Superman & Lois wrapped its first season on the CW with one glaring omission. During the entire first 15-episode season the show didn’t mention Kara Danvers, Clark Kent’s Kryptonian cousin and star of her own long running show on the network, once, even though the entire season one storyline involved Krypton and other Kryptonians.
This is the kind of mistake the show didn’t have to make, and the fact that it was likely caused by the desire to get it right doesn’t make it any easier to stomach. Filming schedules were complicated due to the pandemic, and Superman & Lois and Supergirl, which were supposed to coincide in the CW schedule, ended up airing during completely different times of the year. This meant that the shows had a hard time establishing where one fit in the timeline of the other. As far as reasons why the two shows didn’t mention each other, this isn’t the worst one. Fans pick up on inconsistencies, and it’s understandable that the shows didn’t want to create one that was easily avoidable.
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But it’s still a very disappointing reality for fans and not a truly insurmountable obstacle. With some creativity, Superman & Lois could have found ways to reinforce Kara’s importance to her cousin, Kal-El, and his family, without even having Melissa Benoist present, or without establishing when the events in Superman & Lois were happening in regard to Supergirl. Fans didn’t require an appearance from Kara, all that was needed was a picture. Not even a recent one, a background picture of Kara, Clark, and Lois, establishing them as a family would have been a nice touch.
Or, if the show wanted to go farther without compromising the timeline, they could have brought up Kara during the flashback episode, establishing the relationship between Clark and Kara without having to worry about when the shows would air. There was also the option of a call that Kara never picks up in the present timeline, something that could have been explained later within the continuity of Supergirl. Even a text message exchange, or a single text message sent from Clark to Kara would have been much better than what the show did – which was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The Arrowverse was built on a shared idea. The first few seasons of Arrow and The Flash had the shows reference each other constantly, to fan’s delight. Even when Supergirl and The Flash existed on different Earths, the shows found ways to engineer a crossover. However, with all heroes existing on the same Earth, and Clark facing an army of Kryptonians, the fact that the show didn’t allow the character even one second to consider – or to attempt – to reach out to Kara feels like it goes against the very foundation of the universe the shows have built so hard to create.
It’s particularly glaring considering that Clark also had to deal with his teenage son, Jordan, developing powers during Superman & Lois season 1. As far as fans know the only other person who has experienced a similar thing is Kara. If anyone should have been there to support Jordan, to advise him, it should have been her. Moreover, the lack of any kind of mention throws the entire continuity of the show into question. Do Jonathan and Jordan even know Kara? Did Crisis change another thing fans didn’t realize?
Realistically, the answer is probably no. Crisis didn’t change anything else. The twins do know Kara, and Kara has had a chance to spend time with them and spoil them rotten. They probably have a group chat where they share funny memes and pictures of cute dogs. If Kara wasn’t around when Jordan developed powers, and later, as Smallville was being attacked by literal Kryptonian possessed humans, it’s because she couldn’t. She wouldn’t have chosen to stay in National City otherwise.
But Superman & Lois makes the mistake of leaving that to the viewers’ discretion. Assuming that fans can fill in the blanks never goes well for shows, because fans can indeed fill in the blanks. This means they can likely find better ways for the story to go than what they ended up getting. And literally, anything would have made more sense than what ended up happening. This is akin to a character dying their hair red and no one in the show’s continuity commenting on it, because writers want us to assume they already did off-screen.
It would have been nice to see Supergirl and Superman team up once again in the first season of Superman & Lois. Fans are likely not going to get a team-up during the last few episodes of Supergirl, and frankly, that’s for the best. Supergirl’s final episodes should be about Supergirl. But Superman & Lois should have done a much better job of making Kara a part of the narrative of a show that not only involved her family, but that focused so much of its first season on a storyline regarding her home planet. Good reasons or not, that it didn’t happen was a disservice to both Supergirl and Superman.
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