The CW DC "universe" (Smallville, Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning)

[Dînadan]

I mean, what the heck are they even publishing, we see Kara's articles being read out of glossy magazines, but they all seem to behave like they're doing a daily paper

I think CatCo. is supposed to be a media empire like Fox, so Cat Grant is supposed to be a Rupert Murdoch type, having ownership of newspapers, magazines, etc.

[MissKittyFantastico]

The company yeah, it's just they keep talking about reporter!Kara being with 'CatCo Magazine', but throw around references to daily news cycles and tomorrow's front page - I swear there's never been an actual spoken reference to a CatCo newspaper to back it up. It just irks me, and (right or wrong) makes me feel like the reporter scene is just a prop for whatever any given episode wants Kara to do.

Unless Kara's articles do appear in a newspaper, and Lena just has someone a couple of floors down in L-Corp's PR department making them into one-shot Kara Danvers Magazines on glossy paper for her to read. I'd buy that; office full of flowers after all. (BTW, calling it now, she totally knows Kara is Supergirl.)

[excalibur]

I literally grew up watching Samllville. I was in high school when the first season came out and watching Clark, not Superman, grow up along with me for 10 seasons...has given me an interesting perspective of the show. A lot of them were kinda bad monsters of the week with me really hating the Lana character at points but I have a good sense of nostalgia with this show

[Thalolli]

(BTW, calling it now, she totally knows Kara is Supergirl.)

But the actress who plays Lena has repeatedly said that as far as she is concerned Lena doesn't know and she even prefers it that way. If people don't see that, then she probably isn't a very good actress. (for the record, I think the Lena actress overacts a lot, and that the actors for Mon-El and James are also quite poor (though I like Mon-El when he is used for humor). The best actress to me is clearly "Alex", though Melissa Benoist has some amazing moments, in addition to just having overall likable charisma. I though "Maggie" was mediocre as well, but she surprised me in a positive way in the episode where Alex is abducted, I didn't think she had it in her).

To be honest, I don't understand that hype about Lena at all other than the actress being hot. Regardless of whether Lena knows or not (and I tend to take the word of the actress on this), doesn't change that Kara is still lying to her face about this. To me that seems in stark contrast to Kara willingly revealing herself to Winn in season 1.

I find the Kara/Lena friendship quite trite to be honest, it feels like a ripoff of Clark and Lex from Smallville (which I also found quite poorly written) and imo it pales compared to the Kara and Cat Grant relationship in season 1. The main thing I liked about Lena in season 2 were her interactions with her mother, which felt a lot more real to me. Overall I find the whole "will she/won't she turn" evil switcheroo stuff quite tiresome. I thought she was actually a more interesting character when it seemed for a while like she would actually challenge Kara, like when she and Kara were debating the pros and cons of the alien detection device.

I look forward to the new big bad next season and I hope that they won't screw up the Legion of Super Heroes stuff they are clearly planning.

Wait, isn't technically Smallville and oddly enough, Supergirl aren't in the same universe as the rest?

I watched Smallville on and off. I took a break somewhere in the middle, but in retrospect I liked how many elements they took from the comics and did their own spin on it.

[Darth Wedgius]

Just personal opinion, but I find the Arrowverse shows far more enjoyable than the Marvel Netflix shows, sort of an inverse of how the DCCU films are compared to the MCU films.

I like Luke Cage (I enjoyed the character in Avengers: EMH), but couldn't get into Daredevil. I haven't tried the others yet. I only watched a little Daredevil, though. Like SG:U and Enterprise, shows seem to get better as soon as I stop watching them.

[Dînadan]

Just personal opinion, but I find the Arrowverse shows far more enjoyable than the Marvel Netflix shows, sort of an inverse of how the DCCU films are compared to the MCU films.

I like Luke Cage (I enjoyed the character in Avengers: EMH), but couldn't get into Daredevil. I haven't tried the others yet. I only watched a little Daredevil, though. Like SG:U and Enterprise, shows seem to get better as soon as I stop watching them.

