After taking a break last week, Supergirl is back and better than ever. After being tormented with visions of a peaceful life on Krypton and having her only living relative who isn’t Superman killed and then being lied to about who did it, things haven’t been so great for Kara lately. She’s been left with her morals shaken and this episode takes a long, hard look at what she can do with her power.
Let’s dive into our Five Thoughts on the episode, shall we? As always, a spoiler warning
1. What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice And The American Way?
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned how concerned I was about the fact that the DEO was holding Max Lord prisoner without due process. Sure, he abducted a braindead woman and experimented on her until she was a doppelganger of Supergirl and used that doppelganger to try and kill Supergirl… but still. It was a morally dubious move at best and this episode brought it back as the central theme of the episode: is Kara better than the picture Maxwell Lord has painted of her?
Obviously, the answer is yes otherwise I’d be giving out about Supergirl being a fascist here, but the path that the episode took to get there with James Olsen being the one to really question who Kara has become these past couple of weeks. I thought it was interesting the Supergirl isn’t content with just being a supervillain-of-the-week type show and is actually exploring the ramifications of Kara’s existence in the world.
Speaking of which…
2. Kryptonian Punisher
Master Jailer was, I thought, a fairly entertaining villain for this week. Sure, he looks like Batman and operates like the Punisher and the reveal of his identity was the least surprising thing ever (barring the fact that they kept his name as Draper so it was instantly guessable, I wonder which of the two never-before-seen characters is going to be the villain?!), but he was a fun watch. This was largely due to the fact that the big fight scene between Supergirl and him – as seen above – being directed by Lexi Alexander, making it the best fight scene of the show so far.
The scene is still constrained by a network show’s budget, but Alexander knows how to direct action (don’t believe me? watch Punisher: War Zone) and is able to increase the overall quality of the direction in this episode overall. I hope they bring her back for more episodes in the future because this was easily the best directed episode of the show so far and the best fight scene in the show so far.
3. Rao’s Will Be Done
This was an interesting way to begin this episode. It was a nice way of keeping Kara connected to Kryptonian customs in a way that Clark could never be while firmly establishing Non as the new main Kryptonian villain Kara will have to face in the leadup to the finale. It also kept Astra’s death at the forefront of Kara’s mind throughout the episode as that grief has been what’s made her act harsher lately.
4. It’s What She Needs To Keep Going
Speaking of Astra’s death, I quite enjoy the tension that’s been placed between Kara, Alex and J’onn because of the lie constructed around who really killed Astra. We have Kara trying to lean on Alex’s shoulder and grieve, but Alex is overcome with guilt from lying to her sister while Kara takes out her anger on J’onn who’s taken the fall for the murder.
This is basically the tension threeway that they tried to create between Kara, Winn and James a few episode back, but instead of it being about how much the two of them want to bang Kara it’s actually about something emotionally important to the characters.
5. Assistant #2… Yikes, That’s Harsh
Introducing Siobhan Smythe a couple episodes before her turn into Silver Banshee was a pretty good plan and will likely make that turn a bit more engaging than Livewire’s back when they tried that, but jeez… did they have to shit on Kara like that? I get it, they’re trying to pull on the tension between Kara and Cat, but wow this was a harsh punishment over missing a day of work.
I am a little worried, though, by Siobhan’s whole “I’m not here to make friends” really TV show speech. They’re clearly trying to set up an antagonism between her and Kara before the eventually Banshee-ing, but I feel like it’s started off as a very one-dimensional rivarly that exists just for the sake of it. Maybe trying to fit this into an episode already packed with such heavy ideas hampered it a little.
