This last week on The CW, Supergirl went back home to Midvale, the Flash met The Thinker, the Legends went on a “Helen Hunt,” and both the Riverdale kids and Diggle came clean about drugs.
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But while the shows each had their own stories to tell, there were some connections and themes that seemed to run through the whole week. While we’ve covered the majority of the Easter eggs and big pop culture references for each show as they aired, taking a look at the week at the whole this week shows that while each of the shows are different, there are some elements that were very much the same — shared universe or not.
Read on for various themes and other things you may have missed from this last week’s CW programming.
Questionable teachers
Teachers are supposed to be good role models and trusted adults to students, but for young Kara and Alex on Supergirl and the kids at Southside High on Riverdale this week, their teachers weren’t people they could look up to.
On Supergirl, Alex and Kara discovered that Kara’s friend Kenny — who just so happened to have been murdered early in the episode — had discovered that the history teacher, Mr. Bernard, was having an inappropriate relationship with a student. How inappropriate? Well, Kenny had photographs of the teacher kissing the student, Alex’s friend Josie.
Riverdale has already covered the inappropriate student-teacher relationship in the show’s first season, but that doesn’t mean the moral quality of the teachers has improved. In this week’s episode, Betty was tasked by the Black Hood to figure out the identity of The Sugarman, the mysterious figure supplying Jingle Jangle to Riverdale. Turns out it’s Mr. Phillips, English teacher and faculty adviser to Jughead on Southside High’s Red and Black newspaper.
Awkward timing
Real world events sometimes impact television, such as when the first season Supergirl episode “How Does She Do It?” was swapped for an episode slated air at Thanksgiving following terrorist attacks in Paris. This week, no episodes were changed or delayed, but their timing with current events was a little uncomfortable.
Last week, a report alleged that Smallville star Allison Mack is a high-ranking member of a controversial sex cult. The Daily Mail UK posted an article that claimed that Mack was involved with the alleged cult NXIVM and was specifically the second-in-command of its subsect, DOS and some of the allegations are disturbing. The allegations were still fresh when last Monday’s Supergirl episode, “Midvale,” had a Smallville shout out, with young Kara referring to her cousin Clark’s friend Chloe. Mack played Chloe on the pre-Arrowverse show.
Supergirl wasn’t the only Arrowverse show with awkward timing. Andrew Kreisberg, who produces Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl and The Flash, was suspended by Warner Bros. Television Group amid allegations of sexual harassment last Friday. On Tuesday, Legends aired “Helen Hunt,” an episode in which the team must retrieve Helen of Troy from 1930s Hollywood and the episode was full of feminist themes about women in Hollywood and female equality.
Strong women
Women were a key part of The CW this week, particularly their strength. On Supergirl, young Kara and Alex took matters into their own hands to solve the murder of Kara’s friend Kenny with a teenage Alex even standing up to the murderer. On The Flash, it wasn’t exactly one of the ladies of Team Flash who stood up for what she felt was right. This time it was the bus meta the team was trying to apprehend, Black Bison. While her methods of justice were definitely skewed — she used her meta powers to kill those who dealt in Native American artifacts — she was trying to restore artifacts to her people. Fortunately, Barry and Ralph were able to apprehend her, but Ralph saw to it that her people got back the artifact that rightfully belonged to them.
As we mentioned when discussing the awkward timing between the CW shows and current events this week, Legends of Tomorrow as chock full of strong women, complete with Zari deciding to hack history and drop Helen of Troy on Theymiscira. Riverdale also continued the strong women theme with Betty standing up to the Black Hood, Veronica telling her parents about what Nick St. Clair had done to her, and even Cheryl took some power back, confronting her mother for never protecting and taking care of her.
And an honorable mention goes to Arrow‘s Lyla, who returned this week and both supported Diggle and also called him out for his use of drugs.
Drugs are bad
Drugs were also a theme last week on The CW with only The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow lacking obvious drug references. On the other shows, drugs and the drug trade all lead to difficult situations. On Supergirl, Kenny was murdered because he discovered the sheriff was dealing drugs while on Riverdale, not only did the kids have to face their families for having taken Jingle Jangle at Nick’s party, but the Sugarman was murdered by the Black Hood. And, on Arrow, Diggle came clean to his wife and the team about his drug use but not without a lot of personal struggle and angst, particularly when he watched his supply go up in flames when the team raided The Dragon’s production facility.
Before you go
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8/7c.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c, followed by Legends of Tomorrow at 9/8c.
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c.
Arrow airs Thursdays at 9/8c.
