running plot device that the comic Batman has a Kryptonite ring hidden in the Bat-cave for the very purpose of stopping Superman should the Man of Steel ever lose control, and need stopping. It was touched upon (very) briefly in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, and now it’s Supergirl’s turn. After preventing a pair of road-ragers from ploughing through a footpath full of school kids, and inadvertently injuring the drivers before being portrayed as an out-of-control menace (by Maxwell Lord, of all people), Kara needs a bit of release from her pent-up anger; taking it out on a recently arrived military creation codenamed Red Tornado.

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Supergirl S:01 E:04

Episode Title: How Does She Do It?

Original Airdate: 11-23-2015

Stretching yourself. The great superhero conundrum – who to save first – blossoms in this, the fourth episode of Supergirl. It’s a classic comic-book plot device: when a vengeful ex-employee of National City’s resident billionaire industrialist and Steve Jobs clone, Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli), goes on a bombing rampage, bringing Supergirl into the fight, she must make the choice between saving hundreds of people on a speeding train, or thousands at the city’s airport. Kara’s romantic interests peg up a notch with the dynamic between herself, fellow CatCo employee Jimmy Olsen (Mehcad Brooks), and Olsen’s ex-fiancée Lucy Lane (Jenna Dewan-Tatum) , and also an infatuated young son of her boss, Cat Grant. Oh, and the penny finally drops – Maxwell Lord is being set up as this series’ Lex Luthor.

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SuperMansion S:01 E:09

Episode Title: Unfortunate Son
Originally Aired: 11/19/15

The newest episode of SuperMansion sees the team tackling many foes: disappointed parents, meaningless relationships, customer support and the Russian mob. Lex has the least to do in this episode, but she is not completely ignored, making it an engaging episode for fans of each hero.

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SuperMansion S:01 E:08

Episode Title: Brad Medicine

Originally Aired: 11-12-15

The latest episode of SuperMansion is the first of the series to present a strong message as well as a ton of pop culture jokes. It is also the first episode that features Brad. It turns out Brad is not a natural-born superhero like Rex, but instead is the result of an experiment at Optocorp, a combination of real life “evil” corporations and Oscorp from the Marvel universe. Brad is the first and only subject to survive the administering of their serum. It increases his size and strength, and makes him virtually invulnerable. The only thing that didn’t increase in size is his head. Oddly enough, it is not the serum that makes him pink, it is just his natural coloring.

Before:

supermansion skinny brad

After:

supermansion super brad

Since Rex left his home as a young man, the League has been his family. Like all families, it has continued to go grow over the years. Brad joined the team just a year ago after Rex found him beating up a drug dealer in Piston City. Every day for a year Brad has been hiding the fact that all of his abilities come from the serum Optocorp continues to provide him, and when a shipment fails to arrive, he quickly begins to revert to his normal self.

We are introduced to two new villains in this episode: Ratapult and Whiplash, a new evil duo that is trying to steal a baby panda from the local Storm City Zoo. However, this non-dynamic duo is not the main antagonist for Brad in this episode. It is what the majority of the team fears most, game night. The first Friday of every other month is officially league game night and is strictly enforced by Rex. Rex loves board games of all sorts, but is a sore loser and winner, and must physically threaten the rest into playing with him.

supermansion game night

Optocorp has cancelled the drug trail that made Brad a superhero and has moved on to a new project, Project Chad. He is disposing of all the remaining serum and refuses to give what’s left of the stock to Brad. The only response Brad can come up with is to plan an Ocean’s 11 style heist. He originally plans to go alone because he is afraid to let the team know his secret, but when he is caught in his natural form by Cooch, she offers to help him so she can get out of game night. Once Cooch is on board, Brad decides that going with a team is best. Unwilling to ask the rest of the league, he turns to the villains that are locked in the basement of the mansion.

Things we learned during this episode:
Super powers don’t make you a hero, it is your actions.
Being a family isn’t about blood, it’s about who you can count on and who you are there for.
Rex and Lex can shoot lasers from their metal hands.
Jewbot can project semi-corporeal holograms.
Ranger sings America the Beautiful while masturbating.

Will Brad get his serum back and once again become a hero? Will he regret the choice to form a team with super villains? And what will Rex do if they don’t make it back for game night?  Find out now on an internet connected device near you.

Webseries: DC Superhero Girls S:01 E:01 – 05

Welcome back to another Webseries Wednesday where I take a look at a webseries out there whether it’s pro or amateur, even though I’ve been off my game for a few weeks. This time around I’m taking a look at the new DC Superhero Girls which is supposedly DC’s attempt at broadening their horizons to make superheroes appeal to girls as well as boys. But the real question is: don’t superheroes already appeal to girls, there just aren’t enough superhero girls to relate to? I watched the first five episodes which are available on YouTube and you can watch the first full episode right below.
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Supergirl S:01E:03

Episode Title: Fight Or Flight

Original Broadcast Date: 11-9-15

Foundations. Supportive, solid, grounded; foundations provide strength when times get tough. When the walls fall or the roof blows off, you can always see the foundations to any structure remaining. Supergirl’s opening two episodes have been relatively light on foundational character development, at least in terms of giving the lead cast much more than superfluous angst to handle. “Fight Or Flight,” the third episode in this début season, sees Kara’s foundation-laying antics crank up a notch; fighting a nuclear powered villain is but a sidebar to a fairly hefty character development arcs here, with Kara’s relationships between James Olsen, Winn Schott, Cat Grant, and her sister Alex, finally given some pretzel-twisting shades of grey (no, not like that, you pervert).

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SuperMansion S:01 E:07

Episode Title: A Midsummer Night’s Ream
Originally Aired: 11-05-15

One of my favorite things from the newest episode of SuperMansion takes place in the intro: We see a quick glimpse of all the villains the League has had to fight this season, followed by the silhouettes of the bad guys still to come. There seemed to be a lot of them, which raises my hopes of a full on League of Justice vs the Injustice Club fight.

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