Livewire – When the controversial radio shock-jock Leslie Willis gets accidentally struck by lightning, she becomes the electrifying entity known as Livewire. Those aren’t the only sparks flying as a Danvers family Thanksgiving reunion has no shortage of conflict.
This was originally scheduled to be the 5th episode in the series. However, due to a comparable story to the Paris attacks, the intended episode 4 will now be shown next week in the place of this episode being brought forward. This may cause some continuity issues for both weeks but with the circumstances, we can let them slide. All scheduling aside, Livewire is a fantatsic episode offering that breaks some of the typical early series episodes repetition. First off, it delivers its first villains origin story as we see the creation of the titular Livewire, rather than having her as an existing figure. This means we don’t just see her villainous transformation but also get some good build scenes establishing an existing hatred of Supergirl rather just being told about it. This creates conflict not just between Leslie and Kara but also towards Cat Grant who plays an equal part in Livewire’s creation. The helicopter based lightning strike itself has some great visuals set against the dark night sky and even a great inclusive laugh as the copter hurls towards the window of an oblivious cleaner. When we see Leslie in full white hair and powered mode, she looks good (True Blood’s Brit Morgan is having some real fun with her character) as do her power effects with the electro whips being a real highlight. Making Cat a subsequent target of Livewire’s retribution has a good humanising effect on her character along with some nice humour as she still delivers her uncaring sarcasm while in mortal peril (“Congratulations you have the wit of a YouTube comment”). In quieter scenes, we even see Cat blaming herself for creating Leslie’s rash and scalding personality long before she flipped the power switch. She’s already become the show’s most interesting character, which is why it’s so enjoyable to see this episode develop her character via relations of her own dysfunctional family life (a mother that doesn’t rate her success as an accomplishment). We even see Cat form a greater relationship with Kara both in and out of costume.
Being a Thanksgiving set episode, there are also some good themes of family which means for the first time this season, we get some real screen time for Mr. & Mrs. Danvers (Helen Slater & Dean Cain aka 84’s Supergirl & 90s Superman). Although Cain is only a flashback offering as (we’re at least led to believe) he’s dead in the present, but we do get a lot of good time Slater in her conflict with Alex over Kara’s suiting and capping up. Alex has been told her whole life to keep Kara's secret and save, so naturally this doesn’t go down too well with mom.
The story pans out into a great notion of blossoming adolescence in that while we understand their mother’s point of view, like any parental figure she must accept that there comes a point she no longer calls the shots her child’s life (super powered or not) and the emphasis is over her process of accepting that. The sibling rivalry card also gets another good play as Alex struggles with the double standards of treatment between her and Kara just like any older sibling expected to be the responsible one. We even get a great little flashback to the dawn of Alex’s responsibility including a wonderful little scene of the girls sneaking out to go flying. This also leads to some very curious implications about their family history and the beginnings of a great new long running story arc for Kara and Alex in the similar vein to Barry Allen solving his mother’s murder in The Flash.
The missing link of the episode is the James Olsen and Lucy Lane relationship as we’re quite literally missing a link over the pair being a couple again. However, the episode does tease about some lingering level of affections in James for Kara as we see him intentionally calling her despite being on a getaway with Lucy: that like it or not, he can’t stop thinking about her for a weekend. Things are now actually setup as a gender swapped Midsummer Night’s dream style lopsided love quadrilateral (cause Shakespeare was better than triangles) with both girls pining for James (aka Hermia) and the lowly Winn (aka Helena) persuing one-sided affections for Kara. We can be fairly sure that things will get well and truly Puck’d up over the season, and this episode nicely starts that ball rolling with clear awkwardness from Kara over Lucy and a sad moment of Winn realising Kara doesn’t reciprocate right after confiding in her about his jailbird father (the comics villain Toyman now cast as Revenge’s Henry Czerny).
In many ways, Livewire is Supergirl’s strongest episode yet. Now that the show has logged the establishing woman hours on its lead character, it allows the supporting faces to come forward more for the feel of a stronger overall result. Next week’s prequel may still get a bit timey whimey if this episode can deliver such great results out of sequence then that really bodes well for the show.