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"Supergirl": So Why Did The Show Kill Off Jeremiah Danvers So Sloppily?

The CW's Supergirl did a very strange thing this week – it killed off a character in the lamest way imaginable. Jeremiah Danvers was the father of Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh) and Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist). He was played by Dean Cain, who played Clark Kent in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman back in the 1990s.

Jeremiah was a major supporting character on the show. He was presumed dead and then showed up as a conflicted bad guy who betrayed everyone as an agent of Cadmus. Then he disappeared.

supergirl
The CW

 

At the end of last week's episode, Alex and Kara found out he was found dead. At the start of this week's episode, they said he died of a heart attack while doing humanitarian work overseas.

HUH?!?

This is the weakest way to kill off a character possible on a show. It's completely anti-climactic. This character was the father of the main heroines who helped them become who there are. They killed him off-screen with a bit of dialogue and no appearance by the actor who played him.

It was odd, sloppy writing and it made me wonder if this was the show's way to not have to work with Dean Cain anymore. I don't usually care about behind-the-scenes gossip on a show, but sometimes conflict can affect or change a show in a big way.

"Supergirl": Were Politics Involved?

Cain is known for his right-wing politics and support for Trump. That didn't stop the show from having him as a guest before, so what changed? Despite his professed support for LGBTQ rights, he has been criticized for appearing at an event hosted by an anti-LGBTQ hate group. Supergirl is a show that wears its support for LGBTQ rights on its sleeve. Since his last appearance on the show, Alex Danvers came out as a lesbian. The show introduced Dreamer (Nicole Maines), the first transgender superheroine on television.

"Supergirl": So Why Did The Show Kill Off Jeremiah Danvers So Sloppily?
Supergirl — "The Bodyguard" — Image Number: SPG514b_0076r.jpg — Pictured (L-R): Azie Tesfai as Kelly Olsen and Chyler Leigh as Alex Danvers — Photo: Sergei Bachlakov/The CW — © 2020 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

Did the producers decide Cain was no longer good optics for the show? Was this a quiet way to write him out of the show? Maybe killing off Jeremiah was a way to give Alex a trauma to work through and move her story forward with the Obsidian VR storyline, but it felt slapdash and clumsy.

We may never know the behind-the-scenes drama that led to an oddly hamfisted episode – but it does make us wonder…


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Adi TantimedhAbout Adi Tantimedh

Adi Tantimedh is a filmmaker, screenwriter and novelist who just likes to writer. He wrote radio plays for the BBC Radio, “JLA: Age of Wonder” for DC Comics, “Blackshirt” for Moonstone Books, and “La Muse” for Big Head Press. Most recently, he wrote “Her Nightly Embrace”, “Her Beautiful Monster” and “Her Fugitive Heart”, a trilogy of novels featuring a British-Indian private eye published by Atria Books, a division Simon & Schuster.
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