Previously On DCTV: Week Two – Supergirl, Arrow returns; Titans takes the crown again

This is a weekly review of all the DC Comics shows flexing on the small screen. The Arrowverse: Arrow, The Flash, Legends Of Tomorrow and Supergirl; CW's Black Lightning;
Fox's Gotham, Syfy's Krypton and brand new DC's Titans.


You can read last week's scintillating review+recap here. Arrow and Supergirl premiered this week.


SUPERGIRL


Whew! That was lit.

In a fast-paced premiere, Supergirl introduces multitasking, hate crime, mentoring, cunningness and dopplegangers.

J'onn Jozz has hanged his boot. Which means Alex runs the DEO with a magnetic fist and Kara is running around the universe doing the job of five superheroes.

James Olsen might go to jail for being The Guardian. And Lena won't just stand and watch that happen. The big-bads are siblings and Superman is missing... well, he travelled. Like he has for over a year. The president is an alien and that'd be the size on our package this week. Do join us next week for more on the Girl Of Steel.



So I believe that was how the writer wrote the synopsis for this episode to be presented to the show's creator. Fast-pacing is not a bad thing... infact, it might be Supergirl's(the show and the hero) saviour.


Certain characters are out of the picture: Winn, Mon'El & Sam(I miss Sam, actually) and that seem to make this thing less crowded, right? Hey, The Flash... could you learn from that?

Some characters are very much in the picture... by name: Cat Grant(not even a cameo? Come on, guys), Superman(*hisses*) and Lex Luthor.

While some new characters have found a home: Brainy, a new girl at CatCo and one other Alien who I thought would be Jonn's new bae but she's dead.



Jonn... see J'onn didn't just leave the DEO. He's now the ambassador of peace.

Papi don't wanna fight no more. Not even to save his friends... he only wants to preach peace. But let's see how he reacts when he finds out his new alien friend was stabbed in the back by a masked villain who might be the real big bad.


How many The CW-DC shows presents villains first as masked crusaders later to reveal them as people we know or people we should care about?? Oh, all of them.

Welcome to The Mask, Supergirl. It's a movie where the villain's disguise is far more effective than the heroes. You gon' love it.


Speaking of disguise, see, you were here last season. You read how I complained weekly about Lena. I'm not stopping. She still doesn't know Kara is Supergirl. You know what else she doesn't know? That secrets breaks relationship.


I can already imagine you yelling "Way to go, counsellor" but it's the sloppy truth. Lena used dubious means to make the District Attorney drop her grudges against her boyfriend's alter-ego, The Guardian.

Well, she had her reasons. Everyone who ever loved her goes to prison. See why I don't wanna like the lady?


So she saved her only connection left from being locked up by using the connection(her mother) in prison to get information to lock up a known associate of her other connection(Lex) in another prison in exchange for saving this current and active connection. Romantic, uhn? Noooo.
Ama give you five seconds to picture James' reaction when he finds out.


1,2,3,4...


See, a lot of things can happen in five seconds. Like getting a quick shot of the President in her alien form.

Was it last season? Or two seasons ago? It was revealed to us that the President Of The United States is an alien. The world find out this week. I mean, the world and President in the CW show, Supergirl.


Turns out, this is the episode's sibling-villain's endgame from the onset. It was really calculative and very interesting to have such brilliant villains, aye?


They successfully escaped from Supergirl twice. Managed to expose America's most kept secret and might have ignited a war between humans and aliens. That's brilliant.

Fast-forward to the end. You thought they had forgotten about that other Supergirl that landed in Russia at the end of season three? No. She's in Kasnia punching walls.


The episode itself was punchy... it drove it point home as quick as Supergirl changes from costume to nerdy journalist outfit. A good start for what we all are praying to be a good season. A little light touch and a lot of interesting plot points hanging. This was good. Next.




ARROW

When was the last time we saw Oliver's workout? Always inspiring. Thanks to prison. Green Arrow gotta keep fit.


Arrow has reached its seventh season. Oliver Queen has saved the city more times than we can count and he got his reward at the end of the sixth season: Jail time.

Oliver is in jail but that isn't slowing him down. The only thing he's worried about is his wife, Felicity and his son, William.

Five months have passed and our Star City characters are in new places. Felicity is somewhere as a barista. Rene is empowering kids. Dinah is the new police chief. Diggle is still looking like a guard in his new ARGUS position and Laurel Lance, the fake one from Earth-2 is the new District Attorney?? How please?

Ricardo Diaz is busy haunting Oliver in his dreams but has lost his vigor in real life.

Dude has been tracking Felicity for five months and when he finally found her in the premiere, "oh thank god, you monologue," she survived. Felicity fought Ricardo Diaz... not as a martial artist but as a woman desperate to live. And she did.

Her Oliver is however not having a good time in prison.

Criminals he sent to prison(Bronze Tiger, Brick, and Derek Sampson) are trying to kill him.

He hasn't formed a gang in prison yet, which wasn't what I was expecting. He's alone but feared. The only ones who pester the former vigilante are the above mentioned.

And while taking his bath one cool evening, some men attacked him– from Diaz. He beats them naked but loses to the lead man who didn't kill him because he wanted to deliver Diaz's message that he has killed Felicity.

Felicity shows up at the prison to allay Oliver and viewers' fear. She tells Oliver that she's done fighting and wants to fight back despite Oliver's disagreement. This pushes Oliver to the wall and he beats Diaz's man despite guard warnings. He's done keeping his head down.


There is a new vigilante in town. Dressed as the Green Arrow. It's not John Diggle. But he's masked which means we have another masked anti-hero/villain to figure his/her identity.

This new GA sparks conversation in the press and among former members of Team Arrow. He has a mission: To shut down a rich smug's gun business.... at least in the premiere.

But while all these happen, the infamous flashback returns in some form.

The flashback is a part of the show that, in my opinion, makes the writers lazy in giving us rich back-stories.

The first flashback scene shows a man desperate enough to go to Lian Yu despite a terrible storm. The transition makes the viewers believe this character is the new vigilante and he declares that there's someone he wants to meet there.

The second sequence shows him arriving at Lian Yu and finding Robert Queen's grave before getting caught by a trap.

A hood-wearing vigilante in the forest knocks him out. The final scene however is a shocker.

The man who arrived in the Island is revealed to be a grown-up William, Oliver's Son.

And the hooded vigilante is Roy Harper. This is surprising because to my knowledge, the show has never done a flashforward or at least a trick-one to make viewers think its the usual flashback.

So this premiere, like Supergirl, is solid and unshakily confident. GA the only non-superpowered led series in the Arrowverse, still delivers the best action you can expect from any network show in this genre.

Prison fits Stephen Amell well, but that ARGUS uniform doesn't fit David Ramsey (John Diggle) at all. René is more perceptive this season. Dinah, I don't know why she was picked in the first place because that girl might lead the SCPD to arrest Ooiver Queen if he suits up again. She forgets she's only a captain because of her heroics which she accomplished via vigilantism.

Arrow's premiere is grounded as Arrow should be... let's up it remains that way.




THE FLASH

That's Schway.


I guess that's the only slang in the future. And it's whack. Mostly because she says it every time– Nora

I kinda knew this episode would be better because the premiere was filled with tired actors. I feel ep1 was shot last season because of the cliffhanger. Or half of it.

This episode however, shows new life in certain characters. Grant Gustin's(Barry) acting when complaining to Joe how hard it is to get Nora in line was brilliant.

The fight scenes are even watchable because this season's big bad appears to know how to use his fist. Just a glimpse of Cicada and Gridlock's fight that we didn't get to see last episode was eye-watery.

The villain of the week is aptly nicknamed Block because you know, she creates block to trap her opponents. But just like the premiere, her mission is just a sideshow.

Team Flash fail to defeat her at first trial because Miss Schway messes everything up.

And when they finally defeated Block, Cicada showed up and we got to see how schway this big bad is.

Cicada hurls is Flash Dagger to kill Block... no confirmation on if she's dead but there's confirmation that his mission is to kill metahumans.

So in the beginning of this episode, we got to see the guy behind the mask. He's a not-so-regular guy who has a job and isn't punch-proof because we got to see the scars Gridlock patterned on him before he(Cicada) killed him.


Back to this episode's main event, Nora super-sped Block to the hospital. Cicada throws his dagger to the ground and it stuck.

