Warning: Full spoilers for this week’s Supergirl episode, “Homecoming,” follow.
This week’s Supergirl episode ended with some big reveals regarding Jeremiah Danvers (Dean Cain) – including both his Cadmus-provided physical enhancements and that he was helping them and Lilian Luthor, betraying the DEO and his daughters in the process.
Following a screening of this episode, Supergirl executive producer Andrew Kreisberg and actress Chyler Leigh (“Alex Danvers”) discussed what’s next for the series, including new characters played by Teri Hatcher and Kevin Sorbo and much more.
“Homecoming” ended with the reveal that Lilian Luthor now had a list of all documented aliens (thanks to Jeremiah), along with what looked to be a large space ship.
Regarding where that’s going, Kreisberg said, “It’s a shimmy on Lillian’s desire to rid the Earth of aliens and it’s an interesting debate in the next episode between Jeremiah and Alex - if his plan is any more humane. And some of the talking points in the episode I think are reflective of the current debate in our world about dealing with immigrants, which we were very conscious of, and wanted to speak to that.”
In the episode “Luthors,” we saw Lex Luthor on Supergirl for the first time, but as a young boy in flashbacks. When it came to whether we might ever see an adult Lex, Kreisberg referenced the sign off that would require from DC Comics and Warner Bros. “That decision is above my pay grade. But I thought that kid was great, and what was so sad is we were watching the casting, and we were like, ‘Yeah, that kid looks like he could grow up to be the most evil person in the world.’”
In that same episode, in the present, it was revealed Lillian was in possession of many of Lex’s items, including one that seemed rather important and Kreisberg promised that object would come into play in the season finale.
Jeremiah will be in next week’s episode, though Kreisberg couldn’t say yet how much we’ll see him for the rest of the season. In next week's episode meanwhile, Leigh revealed Alex is still conflicted about her father's apparent betrayal, saying, “It's like any parent/child relationship, especially because they've been apart for so long and Alex wholeheartedly wants to believe in one particular thing, and just really believe that everything is pure and good on his behalf. Once you start to see how you deep the rabbit hole goes, and where his loyalties lie in one way or another, it's heavy. It's definitely very emotional, very heavy.”
(L-R): Melissa Benoist as Kara/Supergirl, Chyler Leigh as Alex Danvers, and Dean Cain as Jeremiah Danvers in Supergirl.
Kreisberg noted, “The question of where do Alex's loyalties lie plays a major part of the next episode and battle lines are drawn a little bit, which is interesting. What I love about this episode and the next episode is no one's really wrong, in a way. And everyone, whether it's Mon-El or Kara or Alex or J'onn -- especially the stuff between J'onn and Alex in [episode] 215 -- everyone is doing it because they love each other. Even Jeremiah. Everyone is doing what they're doing out of a sense of love and to keep the people that they love safe. And that's why Mon-El did what he did and that's why Kara does what she did and why Alex does what she does. To me, that's the most interesting stuff. I loved getting to these episodes because it's the best kind of dramatic conflict where everybody's right and everybody's wrong and everyone's doing what they're doing because they care about each other. You can only do that if you've done two years' worth of table setting of setting up these characters, and setting up the J'onn and Alex and Kara dynamic and setting up this long road for Mon-El and Kara and Kara and Alex's relationship getting deeper and deeper and closer and closer so that you can pay all this stuff off by having it come to a head in an episode.”
We learned in this week’s episode that Mon-El has a secret he’s keeping from Kara, and Kreisberg remarked, “It's going to cause some problems. He doesn't quite get that it's the cover-up, not the crime, which I think is really the issue. I think about Kara sometimes in terms of Barack Obama. He had to be the best version of himself all the time for a variety of reasons. You've often read about that or people have talked about it, that he could never take the bait, and he always had to sort of be the most mature and the most reasonable and the most sensible and the most forgiving, because that was what history and the world was asking of him. I feel like that for Kara, too. Because she's Supergirl, she has to be the best. So opening herself up to a relationship, whether it was trying to do it with James or trying to do it with Mon-El, it takes a lot of her to put herself out there and let somebody in, because when you do that, you're opening yourself up to a lot of messy stuff. I think she's kind of going into this with like one foot out, and then finally in the Mxyzptlk episode kind of put both feet in. So I think a lot of the conundrum for the two of them, a lot of it is on her part of like, “Stupid me for doing that.” Which is why Alex is so interesting as a sounding board for Kara, because Alex did that, and it paid off.”
It has previously been announced that Teri Hatcher is joining Supergirl in a new recurring role as a villain, though no specifics on who she’s playing have been revealed.
