Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 22 - Make It Reign

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

With Selena's plans for Earth revealed, Kara, Mon-El and Alura must find a way to escape Argo City. At the same time, J'onn prepares to say goodbye to his father, M'yrnn.


Influences

Supergirl: The Movie (Villain named Selena trying to take over Earth, while Supergirl is trapped elsewhere), Superman 2 (three evil Kryptonians menace the Earth) and the film Man of Steel (Kryptonian invasion of Earth meant to terraform the planet into a new Krypton)


Goofs

Why do the Daughters of Juru need to terraform Earth? Isn't Kara proof that Kryptonians can survive (and indeed thrive) in Earth's atmosphere? (You can't argue with religious fanatics and they're sort of committed to their prophecy demanding they conquer Earth and change it... even if they do have super powers as it is now.)

Kara and Mon-El are strangely unphased by the explosion in Selena's secret room and their white clothes are surprisingly unsullied by the fire and dust kicked up by the collapsing ceiling.

If Reign's whole purpose was to ultimately terraform Earth into a new Krypton, what was the point of her going around enforcing a more lethal form of justice when she first awoke?

The death of Agent Demos is played up as being far more significant than it should be. While the character is one of the few named DEO background agents, he's hardly had enough screen time for his death to have much resonance.

The heat-vision blasts in this episode act more like concussive beams than heat-rays, knocking people back rather than setting things on fire.

James Olsen has nothing to do in this episode but come in and try and give Winn a pep-talk.

Honestly, a lot of the emotional moments in this episode seem to misfire or are played off far faster than they should be, such as Alex and Alura meeting face to face for the first time.


Performances

Carl Lumbly has stolen virtually every episode he's appeared in this season. This episode is no exception, though the interactions between him and David Harewood are easily the high-point of this episode and - speaking as someone who is losing his father to Alzheimer's - all too realistically portrayed.

Chris Wood has prove far better at underplaying Mon-El this year than he was in overplaying the cocky frat-boy in Season Two.  The moment in which he says everything while saying nothing while talking to Winn is a quantum leap forward in what we've seen him do with the character.


Super Trivia

The base idea of this episode bears some slight resemblance to the plot of the 1984 Supergirl movie, which briefly saw Supergirl trapped in The Phantom Zone and helpless to do anything about the villain - a witch named Selena. This episode sees Kara briefly trapped on Argo City with no way back to Earth, as it is threatened by a Kryptonian priestess with dark magical powers named Selena.

There's also some superficial resemblance to Superman 2, with three evil black-clad Kryptonians menacing the Earth with the assistance of a human stooge. (Lex Luthor in the movie. Thomas Coville here.)

The ultimate goal of The Daughters of Juru is revealed to be that of General Zod in the movie Man of Steel - terraforming Earth into a New Krypton.

A new version of Selena was introduced into the reality of DC Comics Rebirth in Supergirl #10 (August 2017). This Selena was a powerful sorceress, described as Heir to Ataxia. She was convinced to join the villain team The Fatal Five, which was being led by Emerald Empress against Supergirl. She abandoned the team in mid-mission, however, wishing to avoid a losing battle and having no real grudge against Supergirl or loyalty to her new comrades.

The two Daughters of Juru besides Selena are named Vita and Ayala. This is in honor of writer Vita Ayala, who co-wrote some issues of the DC Rebirth Supergirl series with Steve Orlando.

At one point, Selena muses that Supergirl "actually cares for these humans." This line is a paraphrase of one of General Zod's lines from Superman 2 -  "He actually cares for these Earth people."

M'yrnn proposes merging himself with the planet Earth in order to stabilize it in the face of Reign's attacks. This is what J'onn J'onzz eventually did with the planet Mars in the reality of DC One Million.


Technobabble

Harun-El is made toxic to Kryptonians by Earth's atmosphere.

M'yrnn says that The Reach will allow him to live forever within his son's mind.

Lena determines that Sam's body cells are reverting back to their natural state (i.e. Kryptonian) but her blood cells are oxygen deprived and shrinking, with some of them having become dormant. At Ruby's suggestion, Alex decides to try exposing Sam to the intense yellow sun lamps the DEO used for speeding Supergirl's healing.

Winn develops an omni-directional self-maintaining sub-atomic personal shield - i.e. a belt-mounted force-field. It is based around a frequency conversion of some sort and is the cornerstone of the new non-lethal tech that Winn is building for the DEO. The dumbed-down explanation is that it is like a magnet for atoms.

Zor-El had been working on a transmat portral - a teleportation device that could work across interstellar distances to send the people of Krypton to another planet.

Lena uses her refractive scatterfield to test Sam's eyesight. Since Sam is able to see through the field and see Lena waving at her, we know that her body is not reacting like a Kryptonian's should. If Sam were a healthy Kryptonian, she would have hurt her eyes just trying to look at Lena through the field.

Lena says that environmental factors can influence gene expression, turning it on and off. She theorizes she can use Harun-El to rejuvenate Sam's blood cells.

Kara is able to use the cache crystals as a sort of impromptu radio, allowing her to talk through the hologram of Alura in the DEO headquarters.

A multi-phase descrambler which links to a power source is part of the transmat mechanics. The insulator or Zor-El's transmat is cracked, meaning it will only be good for one trip.

Alex's new gun fires ammunition that generates an electrical net capable of briefly restraining three Kryptonians. It works until the net is blasted by heat vision. She also has Kryptonite bullets and the glove of her costume can generate a Kryptonite energy field.

Winn's personal force-field is shown to be strong enough to protect him from a Kryptonian heat-vision blast. It also keeps him from being killed when he is thrown against the wall by a Dark Kryptonian, though the concussive force is enough to knock him unconscious. The focused energy of three Kryptonians' heat vision, however, is too much for it, as Agent Demos tragically discovers.

Eve Teschmacher reworks the Harun-El to try and jump-start Sam's blood cells. It does not work. Lena thinks perhaps she can make it work by adjusting the ratio of the solution she used before and reinject Sam with it.

Lena determines that Sam and Reign are still connected by a symbiotic non-local entanglement. This means that Sam is getting weaker as Reign is getting stronger, despite Reign no longer being contained within Sam.

M'yrnn and J'onn interrupt The Reach to help evacuate National City.

Mon-El speaks of a world called Zune, who terraformed their world by digging to the planet's core, creating a Genesis event. The process took hours.

M'yrnn says that is he uses his shape-shifting and phasing powers to merge with the nexus point of Reign's attack, he can help to stabilize the Earth by merging with it.


Dialogue Triumphs

M'yrnn: Home is not a place. It is living among those who love and honor you. I can depart this world with peace because I know my son is home.

M'yrnn: These are happy memories. They should make you happy.
J'onn: And they do, Father. But they also remind me how much I'm going to miss you. Every memory that passes between us brings us closer to that eventuality.
M'yrnn: By the end of this, you will not feel loss, J'onn. You will feel complete. I promise.
J'onn: How do you know?
M'yrnn: Because I know the hole that comes with not knowing this. The way I felt when your mother was taken from me. When you were taken from me. Be patient, my son. Let the memories fill you up as you have filled me up.

(Winn is asking Mon-El why he hasn't returned to the future.)
Mon-El: Uh-yeah. Yeah, I was but then the time beacon broke and... Kara ran into some trouble, so I uh, I decided to stay back to...
Winn: (unconvinced) Uh-huh. Always the hero.
Mon-El: Yeah.
(Mon-El pauses, before speaking in a more quiet tone.)
Mon-El: I lost her once, man. I'm not sure I can do it again.
(Comprehension dawns on Winn's face, as he glances to where Alex is working.)
Winn: Wow, really?  Dude.  Dude, forget Reign! You need to get back here fast so we can get a drink!
(Mon-El chuckles.)

Selena: Give me the blood.
Kara: You want the blood? You can have it.
(Kara throws the blood vials into the air toward Selena. Her heat vision catches it in mid-flight as Selena catches it, wincing as it begins to burn and melt in her hand.)

M'yrnn: This planet is my son's home. I intend to save it with him!


Dialogue Disasters

Eve: More bad news?
Lena: Yeah. Sam's no better. And now three people in National City with the same powers of Supergirl have just murdered somebody.
Eve: Oh. That is not good.


Continuity

The Daughters of Juru had a prophecy which foretold of three of them standing on Earth in order to bring about the rise of Reign.

The three members of The Daughters of Juru are revealed as Selena, Vita and Ayala.

Harun-El is made toxic to Kryptonians by Earth's atmosphere.

Selena had an atlas of Earth in her secret quarters.

Kara identifies some of the writings on the atlas as being identical to those in Coville's journal. She recognizes them as the instructions to create a Worldkiller from 319.

Sam is not feeling well but has not transformed into Reign again.

M'yrnn comes by the DEO to say goodbye to Alex.

The Reach ceremony requires a Martian artifact called The Staff of Kh'ollar.

Alex is left in charge of the DEO while J'onn is away performing The Reach.

Among the items on Selena's secret room, Kara finds a scabbard which has "Whoever wields this sword shall bathe in the blood of the old worlds and reign with might over the new." written upon it. Alura identifies this as The Scabbard of Juru and the line as a quote from an ancient Kryptonian religious text.

Selena leaves behind a hologram of herself that speaks to Alura along with a fire-bomb trap that wounds Thara.

