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image: Diyah Pera/The CW

Last night, The CW’s Supergirl left a little something to be desired. Like, you know, things like being interesting? Or having conflict in a plot rather than just having everything be way too solvable? Ah, well. The season’s been mostly stellar, so we were bound to get to a dud eventually. Welcome to Season Three, Episode 12, “For Good.”

Here’s the official synopsis from The CW:

MORGAN EDGE THREATENS LENA — Someone tries to kill Morgan Edge (guest star Adrian Pasdar) and he barely survives. He accuses Lena (Katie McGrath) of being behind the attempt and vows to destroy her. When Lena fears her hatred for Morgan will take her to the Luthor dark side, Kara (Melissa Benoist) steps in to help her friend. Meanwhile, after Sam (Odette Annable) realizes she’s losing time, she confides in Alex (Chyler Leigh) who decides to run some medical tests to see if she can find out what’s going on with her new friend.

Dude villains are just never as good on this show. Corporate dude villains? They’re the worst. Maxwell Lord being the “Big Bad” of Season One? Yawn. It’s funny then that Lord got name-checked in this episode, since Morgan Edge is totally his heir-apparent in boredom.

Luthor Darkness

So, Edge tried to kill Lena, and Lena tried to kill him. Why? Because rich people reasons, that’s why. But all should’ve been done and over with, and they could’ve seethed in private hatred of each other for all eternity…until Lena’s mother, Lillian, decided to take matters into her own hands to “protect” her baby girl by making attempts on Edge’s life, “forcing” Lena to stop her.

Now, I actually really like Lena’s relationship with her mother and seeing that explored. It’s complicated and interesting. My problem with how it played out here is that Lena already knew that she didn’t want to be responsible for Edge’s death. She told her mother as much. And yet, when Lillian begged for the chance, Lena nodded, giving her permission … only to go to Kara to tell her how she needs to stop her mother.

And for what? To give Lena the opportunity to realize that she’s not as “dark” as the rest of the Luthor family? She already knew that. Lena permitting her mother to go after Edge struck me less like the decision of a flawed, unsure character, and more like a writer’s room needing something to happen in order to preserve a character revelation for later.

I’ve never been a fan of this continual insecurity, on Lena’s part, about “becoming” a Luthor. To me, she’s always seemed clear about where the line is, and on those occasions when she has made questionable decisions, it’s always been in the interest of helping people, and the conflict came from figuring out the best way to do that, not from a desire to cause anyone harm.

There’s plenty of natural conflict that can arise, either from Lena’s interests conflicting with the interests of others with different opinions on how to better the city (as it originally did with Edge, before things got violent), or from people assuming things about Lena because of her last name. There’s no reason to have Lena go looking for “darkness” within herself just to take the long way around to the place she she should have started in the first place: reliant on her wit and intelligence, the one Luthor family trait she did inherit.

I did love, however, when Lillian was captured, and this exchange happened:

LENA: One day, you’ll understand there’s a different way of doing things.

LILLIAN: Well, you can enlighten me when you visit me in prison…if I’m still there.

And then she winks, and Lena gives her this look like Oh, you! Lena is nothing like her mother, and yet I love there’s just enough love, or at least familial loyalty there that she can eyeroll her mother going to prison, because that’s just a thing that happens.

Supergirl Was Barely In It

One of the episode’s biggest disappointments was that Kara/Supergirl was barely in it. Yes, she helped save and protect Lena several times (including one time where she risked revealing her secret identity in order to do so), but she wasn’t really driving the action or the investigation. While I’m all about supporting characters taking the spotlight sometimes, the show is called Supergirl, and we expect her to play the largest role in solving the problem.

In one overwrought, political moment that attempted to (very) loosely connect the goings-on in the episode to America IRL, J’onn talks to Kara about how the world is all about escalating behavior these days, and that everything is “us vs. them.” He then tells Kara, “There is great power in being the calm at the center of the storm,” implying that she is the best equipped to be that calm for others.

Yet we don’t really get to see her do that in a way that makes a difference in this episode. It’s Lena who eventually calms herself when she decides to stop her mother. It’s Lena who comes up with the plan and, for the most part, executes it. Kara’s basically there this whole episode to go “Yeah!” and “You’re right!”

Oh, and to have a random, coincidentally helpful, shoehorned in vision of Worldkillers that helps out at the end of the episode.

Oh Wait, There Were Other People In This Episode, Too? 

