Supergirl Review: Bunker Hill (Season 4 Episode 8)
Supergirl Season 4 Episode 8, “Bunker Hill,” should have been so much more than it is. It should have been an episode focused on Nia Nal, made delightful with lots of screen time for Brainy. That is not what we get.
Instead “Bunker Hill” is, much like the rest of the episodes this season, a mixed bag of highs that give you hope something great is around the corner and frustrating lows usually involving Agent Liberty.
It’s not that Nia and Brainy aren’t significant parts of “Bunker Hill,” they are. We learn quite a bit about both of them.
Viewers learn that Nia is an alien with a hereditary power to dream the future when she reveals who she is to Kara. We also get to see more of the scope of her powers and how they work.
“Bunker Hill” confirms the connection between Brainy and Nia that has been implied since Supergirl Season 4 Episode 2, “Fall Out.” They even start to hint that Brainy’s connection to her is through Nura Nal (who we learned during San Diego Comic-Con is Nia’s great-great-great granddaughter) when he mistakenly calls Nia by that name.
Nia and Brainy are the best additions to Supergirl since Lena Luthor was introduced in Season 2 and as expected their scenes are the high points of the hour.
They provide the show with heart and levity, two of the things Supergirl desperately needs if it’s going actually meet the potential it has but can’t quite seem to always reach.
The importance of a character like Nia also can’t be overstated. There are so few stories about Trans characters and even less with positive representation. Even though we haven’t seen much of Nia’s story, what we have seen has been really well done. That matters and the writers, along with Nicole Maines, should be recognized for telling that story and telling it so well.
That’s what’s frustrating about “Bunker Hill.” There are these rich wonderful characters and stories to explore but as in earlier episodes, Agent Liberty takes up so much space with a story that is frankly not interesting anymore and drags everything else down with him.
The time that could have been spent learning about Nia and developing her relationships with both Kara and Brainy is given to Ben and his confrontation with Manchester Black, making Nia’s story a subplot rather than the main plot it should be.
The Agent Liberty storyline could have been interesting but instead of focusing on how the characters respond to a threat like resentment and hate that has no easy answer or really digging into larger political parallels they focus on Ben’s story and perspective. They only pay lip service to those more relevant themes.
With the exception of James, whose reaction to the Children of Liberty has been equally frustrating at times, none of the characters have truly been challenged by the more messy aspects of dealing with the rise in anti-alien sentiment. We haven’t seen a real emotional arc for any of them and that’s been the biggest disappointment this season (we did perhaps see the start of one with Lena in Supergirl Season 4 Episode 7, “Rather the Fallen Angel”).
By the end of this episode, I was really struggling to stay focused on what was happening because I was so uninvested in anything going on with Ben Lockwood and Agent Liberty.
I sincerely hope now that Agent Liberty has been revealed to the world and is being celebrated as a hero rather than the villain he is, the writers will move on from trying to get viewers to understand or empathize with Ben and focus on what made that storyline interesting to begin with. I hope the focus moving forward will be on Kara, Alex, J’onn and everyone else impacted by Agent Liberty, but not Agent Liberty himself.
That, or just finish his story and move on to the Red Daughter plot because the hand full of teases we’ve seen for that have been far more interesting than any of Ben Lockwood’s angst or diatribes.
Stray Thoughts
- I’d really like to see more story for Alex this season. There have been a few standout scenes from Chyler and I’m intrigued by her dynamic with Col. Haley but overall Alex hasn’t had much to do and I’ve missed her as a more central presence.
- In the same way that Agent Liberty has become less and less interesting each episode so has Manchester Black. I really liked him at first but in this episode, he is part of what drags everything down. That said, the last scene between Manchester and J’onn is quite good so I’m hoping they can get his character back to a more interesting place going forward.
- I hated the scene of Ben Lockwood’s wife getting the crowd to cheer him at the prison. I can understand that she may still love him or have conflicted feelings but she literally just learned he’s a cold-blooded murderer and doesn’t seem to care. If nothing else you’d think the fact that he’s been lying to her would at least give her pause before jumping to his side.
- The end of “Bunker Hill” gives viewers an introduction to the upcoming crossover episodes. While the premise of the crossover still seems interesting and I’m curious to see how Batwoman turns out, the teaser scene seemed a bit hoaky. I hope that’s not a sign of how the actual crossover will go.
What did you think of this episode of Supergirl? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Supergirl airs Sunday at 8/7c on The CW.
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Sarah Fields
Sarah is an obsessive geek who likes to get into the weeds and over think things. She is passionate about Sci-Fi and comics and is a giant classic film nerd. Sarah cares deeply about media representation and the power of telling diverse stories. When she's not writing or watching her favorite shows she spends her days working in the non-profit world trying to make life a little better for those that need some extra help.