Selena explains that she gave Kara the Harun-El because it was necessary for Sam and Reign to be separated in order to enact the final stage of her plan and helping Kara saved her the trouble of doing it herself.

Sam says that she was feeling totally normal but now feels so weak she can barely hold her head up and that her insides are melting away.

Agent Demos has some kind of grudge against Winn.

The gravity manipulator Mon-El purchased in 321 is destroyed by Selena's trap. This means he cannot use it to contact The Legion and have them come to help get him and Kara to Earth.

Kara spent many afternoons watching her father work in his lab. He often used her as a sounding board for his ideas. She remembers him always talking to her as if she were another scientist.

The ritual to bring back Reign fails because they do not have the blood of Purity and Pestilence. Luckily, Thomas Coville knows that blood samples can be found at the DEO.

Lena uses her refractive scatter field from 319 to test Sam's vision.

Selena was able to get Zor-El's transmat mostly-functional. The problem is that it would require another transmat portal at their destination in order to function.

The DEO has a transmat portal, which Winn recovered in 209.

The DEO also has Kryptonian cache crystals, like the ones in Zor-El's lab.

Kara is able to use the cache crystals as a sort of impromptu radio, allowing her to talk through the hologram of Alura in the DEO headquarters.

There are 500 million potential moves on an Ok'Rock'Tock board.

Alura comes to Earth with Mon-El and Kara.

Agent Demos dies after being hit by the heat vision of all three of the Daughters of Juru. This turns out to be too much for Winn's new force-field belt to cope with.

Eve Teschmacher is still working in Lena's lab, helping her with trying to save Sam.

Enough of the dried blood of Purity and Pestilence remains on Serena's hand after Kara's heat-vision blast for her to sprinkle the ashes of it into the fire being used to reform Reign.

The Fountains of Lillith are two fountains from ancient Kryptonian mythology said to be in The Valley of Juru. Alura learned of them from Jindah Kol Rozz, who ranted about them at her sentencing. One fountain gave infinite strength. The other gave weakness. Rozz spoke of a woman born of the fountain, who had the power of destruction - i.e. Reign. Kara theorizes that this may be the source of Reign's power rather than Earth's yellow sun.

Sam asks for Lena to help her return to The Valley of the Juru (where she went in 317) so she can use the fountain to indirectly weaken Reign.

Reign's awakening triggers an 8.0 earthquake in National City, super-storms and tornadoes in Madagascar and a tsunami warning.

M'yrnn declares his intention to merge with the nexus point of the disaster, allowing him to stabilize it.


Location

The new Fortress of Sanctuary


The Bottom Line

On the one hand, the plotting of this episode is utterly nonsensical, with the reasons for Reign's existence having completely changed amid a host of minor things that don't make sense like concussive heat vision and the expectation that we're supposed to be deeply moved by the death of Agent Demos while undercutting emotional moments that should be more powerful, like Alex and Alura meeting.

And yet... for everything this episode borrows from earlier Superman and Supergirl stories, the execution here is far stronger than in those earlier stories. By making the Kryptonians trying to destroy the Earth to create a New Krypton into religious fanatics rather than soldiers adhering to some elitist eugenics program, Supergirl Season 3 has corrected the biggest flaw with the plot of Man of Steel. For all its flaws, this episode largely works in spite of itself.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 21 - Not Kansas

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 




Plot

With the threat of Reign seemingly resolved, Kara returns to Argo City with Mon-El as she considers where she truly belongs. Meanwhile, back on Earth, J'onn discovers that DEO weaponry is making its way into the streets of National City and seeks James Olsen's help in discovering how.


Influences

The Return To Krypton storyline from Superman (Clark restores the city of Kandor and its people to proper size, only to discover that he doesn't fit in there.) and the on-going real-world debate involving gun control in the United States.


Goofs

Kara describes Argo City as the city where she grew up and says that while a lot of it was destroyed, most of it has been rebuilt. This doesn't jibe with what we saw in the previous episode, where Kara didn't even realize she was in a Kryptonian city (much less her home town) until she saw the writing on the memorial.

Why do they throw going-away parties for Kara in both of her identities when she hasn't decided if she's returning to Argo City permanently or not?

J'onn's decision to disarm the DEO doesn't make a lot of sense on multiple levels while simultaneously seeming like a step that should have been taken years ago. While The DEO might require standard weaponry when posing as FBI agents (which they do most of the time when they are in the field), most of their targets tend to require more specialized weaponry and equipment to deal with in any case.

It also bears mentioning that Winn is not a weapons designer by training or inclination, so throwing the job of designing non-lethal weapons at him seems a bit strange but well in keeping with the "a genius can do anything" ethos of the show.


Performances

As usual, the chemistry between Melissa Bennoist and Chris Wood is fantastic.


Artistry

It's a subtle thing, but Winn playing with a NERF gun and nearly shooting himself by accident while talking to Guardian is a neat bit of foreshadowing for the theme of the episode.

The sequence of Kara and Mon-El in the garden perfectly mimics the scene that opened Season 3, right down to the music.


Super Trivia

The title is a reference to a line from the 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz - "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Kannar-Onn is a Kryptonian rite of passage that is meant to be conducted every decade of a person's life. Superman once made reference to this ritual and teaching it to his daughter Cir-El in the comics.

The DCTVU version of Krypton on Earth 38 has a ritual called Kannar-On as well. Kara finds a certificate indicating that she passed it while sorting through various mementos in her mother's house. This version of Kannar-Onn sounds something like the Bat Mitzvah of Jewish culture, requiring hours and hours of study of Kryptonian history and heritage.

This episode introduces a new character - a woman named Thara Ak-Varr. We are told that Thara was one of Kara's closest friends during her childhood in Argo City. She is now the Chief Peace Officer of Argo. All of her family died during the destruction of Krypton. She is married to a man named Lir-Al and has two children.

The name of Thara is one of some significance to the Kryptonian saga in DC Comics. The first woman to bear that name was Thara Gem-Zee. A native of the city of Kandor, she was the niece of Van-Zee and the wife of Ak-Varr. Van-Zee and Ak-Varr were the secret identities of the Kryptonian vigilantes Nightwing and Flamebird during the Pre-Crisis Era.

In the Post Crisis Era, Thara was the name of Kara Zor-El's best friend in childhood - Thara Ak-Varr. This Thara was the daughter of Ak-Varr and a woman named Tes. She was also a resident of Kandor and was reunited Zor-El and Alura when Brainiac captured and shrunk Argo City as he had Kandor and combined the two populations. Kara's parents raised their daughter's friend as if she were their own daughter, due to the deaths of her family. She would later take up the vigilante identity of Flamebird for herself.

The boy whom Mon-El cured of his lung disease is revealed to be named Val. Val is a common name on Krypton, shared by two previous characters. One of Superman's ancestors in the Pre-Crisis Superman comics was an explorer named Val-El. A scientist named Val-El, who is now a character on the Syfy series Krypton, is depicted as one of Superman's ancestors. Val-Zod is also the name of the second Superman of Earth 2 in The New 52 reality of DC Comics.


Technobabble

Argo City has artificial gravity powered by some kind of synthetic gravity manipulator. Since gravity can be used to bend space-time, Mon-El can use that to send a message to the future.

Winn conducts a ballistics test that confirms that the gun which dented Guardian's shield is the same type of assault rifle used exclusively by The DEO.

The Heel 14 is a civilian version of the assault rifle exclusively produced for the DEO. It can be modified with a bump-stock to create a gun identical to a DEO assault rifle.

According to Lena, Harun-El is more than just a a biolistic delivery system. It could be revolutionary for reasons she does not explain.


Dialogue Triumphs

Kara:  (To Alex) When I first got here, I was alone and scared, having just lost everything. And I would walk around and feel this dull.. empty pit. A hollowness. And yeah, we got off to a rocky start, but once we got close, that hollowness just disappeared. That was you. You filled my heart. And no matter where I go, you will always be in it.

Alex: You have given all of us so much as Supergirl. Reign is gone. You have dedicated your whole life to taking care of others. It's time for Kara Zor-El to take care of herself. And no one deserves that more than you. But. Selfishly? I don't know what I'm going to do without you.

Mr. Preston: I wouldn't dream of standing in the way of your investigation.
James: No, you just dream of a world where everybody is armed to the teeth, right?
Mr. Preston: And you dream of a world where person reads CatCo Magazine. We're both businessmen, Mr. Olsen.

Alura: Kara, you've had to live your life as a warrior. Surviving on a foreign planet. Defending others. You have to take in the fact that you don't have to live that way anymore. You've spent so much time taking care of others. Maybe it's finally time that you take care of yourself?
Kara: It's funny.. my sister, Alex.. she almost said the exact same thing.
Alura: Well, I know why you love her so much.

Arthur: They never respected me!
J'onn: You think that gun gives you respect? It has no power. It's just a tool for spreading fear and fear is not respect.