• I thought we were done with Guardian? Weren’t we done with Guardian? *sigh* If he’s sticking around, can he at least not be Avenging Boyfriend, please? This is the last show that would benefit from a dude going behind his girlfriend’s back to threaten other guys who threaten her.
• So, Alex really only needed to be in this episode to be a doctor for Sam, going through a whole rigmarole of medical tests…that found nothing. We already know that Sam is a Worldkiller, so they really need to make her discovery of this fact more interesting than they’ve been doing so far.
• It also makes no sense to me that Alex isn’t already suspecting something alien or metahuman-related. She lives in a world with aliens and metahumans in it, and she knows it. She works at the DEO, the Department of Extranormal Operations. You’d think she would’ve been simultaneously looking into extranormal causes even as she’s testing for things like cancer.

Well, as you can tell, I was less-than-thrilled with this week’s episode. But I’m curious to know what you all thought. Sound off in the comments below!

Supergirl airs Mondays at 8PM ET/PT until February 5th, when it will go on hiatus again until April 16th in the same time slot on The CW.

(image: Diyah Pera/The CW)

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Season 1 / Episode 13 / CBS All Access

Whew, here we are in Star Trek: Discovery Episode 13 out of 15 (or so). We’re on the other side of the second big reveal of the season. The Gabriel Lorca we’ve all come to know and hate wasn’t ever really one of “us” in the good Starfleet universe, explaining all his blood-thirsty ways. He was a Terran from the Mirror Universe all along, a manipulative, power-hungry, deceitful son of the fatherland, who controlled and directed Michael Burnham and the crew of the Discovery for his own gains. The episode as it stands is only a’ight — it sums up our current state and moves the plot forward without risking too much — but it is a necessary step for the season. Besides, I don’t know I could have taken another “Luke I am Your Father” moment this week. I needed a break.

Lorca Explains It All

The episode opens with Lorca in exposition mode as he frees his followers, whom the Terrans have helpfully kept imprisoned on their main battleship, the I.S.S Charon, lo, these many years. How convenient! We have the return of Commander Landry, who looks quite a bit like she did when we last saw her being mauled by a Tardigrade. Lorca’s soldiers are all as fanatical in their rebellion as the other Terrans are in their service to the Emperor.

Lorca’s first stop is to go find Mirror Stamets, because Lorca knows that Stamets controls the spores which drive the battleship, along with a lot of other things besides. Mirror Stamets is actually not as much of an asshole as Prime Stamets, here he’s more sniveling, but it all plays well. Mostly he’s there as a listener/convenient excuse for Lorca to explain that he crossed into the Prime Universe when he was teleported into an ion storm. That’s how he evaded the Emperor and Mirror Burnham.

Deep dive

You’ll recall that teleporting in an ion storm is how Kirk, Uhura, Scott, and McCoy end up in the Mirror Universe in TOS. Full circle, baby.

Lorca calls it all destiny. He gets Stamets to release a bio-weapon into the Charon, killing almost everybody.

This Is Not the Philippa We Know and Love

The Emperor is aware of the casualties, but shrugs them off. She and her elite warriors, lead by mirror Joann Owosekun, are ready to use Lorca’s moves to trap him, track him, and kill him.

Burnham forgets her place and tries to give the Emperor some unnecessary advice. It is too much. The Emperor has her thrown into the Brig for too much back talk — well TRIES to have her thrown into the brig. Burnham unleashes her Vulcan hand-to-hand on that poor guard and evades everyone. They don’t seem to go looking too hard for her, I guess managing a coup keeps the Terrans busy.

Acting Captain Saru

Captains Log. Saru is feeling pretty upbeat. The spore drive is online, he’s on his way to pick up Burnham and Lorca, they’ll be out of this Mirror nightmare by dinner time. Except not. Stamets, not up to his mushroom hijinks, but still more chill than ever before, explains that the mycelial network is dying. The Mirror ship is pulling energy OUT of the network, as opposed to his plan which rides along with the energy in the network. (In classic ST fashion, there’s a message about the abuse of resources here, figure it out.) As the network spreads across both universes, death for the spores in the Mirror will get to the Prime. If they don’t stop the destruction here, there will be no there to go home to.
Being captain is a pain the ass.

Acting Emperor Lorca

Lorca is feeling himself. He makes a ship wide announcement about the weakness of Emperor Georgiou and his plans to turn the Terran Empire around. Mirror Burnham was going to help him, and now, he predicts, so will Prime Burnham. He’s still on some obsession with Burnham that is getting more and more disturbing. After a minute, Georgiou has enough of his blather and heads off for a showdown.

Michelle Yeoh continues to slay as the Emperor. She is imperious, stern, with the slightest touch of humanity, just enough to make you believe it. Her performance walks the edge of orientalist stereotyping — the shadow of the Ming the Merciless villain threatens — but never goes there. She remains a particular, complex character who isn’t a villain, just a mirror. And because Yeoh is Yeoh, we get to have some of the best fight scenes ever in a Star Trek show.

