Supergirl Season 4: 4 Ups & 1 Down From What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & The American Way?

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1. All Purpose, No Person

James didn’t have much to do this week but we were teased with the future direction of his story when Mackenzie showed up with yet another “lead” from her seemingly reliable source. If you recall, the last time we saw this character, she had a lead from that same source about Lena Luthor which actually turned out to be accurate but James buried its truth because, well, Lena. While recycling the same storyline is already a convenience too far, the real problem lies in the source itself: Mackenzie.

Unfortunately, Mackenzie is nothing more than a plot device. She is called upon when the writers need to feed us information so that she can, well, feed us information. She took a pitch from Nia at the beginning of the season because they needed someone to deprive Nia of that very pitch. She was bigoted towards one of her fellow co-workers because somebody had to be, right? She then had a source for the ongoing experiments at L-Corp because the writers needed James to investigate.

For offering so many plot developments to the narrative, you would expect Mackenzie to be more of an important character, but she just isn't. There is nothing more to her other than the information she relays, so when she appears we know it must mean something and, quite frankly, it's just very on-the-nose.

While every character must serve a purpose to the narrative, it’s also important that there is more to these characters than just that purpose. Who are they? Why do they do what they do? Why on earth do they have a source that knows things about L-Corp? As there isn't anything to Mackenzie other than the purpose she is given on a weekly basis, she just isn’t important to the show, so we struggle to really care about anything she has to offer.

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