Mon-El: I know you've moved on. From us. But I didn't just come back here to help you fight Reign. When I left Imra, she asked me to... sort out how I felt. And not just about her. (pauses and takes a breath) About you. And I've been trying to convince myself that friendship between us was the right thing... but I think I've been lying to myself.
(Kara bites her lip and looks down.)
Mon-El: I'm sorry to spring this on you in the midst of you trying to acclimate here...
Kara: Don't be sorry.
Mon-El: I just don't want to hide things. Pretend like they don't exist.
(Kara nods and sighs.)
Kara: After you left... I had a dream where I was walking down this path. A lot like this one. It was peaceful and serene and... you were there waiting for me. And all I wanted was for you to be in that field with me.
(She takes a step closer to him.)
Kara: Now you are.
Mon-El: (nodding) Now I am.
(Kara reaches up and strokes Mon-El's beard.. as a beeping is heard in the distance.)
Mon-El: What's that?
(The two look away from each other to see a robot with red eyes flying toward them.)


Dialogue Disasters

James: I heard what you said about strength and peace, and I believe in that. That's why the only weapon anyone needs is a shield.
J'onn: That's something my father taught me a long time ago. Thank you for helping me remember that, James.


Continuity

Lena is able to use the Harun-El sample to make a cure for Sam, seemingly destroying Reign.

Supergirl asks Lena if she can synthesize more of the Harun-El and tells her about Argo City. Lena says she will try.

It is revealed that the box Alura gave Kara when she returned to Earth in 320 contained a Dar Essa flower.

Kara decides to return to Argo City. She invites Mon-El to come with her.

Officially, Kara Danvers goes on some kind of special assignment to explain Kara's absence from her job at CatCo.

Kara discovers her best friend from childhood - Thara Ak-Varr - is still alive. Thara is now married with two children and is the Chief Peace Officer for Argo City.

Kara hates Opera. Alex loves it, especially Puccini.

M'yrnn has built up a taste for opera. J'onn thinks the complex rhythms and orchestrations of the musicare helping him with his memory problems.

M'yrnn claims that a surge of clarity comes before a Martian with his dementia issues dies.

M'yrnn asks J'onn to perform a Martian ritual called "The Reach" with him. This ritual allows a Martian to telepathically pass all of his knowledge and memories on to his children.

J'onn is in denial about his father being close to death.

J'onn refers to the events of 205 and a gang that utilized alien weapons.

James identifies the weapon that the bank robber used as an assault rifle exclusively used by The DEO, which possessed enough power to dent his Guardian shield.

J'onn says that he had all of the DEO's weapons microchiped following the events of 314 and Winn's mother stealing a gun from the DEO Armory.

Val, the boy whom Mon-El helped in 320, is revealed to be entirely healed of his lung disease.

Kara learns about what Mon-El did to help heal Val.

An out-of-control girder nearly crushes Kara in the Argo City marketplace.Kara saw someone in hooded dark clothing running away from the scene after it happened.

Mon-El gives Kara his Legion Flight Ring to wear in case she needs it.

The manufacturer of the DEO assault rifle makes a civilian version, The Heel 14, which is legally classified as a hunting rifle, that can be modified with a bump-stock to be identical to an assault rifle.

Clark Kent was somehow able to track the private sale of an assault weapon despite the lack of a central gun registry. This confirms that Earth 38 USA has similar gun laws to the real world.

Lena is firmly pro-gun ownership, owning a personal gun that she claims to have used in self-defense before.

James is firmly pro-gun control, not seeing how a government gun registry can hurt non-criminals.

Eve Teschmacher - James Olsen's personal assistant - is revealed to have studied nuclear physics at Yale.

Ol-Irus is an electronics merchant in Argo City who is a bit of an oddball. He was apparently once a science teacher, who taught both Kara and Thara as children. He once assigned them to take insect samples home to study and they wound up reproducing in the hundreds.

Laura is the name of the landscape architect working on Thara's lawn. Thara complains that she built a stone gazebo so that it was facing  south so they could enjoy the view of the lake off their orchard. Instead, it is facing north towards the woods.

Kara spots another hooded figure watching her at dinner. This woman is later revealed to be Felra. Her husband owns a grocery store.

There is no digital trail or paper trail for the purchases of Heel 14 rifles. This leaves the DEO having to call every individual gun store in National City and hoping the owners kept accurate records of who purchased that gun recently. Even with all the DEO's resources, the are only able to identify 10% of the people who purchased the weapon.

Winn is, however, able to pull photographic records of every person who bought more than one weapon at once including a Heel 14.

The girder that almost hit Kara is blamed on a faulty part.

Felra was at work at the time of the construction accident.

James identifies the shooter as Arthur Willis. He passed his background check with no problems and had no history of mental illness. He bought four guns at the time he purchased his Heel 14. He is revealed to be a lawyer with Vang and Morales whose wife left him due to his workaholic habits trying to earn a partnership at his firm, only to be fired once they thought he was no longer useful.

Vang and Morales claim they offered Arthur Willis mental health counseling after several outbursts at work but he refused it.

Mon-El tells Kara that he still loves her.

Kara refers to her dream from 301 and how she saw herself in a meadow with Mon-El.

Mon-El and Kara are attacked by a robot in the garden. They escape thanks to the Legion Flight Ring and spy Felra watching them.

Felra says that she is a Daughter of the Night and a Child of Juru and that Selena is the high priestess of their order.

When Kara says that Selena helped her to defeat Reign, Felra says nothing is as it seems.

J'onn declares that The DEO will begin phasing out all lethal-force weapons and destroying all of their guns. This results in several DEO agents quitting, despite J'onn offering to let them transfero into another unit of federal law enforcement.

J'onn places Winn in charge of developing a line of non-lethal weapons for all DEO agents to use in place of standard handguns.

Lena brings Eve Teschmacher into her private lab to help her with studying The Harun-El.

Lena thinks she can use the Harun-El toward revolutionary ends.

J'onn begins preparing to undergo The Reach with M'yrnn.

Alex makes the decision to adopt a child and begins looking at agencies on her computer.

We see Sam and Ruby watching Singing In The Rain together, when Sam suddenly freezes up and drops a glass.

J'onn's spaceship is stolen from Argo City by the Children of Juru, including Selena. The burning symbol of Reign is left behind where it was parked.

Selena and the Children of Juru (two other women) use a crystal, provided by a waiting Thomas Coville, to create a new Fortress of Sanctuary.


Location

Argo City

The forest where the new Forest Of Sanctuary is erected.


Untelevised Adventures

Where Thomas Coville has been since 312 and where he acquired the crystal used to make a new Fortress of Sanctuary.


The Bottom Line

There's a lot about this episode that doesn't add up, but the performances - as with most of Season 3 so far - does a lot to sell it.

The chief oddity is that the fact that Supergirl's mother is alive isn't played up nearly as much as it should be and Alura has an amazingly small role in the events of this episode. The fact that Kara asks Mon-El to return to her with Argo City in a social capacity and not Alex is also odd, as you'd think Kara would want the two halves of her family to meet!

The gun control subplot doesn't quite work either. While I have no objection to a television superhero series like Supergirl trying to tackle social issues (my favorite comic is Green Arrow, for crying out loud), the lines drawn between the characters don't quite work. Naturally, Lena - as a strict individualist who has had her life threatened continually - is firmly behind people's right to arm themselves for self-defense... yet Lena is more than capable of creating defensive technologies to render guns obsolete!

Likewise James, as a black man who is used to being viewed with suspicion even when unarmed despite his relatively high-society position, has some fairly strong views about less guns being a good thing... but his position about the only weapon a person really needing being a shield doesn't quite work since not everyone has access to the technology and training he does.

What's really weird is that Alex isn't given a chance to weigh in on this question, when you think that she - as someone who depends upon using guns in her day job who is thinking of becoming a parent - would be the perfect point-of-view character for a story line involving guns and the pros and cons of owning one and how society responds to gun violence. It makes way more sense for Alex to be the one coping with this issue than J'onn, whose edict at the end seems remarkably short-sighted ignoring that Winn isn't a weapons specialist and ignores that The DEO is already using a variety of non-violent weaponry as regular bullets don't work on a lot of aliens.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 13 - Both Sides Now

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 



Plot

The DEO captures Purity - the second of the Kryptonian Worldkillers, but Kara and Alex have very different ideas about how to approach her. Meanwhile, J'onn and Winn assist Mon-El in repairing the Legion of Super Heroes ship.


Influences

The Michael Green/Mike Johnson run on Supergirl (character of Reign and concept of Worldkillers)


Goofs

Alex seems to have fully recovered from her broken leg from a few episodes ago. (I can buy the DEO having some kind of tech that would speed her recovery, but they could have made mention of it when Alex was still in a cast two weeks ago.)


Performances

The scene between David Harewood and Chris Wood as they discuss marriage and secrets is a great bit of work for both actors.


Artistry

The effects work for Purity's powers are good.


Super Trivia

In the New 52 Supergirl comic, The Worldkillers were a group of genetically engineered creatures designed by Kryptonian scientists (overseen by Zor-El) using embryos from other species to create living biological weapons capable of destroying a planet. Reign was one of the Worldkillers and the first that Supergirl encountered. Five total Worldkillers survived the destruction of Krypton.

None of the Worldkillers in the comics were named Purity or Pestilence.

Reign was the leader of a group of four of the Worldkillers. She possessed enhanced strength, durability, speed and endurance on par with Supergirl as well as the power to fly. She was also a master of hand-to-hand combat.and sword fighting.

The cat-like Deimax was the second Worldkiller in Reign's team. She had the claws and fangs of a tiger as well as enhanced strength and durability.