The two sides meet in a dark hallway, all hallways in the MIrror are dark. To set it off, Lorca calls the Emperor “Pippa”. She gives him a perfect “I’m a fuck you up” look and they’re at it. Laser blasts flying, bodies burning up. The tension is good and the resolution keeps the energy of the fight running through the rest of the episode. These two are playing for keeps.

Burnham Needs Help

Forgotten, or at the bottom of everyone’s to do list, is Burnham, who’s trying to get a hold of Saru. I often think that actors are at their best when they’re acting alone, with no one else to play off of. That’s definitely true of Martin-Green, who with only her tone of voice and her facial expressions can convey such a sense of loss, of despair, that it touches you. Her making this interstellar phone call to crew displays that skill to the nines.

Once Saru picks up the phone, Burnham explains that Lorca has played them all for fools. She advises the Discovery to run for it. They can’t do that because 1) Saru won’t leave her. He’s got a heart of Starfleet. And 2) if they run for it, the mushrooms will die and they’ll die anyways. So, what to do?
Burnham has to drop the Charon’s containment field so the Discovery can blow up their reactor core. No worries. She’ll call when she’s in place. She got this.

Destiny

With Stamets now to listen, Lorca is on his destiny bullshit. Stamets doesn’t believe in anything, so he doesn’t give Lorca the feedback he’s looking for. No matter. Stamets isn’t long for the rebel crew no way. Lorca reveals the This Conversation Is Over Pit, where Emperors drop folks who have fallen out of favor through the floor of the throne room directly into the reactor core. He doesn’t use it, but that’ll be important later. Pro Tip: Always know where this Pit is friends.

With Mirror Stamets dead, Lorca is on his all ship communication tip, trying to sweet talk Burnham into coming in and being his right hand girl again. Now, I use the word “girl” here on purpose — Lorca doesn’t think of Burnham as an equal. She’s his tool. He used Mirror Burnham to get to the Emperor, he used Prime Burnham to get back to his universe. There’s no telling what he’ll use Prime Burnham for if he gets her, but we know it won’t be good. We know our Burnham ain’t having it. She’d have been happy in her prison cell, you think she’s going to settle for this bullshit? Nah.

Really, Lorca’s trying to hold Burnham in place so Landry can get the drop on her. That’s another Nah.

Burnham continues to capitalize on her knowledge of Georgiou to find her in her ready room and hash this out. Together the two women get in their feelings about their lost loved ones. It is a good scene because it is emotional without being messy, weepy, or stereotypically “feminine”.

It is two women who aren’t friends agreeing on some common terms to go forward with, based in their shared loss and their shared needs. They may not agree on many things, but they do agree that their fate is in their own hands, not in the hands of Destiny. They also agree that Gabriel Lorca has to die.

The Discovery Crew Steps Up

One of my primary complaints about Disco has been that the bridge crew of the ship has been almost non-existent in the plot. In the next set of scenes, they finally change that as every member of that staff speaks up and together they solve the problems of how to blow up the Charon. Every one of them finally gets a line, and they talk to each other, not just the captain or principle actor in the scene. It is great; I’d love to see more of it. I’m sure these characters all have personalities and backstories. Maybe one day we’ll get to know them.

But even as they problem solve, it becomes clear that they may not make it out alive.

Saru stops acting as captain, puts on his big boots, steps forward and becomes Captain for real.

He delivers one hell of a speech in the long tradition of Starfleet captains handing out hope in the face of certain death. In the end he says: We will not accept a no-win scenario.
That my friends is your Star Trek: Wrath of Khan reference of the day.

Kobayashi Saru

Burnham and Georgiou turn up in the throne room in full surrender mode. We know that’s not why they’re there. Lorca suspects that’s not what’s really going on, but he’s got his head so full of Destiny he doesn’t start killing folks right off. His mistake. They talk. Burnham gets in his head and convinces him that she’ll stay as his advisor if he spares the crew of the Discovery. She even makes those alligator tears well up in her eyes. I’d have fallen for it.

On the Discovery, Tilly has gone full genius mode along with Stamets. They figure out a way to survive the explosion of the reactor core and to “ride” the mycelial shockwaves not only away from the blast, but straight into their own universe. It is a great stroke with Tilly completely out of her Mirror self and fully into her geeky, curly-haired reality.

Never accept the no-win scenario.

Lorca calls the Discovery to gloat about how merciful he’s being by letting them go today. Saru refuses to fall for the bullshit a second time and gets confirmation from Burnham, who says, and this is important: “I’m in my place.” That’s the code so Saru knows she’s about to set that shit off.

