Do you ever have one of those moods when you’re a little bit angry, not much but noticeable, then ultimately evolves into a full-blown Inside Out death con one because everyone around you won’t stop telling you to calm down? It’s almost an out-of-body experience as very quickly you forget whatever it was that initially sparked your rage in the place of endless frustration towards those people that seem to miss the meaning in “I’ll be just be just fine if you stop telling me to bloody calm down!”. Sometimes, there’s more to anger than just being angry about something. This something is what Supergirl comes to terms with this week as she struggles to control her rage in both of her workplaces.
Red Faced – When General Lane (father of Lucy and Lois) arrives in town, he forces the DEO and Supergirl to help them test their new advanced android combat unit, The Red Tornado. When Kara’s anger, in their fight, sends the machine raging against his creators, suddenly the people of National City are in grave danger.
That’s right, we’ve back to normal episode order again this week and continuing on from the big reveal of Kara & Alex’s father agreeing to work with Hank Henshaw and the DEO in exchange for leaving Kara alone before he disappeared. The plot moves on well as we see Winn getting his Wikileaks on to help the girls uncover the truth, which does progress things into deeper intrigue and play on the previous “Hank’s not alright” bomb defusing reveal. This still feels like it will be a good progressive plotline with plenty of breadcrumbs to be dropped week by week until what could be a big mid-season finale revelation.
The main focus of the episode takes a look at Supergirl learning to control her anger. This ties in well with here comics persona as she’s renowned for having some of the biggest anger issues in the DC Universe. The early encounter does well to show how a single slip up (especially in the age of 4G and camera phones) can put a massive dent in her reputation. That even though she can fly she still needs to rise such provocations (even when the guy deserves it). It’s a good example of how sometimes being a superhero incurs highly unfair double standards because of the responsibility that comes with their power. This gets even better (like most themes the show has covered) once Kara and Cat Grant get together. What starts as a wonderfully hilarious moment of Kara finally losing it to her boss switches to a gals drinking session as Cat dishes out the sage like advice about gender double standards in the work place. This reflects well onto the earlier Supergirl moments of rage as Cat explains that sadly, some people around them will also be looking for an excuse to tear them down because they are different (heavily embodied here in General Lane’s “foreign assistance” prejudice). An outburst of anger is just the same as incompetence in that gives those people exactly what they need to defeat you. The only way to win is to be better than such weaknesses. This turns into some enjoyable scenes over Kara’s anger management, like a really fun joint punching page session with James, only with Kara using a suspended car as her bag. The end result sees Kara embracing her rage to control it as a weapon rather than being afraid of it (“Anger is a gift” – Freedom, Rage Against the Machine”). The culmination of that mastery produces a powerful visual moments as Kara gets her primal scream on against Red Tornado (Melissa Benoist’s best moment in character to date).
As for the android of the hour, his appearance in promo shots received a lot of Internet hate... and laughter. Red Tornado looks a bit like a Power Rangers villain. However, when the CG takes control, though he's still no Vision: this improves drastically, especially in the rendering of his spin cycle abilities. It’s not initially obvious but the same actor (Iddo Goldberg) plays both the Tornado and his scientist creator, and he does good contrasting jobs with both. In the end, this red robot feels like a good formidable match for Supergirl and his presence with the military (especially their alien hating contingent) opens up the wider Universe to different perspectives on the alien inhabitants of Earth. One exchange even notes that Red Tornado has been in development for 11 years, which is curiously how long Kara has been on Earth. Could her discovery (we know the DEO leant of her so it’s possible other Government organisations could have too) have actually triggered the project in the first place? That once someone learned that Superman was not Earth’s only Krptonian citizen, they felt the need for a weapon against them?
The theme of responsibility over power also gets extended to parental relationships: that no matter who the subject is any parental figure will always have emotional and psychological power over them (we want them to be proud of us). In the previous episode, we’ve learned of Cat’s troubled relationship with her mother and here, we see in person that despite Cat’s vast empire, her mother’s disapproval can still hit her where it hurts. This largely comes out of her mother’s negligence to acknowledge the worth of Cat’s profession. Similarly, we see General Lane abusing his power as Lucy’s father drives her away from James in a comparable career choice disapproval. The Lucy/James relationship does prove to be quite fun this week, most notably when Lucy talks about being underwhelmed by meeting Supergirl in person during game night. Despite Kara being hurt by this, it’s clearly Lucy projecting her aforementioned insecurities about competing with another red caped hero for the affections of James. She’s talking to the whole group but projecting her intent straight at James to try and lower his opinion of Supergirl.
Last week’s episode/actual episode 4/”oh look I’ve gone cross eyed” was the first real blip in the series but Red Faced hits green light on great entertainment once more. It delivers great exploration of Kara both in and out of costume, a good villain/opponent with great fights between them and a good introduction of the military into the show. The end teaser implies next week may be more of a normal episode than expected but this is one episode that you'd feel angry to miss.