Flower Of Heaven was the third member of Reign's team. This insectoid being had the power of flight as well as energy absorption and projection powers. Her purpose was reportedly to attack a planet by overloading planetary systems.

The final member of Reign's team was the reptilian Perrilus. Possessing the same enhanced strength, speed, endurance and flight powers as Reign. She also had the power to generate poisons and viruses within her body, enabling her to kill whole populations by passing among them.

Purity's displayed powers include a sonic scream akin to that of Black Canary/Black Siren and the ability to generate localize earthquakes, presumably though some kind of sonic manipulation. She is also telepathic, claiming to be able to see inside people - a power she proves when she taunts Alex with information about her break-up with Maggie Sawyer. She is also able to fly and is invulnerable enough to break glass with her body and not be harmed. She is also strong enough to wrestle with Supergirl and come close to strangling her.


Technobabble

Kryptonian cache crystals are used to store sensitive information. Each crystal has a signature of sorts, being composed of the same materials unique to the place that make it, like an artist's stamp. The crystal Purity had possessed a different signature than the cache crystals of the Fortress of Solitude.

The vibrations given off by Purity's powers are tuned to specifically hurt Kryptonians.

Moran Batteries are used to generate anti-gravitational fields.

The Legion of Super Heroes ship has five power sources, including one Moran Battery.

Martian moonshine has a consciousness-enhancing quality to it and a spicy flavor. 

Winn alters some old DEO technology to generate a counter-frequency that should protect the DEO team from Purity's sonic blasts. It does nothing, unfortunately, to counter area effects, so Purity is able too destroy the floor and support beams around her when cornered in the subway station.

Measurements in Moran math are based on a scale of 12 rather than 10.

When Mon-El was attempting to use J'onn's Moran battery to jump-start the Legion's, they were over-loading it due to the discrepancy based on using the 10 scale instead of the proper 12 scale.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Kara is trying to convince Alex to let her just talk to Purity and reason with her.)
Alex: We can try it your way.
Kara: Thank you.
Alex: And when your way fails, we try it mine.

(Sam announces her plan for her and Ruby to skip work and school respectively.)
Sam: Sound like a plan?
Ruby: Hell, yeah!
Sam: You get precisely one, "Hell, yes" today. I hope you enjoyed that.
Ruby: Okay.

(Purity and Supergirl curse at each other in Kryptonian.)
Purity: The three will walk across the land. And the blood of the weak will water the new world.
Supergirl: Rao defies you! I defy you! And I will bring you low!

(Mon-El is telling J'onn about how his marriage with Saturn Girl was political and he grew to love her but it's not the same as with Kara.)
Mon-El:  But with Kara, I mean... (chuckles) There was... there was nothing logical about falling in love with Kara. I mean, she was a Kryptonian... elitist and I was this completely self-absorbed misogynist. Not anymore. But what I felt for her... it was just.. (pauses) Being back here is, um. ...I've had to keep a distance from Kara. Because whenever I'm around her, these old feelings get stirred up. And then I have to hide it from Imra. But lately, there's been all this friction between us, cause of... I know it's my fault and I just... I don't know what to do.
J'onn: You know... if you think keeping secrets from your wife is hard, you should try keeping secrets from a Martian.
(Mon-El snorts at that.)
J'onn: My wife and I would uh... would bond and literally share our thoughts and feelings every night. Marriage is sharing, Mon-El. Everything. You are not a criminal because you have complicated feelings. If you truly love and honor, Imra, maybe you should let her in?


Dialogue Disasters

Kara: I am used to you being pragmatic, but since when have you become so hard and cynical?
Alex: Well, not all of us are bulletproof, Kara.
Kara: I know.
Alex: So cynicism, that's what's keeping the rest of us alive!
Kara: It seems like it's killing you.


Continuity

Purity's powers activate after she feels threatened by Alex Danvers.

Lena orders Sam to take a day off.

Winn finds a Kryptonian cache crystal in Purity's home.

The mileage on J'onn's starship is 700 million miles.

Winn is a car guy.

Julia Freeman was adopted in 1993 by Lawrence and Molly Freeman. She is allergic to milk and studied music at the Cincinnati Conservatory.

Purity claims that Julia Freeman was just a role that she played and that there is not a "real" Julia. Later, she admits that she was lying as she strangles Kara, saying that she is going to make Julia watch Supergirl die.

Vinita Ripson was Julia Freeman's roomate at the conservatory and is her best friend and emergency contact.

Kara refers to the events of 311, where Julia saved Vinita's life by pushing her out of the way of a car.

When Purity's cache crystal activates, it sends a signal of some kind to Reign. It also generates a power surge that shorts out the power dampeners in her cell at the DEO.

J'onn was married for 77 years.

Mon-El tells J'onn that his marriage to Saturn Girl was arranged - a political wedding to unite two warring factions of planets in the early days of The Legion of Super Heroes.

Saturn Girl comes from an important family on Titan, one of Saturn's moons.

Titan led a faction of planets that were opposed to Earth and its allied worlds.

Mon-El says that he grew to love Saturn Girl after being friends and partners with her for a time in The Legion but that what he feels for Kara is threatening that.

Martian spouses would bond and share their thoughts and feelings every evening.

Ruby tells Lena about Sam's missing time, lost memories and disappearing.

Julia goes with Reign willingly to save Alex's life.

Mon-El says he isn't sure if he is still in love with Kara or not.

Saturn Girl fell in love with Mon-El because he was so honest.

Saturn Girl and Brainiac-5 had another reason for returning to the past that was kept secret from Mon-El.

Sam has a black-out in front of Lena, briefly becoming Reign when she is angry at Lena telling Ruby about her illness.

Lena says she knows what is wrong with Sam but that she can fix it.


The Kryptonite Factor

Alex's sudden refusal to believe in Kara's ability to appeal to people's better angels is forced only so there is some kind of conflict regarding the treatment of Purity.


The Bottom Line

Up until the halfway point, this episode is painful, with Kara and Alex written as parodies of themselves and Purity being the typical gloating villain.  Then we get to the J'onn/Mon-El bonding scene and somehow, the episode turns around. Every character moment afterward is good enough to forgive the bad that came before and the final ten minutes is magic.

It's aggravating, however, that we have two major bombshells dropped just before the show goes on hiatus for a few months. And you know this episode must have been amazing because Legends of Tomorrow is my favorite CW show right now and I've been anxiously awaiting John Constantine's return, yet I would delay it's return just to know what The Legion's real mission in the past is and what Lena has figured out about The Worldkillers.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 17 - Distant Sun

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 




Plot

Alien bounty hunters swarm National City when a price is placed on Supergirl's head. Meanwhile, Alex deals with awkwardness when Maggie's ex comes into town for a few days and J'onn receives an interesting order from President Olivia Marsdin.


Influences

Romeo And Juliet (name-dropped by Mon-El, the theme of noble families and forbidden love)


Goofs

Odd that the most powerful telepath in the Alcorian system doesn't read the mind of the guy who threatens him to see if the weapon he's being threatened with is real and, oh, not a stapler.

Where did Queen Rhea learn that Kryptonite could be used to hurt Kryptonians? (It's possible she got the information from some source on Earth, but it seems unlikely given her high-and-mighty attitude toward the Earthlings having anything to benefit her people.)

For that matter, given how much The Daxamite royalty hate Krypton and anything associated with it, what are the odds they'd be hauling Kyrponite around with them to be fashioned into knives when they call the rocks of Krypton "litter" and had no idea their son had fallen in love with a Kryptonian woman until a week ago?

The Daxamites have been orbiting Earth for a little over two weeks now - give or take. Why then, can the king be stabbed to death with a simple knife? Shouldn't he have the same invulnerability that Mon-El developed almost instantly?


Performances

As usual, Chris Wood and Melissa Benoist's flirting is the high point of the episode. But Wood gets some good moments here to show off his dramatic chops.

Chyler Leigh damn near steals the show with her scenes as Alex in this episode, however, and her subplot has definitely been the strongest one of the season to date.


Artistry

The effects work during the first fight between Supergirl and the Amalak is good.

Kevin Smith's direction of the comedic scenes is well-done.


Super Trivia

Despite Kara having been fired from CatCo in 215, the opening narration still describes her as a reporter working for CatCo.

This episode was directed by filmmaker Kevin Smith - famed for his View Askewniverse and his work writing various Marvel and DC Comics books, including a critically acclaimed run on Green Arrow.

The alien bounty hunter with the laser-shooting eye-patch whom Kara first fights is identified as being part of a race of alien bounty hunters called Amalaks.

In the comics, Amalak was the name of an alien enemy of Superman and Supergirl. Amalak's planet of origin was never identified, but according to him it was destroyed by a Kryptonian and he was the last survivor of his people. To that end, he armed himself with a variety of energy weapons based around mimicking the energy of a red sun and devoted himself to destroying what little remained of Krypton and its people.

The telepathic bounty hunter claims to be the most power telepath in the Alcorian System.

In the comics, Alcoria is the home-world of Tal-Dar of the Intergalactic Space Police. First appearing in Detective Comics #282 (August 1960), Tal-Dar has the distinct honor of being the only alien (other than Superman, of course) who made multiple appearances in Batman's Silver Age adventures.

Mon-El makes mention of a planet that a Durlan emissary told him about when he was a kid.

