Laura Vandervoort Cast as Indigo/Brainiac 8
Laura Vandervoort as Kara in “Smallville” (2010)
Two new casting announcements were made today during WBTV’s Supergirl session at the Television Critics Association Winter 2016 Press Tour, and Andrew Kresiberg made a big reveal about episode 13’s plot which will be based on a classic story. Spoilers below!
Laura Vandervoort (Kara on Smallville, Elena Michaels on Bitten) will play the recurring role of Indigo, described as a living, strong-willed supercomputer that was sentenced to Fort Rozz after turning against the people of Krypton. Now on Earth, Indigo will let nothing stand in her way. At Comic-Con, Vandervoort, who played Supergirl/Kara Zor-El on Smallville, disclosed that she was in negotiations to make a cameo appearance on CBS’ Supergirl.
Source: Deadline
CBS describes Indigo as a “super-computer who uses her advanced programming to terrorize those who have wronged her.” However Vandervoort won’t just be voicing an A.I., as Indigo “has the ability to blast force fields and lethal shots of energy from her hands and eyes, and an analytical mind that allows her to control human-made technology”. Vandervoort will first appear in episode 15 (source).
Entertainment Weekly teases that “all three Supergirls (Helen Slater, Vandervoort, Benoist) will unite in an episode later this season.”
Jeff Branson (The Young And The Restless) has been cast in the recurring role of Master Jailer. As the forceful and unrelenting jail guard on Fort Rozz, Master Jailer showed no mercy. Now on Earth, he is hellbent on catching all of the Fort Rozz escapees and brutally bringing them to justice.
Master Jailer, who fought Supergirl in Superman Family #214 and #219-#221, will appear in episode 14 (source).
Indigo was a member of the Outsiders who turned out to actually be Brainiac 8. Sorta. Her story is complicated (aren’t they all?), so pop on over to Dimestore Dames for the full scoop for some hints on where the TV series might be taking her. They’re clearly pulling from DC Animated Universe version of Brainiac, which was the supercomputer running Krypton’s daily operations. Andrew Kreisberg revealed to KryptonSite that Indigo is “one aspect of the Brainiac program”. Brainiac played a role in the Justice League Unlimited adaptation of “For the Man Who Has Everything”, which will be an important connection for Indigo as you will see below…
Co-showrunner Andrew Kreisberg also announced that episode 13 will be an adaptation of the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons 1985 Superman comicbook “For The Man Who Has Everything”, but with a Supergirl angle. The name of the episode will be “For The Girl Who Has Everything” In the comic book, Superman is in a coma, no thanks to alien tendrils around him. He dreams of happy life on his destroyed planet of Krypton, married with children. EP Greg Berlanti acknowledged that when Supergirl’s friends find her in the episode, she’s in a vegetative state. Berlanti said when Kreisberg boarded Supergirl, he wanted to head the narrative in a direction toward the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons comic book to “that moment in a journey where Kara had to fight for the life she had back.”
Source: Deadline
Moore’s story never made much sense for Superman, as Clark had no real connection to Krypton and no reason to view it as a “lost” idealized life. However this is the perfect story for Kara, and I’m cautiously excited to see how the show reinterprets it for the Kryptonian cousin who was actually ripped away from her life and has every reason to long for what should have been.