Kreisberg was still keeping that secrets, but said of the former Lois and Clark star, “What's so amazing is, she is so not playing Lois, and she is so not playing any character I've ever seen her play before. She's so not Susan from Desperate Housewives. She's really playing something completely different that was in her repertoire of all the things that's she's ever done, and she's doing it amazingly. It's really exciting for us.”
Added Leigh, who noted she had the chance to briefly work with Hatcher since she began on the series, “She can say one word, and then all of a sudden, the way that she says it, you're like, ‘I don't want to cross her.’ She's got a lot of power in that teeny-tiny little frame of hers.”
Also playing an unnamed new villain is former Hercules star Kevin Sorbo. Explained Kreisberg, “Most of his scenes are with Teri. Teri could very easily blow someone off the screen with her megastar TV wattage, so it was important to make sure that didn’t happen. Getting Kevin -- somebody who has his own history and fanbase and celebrity - has made those scenes between them feel like equals.”
Of course with both Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher now on Supergirl, fans can’t help but hope to see them reunited in a scene together. Asked if that plan was in motion, Kreisberg replied, “There's always a plan. There's a plan… If we can execute the plan. But yeah, we've known Dean for a long time now and we're just getting to know Teri. In the best examples of the legacy casting that we do, whether it's John Wesley Shipp or Helen Slater, Lynda Carter, all of them, to a person, are so proud of the contribution that they made in the past and are so proud and happy to be part of our show moving forward. And Teri, again we didn't know Teri before this casting process and she's turned out to be the exact same way. She is in this for the fans, and knows what her being a part of this means to so many people. They're both really excited to give back.”
With Winn now working at the DEO and Cat Grant no longer a regular part of Supergirl -- Kreisberg said they were hoping to be able to bring Calista Flockhart by season’s end for an appearance but nothing is cemented -- we’ve seen a lot less of CatCo on the show this season. However, Kreisberg said they still felt it was an important part of Supergirl, noting, “We still like touching on the CatCo world. The next episode is a big CatCo-Snapper-James story. This show has a lot of moving parts. One of the things that we discovered is most of the stories get driven through the DEO. Without Calista there, that dynamic that was so strong between Kara and Cat has been replaced with more Kara and Alex and more Kara and Mon-El. It doesn’t always live in that location, but we’re not getting rid of it by any means. In fact, episode 18 is called “Ace Reporter,” and it’s about Kara and journalism. That’s actually been very important to us, especially in the times we now find ourselves living in. We’re one of the few shows on television that actually has a journalist as a lead character. In 15, in addition to being a big Alex-Jeremiah story, also has a healthy dose of Kara as a reporter, and especially episode 18, we really get a chance to talk about the importance of journalism, and the importance of journalism ethics, and how important having the objective truth be out there now.”
A notable storyline this season has been Alex’s self-discovery about her sexuality and her relationship with Maggie Sawyer. There’s been a ton of positive critical and fan reaction to this storyline and relationship, and Leigh said, “It’s been wonderfully overwhelming. The response has been so positive, so much more positive than negative. Everybody’s got their opinion and you’ve got to respect that and appreciate that, and in one way or another, they’re still investing in the relationship. It’s been incredible to watch people open up about their story, and what it’s inspiring. Our audience and people that I meet, and people that ask me questions – just to be able to share what we have and the fact that this storyline has been so authentic, and it’s just so well handled and well written. It gives me such a great platform to be able to just dive in headfirst and just go for it."
Added Leigh, "It’s such a beautiful storyline, and to see Alex… At 28, [she is] figuring this out about herself and having those light bulb moments and putting these things together and going, ‘Oh my gosh, this makes so much sense now.’ But being older, it’s like you’ve already built up all these things in your mind about who you are and where you’re going. To have it almost be derailed in a sense, that’s been a big part of the response, going ‘Oh my gosh, this is my story. This is where I was.’ You see so many characters on shows right now, they come in and they’re already established as lesbian, gay, transgender -- whatever it is they’re already in that place. This is where you get to see somebody coming to a point where she’s just figuring it out. I think that’s what people have just been really excited about. That and just the relationship. I love Floriana [Lima] and she’s so much fun to work with and that’s been wonderful too.”
Kreisberg said that in one upcoming episode, “Alex is in serious trouble, and it's up to Kara and Maggie to save her. It becomes a story about -- the sister and the girlfriend both love her, and are debating the best way to save her. It's a really great story. We're really excited about it.”
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at http://ift.tt/LQFqjj.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire