Supergirl's Final Season Soars When Focused on Character

| September 15, 2021 |

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Supergirl's Final Season Soars When Focused on Character — *Photo: The CW*

This SUPERGIRL article contains spoilers for Season vi, Episode 11, "Mxy in the Middle."

Supergirl Season 6 Episode eleven

Mr. Mxyzptlk makes his triumphant return, and not a moment too soon. He sings, he dances, he makes Patrick Swayze references, and Supergirl distracts a giant cat the aforementioned way yous distract a regular true cat – with her lazer vision, of class. It's all skilful fun on a light and lovely episode of Supergirl that serves every bit a reminder of why this bear witness was seen as a breath of optimistic fresh air years before Ted Lasso made it cool and Emmy-worthy.

Mxy is a great pick for a character to bring back. He's fun, unpredictable, has a wide range of powers, and the writers can basically requite him whatever constraints or backstory they notice convenient. And male child howdy did they ever! The biggest drag on this fun episode is the metric ton of mythology and exposition information technology drops on us early, right after Mxy's bouncing musical number, to the tune of Gloria Gaynor'due south I Will Survive. For his part, Mxy institute a creative way to make full the Super Friends in on his history with swain imp Princess Nyxly without using his magic (which she can evidently sense and therefore track, cloaking technology be damned). His impromptu expository song is occasionally hard to follow without a visual, but returning guest star Thomas Lennon brought his A-game equally usual, and the whole thing is charming and fun, like most of the episode.

Afterward, though, at that place'southward a quick rundown of an all-stone made past an ancient imp named Jared (Mxy's ancestor?), a bunch of totems (truth, destiny, honey, hope, dreams, courage?) which can be in the form of anything. Nyxly needs the totems to make a new all-stone in order to verbal her revenge. But in order to do that she needs an orb to give ability to the crystal and skillful lord tin we get a limit on how many McGuffins one story arc can nonsensically daisy-chain together? Exercise we even know how many totems at that place are so we can count them down? Did Nyxly detect one in this episode, or was Mxy and that orb her only victory? This shouldn't be this difficult to decipher, and frankly who cares?

The stories that have served Supergirl's final episodes best are the ones that permit the characters we beloved to continue to develop equally people, setting them up so nosotros as an audience will accept thought of what their future will exist like after the show concludes. Some of them may announced on other Arrowverse shows or even become their own spinoff, only fifty-fifty for those that don't, it would be satisfying to become to imagine a hereafter where the Super Friends' keep fighting for justice, one fashion or some other, whether that means taking upward the drapery of a hero or flexing new powers. Getting bogged down in the details of brand new mythology with merely nine episodes left in the series feels similar a waste of screen time that could be spent with the gang doing karaoke, a Dansen training montage, or SuperCorp doing literally anything in the same place together.

That'south why Mxy'south one episode felt more satisfying than this entire season's worth of Kara treading water. Mxy found himself essentially powerless. While he all the same had his abilities, he chose non to use them for the proficient of the mission, and he was unfortunately surprised at how useless he felt. Only he wasn't actually sitting around doing nothing – he spent the episode trying to help the Super Friends and learning from them what information technology means to truly be on a team. Ordinarily a solo act and one who Nyxly rightly called out equally looking out for himself exclusively in the past (to Kara's badgerer and our entertainment), Mxy listened and took responsibility for his deportment, much like Nia did when she told Kara the truth about how Nyxly got free.

Mxy has been a fun bit of seasoning for Supergirl to bring in for one-off episodes, and this was a great way to requite his character more than depth, making him worthy of boosted screen time. It certainly seems like nosotros'll be seeing him once again, every bit he sacrificed himself in order to protect the Super Friends and to keep Kara from sending Nyxly to the Phantom Zone, which was both unfair to Nyxly and something he knew Kara found immoral. It'south still unclear what exactly he did and he always has a trick up his sleeve, then I'yard looking forward to seeing what this new, more than evolved version of Mxy does in the final episodes to endeavor to stop Nyxly.

Nia continues to come into her own, albeit in fits and starts. Brainy and Kara'south reactions to Nia helping Nyxly felt fair – she really was manipulated, and who amid them hasn't made a deal with the devil nether the supposition that they could fix it with teamwork if things went sideways? Brainy'south reaction of advice and back up – simply ultimately allowing Nia to come to the right decision on her ain, in her own time – was specially heartening, since he and Nia have sometimes struggled to marshal their levels of support. That's been an interesting journey to sentinel, simply i that hopefully is resolving. Erudite has often spoken nigh Nia'south potential and how powerful she is; hopefully she'll have the chance to share with him what she learned about her abilities from her mother.

Finally there's Lena, who unfortunately had to take the long style 'round to acquire about her female parent's gifts as a witch. Unraveling the mystery of Lena's female parent was a great c-plot, and it's a relief that someone in Lena'southward family is on the upward and upwards. It's been tough to have commencement Kara so Lena sidelined for so much of this flavor, essentially keeping them separate for the duration. However, the idea of a Lena Luthor who has both magic and science at her command is so enticing that I'thousand holding out hope that it might have been worth it.