Cue the best fight hand-to-hand fight in Star Trek, as Burnham and Georgiou work their way up the throne room smashing through soldiers with that the tag team, slow deadly walk up a long hallway action. Georgiou is empty handed. Burnham has a pipe (where the hell did she get a pipe?). They are brutal until finally, it is little boss, big boss time with Burnham on Landry and Georgiou on Lorca. This is no Hong Kong action flick, but Yeoh still has the kicks and bends that show you how good she can be.

Together the two women fight their way to Lorca and shut down his plans with a great show ender. Remember the End of Conversation pit? Yeah.

Even with Lorca dead, Georgiou knows she’s not emperor any more. She’s been shown to be weak. She heads down to face the still rebellious crew as Burnham lowers the containment field and makes contact with the Disco. That’s a great place to end it. But that’s not where it ends.

Back Home?

Yeah, that’s not where it ends. Burnham in a fit of sentimentality that would make Sarek spit, beams Georgiou onto the Disco with her!
WHYYY????
The Disco does indeed ride the spore wave out on some good special effects, the iron will of Stamets, and the haunting strains of Hugh Culber’s favorite opera.

Do they make it home?
Yes.
Is everything alright?
Is it ever?

Summary

What’s next? They made it home but things have changed. What are they going to do now?
Lorca is dead, so that’s good. But they’ve got a pissed off Georgiou. Culber is still dead (TBH, I’m losing faith that he’s coming back). L’Rell is chewing nails in the brig and Voq/Ash? Who can say?

No Voq/Ash and L’Rell this episode, which is probably for the better. That plot line needs a minute to sit down and chill. It will have to continue to weave with the larger story. An important point, brought to my attention by one of my readers — while Voq may have been delivered to his lover/right hand assassin L’Rell for healing, Ash (the mental construct of him anyway) was delivered to his rapist and torturer. I am curious to see if and how the series handles this dual relationship as we go into the end of the season. Will some part of Voq still hate and fear L’Rell, even as some part of Ash was drawn to her? Will we have some deeper expression of regret from L’Rell? Does it matter? What’s up with him anyway? Is he now all one, or all the other? Or someone else entirely?

How do the Klingons now figure in this new setting? What does Georgiou do? I got questions, folks. Lots of them. And I haven’t forgotten the most important question of all.

There’s always more Star Trek coverage here at Black Nerd Problems. You can find them all behind the Star Trek Tag.

The post Star Trek: Discovery Recap — What’s Past is Prologue appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.

If you're anything like us, every holiday on the calendar is an excuse to break into the board game closet, and Valentine's Day is no exception. ThinkGeek rounded up some of our favorite games to play on your Valentine's Day Game Night!

News of the upcoming Charmed reboot has been met with mixed feelings from everyone: fans and people attached to the original series alike. Member of the original ‘Power of Three’ trio Holly Marie Combs, a.k.a. Piper, took to the internet to let people know how she felt about the new reboot.

The way Combs puts it, her huge issues with the series are many, but mostly have to do with the fact that this new reboot will be made with zero input from the original creator of the show, Constance M. Burge, and none of the original cast members will play a part in this reboot as of yet. While this series will be using the named Charmed it seems unlikely that it will have any connection to original show’s mythology and universe.

I have…mixed feelings about it. The Charmed mythology is highly inconsistent and there are multiple continuity holes that would make it complicated to create a series within the same universe that did not completely ret-con many elements of the original series. This show would have continuity errors within the same season of a show. Sometimes only a few episodes apart. Yet, it is very upsetting to hear that this title is just a way of getting the original Charmed  fanbase interested in a product that does not seem to have any interest in appreciating the fun mess of the original show.

However, the thing that caught my interest was this tweet:

Guess we forgot to do that the first go around. Hmph. https://t.co/kDXLBefuSG

— Holly Marie Combs (@H_Combs) January 26, 2018

When we call something a “feminist show” that encapsulates a lot and I feel that sometimes we do a disservice to female-led media by painting a brush of “feminist” over it just because it includes women in leading roles. That’s a good start, but a female-led series does not a feminist work make. Just for the record, calling a show “feminist” doesn’t automatically mean the show is good or if it is not feminist that makes it bad: you can always process something through a feminist analytical lens regardless of what the source material is like.

So for me I came up with a few rules when it comes to judging if a series is feminist: (a) tackles issues related to gender inequality (b) diverse in terms of its depiction of women (c) women are allowed to have female friends (d) avoids stereotypical depictions of women and, most importantly, (e) the women are well-written/competent.