Luke Cage and Iron Fist weren't too bad. Daredevil was alright, although I haven't watched all of season 2 yet as I didn't enjoy most of the Punnisher stuff. The other one Jessica Jones (? I know it's Jessica something but not sure offhand if it's Jones or something else) was just misrible and I couldn't make it through more than a couple of episodes. Haven't gotten around to Defenders yet, so no idea if that's any good.

It's not that the Marvel shows are all bad do much as it is the DC ones blow them out of the water. And it's a case of the DC shows and Marvel films have a sense of, I suppose lightheartedness to them that the Marvel shows and DC films lack and the Marvel shows and DC films have a dreariness and grittiness that the Marvel fims and DC shows lack. And it's not a case that the lightheartedness means low body count, low stakes, etc like you find in say 60s Adam West Batman, because they still have dark moments and can have significant body counts. I suppose it's a case that, for me, the Marvel films and DC shows strike the right balance between various aspects.

[MissKittyFantastico]

(BTW, calling it now, she totally knows Kara is Supergirl.)

But the actress who plays Lena has repeatedly said that as far as she is concerned Lena doesn't know and she even prefers it that way. If people don't see that, then she probably isn't a very good actress.

Or she's a good actress, and Lena is a good actress

I kid - it's 99% projection on my part. But in all seriousness, I think it'd be an interesting twist on expectations. Lillian straight up storyboarded the expected Lena-feels-betrayed-goes-bad result of Kara keeping her identity from her, and I'd find it novel (as well as a neat affirmation of Lena being a genius) for the actual reveal to swerve away from the standard conflict-for-the-sake-of-drama - Kara/Supergirl expects Lena to feel betrayed, but Lena figured it out a while ago, and figured out why revealing her identity isn't as simple as just whether she trusts Lena personally or not, and has forgiven her for it the whole time. Maybe she'd rather Kara didn't, and makes it easy for her by keeping up the facade that she's oblivious - she can't shake the worry that as much as she tries, she's a Luthor and one day she'll go down the wrong path, and when she does Supergirl needs to be the one to stop her - but she's a better chessmaster than Lex, and could manipulate her white knight the way he failed to with Kal, so she's keeping that one wall up between herself and 'Supergirl' as insurance against herself.

It'll probably never happen - they already did 'she always knew' with Cat, they already did 'surprise, she's not a villain' with Lena double-crossing her mother with Myriad, and as much as I enjoy the show, I'm not confident that the writer's room (especially after the evidence of season two) isn't going to just take the route of easy drama and have Lena feel betrayed and angry. But until then, it's a pleasant fantasy.

[Thalolli]

The actress also said that if it was up to her she also like it if Lena doesn't feel too betrayed and would prove that she doesn't have the same anti-alien bias as her family by forgiving Kara quickly. But she still maintains that as far as she is concerned Lena doesn't know, that's how she plays it and that's how she prefers it.

At least with Cat there were hints that she suspected in season 1, including straight up accusing Kara of being Supergirl.

By comparison, they seem to set up storylines for Lena that rely on her not understanding that Kara=Supergirl (yes even if that makes her look very stupid).

Even if Lena knew, that doesn't change that Kara didn't tell her willingly thus far and instead tried to deceive her (just like with Cat back in the day). Yes I know that on Supergirl everybody lies to everybody (Alex to Kara, Mon-El to Kara, M'gann to the world, Lyra to Winn, Kara to Cat or Snapper, James to Lucy, Winn hiding his past), but it definitely contributes to me thinking their friendship isn't really all that great. I was very grateful that in season 1 both James and Winn knew about Kara being Supergirl instantly, so it didn't figure into Kara's romantic choices at all.

I think there's a difference between "I would really like that/this is my pleasant fantasy" and "I think this will happen/this is already happening (I'm calling it now)".

[MissKittyFantastico]

I think there's a difference between "I would really like that/this is my pleasant fantasy" and "I think this will happen/this is already happening (I'm calling it now)".

I did say I was kidding - and it was in the same breath as "Lena is self-printing Kara's newspaper articles into glossy magazines for her own amusement," so I wasn't being entirely my most serious self to begin with.

[Crowley]

I watched some of Arrow, and I kept constantly thinking: Why are they doing everything they can to turn Green Arrow into Batman? Why is this not an actual Batman show?