What I’m Watching: Supergirl

Supergirl: Season 6, Episode 14 “Magical Thinking” (B-)

I really didn’t know when this show came back in March that its final season consisted of a relatively full twenty episodes, and I’m not sure that it needed all of that to wrap its story arcs. What’s ended up happening is an excessive focus on Nyxly, who is a decent villain but doesn’t need to take up quite this much space in the overall legacy of this show. For one thing, there’s always collateral damage whenever Supergirl shows up to stop her, seemingly more than with other baddies, and in this case, pretty much everyone she came into contact with ended up drained of their humanity, which was not a good thing and gave even Lena pause about the ethics of going forward. It was somewhat entertaining to see Nyxly so unusually happy, endowed with so much unprecedented positivity and humanity that she wasn’t able to kill the guard and ultimately needed to give the totem back, a move she immediately regretted when she was once again emptied of all goodness. Lena trying to work on her mother’s spells seems like a risky endeavor given the potential impact of them not working, and Nia wasn’t pleased with the immediate results. Andrea hacking William’s computer and demanding that he compromise his sources felt like a true overreach, and the defense of his own boundaries, both with her and with the superfriends, appears to have worked well enough so far to ensure that he gets good reporting and keeps the important, potentially damaging stuff off the record. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Esme may be moving in with Kelly and Alex, and that’s probably a helpful development that will productively affect their relationship.