Disclaimer: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided Cinema Sentries with a free copy of the Blu-ray reviewed in this post. The opinions shared are those solely of the writer.
In last season’s finale in order to stop the Daxamites from destroying Earth, Supergirl had to flood the atmosphere with lead (which works like Kryptonite on Daxamites). Before doing this, she had to put her Daxamite boyfriend Mon-El onto a ship and launch him into space not knowing if he’d ever return. Season Three opens with a lot of moping around the house to sad songs. Supergirl knows she made the right decision, but it still broke her heart. Her sister Alex is feeling a bit happier as she plans for her upcoming nuptials to Maggie. That doesn’t last long as by Episode Five the two have broken up due to Maggie’s hard-line stance against not having children. Cue more moping to more sad songs.
All of the DC superhero shows on The CW have romantic entanglements that ultimately lead so sad music moping. I get that. It’s kind of the network’s bread and butter, but Supergirl leans into it. It’s all a bit much for my tastes. You need some character development in order to make us care and romance is the easiest way to do that, but when those entanglements overshadow the action and adventure aspects of the series, I start to tune out. While Season Three doesn’t get away from that entirely, it moves in the right direction by giving us some pretty interesting villains and lots of big action sequences.
The Big Bad this season is a trio of women known as World Killers, who were created by a coven of Kryptonian witches to, well, kill the world. The World Killers are actually spirits, I guess, who possess three human women, which creates a lot of inner turmoil and drama as the split personalities battle it out for control of the bodies. We closely follow one of them, Sam, who is being controlled by the super villain Reign.
Meanwhile, Lena Luthor has to perpetually prove she’s not her brother even if she is secretly manufacturing Kryptonite, the DEO continues to fight freaks of the week and, oh yeah, Mon-El comes back from the future (!) having lived there for the past seven years, created the Legion of Superheroes (!!), and got married (!!!). Cue more sad music moping. But not too much because he’s brought with him his wife, Saturn Girl, a telepath, and Brainiac 5, a 12th-level intelligence from the planet Colu. With all these new heroes, the usual villains of the week and a trio of Big Bads, Season Three just doesn’t have enough time to play all those sad songs whilst its characters mope in comfy pants and oversized socks.
The writing still leans towards the sappy and there isn’t nearly enough comic moments. Not every episode works, but this season felt like a real improvement for me. Supergirl’s team has always been weak in my opinion. Despite all the relationship drama, I’ve never really cared about them. This season started to fix that. J’onn J’onnz, Winn, and James Olsen are finally coming into their own. They feel like real characters with individual motivations rather than just people who only exist to serve Supergirl.
Overall, I really liked Supergirl: The Complete Third Season. It’s gone from a show I mostly watch because it gives my daughter a female superhero to enjoy to one of the best comic shows on television.
Extras include the entirety of this year’s big crossover “Crisis on Earth-X” (a big improvement over last season’s “Invasion”) plus a full behind-the-scenes look at that storyline. Also included is a gag reel, deleted scenes, and a highlight reel from the 2017 San Diego Comic Con.