In the original comics, Durla was the home-world to a race of shape-shifting aliens. Chameleon Boy of the Legion of Superheroes was a Durlan and the race was almost universally mistrusted due to their powers.


Technobabble

The first alien bounty hunter had a interplanetary messaging device, which can access an alien-run "dark Net".

The bounty on Kara's head is 300 quartz crowns. According to Mon-El, this is an insanely high amount of money - enough to buy a good planet.

Winn reconfigures the messaging device to act like a pager whenever another messaging device (and, presumably, another bounty hunter) is close.

The exact technology used by the Daxamite ship to travel through space is not described but it is said that it will take four of their years for it to return to Daxam from Earth.

The transmat portals used by the Slaver's Moon slavers do not require a second gateway to establish a portal. The second portal acts as more of a beacon to the first but so long as you have the exact coordinates of where you want to teleport, you only need one gate.

The DEO satellites are able to detect ion thruster activity.


Dialogue Triumphs

Kara: Any word from your parents?
Mon-El: No, they're just... up there, hovering around in orbit. (gasps in realization) Is that what they mean by "helicopter parenting"?

Alex: How much is 300 quartz-crowns?
Mon-El: It's a lot. Like, enough to buy a planet.
Winn: Woah! Like, we're talking like a planet in a good neighborhood? Or like a hipster, up-and-coming kinda vibe?
Mon-El: Exactly.

(J'onn asks Alex to search the DEO databases for alien species that access the bounty hunter dark Net)
Alex: Absolutely. Well, I had plans, but I will cancel.
Kara: No! No, don't cancel your plans just to search databases. That's ridiculous!
J'onn: Ah - these databases won't search themselves.
Winn: Oh, actually, they will. I just have to write a program for it. (wincing) And I just signed up for more work, didn't I?

(Mon-El's parents have just discovered that he works in a bar on Earth.)
Lar-Gand: You... you -work- here? As a a servant?
Mon-El: (haughtily) I'm a mixologist. It is an artistic profession in the medium of preparing alcoholic beverages. And it is very honorable.

(Kara and Mon-El are cleaning up the glass of the broken window in Kara's apartment.)
Mon-El: Hey, so, I've been thinking of a solution to our problem.
Kara: Yeah. Me too.
Mon-El: Yeah?
Kara: There's only one thing we can do.
(The two start to speak at the same time.)
Kara: Talk to your mother. Wait - what?
Mon-El: Run for our lives. What?
Mon-El: (stammering) So, there's this planet that a Durlan emissary told me about when I was a kid. It's got water and a yellow sun . It's got everything we need to survive. My parents wouldn't find us there! We'd be together. We'd be safe... I think of this because I'm reading this play right now - Ro-May-O and Juliet?
Kara: Yes.. I've... heard of it.
Mon-El: Right and... there's this moment at the end, where I am right now, where they're about to - to run away together and live happily ever after and I can't... help but think that that could be us. You know?
Kara: Yeah, but... Juliet and Romeo both die at the end.
Mon-El: ... I... did not see that coming.
Kara: And, no. We're not going to your secret planet. I'm Supergirl. I don't run from anything!
Mon-El: (burying his face in his arms on the table) Yeah, I know. It's one of the more annoying things about you.
Kara: Well, thank you.
Mon-El: You're welcome.

(Queen Rhea has just stabbed Kara with a dagger made of Kryptonite.)
Kara: Where did you get Kryptonite?!
Queen Rhea: (coldly) Our planet is littered with the corpse of yours.

Alex: I think... that when your parents didn't accept you, you stopped trusting the people that are closest to you. And I totally get that. But Maggie? You don't have to be guarded with me. Okay? I am not here to judge you for things that happened in the past. I am here to help you heal.

(Winn explains how he can use one of the gates used by the Slaver's moon slavers to teleport Kara onto the Daxamite ship.)
Alex: So as long as you have the exact coordinates of where you want to transmat, you only need one gate?
Winn: Mmm-hmm. Yes. One gate and one, you know, flawless calculation of the ship's location as it hurtles through space, relative to us, as we spin around the Earth's axis at 1,000 mph.
Kara: And if the calculation's wrong?
J'onn: You'll transmat directly into the cold vacuum of space.
Kara: Let's hope it's not wrong.

(Mon-El is in a cell on the Daxamite ship. Suddenly, there is a flash of light and Winn lands in the area outside the cell with a grunt.)
Mon-El: Winn?
Winn: (looking around) Okay... thank God I am not in space.
Mon-El: You -are- in space.
Winn: Oh! Yeah, I know. I mean, like floating around in space, dying. (collecting himself) Uh - I am here to rescue you! Hi!
Mon-El: Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?
Winn: You finally saw Star Wars!

President: Director - did you engage the Daxamite ship?
J'onn: Yes. How did you find out?
President: I have my sources! And you had your orders. I am disappointed.
J'onn: I understand. But an alien who was under our protection - who had been given amnesty - was taken against his will and we were his only hope.
President: And what if things hadn't turned out your way?
J'onn: It's my job to ensure that they do.


Continuity

Mon-El taught himself how to cook by reading a cookbook.

President Marsdin was last seen in 203.

The President orders J'onn not to engage with the Daxamite ship for fear of starting an intergalactic war.

Maggie practices yoga. Alex has just started it.

Maggie was with Emily for five years. The relationship ended badly, with Emily breaking it off and telling Maggie she did not deserve to be happy.

The most powerful telepath in the Alcorian System is not as powerful as J'onn.

Alex confronts Emily and discovers that Maggie had cheated on Emily, spurring the comments about her not deserving happiness.

It is revealed that Queen Rhea issued the bounty on Supergirl without her husband's knowledge.

Winn recovered one of the transmat portals from 209.

Mon-El finally saw Star Wars.

Maggie is able to find closure with Emily.

President Marsdin has some source that informed her of J'onn taking action against The Daxamite ship.

Again, we are reminded - as we saw in 203 - that President Marsdin is some manner of shape-shifting alien.

Queen Rhea stabs her husband to death, saying she is not done with Earth yet.


Location

The Fortress of Solitude.

The Daxamite ship in low Earth orbit.


The Bottom Line

A decent episode, if one ignores the plot holes in the script, but it's not one that's likely to be remembered fondly or at all. Kevin Smith is a fine comedic director and the romantic scenes here aren't bad but the man can't block an action scene to save his life. The basic plot isn't pushed forward much until the final segment and while the cast turn in some fantastic performances, the whole thing still feels like filler.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 16 - Star-Crossed

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

The arrival of an unknown alien ship may spell trouble for Kara's relationship with Mon-El. At the same time, Winn's winds up in trouble with the law thanks to his new girlfriend, Lyra. And then a new villain called The Music Meister attacks...


Influences

The Mayhem Of The Music Meister! episode of Batman: The Brave And The Bold, the Star-Crossed episode of Justice League: The Animated Series (title, plot based around lovers from two worlds finding out the other lied to them.) and every rom-com where the noble woman manes the idiot man want to be better.


Goofs

Why doesn't J'onn use his telepathy to determine whether or not Lyra is telling the the truth about her endangered brother and her reasons for committing the theft?

How does The Music Meister know about Barry Allen or how to work the inter-dimensional extrapolator? (Presumably he gained the knowledge telepathically after locking eyes with Kara.)


Performances

The episode is a nice performance piece for Jeremy Jordan, who gets to take center stage for most of it.

As cheesy and cliche and "rom-com" as the Kara/Mon-El scenes are this week, Chris Wood and Melissa Benoist still have amazing chemistry together.


Artistry

The special effects sequences are top notch, with Kara's confronting the ship and the destruction of Daxam flashback standing out.

The make-up for Mandrax is a little more intensive than what we usually see for aliens on this show.

The ending musical sequence is well-shot.


Super Trivia

Despite Kara having been fired from CatCo in 215, the opening narration still describes her as a reporter working for CatCo.

Winn describes Lyra as a "she-hulk" when she breaks a lock with one hand. She-Hulk is, of course, a super-strong superheroine with the Marvelous Competitor of DC Comics.

Teri Hatcher - who plays Queen Rhea - played Lois Lane on the 1990s drama Lois & Clark.

There are two notable DC Comics characters who also had the name Rhea.  One of them was Rhea Jones - a member of the Doom Patrol who fought crime under the codename Lodestone. As her name implies, she had magnetic powers. The other Rhea was a character in New Teen Titans - apparently the Rhea of Greek Myth - who was really an alien who inspired the myths of the original Titans. This Rhea also saved an infant Donna Troy from a fire and bestowed a measure of power upon her.

Kevin Sorbo - who plays King Lar Gand - is famous for having starred in the 1990s Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

In the original comics, Lar Gand was the original name of the amnesic Daxamite who was named Mon-El by Clark Kent after his rocket landed on Earth. He also used the names Valor and M'Onel while serving as a member of the Legion of Superheroes in various alternate realities.

The painting which Winn is accused of stealing is Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night. Painted in 1889, it is one of the most famous paintings in Western Civilization and has been part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City since 1941.

Lyra's species is identified as Valerian. There is a Valerian race on Star Trek that are trade partners with The United Federation of Planets.It is also the name of a flowering planet, whose roots can be used to make mild sedatives.

A passing reference is made to the planet Rimbor Five. In the original comics, Rimbor was part of the United Planets in the Legion of Super Heroes books. Rimbor had a reputation as a lawless world where crime and corruption were commonplace. It was the homeworld of LoSH member Ultra Boy and was populated by several different species, including humans.

