A few months back, we first got word of how Smallville alum Sam Witwer had been cast as Agent Liberty, who’ll serve as the big bad during Supergirl‘s fourth season. Then, when the first trailer for the next chapter in the saga dropped at San Diego Comic-Con, we fully learned of the character’s hatred for beings not originating on Earth.
So, now that we have exactly one month to go until showtime, we’re getting a better idea from where the disagreeable Ben Lockwood acquired his worldview. But if you were to assume that his parents’ influence rubbed off on him, then you’d be correct.
You see, Xander Berkeley (The Walking Dead) has been enlisted to play Ben’s father, Peter Lockwood, whom TV Line lets us know is “a middle-class factory owner struggling to make ends meet in a world that’s rapidly changing due to the rise of aliens from outer space living amongst us,” and that he’s “proud and single-minded, a family man who’s dedicated his life providing for people. The seeds of his discontent sows the beginning of an anti-alien wave.”
As you may have noticed, there’s some very thinly veiled political allegory there, something we know to be a recurring theme in the coming year. Though I understand why the producers are doing this, I can only hope that the the execution is in no way ham-fisted as these situations can so often be.
What’s cool about Berkeley’s casting is that this is far from his first association with DC. If you’re a lover of animation, then you know of how he has a proud history with the brand, having previously voiced Sinestro on Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Captain Atom for the direct-to-video flick Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, among several others.
Supergirl returns for its fourth season on Sunday, October 14 on The CW.
