Supergirl season 3 episode 19 review: The Fanatical

Supergirl — “The Fanatical” — Image Number: SPG319b_0086.jpg — Pictured (L-R): Mehcad Brooks as James Olsen/Guardian and Nesta Cooper as Tanya — Photo: Cate Cameron/The CW — © 2018 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Supergirl has an uneven track record when it comes to tackling topical issues. On one hand, you have an episode like “Truth, Justice and the American Way,” which interrogated the morality of imprisoning people without due process through the interpersonal conflict between Kara and James. But, particularly in season 2, it tended to result in didactic speeches riddled with too-on-the-nose references. The characters served the politics when it should be the other way around.

“The Fanatical” smartly takes the former approach. It’s less concerned with exploring the issue itself than James’s relationship to the issue. When the cult threatens to expose James as Guardian unless he gives them Tanya and the journal, he has to make a choice. He informs Supergirl and the DEO that he will hold a press conference and reveal his true identity. And, deep down, James wants to do it. As he later explains to Kara, people like Tanya deserve to know that heroes can look like them.

However, as the encounter with the police illustrated, not everyone would see him as a hero. To many, he would just be a vigilante — a “thug” — a black man. Unlike Supergirl, he can’t defend his use of violence with noble intentions; he doesn’t have the privilege of transcending his physical confines, of becoming a symbol. Tanya fears that he’ll get arrested — and that’s hardly the worst-case scenario.

In a scene all the more poignant for its authenticity, James tells Lena about the first time he got arrested. While staying at a “nice” hotel with his family, he and his cousins decided to play hide-and-seek on the grounds. Cops found them, decided they didn’t belong there and took them away in handcuffs. James was seven years old. Even though he delivers the anecdote matter-of-factly, Mehcad Brook expresses a lifetime of emotions with his eyes, as if they’re bottled up so tightly unleashing their full force would create a flood.

Being Guardian, then, gives James control over his identity that he otherwise lacks. “When I put on the mask,” he says, “it was the first time in my life that I was judged on my actions and heart, not how I look.” He can escape, however briefly, from the confines of other people’s perceptions and truly be himself.

And, to her credit, Katie McGrath doesn’t play Lena as naïve. Her initial confusion over James’s distress stems partly from privilege, but also from a sort of newfound optimism. As a Luthor, she has some experience with the burden of other people’s perceptions; her privilege is that she can succeed in spite of them. Only lately has she started to embrace who she is — not by manipulating or leaning into her persona, but by refusing to wear a mask. Being honest with James allows her to be honest with herself. She wants the same for him.

(Still, watching the scene, I couldn’t help but wish James was talking to Kara instead. They had a nice thing going, or at least they would, if the show let them.)

In the end, Tanya convinces James to cancel the press conference, agreeing to turn herself in to the cult. With some help from Mon-El, the DEO tracks them down and intervenes right as Olivia transforms into a Worldkiller. After an energetic fight, Supergirl exposes Olivia’s weakness, first by appealing to her insecurity and then by using her heat vision to sever the rock from her hand. The moment evokes the climax of “The Faithful,” to which “The Fanatical” serves as a bookend; there, Supergirl exposed her own weakness by cutting herself with kryptonite. Olivia’s question of “Who am I without it?” and Melissa Benoist’s earnest, tender performance join forces to make the moment unexpectedly moving.

Once the visceral impact faded, however, my frustration with the show’s inability to dramatize Kara’s internal conflict resurfaced. (Again, “Truth, Justice and the American Way” proves this wasn’t always the case.) Supergirl wants to complicate Kara’s morality without complicating her personality. It wants her to behave selfishly but never for selfish reasons, or at least it refuses to acknowledge that her reasons are selfish, even though her history of trauma and current status as a celebrity/hero/god give her plenty reason to be selfish.

What lingers is a pair of images, courtesy of director Mairzee Almas. First, during the fight, she presents a wide shot of Supergirl sparring with Olivia with a banner flaunting the cult’s insignia in the background. Behind the banner, Guardian spars with a henchman, and they appear as silhouettes projected onto the banner. Then, as Supergirl comforts Olivia after the fight, Mon-El looks over to see Guardian and Tanya standing together, watching. The images carry essentially the same meaning: Supergirl gets to be seen, while Guardian stays in the shadows.

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Bullet points:

• Alex and J’onn’s subplot about their struggles to cheer up Ruby and M’yrrn, respectively, by taking them to an arcade is sweet. It turns out that it’s really a subplot about Ruby and M’yrrn finding solace in each other.
• The cult’s failed first experiment reduced its victim to a shadow, like an atomic blast. An interesting metaphor, but the episode doesn’t really do anything with it.
• Lena should probably apply her “strictly business” relationship strategy to James since she’s technically his boss.
• If the Acolytes see the Worldkillers as gods, isn’t it blasphemous for them to try creating their own?
• The Worldkiller-creation ritual might be the most Buffy thing Supergirl has done yet.
• “Wait, are you kidnapping this woman? This is a highly illegal situation.” Can Mon-El wear glasses and make dorky, deadpan jokes all the time?

Supergirl airs Mondays at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.