“Supergirl” Episode Review – S06E15 “Hope For Tomorrow”

Superman Homepage writer Michael Bailey reviews episodes from the “Supergirl” TV series, airing on The CW.

Check out his review of the 15th episode of Season 6 in which Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) continues to fight Nyxly (Peta Sergeant) for the remaining totems but after Nyxly kidnaps William (Staz Nair), Supergirl realizes she needs to take a more proactive stance to keep National City safe. Meanwhile, Alex (Chyler Leigh) faces the biggest challenge of her life.

Originally Aired: October 12, 2021
WRITTEN BY: Emilio Ortega Aldrich and Nicki Holcomb
DIRECTED BY: Tawnia McKiernan

REGULAR CAST:
Melissa Benoist (Kara Danvers/Supergirl)
Chyler Leigh (Alex Danvers)
Jesse Rath (Brainiac 5)
Katie McGrath (Lena Luthor)
Nicole Maines (Nia Nal/Dreamer)
David Harewood (J’onn J’onnz)
Azie Tesfai (Kelly Olsen/Guardian)
Staz Nair (William Day)

GUEST STARS:
Julie Gonzalo (Andrea Rojas)
Peta Sergeant (Nxylgsptinz)
Matt Baram (Mitch)
Mila Jones (Esme)

Rating – 4 (out of 5): This was a weird one to review because it was a solid episode where the writers got a lot of things right, but it ended on a note that raises a lot of questions that I hope are explored in future episodes.

Kelly and Alex adopting Esme was not a shock. They telegraphed that pretty hard in the previous episode, so this was not a surprising development. I’m curious if this sort of thing can be done. People who do the social work that Kelly does come across hundreds of kids that need good homes and I’m not sure the ethics of adopting one of those kids. It seems like Alex is the one that did the actual adopting and while they did mention that the process was expedited, Alex is still a single woman with no obvious means of income.

In fact, how does Alex earn money? She hasn’t been part of the DEO for some time, and I doubt being the Sentinel is bringing in a livable wage.

Hmmm…

All of that out of the way, I think the writers and the actors did a good job of showing how difficult taking in a kid from the system can be. They didn’t go a hard as they could, but by showing the issues Esme faces beyond being an alien that can mimic the abilities of other aliens. Having trust issues and being more sensitive and having a fear of abandonment and wanting to give up and go to the life that she’s more familiar with rather than the uncertainty of her new life are all real issues and the care the writers took with that is admirable. Mila Jones was a bit stiff in some scenes, but I give her a complete pass because she’s young and it’s unfair to expect her to play such a complicated part like a master. Azie and Chyler’s performances were spot on and I really got the fear and the excitement and the uncertainty their characters were feeling.

It was definitely the strongest part of the episode.

The main plot of fighting over the hope totem was going fine until the end of the episode. Dealing with hope has been a thing on this show since the first season, so finding a way to make that challenging this far along in the series is hard and the writers did a solid job with that. The problem came at the end when J’onn and Kara just decided to take the missiles from Kaznia and Corto Maltese. The obvious comparison is SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE, where the same idea was explored, and the point of that movie was to show that with all the things Superman can and all his power he can’t solve all of our problems. This episode played with the idea of giving people hope by taking those missiles away, but those actions have massive implications, especially on an international stage.

You can’t just take a sovereign country’s weapons and not have any fall out.

And destroying the totem is a good swerve storytelling wise, but that destruction has to have fallout and I hope that the writers have something big in store to deal with the consequences of the actions the Super Friends took in this episode.

So, it was a good episode that definitely had my attention and featured solid writing and good performances. William Day continues to be well served by this story and the mystery of a secret admirer, which given the suit of armor isn’t much of a mystery, has a lot of potential. This is shaping up to be a strong season and I’m finally feeling like it’s a story worthy of the show ending on.

Check out the “Supergirl – Episode Reviews” Contents page.