A missed opportunity: William Dey on Supergirl
Disclaimer: this essay is entirely my own opinion. I do not claim to have any knowledge on how a tv show is being run. A character is not his actor and an actor is not his character. I do not recommend nor encourage hate to anyone, fictional or not. Everyone has his right to his own opinion. Also, spoilers for season 5 and 6.
Before I start, I have to say that I came into this fandom quite late. This was when the pandemic just started, Supergirl season 5 was still airing and I had no idea what kind of show it was. All I know was that Dr. Lexi Grey, Marley Rose and Morgana were on that show. So like most people getting bored being stuck at home, I started watching. It took me a couple of days to get through season 1 to 4 and in the mean time I found people of the fandom on Twitter and Tumblr. I was aware of how underwhelming season 5 was (at this point episode 15 was going to air), but I remember thinking âit canât be worse than season 2, right?â
Letâs start with the big elephant in the room: Karaâs love interests.
(Honestly this can be a whole essay by itself)
I actually liked that in season 4, Kara had no love interest and was flying solo for a while. She kind of been defined by guys (even with James in season 1) and finally there was a season where her love life wasnât the centre of attention. Season 4 ends with Lena finally knowing that Supergirl and Kara are one and the same and so season 5 was set up. (Lena and Kara in season 5 is a whole different rant but that is for another time)
We first meet William Dey in episode 1 of season 5. Catco was bought by Andrea Rojas (Lena being the previous owner) and she brought in a new journalist to help build Catco the way Andrea wants. I have to admit that I did not mind William (and Andrea) in the beginning. I actually liked that Kara had some competition at her work and that her boss is not a friend, so she will be having a harder time slipping away to do Supergirl stuff. I mean, William was a huge ass but then again sometimes in life you will have to deal with those kind of people, especially at work. But then slowly they started to give him a story (too generous to call it that actually). As they gave him more screen time, he became worse and worse.
Apparently, William was this huge dick because he was actually undercover, investigating Andrea Rojas and her family because his friend went missing after dating her. Although in order to be undercover, donât you have to work for someone? What was he going to do with that information? Anyway, he wanted to keep people at armsâ length. As far as I can remember (I didnât bother rewatching) he didnât really have any evidence supporting his theory that Andrea had something to do with his friend Russellâs disappearance, just that his friend didnât like her family (we see that Andrea does care a lot for Russell and did anything she needed to make sure he was okay).
Then Crisis happened and William is still there for some reason? In this timeline, Andrea never met Russell, which means he never disappeared, which means William never had to go âundercoverâ to investigate Andrea. And this is were the writers made the terrible decision of keeping him on the show and made an even worse choice to try to pair him up with Kara.
William Dey had the potential to be a good character. Not a great one, but good enough.
Beside the choice the writers make, I think there were 2 other scenarioâs that they could have gone with him:
Scenario 1: William leaves after Crisis
This would have been the best choice they could have made. By the time they started filming the episodes after Crisis, the show must have known how bad of a reception William got. It didnât help that the actor did an interview for 5x04 where he hinted to Kara and William getting closer. Like I said before, William had no reason to be around anymore after his âoriginalâ reason for being at CatCo didnât exist in this timeline. This would have been the perfect way to send this character away (I am aware that there a rumours that the actor got a contract to stay on the show for at least 2 seasons). His whole storyline of investigating Lex Luthor should have gone to Nia, who is also a journalist but I completely forgot because she actually doesnât really do anything with it?
Scenario 2: William is a villain
As mentioned before, when I first met William, I thought he would be a problem for Kara (and maybe even Nia). I thought that this was a guy that would do anything to get the biggest story and doesnât care if he comes across as a dick. Think of Spider-Man 3, where Peter had trouble with his job. This would have been a great opportunity for a storyline similar to that of Spider-Man 3, where Kara has conflict at work. They did it in the beginning, not sure which episode but Kara didnât have time to write an article that Andrea had assigned her because she was busy being Supergirl and William used that to take over her article and write it. William could have been a great problem for Kara in her work place.
If they had to keep him around for after Crisis as well, they could have gone with the route that William was a member of Leviathan or even a hench of Lex Luthor. They could have made him friendly with the Superfriends, but only because he has alternative motives.
Honestly, there are so many ways they could have made William a better character and itâs obvious that this character only exists to be a âno homoâ love interest for Kara and that the writers really donât care beyond that point.
And then there is the actor that portrays the character.
I donât know him personally and I can only judge on what he is willing to show through social media but man, does this guy need a lesson in PR. This fandom can already be very toxic with the different shipping wars going on. He really threw gas on a fire by that incident (even though he denies that he said it was towards certain shippers)
As an actor, you open yourself up to people forming an opinion on you. Doesnât an actor get a job based off of someoneâs opinion on whether you fit the show and the cast?
It is obvious that the actor is not experienced in being a series regular. He thinks that hate towards his character means that people hate him as well. Look, he is not the first actor on this show that gets hate. Chris Wood, Amy Jackson, Mehcad Brooks, Nicole Maines, Katie McGrath and even Melissa Benoist got/get their fair share of it. But they knew to never engage with it, since there is no point to it. Everybody will meet people who will like you and people who wonât. Itâs literally a part of life.
If you came this far, thank you for reading! I really needed to vent about this since itâs been stuck in my head for a long time. Sorry if there are any spelling mistakes, English is not my first language.
How would you have written William Dey if you had the chance? (And yes, he has to be part of season 5)
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