The Music Meister was originally created for the cartoon Batman: The Brave And The Bold. A powerful telepath who was bullied for his love of singing and musicals, he discovered that he could control the minds of other people by singing. This resulted in the people under his control bursting out into song, as if they were in a musical production. The episode in which he appeared - The Mayhem Of The Music Meister! - was nominated for an Emmy and frequently places in the top rankings on lists of Television History's greatest musical episodes.


Technobabble

The DEO picks up a homing signal on a teleportation beam.

The Guardian's shield is made of titanium alloy capable of deflecting laser blasts that can cut through a trailer.

Winn analyzes the inter-dimensional extrapolator that Cisco Ramon built for Kara back in L207 and declares that it is working fine.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Kara and Mon-El have just beamed down from Mon-El's parent's ship.)
Mon-El: So, you survived the first dinner with the fam...
Kara: You're a liar!
Mon-El: I'm sorry, okay?! Can you really blame me for wanting to be just Mon-El - a regular guy from Daxam?
Kara: Ohhhh - wow.
Mon-El: With how you feel about Daxamites, if you had known that I was the crown prince, would you even talk to me?
Kara: You didn't even give me the chance!
Mon-El: I tried to tell you so many times, okay? I really did.
Kara: What? Is that supposed to make this better?
Mon-El: Me being the prince doesn't change anything. Not how I feel about you...
Kara: This changes everything! It's bad enough you lied but you being the prince? I thought you were just born on a cruel planet but you lead it! You benefited from its cruelty! What about that Kryptonian emissary? Your guard... Do you even feel guilty?
Mon-El: Of course I do...
Kara: (shaking her head in disbelief) I can't even look at you.
(Kara flies up into the sky as Mon-El watches her sadly.)

Alex: Kara, maybe Mon-El is an evil prince. But maybe he's just a guy who is ashamed of his past and he's looking for a fresh start?

(An informant agrees to sell-out Lyra for Hamilton tickets - a price Alex agrees to. As they walk away...)
Winn: Hamilton? How you going to pull that one off?
Alex: The guy who plays King George is from Rimbor Five. He owes me a favor.

J'onn: Miss Strayd-
Winn: - needs our help!
J'onn:  - is an admitted con artist.
Winn: Her brother is in danger!
J'onn: Have you ever met this brother? Or could this possibly be just another con from a woman who knows how to play you?
Winn: (slowly) I believe her.
J'onn: I know you do. But I can't afford to.

Lyra: This was your plan all along?!
Winn: I mean, if I had told you half of National City's heroes and a squad of DEO Agents were going to show up, were you going to come along?
Lyra: Keeping secrets? (smiles)  Looks like I'm rubbing off on you.


Continuity

As the episode opens, Kara and Mon-El are watching Game of Thrones together.

Kara loves musicals and thinks that Funny Face is the most romantic movie ever.

Lyra is strong enough to break a padlock with one hand.

We discover that Mon-El is Prince of Daxam - not the royal guard that he claimed to be.

Queen Rhea refers to the events of 209 and how a Dominator ambassador informed them that their son helped orchestrate a slave revolt.

We find out that the sequence described by Mon-El in 204 was a complete lie. His escape from Daxam was facilitated by his bodyguard ushering him away from a one-night stand, ignoring people in need, killing a Kryptonian emmisary and stealing his rocket.

Alex remarks that Winn has a type. The last woman he was involved with sexually became Silver Banshee.

Valerians do not show up in photographs or on video cameras.

Alex finds two other similar heists in the past nine months - a Rodin stolen from the Modern Arts and Culture Museum in National City and an original Warhol taken from the Art Institute of Metropolis. Both of the suspects in those cases claim to have been set up by a girlfriend.

Worris is one of the regulars at the alien bar who both Alex and James have pumped for information in the past.

The Valerians in National City hang around a trailer park near Blackmore.

The actor who plays King George in the National City production of Hamilton is an alien from Rimbor 5 who owes Alex a favor.

Winn says he was a theater geek in high school.

Lyra has a brother named Bastian who was smuggled onto Earth with her. The two were refugees following a ten-year war on Starhaven, where their parents starved to death. She claims to be unable to sleep alone in the dark because of her nightmares of being locked below-deck on a spaceship for six weeks.

Lyla admits to real affection for Winn but claims she had to use him to steal the painting in order to pay a debt her brother owed.

Lyla's buyer is a fence named Mandrax - he was another Fort Rozz escapee.

Lyra's last name is Strayd.

Winn forgives Lyra for setting him up. It is unclear if she plans to say in National City because of this but Winn says that any woman who would go through the lengths she did to say her brother is someone worth forgiving.

Kara dumps Mon-El, despite his big romantic speech about how she makes him want to be better a better man.

Mon-El tells his parents he is not returning to Daxam with them and further tells them not to return to Earth.

Winn says that he's pretty sure he and Cisco Ramon would be best friends if they lived in the same dimension.

The Music Meister says he was looking for Kara, is aware of the existence of Barry Allen and knows how to work the the inter-dimensional extrapolator.


Location

The Music Meister's psychic dimension


The Bottom Line

A predictable, cliche-driven episode that works purely because of the charisma of the cast. Jeremy Jordan does a fantastic job holding the focus of the episode as Winn while Chris Wood and Melissa Benoist make their rom-com break-up subplot work.

That being said, I'm annoyed that after all that had been done to establish Winn and Lyra that they have her turn out to have been manipulating him because it's lazy writing. I'm also not sure what's worse - James being absent from the show for weeks at a time or episodes like this where he only shows up to get his butt kicked.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 14 - Homecoming

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.





Plot

When Jeremiah Danvers is rescued from a Cadmus convoy, Alex and Kara are relieved to have their father home. A wedge is driven between the sisters, however, when Mon-El expresses his concerns about something not being right about Jeremiah and Kara thinks he may be right!


Influences

The film Captain America: The Winter Soldier (loved one of the hero returns as a sleeper agent with an artificial arm.) and Superman: The Movie (the scene with Kara saving the train.)


Goofs

Unfortunately, the whole episode is built around a rather unlikely conceit - that the usually oblivious Mon-El is the only one to smell a rat regarding Jeremiah's return being too convenient. (Then again, this could be a sign that he isn't the shallow idiot he's acted like since arriving on Earth...)

So Kara and Alex go after Jeremiah alone, without any other DEO agents as back-up?  Not even Mon-El?


Performances

The scenes in which Mon-El and Winn bond at the bar are great ones for Jeremy Jordan and Chris Wood.


Super Trivia

Saving trains that are in danger of being derailed is a standard feat of the various Superman family members. Perhaps the most famous example of this is in Superman: The Movie but it has occurred in various comics as well.


Technobabble

Cadmus utilizes lead-line vehicles to prevent x-ray vision from being used to see through them.

Kara's heat-vision radiation signature is used to track the Cadmus nuclear fusion bomb.

Jerimiah's right arm was enhanced with cybernetics in the same way as Cyborg Superman's body. He was also given some kind of ability to resist Martian telepathy.


Dialogue Triumphs

(After kissing Mon-El.)
Kara: Gosh, it's so nice to do that without breaking the guy's nose.
Mon-El: How many times did that happen?
Kara: (giggling, embarrassed) Ummm... less than five.
Mon-El: So four.

(Mon-El has just bluntly revealed that he and Kara are a couple to J'onn and Alex..)
Kara: Can we just pretend like that never happened?
J'onn: I'd like nothing more but unfortunately, as your supervisor, I have to ask you to report to HR
(Kara laughs. She quickly realizes she's the only one who is.)
Kara: Wait... you're serious?!
J'onn: Kara, you're dating a co-worker.
Kara: That's not... wait... we have an HR?
J'onn: (pointing to Mon-El) Walk this puppy down to the second floor and fill out all the forms Pam gives you. In triplicate.
(J'onn walks off.)
Alex: Oh. And you're going to have to attend a mandatory sexual harassment seminar.
Kara: Seriously?!
(Alex walks off leaving Kara and Mon-El alone. Kara is clearly not happy. Mon-El is wearing the expression of every boyfriend who has just realized that he is going to pay for this.)
Mon-El: It's going to be a rough sparring session for me.
Kara:  (sarcastically) You think?
Mon-El: Okay. I'm going to warm up.

Mon-El: Sir, as a scientist you have to believe in questioning. That's all I was trying to do in there. I'm sorry if I hurt-
Jeremiah: I know who you are.
Mon-El: ... and?
Jeremiah: That's it. I know who you are. And I doubt Kara would like the truth.


Continuity

Kara and Mon-El did spend the night together.

Before Mon-El wakes up, Supergirl stops five armed robberies, delivered a litter of puppies and helped one tugboat captain bring in a ship.

Kara has accidentally broken the noses of four men whom she kissed in the past.

On Daxam, it was customary to throw parties whenever a couple got together.

The DEO does have an HR Department and a sexual harassment policy. They don't prohibit co-workers from dating but do require it be strictly monitored.

Jeremiah Danvers was last seen in 207.

Jeremiah Danvers claims that he and Hank Henshaw were found by Cadmus. He was then forced to keep Henshaw alive and perform the procedures that turned him into The Cyborg Superman. He did such a good job he was put to work enhancing other agents.