Now, these are just my own guidelines that I came up with because I felt like there were shows I loved that had feminist themes or tackled some feminist issues, but I wouldn’t be able to call them feminist because for as much as they did that was good there was an equal amount of bad.

Charmed is a mixed bag if we want to view it through a feminist lens, so let’s break it down.

(a) tackles issues related to gender inequality: Charmed is certainly a “girl power” show, which is not a dismissive statement. I grew up on girl power shows/music, and I think they are an important gateway to understanding different things about how gender works. Plus, seeing ladies kick ass on television is always a plus. But Charmed‘s insight into gender is so shallow it barely goes below the surface. Sure they say things like “it’s the woman’s job to save the world,” but they also have a ghost grandma who hates men so much she has to be convinced to love her own grandson. It’s so comical that you can’t help but eyeroll as she cringes at holding baby Wyatt, lamenting that they don’t have boys in the family. Charmed does touch on sexual harassment in the workplace in one episode and over the top sexism by literally turning men into pigs or turkeys, but it is always played for laughs and nothing ever comes from it. Charmed is well-meaning but says very little outside of the cliche and obvious.

(b) diverse in terms of its depiction of women: Yeah, Charmed takes place in a very cis, white and straight part of San Francisco. They have one token non-white cast member in Deryl, there is only ever one non-white man as a love interest in season one, played by John Cho so that’s a plus. When it comes to body type all of the women are fit and young with the exception of Grams, who is fit, but older.

(c) women are allowed to have female friends: Hahahahaha. Nope. Chosen women don’t have friends. In fact other than the core three women, everyone else of importance in their life is a guy. They needed a Kenzi real bad.

(d) avoids stereotypical depictions of women: We went from these kinds of fanservice costumes in Season Three:

To these in the later seasons:

Don’t get me wrong, the earlier seasons would put the girls in some questionable fashion outfits, but it wasn’t frequent and it showed off their personalities really well. In later seasons, the problem isn’t just that it is so blatant and over the top, but that it happens all of the time. After the fourth season, it feels like a race to put Alyssa Milano in as little clothing as possible. While Milano was a producer on the show, as was Combs, neither of them got paid extra for their trouble and while they could help make decisions about storylines and character, it is unclear if those…stylistic choices were their own.

(e) the women are well written/competent: This is a hard one for me. As someone who grew up watching Charmed, I loved the fun costumes, the love stories, and the sister drama. It was definitely a show that defined my youth, and so when I sat down to watch the series from the beginning it was…a weird experience. I didn’t watch much of the pre-Paige episodes so I grew really attached to Prue and I loved what they did with the characters. While the show would play fast and loose with its own canon, and it was far from perfect, I would say that up until Season Four the show and the girls were fun. They had excellent chemistry together and felt like sisters.

Then the dark times came. After Season Five it just becomes so nonsensical and repetitive that I had to stop watching halfway through Season Six because I realized I was fast-forwarding through most of the episodes. The show would have so many jarring plot-holes to watch in a binge situation, I found myself getting frustrated.

Phoebe turned into an obnoxious person who cared more about herself than anybody else and never dealt with any of the repercussions of her actions from the Cole situation. Piper, who was my favorite growing up, doubled down on becoming a den mother and would complain about her guardian angel husband going out to save people’s lives. Paige was mostly fine, they just didn’t always know what to do with her. The Charmed Ones, who were destined to save the world from great evil, turned into Frank Miller anti-heroes who were more angry about being asked to help people than anything else. Saving lives was an irritant that pulled them away from dating or their day jobs or the mundane lives they wanted to leave on the side.

Mind you, I think it is a good idea to show the struggle of trying to maintain a “normal” life while saving the world from evil. However, they complained about it every day and no one ever called them out on it. They were allowed to get away with every hint of bad behavior, cast judgment over everyone else, and just be the worst heroes ever, but the universe acted like they farted roses. It would actually be quite a deconstruction to have the heroines of a story be filthy hedonists who do it reluctantly, but let’s not treat them like the Sailor Scouts.

Charmed started off as a show with feminist intent, and I think overall, there are still really important and worthy things the show does. There is a reason it has retained in the hearts of many. There is a reason why even today, I still love to rewatch the first four seasons. Charmed came at the right time and provided something fun for an audience. It may have run way, way past its expiration date, but that doesn’t take away from the good it did do.

So if we are only focusing on the “feminist” aspect of this reboot, I hope it has something to say, allows the sisters to have friends, doesn’t put them in fanservice costumes for no reasons and allows them to be flawed, fully developed consistant characters.

(image: The WB/Edits made by author)

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