Supergirl season 5, episode 7 review: Tremors

Leviathan are after Lena Luthor and, to stop them, she manipulates Supergirl into taking her to the Fortress of Solitude. A showdown ensues.

Viewers were privy to the falling out between Andrea Rojas (Julie Gonzalo) and Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath) on the previous episode of Supergirl, which directly tied into how the two characters are connected to Leviathan. It’s all to do with an ancient medallion, and now that Lena has her hands on it, Leviathan are gunning for her.

Rama Khan Arrives

Leviathan have been working in secret for eons, but now they are tired of the way humanity is destroying the Earth, so they’ve decided to wipe out humanity once again. We learn in this episode of Supergirl that Leviathan are aliens who have been part of Earth’s greatest catastrophes – including the decimation of the dinosaurs, Pompei and more. But for some reason, Lena Luthor wielding the Acrata medallion has them all in a tizzy. So much so that there’s a new ‘god’ in town.

Said ‘god’ is Rama Khan, played by Mitch Pileggi. He’s an Earth-bender (as Brainy calls him) and Rama Khan is the reason for the title of the episode. As much as all of us love the nostalgia that revolves around Pileggi’s casting, it’s baffling that any casting director can think it’s okay to cast a white actor to play a character called Rama Khan.

That’s not even addressing the issue of naming a character Rama Khan – Khan is an Islamic name, while Ram was the king of Ayodhya as written in the Hindu epic Ramayan. Suspension of disbelief can only go so far; there is no way that a 1000-year-old alien would have adopted such a name, since there was little unity between the religions at that time.

It’s bad enough DC Comics once thought it appropriate to create this character, but it’s tone deaf for the showrunners to include him and then make a problematic casting decision. It’s 2019, just Google something that sounds a bit off!

Forgiveness

J’onn J’onzz (David Harewood) has struggled with the revelation about his brother Mal (Phil LaMarr). He was under the impression that he had safely returned Mal to the Phantom Zone, but J’onn keeps sensing his brother’s presence. He soon realizes why, after conferring with his father.

Unknown to Supergirl and her Super-friends, Lena had captured Mal and imprisoned him in her lab, and in this episode, J’onn has to slowly come to this same conclusion himself. But that’s not the end of J’onn’s arc. After all, he suffers a great deal of guilt for not saving his brother from being ostracized as a child, then erasing Mal’s existence from all of Martian history, plus sending Mal to the Phantom Zone when he sided with the White Martians. J’onn has a steep redemption arc to climb to reach his brother’s forgiveness.

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Though it is heartwarming to see the brothers reconnect, the reconciliation almost happens too fast. Martian telepathy means that Mal would have understand J’onn’s pain, but viewers will feel cheated by the speed at which yet another J’onn storyline has been wrapped up. We’re reaching a point where it appears that the showrunners are struggling to make J’onn relevant, and much of that is down to the writers being unable to find a way to integrate J’onn into Supergirl’s main storyline. If they continue at this rate, we’ll end up losing yet another character of colour, like we did Jimmy Olsen.

The Blinkers are Off

Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist) loves Lena. She has fought for her from the get-go, and beaten herself up when she doubted Lena’s goodness. Which is why Lena has been so effortlessly able to dupe her former friend into helping her, saving her, and manipulating her this season. Admittedly, it has been taxing to watch Supergirl fall prey to Lena’s manipulations. During this episode, Supergirl’s actions were almost infuriating, but how can you blame her? She cannot see beyond Lena’s friendly exterior. That’s why the villains usually think they have the upper hand in stories – because they know the hero’s weakness is their compassion.

And all that comes to a crashing halt in this episode during one of the most emotionally charged scenes on Supergirl. Lena and Supergirl’s confrontation in the Fortress of Solitude was unabashedly intense – here are two people laying out their hearts to each other, and McGrath and Benoist unleash an onslaught of anger and tears that will leave viewers reeling. The singular line that struck a chord and really brought home how Lena feels was ‘I’m not a villain; you shouldn’t have treated me like one’. The showrunners utilize the chemistry between the characters to break fans’ hearts, leaving one question on our lips – where do these two go from here? Because the only way is down and that is a scary proposition for all involved.

Super Sentiments

• Why does Brainy have a mini mental breakdown every episode? If the showrunners are leading up to something, then these breadcrumbs are more annoying than they are intriguing.
• We are so glad that Kelly (Azie Tesfai) and Alex (Chyler Leigh) didn’t break up in this episode. That would have been a bait-and-switch no one asked for. At the same time, the showrunners are addressing the fears Kelly has after what she’s already been through, which is a mature move by them.
• The thought that Leviathan was effectively being run by an older woman, Margot (Patti Allan), was exciting, till she’s unceremoniously dismissed in this episode by Rama Khan. And there’s another, younger, more conventionally-attractive actor thrown in the mix as well. Is it really that hard to try casting a wider net when choosing actors?

By sticking to the regular cast of characters in ‘Tremors’, the showrunners maintain the interest of the viewers. This episode was quite a journey for all the characters, which ensures we are once again excited to watch this season.