Jeremiah Danvers' right hand was extensively damaged as punishment for helping Kara and Mon-El to escape from Cadmus.

Mon-El points out that the DEO has never picked up an alert of Cadmus activity unless they were caught red-handed or were intentionally trying to be noticed.

Jeremiah Danvers claims that Cadmus has a nuclear fusion bomb, built using the energy they mined from Kara's heat-vision blasts while she was their hostage. Their plan is to blow up National City and blame it on alien terrorists.

Jeremiah Danvers claims to know the truth about who Mon-El is, privately, when speaking to him.

Winn gave Mon-El his Netflix password.

Jeremiah claims he only hacked the DEO mainframe to read the old case files of what his daughters had done.

Winn discovers that Jeremiah stole the DEO's registry of every alien in the USA.

Jeremiah struck some kind of bargain with Lillian Luthor for his help.

Cadmus is at work building some kind of armored ship.


The Kryptonite Factor

Honestly, the only way for this episode to work is for the most paranoid characters to suddenly become trusting and the most naive characters to suddenly become paranoid.


The Bottom Line

A typically flat mid-season filler episode that does nothing but temporarily throw a monkey wrench into the relationship drama without really changing anything. Still, the scenes of Winn and Mon-El bonding are fun and the bits of Melissa Benoist and Chris Wood playing cute are good. The script definitely needed a few more rewrites, however.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 13 - Mr. & Mrs. Mxyzptlk

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

Just as Mon-El and Kara confessed their attraction to one another, they found themselves bewitched by a strange magical man who professed his own love for Kara. Taking her rejection as a challenge, this so-called Mister Mxzyptlk launches a campaign of chaos on National City, intending to make Supergirl into Mrs. Mxyzptlk! At the same time, Winn finds love with an alien woman and Alex tries to figure out just why Maggie doesn't want to celebrate Valentine's Day.


Influences

The Supergirl comics of Sterling Gates (lots of references to Krypton and Kryptonian culture), Action Comics #291 - The Bride Of Mr. Mxyzptlk!, Disney's Aladdin (Mxyzptlk sings part of the song A Whole New World, the rules for what Mxyzptlk can do with his magic are similar to the rules governing genies), the stage musical Hamilton (Mxyzptlk puts himself and Mon-El on a stage, dressed as Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, for their duel), the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Mxyzptlk quotes Willy Wonka while wearing a purple coat), various Superman cartoons and comics featuring Mister Mxyzptlk and various Supergirl stories where the villain wants to marry Supergirl and makes threats to force her to do so.


Goofs

As funny as Kara drinking orange juice is, Mxyzptlk said he couldn't force someone to drink it. That doesn't mean he can't stop them from drinking it. (Based on his expression as he watches Kara drinking, maybe he can't?)

While the characters seen in the hologram after Mxyzptlk spells his name backwards do come from the official Kryptonian Alphabet, they do not spell out Kltpzyxm. Instead they spell out "DJEP9TZW" (I freely admit to this being nit-picky, but why use the symbols at all if you aren't going to use the correct ones?!)


Performances

Peter Gadiot proves a perfectly playful Mxyzptlk, finding the perfect balance between being amusing and annoying, thus portraying Mxyzptlk as an overgrown kid pulling on the pigtails of a girl he likes rather than a psychotic stalker.

As per usual, the chemistry between Chris Wood and Melissa Benoist is one of the episode's best features.


Artistry

The CGI effects for Mxyzptlk's magic are some of the best this series has seen, from the blue sparkle effects when he works a spell to the scene where Kara has to fight a giant crystal statue of her uncle.

While I usually abhor covers of classic rock songs, the cover of The Police's Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic played under the final scene of Mon-El and Kara together is rather nice and the perfect song for the scene.


Super Trivia

This episode was co-written by Sterling Gates, who wrote the Adventures of Supergirl tie-in comic based on the first season of the Supergirl TV series. He also wrote the Supergirl series right before the New 52 reboot and is generally considered to be the best writer to handle the character's monthly exploits in the past 15 years.

The basic idea of this episode seems to have been taken from Action Comics #291 (August 1962) - The Bride Of Mr. Mxyzptlk! This comic marked Supergirl's first encounter with the 5th Dimensional Imp in the comics and, as in this episode, his scheme is to force Supergirl marry him.

Mr. Mxyzptlk first appeared in Superman #30 (September 1944). His specific backstory and appearance have changed over time but his point of origin has remained consistent. As a being born of The Fifth Dimension, Mr. Mxyzptlk has the power to alter the third-dimensional realm at will. This power has been described as magical and is capable of affecting Superman, regardless on whether or not it might be considered "true" magic. In any event, Mr. Mxyzptlk is mischievous but not evil and usually only plays around with Superman out of boredom or to challenge himself.

Mxyzptlk is pronounced Mix-Yes-Spit-Lick.

In the comics, the only way to get rid of Mr. Mxzyptlk was to trick him into saying, writing or otherwise spelling his name backwards - Kltpzyxm.

Kltpzyxm is pronounced Kill-Tip-Seize-Um.

In the DCTVU, Mr. Mxyzptlk has apparently never encountered Superman. His appearance here is the first recoreded instance of a Fifth Dimensional being on Earth apart from various legends involving genies, djinns, leprechauns and other creatures capable of altering reality with magic and wishes. The rule about getting him to say his name backwards also applies but it is, as Mon-El notes, much more trouble than it is worth if you don't have issues with just killing them.

Mr. Mxyzptlk says that there is no one "as brave or bold" as Kara where he comes from. The Brave And The Bold is,a classic DC Comic series devoted to team-up stories.

J'onn makes a reference to The Zook Uprising on Mars. In the Silver Age Martian Manhunter comics, Zook was the name of an alien being who acted as a pet/sidekick to J'onn J'onzz. Zook was a creature that resembled a cartoonish dog, who had the powers of temperature manipulation (he could freeze or super-heat objects he touched), limited shape-shifting abilities and he could track anyone whom he had met before, no matter how they had disguised themselves.

In the 1998 Martian Manhunter comic series, Zook was the name of a Martian plant that could be fashioned into clothing that could shapeshift in tandem with a Martian.

In the first scene at the bar, Winn is drinking Lallorian Lager. The planet Lallor comes from the Legion of Super-Heroes comics, where in the 30th century Lallor is ruled by a dictatorship. The planet had its own superhero team - The Heroes of Lallor - who fought against tyranny and worked alongside The Legion of Super-Heroes on several adventures.

Lyra Strayd says that she is from the world of Starhaven. In the DC Comics universe, Starhaven is a fictional planet near the core of the Milky Way Galaxy and home to the Legion of Super-Heroes member Dawnstar.

Winn claims to have translated a book from Starhaven called "The Book of The Ten-Pointed Star". Ten-pointed stars are a frequent motif in both Islamic artwork and Freemasonry.

The duel scene in which Mxyzptlk teleports himself and Mon-El to fight for Kara on a theater stage dressed as Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr is a nod to the musical Hamilton.

Mon-El swears to Rao that he will listen to Kara in the future. Rao is the name of a Kryptonian deity - a god of light and life, similar in scope to the Egyptian sun god Ra. It is also the name of the red star which Krypton (and in the DCTVU, Daxam) orbited.

Kara threatens to kill herself by blowing up the Atomic Cauldron of The Fortress of Solitude. In the original comics, The Atomic Cauldron was the power source of the Fortress of Solitude. The most powerful furnace on Earth, the Atomic Cauldron ran on liquefied Sunstone crystals.

Mxyzptlk makes a reference to Thoni Tea. In the original comics, Thon was an area of Krypton and tea was brewed from select plants on the hills on the Gorvan shore.


Technobabble

One of the items Winn finds in the DEO basement tests off the charts in 5th Dimensional Energy. He has no idea what it would do to Mr. Mxyzptlk and can't analyze it further until a spectrometer finishes updating. This will take six hours.

The device is later revealed to have the power to cut a 5th Dimensional being off from their home dimension, effectively making them powerless.

According to Kara, the Atomic Cauldron of The Fortress of Solitude is one of the most powerful fusion furnaces on Earth. She can overload the Suntones at its core, creating an explosion equivalent to a 400-megaton bomb. This is roughly equivalent to 30,000 of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

The shields of The Fortress of Solitude are strong enough to contain a 400 megaton blast. Anyone inside the Fortress, however - even a Kryptonian - would be completely vaporized.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Mxyzptlk waves his hand. Suddenly Kara is in a fancy white wedding gown.)
Kara: What is - ? Are you crazy? You cannot just put me in a wedding dress!
Mxyzptlk: Why not? It's Vera Wang!

Kara: I'm flattered... but I'm not going to marry you, Mxyzptlk.
Mxyzptlk: You know, it's funny. I'm all-seeing and all-powerful but that's one of the few things I can't make you do. That and make you fall in love with me and/or stop you from killing yourself and/or make you drink orange juice, for some reason! Everything else, yes, but go figure.

(Mxyzptlk has just anchored three robbers in place and turned their own guns upon them. Kara moves at super-speed to catch the bullets.)
Robber: Thank you, Supergirl!
(Kara looks annoyed and throws an elbow back, knocking the robber out.)