Then his dagger sucks the powers of The Flash, Cisco and Ralph Dibny. So it resulted into a fist fight and boy, Team Flash is pathetic.

I hope they go get some martial arts training this season from Oliver or Sara.

Cicada handed their asses to them and he was about to kill The Flash with his dagger when Nora showed up and the poor script didn't allow her save her Dad. Instead she screamed "Dad" and Cicada in what can be referred as this season's mystery, stares at Nora longingly before letting The Flash go.


So Nora knows this Cicada guy and we have to wait for the next episode to figure out the how and why.


This season seems to be formulaic: A larger story that is only teased at the end and a side story just to reach the 42-minute mark. But EP2 seems to assume more responsibility and style and that is largely due to the actors and actresses.

Caitlyn is still on Family drama. Cisco can't get over Gypsy. And Ralph is the only comic relief out of all this. The more they assume new roles the better.

Not the best of episodes but it was better.





BLACK LIGHTNING


BL is really slowing down this season.

Jeff steps down as principal and has an emotional final moment with his students. He's also agreeing to remain in Garfield as a teacher.

Anissa seems to be the one dragging us behind. I mean, she's supposed to be wiser now. She's not a rookie anymore. She's flirting with rich musicians during the day and doing heroics for applause at night. That's taking five steps backwards cos we have to wait for her to regret her actions to move forward and that doesn't look like its happening anytime soon.

Jennifer got a visit from Khalil and in some teenage-filled dialogue, she turns him away. Khalil on the other hand is on Thowbias' bad side for not protecting Syonide from Kara.


The new kid a.k.a body-bag-boy has some special kind of powers: When he looks at you, you tell the truth. But he's not here to stay like I hoped.
He's been replaced by a pod-escapee who has been in the pod for 30 years courtesy Gambi. So we are not getting villains of the week... instead we're getting meta-babies of the week.

This is pretty weak on BL's side as this season doesn't seem to be trying to top its season one repute. And that's not all right for a show that won last season.




TITANS


Titans is the newest show in the DC realm and it's taking the bright spot.

Last week we talked about the premiere and it's tone and characters. This new episode introduced fascinating characters.

First there's the family of weird. They were given the picture of Rachel Roth(Raven) and they sort of suit-up with syringes. A father, mother, two kids: a boy and a girl.

We see them in action in Rohrback's apartment. Amy Rohrback's is Dick Grayson's new partner and the fatally torture her to get Dick's location. Seemingly, killing her.

Dick took Raven to see some old friends: Hank and Dawn. With the help of flashbacks, we got to know Dick and these two used to be a team back in the day.
Hank and Dawn have been a couple since then while Dick is the cute boy who always sweeps in to make the man jealous.

Dick is obviously unwelcome there but he chose to stay anyway. But not before he lets us know he knows Bruce Wayne. He scrolls through his contacts and calls Alfred Pennyworth for help. Really guys, this is unnecessary. You don't have to have to mention Bruce's name every episode.

Hank and Dawn are about to pull a mission and they need Dick's help but won't say it. He saves their asses but leaves them shook because they've obviously never seen that much unnecessary blood, just like the viewers, in their entire life.

The blood just seem to splash out of everywhere to remind us that it's R-rated. We get it guys, you're not like the Arrowverse.

But this episode ends in a somewhat terrifying note that makes it a standout once again. The family of weird(like I said last week, I will recap this like it's presented on screen... whatever their official name is, you'll have to wait until the show says it)

They caught up with Dawn, Hank, Dick and Rachel on a roof and in some brutal horror fight, they might have killed Dawn, broken Hank and kidnapped Rachel.

It's getting better because it's a progressive show with an easy to follow mystery. The action is still one of its biggest weapons but the character arcs and unsaid stories dangling in the air makes for a compelling watch. Titans takes the crown this week... again.





Best Character of the week: Dawn(Titans)

Best Episode of the week: Titans(Twice in a row)

Best Villain of the week: Cicada(The Flash)

Best Hero Of the Week: Robin (Titans) [twice in a row]

Moment of The Week: Jefferson's Pierce goodbye to students

Best Action: Oliver Queen's shower fight.



Supergirl airs on Sundays. Arrow airs on Mondays. The Flash and BL airs on Tuesdays all on The CW. Titans airs on Fridays in The DC Universe Streaming Service.