I’m the Couch Clubbin’, #DCTV blog writin’, occasional Supergirl coverin’, son of a gun who’s back for another episode! WOO!

Now that I cut my Ric Flair-esque promo, let’s get down to the business at hand. Tonight’s episode was…interesting.

Let me start out by saying that I liked the overall theme of the episode—showing how certain events caused Kara and Alex to put their sibling tensions aside and eventually come together and start laying down the foundation of a strong bond. But the events that ultimately brought them together?

Yikes.

Before jumping into all that, I just have to say that Midvale looks like an awesome place to live. The winding seaside roads and lush forests looked like some serious Pacific Northwest scenery. Oh, and Kara’s mom’s place…forget about it. That house was so sick! I found myself asking how Kara and Alex could ever leave.

As I mentioned before, I liked the overall message. I thought having the sisters at each other’s throats as adults, then flashing back 10 years and showing them as teens at each other’s throats, was a really good storytelling device. Making them stay in their old room was the icing on the cake.

I think where it lost me a bit was when we were introduced to Kenny. I get it: the nerdy guy who keeps to himself and is a target of Joe Jock and others.  

But, I don’t think Kenny was just some innocent guy that drew the ire of his classmates because he was “different” or a bookworm. Now, it could just be me, but did anyone else feel like Kenny was a weird dude? He was definitely into more than just stargazing with his telescope.

When he and Kara are at the lunch table, he says something to the effect that if people only knew the info he had on them, they would treat him differently. I thought he was just being funny and using that line as a way to flirt with Kara and get her to laugh, after he was just embarrassed in the lunchroom.

But, later that night, Kara meets him in the middle of the woods. I thought that was odd until I saw his telescope setup and I was okay with it because I assumed it was a couple of science nerds about to do some astronomy work.

All good, right?

Turns out not so much. The red flag comes when Kenny tells Kara that his telescope reveals more than just the stars. I’m not exactly sure how Kara didn’t think this was weird—but maybe she was caught up in the puppy love.

After Kenny is killed, Kara and Alex uncover that he had been using his telescope to spy on people and compile quite a bit of dirt on various Midvale residents. But for some reason, that didn’t seem odd to either of them…

I get the angle of Kenny having the “dirt” on the hotshot quarterback/tormentor and holding it over his head as leverage. That worked because the dirt really wasn’t anything serious and it felt kind of like a victory for every nerd who had to deal with a meathead in high school—albeit a bit cliché.

What I thought was an odd choice by the writers was the relationship the teacher had with the student. This seemed unnecessary and in there for “shock” factor only, and to serve as another potential suspect in Kenny’s murder.

We ultimately find out that Kenny had seriously damaging information on the police Chief—which eventually gets him killed.

What was never clear to me (maybe I missed it?), and why I struggle with Kenny’s character, was if he planned on turning in the information he had on all these people, or if he was just merely a creepy voyeur type who collected this information to hold power over people?

To me, it seemed like Kenny was playing a dangerous game and ended up paying the price.

I think they try to salvage it a bit by showing that he had photos of Kara using her powers, but never exposed her. If I’m Kara, I would have been very concerned this guy was watching me and knew who I really was—not relieved and thinking that he was some nice guy who knew and didn’t say anything. This guy was clearly watching everyone!

I think I would have been more sympathetic to his character if he was a guy that had stumbled on some information and was putting the pieces together, but was killed before he could turn the evidence in.

Other than that, I dug the little Hank cameo. Very cool that he’s been involved since the get-go. Also…did he give Kara his car?

With Alex and Kara’s heads on a bit straighter after their stay in Midvale, I’m curious to see what’s in store for next week!

Until next time,
Matt
 

Guest writer Matt Ross covers Arrow as a part of the #DCTV Couch Club. Supergirl airs Mondays at 8 p.m. (7 p.m. CST) on The CW.