(Alex wants to celebrate Valentine's Day but isn't sure how to deal with Maggie's hatred of it.)
Kara: Okay Okay. So the trimmings aren't her style, but you can celebrate your own way. What kind of stuff does she like?
Alex: I dunno? Guns?
(Kara makes a face that suggests this is the last thing in the world she'd equate with romance.)
Kara: ... anything else?
Alex: She loves scotch!

Mon-El: Oh... I'm sorry that I was busy, uh, defending your honor!
Kara: (freezing in place, turning around, furious) I am not some damsel in distress! I am Supergirl! I can defend myself! And more importantly...  I told you I was handling it!
Mon-El: Well, Kara sometimes you're not a good judge of what you can handle, so... (shrugs and claps his hands) there it is.
Kara: Really?!
Mon-El: Yes.
Kara: Is that why you didn't tell me that the secret to getting Mixxie off Earth was to get him to say his name backwards? Because you didn't think I could handle it?
Mon-El: No. I didn't tell you that because it never works! Because first of all, it's hard enough to say it forward. And second of all, that guy is a motor-mouth but he's not stupid!

Winn: I need a relationship pearl.
Mon-El: Yeah, uh... things were a lot easier on Daxam when I objectified women and didn't care about anyone. So...

(Mon-El and Mxyzptlk are fist-fighting in the aisle of a theater.)
Mon-El: How could you think she'd ever want to be with someone like you?
Mxyzptlk: Why? You think she's going to be with you?! Face it!  What have you got to offer her? I can give her everything. There's no contest between you and me and you know it! I'm a god and you're a loser.
(Mon-El steps in and grabs Mxyzptlk by the throat.)
Mon-El: You're a dead man.
Mxyzptlk: Strike that. (holds up the power-draining device that he just pick-pocketed off Mon-El) Reverse it.
(Mxyzptlk grins and presses the button on the device. Suddenly, Mon-El is chained up above the stage and Mxyzptlk is below him, holding a pistol.)

(Mxyzptlk teleports into the Fortress of Solitude. He is wearing a tuxedo and holding a bottle of champagne.)
Mxyzptlk: (sing-song voice) Kara, darling? Where arrrrrrrree yooooooou? It's time! Kara?  You said noon! And here I am! (angrier) Kara!
Supergirl: (landing behind him) I can hear you.
(Supergirl is holding a glass of orange juice, which she takes her time drinking and savoring.)
Mxyzptlk: Where's the dress?  The flowers? The pigs in blankets?
(Supergirl hmms and holds up a finger, continuing to drink for about three seconds before stopping, melodramatically smacking her lips and sighing with satisfaction.)
Supergirl: See, that's the thing, Mixxie... I'm not going to marry you.

Mxyzptlk: No!  You made me write my name backwards!
Supergirl: Yep. On some planets to write something down is to truly say it.
Mxyzptlk: You tricked me!
Supergirl: No. No, I followed the rules. You say your name backwards. You go back to The Fifth Dimension. No questions asked.
Mxyzptlk: That's it! You nasty woman! Now I'm going to-
(Mxyzptlk snaps his fingers. Nothing happens... until his hand suddenly dissolves into glowing blue mist.)
Mxyzptlk: No! It's started...
(Mxyazptlk looks up to Supergirl, sadly.)
Mxyzptlk: I just wanted... I wanted someone to love me.
Supergirl: You can't force love, Mxyzptlk. You have to let it find you.

Lyra: I didn't think you'd call.
Winn: Why? Last night was... like, beyond amazing on just so many levels.
Lyra: I figured it was a one-time thing for you. An experience. I've never met a human that was actually up for dating an alien.
Winn: Well, now you have. (chuckles) Look, I'm not naive, okay? I know that there are lots of people who don't think that humans and aliens should mix. If we're being super honest, I... potentially falling for an alien is not what scares me. It's falling for anyone. Just have... kind of... had my heart trampled on a few times.
Lyra: Me too.
Winn: Lyra...you aren't like some experience to me, okay? You are a potentially... real, fulfilling, challenging relationship and that's... that's just way too much chaos. That's too fast. (makes a back-pedaling gesture) Whoo-hoo. Just gonna... uh...heh. Um... what do you say we just take it slow?
Lyra: Sure.
Winn: Okay.
(Winn smiles. Lyra reaches across the table and takes Winn's hands.)
Lyra: (whispering) Slow. (pauses) Take me to where you live.
Winn: Yes. Ma'am.

Mon-El: I get that you were upset that I wasn't listening to you. And I... I tried really, really, really hard to listen to you this time. And I heard that you..  you don't think that we belong together, and I respected that.
Kara: No, but... Mixxie wasn't the only one that I tricked.
Mon-El: What do you mean?
Kara: I just said it so you'd let me go. To protect you. Plus, he could have been listening, so...
(Kara moves away from Mon-El and starts walking across the room,)
Mon-El: Wait, so... you didn't mean any of that stuff that you said?
Kara: Well, the first bit about your infurating male ego? That part I meant.
Mon-El: Okay, okay....
Kara: But the second part? About us not being a match? I didn't mean that.
Mon-El: (impressed) Wow. No, you're good. You're good.
Kara: (smiling) Well...
Mon-El: (nodding) Well, you... got rid of Mixxie.
Kara: (nodding) I did.
Mon-El: That means nothing is... nothing is stopping us.
Kara: Nope. Nothing is stopping us.
(The two look at each other before falling into each other's arms and kissing passionately.  Mon-El lowers Kara onto the couch and the two continue kissing as we focus on two red roses in the foreground.)


Dialogue Disasters

Mxyzptlk: You don't get to tell me what to do until after we're married!


Continuity

Mister Mxyzptlk claims to be all-seeing and all-powerful but his magic does have limits. He cannot make someone marry him, fall in love with him, stop them from killing themselves and/or (for some reason) force them to drink orange juice.

J'onn encountered a 5th Dimensional Being once on Mars. That being moved the Xan'Xie mountains halfway across the planet during the Zook Uprising.

Mon-El says Daxam had contact with The 5th Dimension and had a zero-tolerance policy regarding 5th Dimensional Beings being allowed on the planet. He says 5th Dimensional Beings knew how to party but were very dangerous. To that end, the preferred method of dealing with a 5th Dimensional Being on Daxam is to slay them as quickly as possible - preferably via crushing.

Martians celebrate a custom similar to Valentines Day, where written messages are sent to loved ones.

Since Martians are a telepathic species and thoughts were easily exchanged between them, important and intimate communications were written down as a symbolic gesture. J'onn notes that on some planet (Mars among them) it is believed that to write something down is to truly say it.

Maggie's usual breakfast is a seasame seed bagel, dry, double toasted with black coffee. Alex feels this is gross.

Alex is 28.

Eliza Danvers makes a big deal out of Valentine's Day and sends her daughters cards to honor it.

Maggie hates Valentine's Day. Alex loves it .

Winn's drink of choice is Lallorian Lager. Reportedly it is considered a drink for weak-willed idiots.

The woman who saves Winn in the bar is named Lyra Strayd. She is from Starhaven, which was mentioned in 114, where Kara noted that she had visited the planet as a young girl and that the air smells like cinnamon. Apparently she told this story to Winn at some point.

A blight came to Starhaven which apparently destroyed the cinnamon smell.

Winn translated a passage from a book from Starhaven called "The Book of The Ten-Pointed Star" - "The hurt of one is the hurt of all. The honor of one is the honor of all." Lyra says that her father read to her from that book every night when she was a child.

Maggie likes guns, scotch, tiramisu and bonsai trees.

The Parasite - last seen in 206 - appears as one of Mxyzptlk's illusions.

A Fifth Dimensional Being can be forced to return to their home dimension if they are made to say their name backwards.

Mon-El is on a first-name basis with a DEO agent named Dana.

Maggie Sawyer was lying in 206 when she said her family was comfortable with her coming out. The truth is that she fell for a friend named Elisa Wilkey when she was 14. The two watched horror movies and smoked cigarettes in private together. On Valentine's Day, Maggie gave her a card with a note about how she felt. Elisa gave that card to her parents, who called Maggie's parents.  Maggie was kicked out of the house that day and had to go live with an aunt for the next three years. This is why Maggie hates Valentine's Day.

Winn makes reference to getting reservations for a certain restaurant being more difficult than getting a Hellgramite to eat leafy greens. Kara fought a Hellgramite in 102, where it was revealed that they were chlorine-based lifeforms that the only things on Earth they could eat safely were certain chemical compounds such as DDT.

Winn grew up in Newark, New Jersey.

Winn and Lyra spend Valentine's Day together. They agree to try and start a relationship together.

Maggie sets up a "Valentine's Day prom" for Alex to make up for screwing up her Valentine's Day plan.

The episode ends with Mon-El and Kara making out on her couch.


Location

The Fortress of Solitude.


The Bottom Line

A perfect Valentine's Day special, hampered only slightly by the fact that it aired the week after Valentine's Day. But why quibble? Kara and Mon-El are finally together and the other romantic subplots all work perfectly. It's nice to see Maggie (for once) admitting to a misstep in her relationship with Alex after several episodes with Alex being the one to make things weird. The Winn subplot surprised me in that I was sure his new lady friend was probably going to be a black widow and lay her eggs in him after mating.  And heaven help us, they made Mxyzptlk work in live action. Sterling Gates needs to write more episodes of this show.