Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 5, Episode 13 - It's A Super Life

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



Plot

Sentenced to perform one good deed for every person he ever tormented, Mister Mxyzptlk shows up on Kara's doorstep ready to bend reality to her will. It sounds too good to be true but after checking the fine print of the bargain, Kara agrees to let Mxy rewrite history so that she revealed her secret identity to Lena Luthor before it ruined their friendship forever. Unfortunately, every attempt at making things right only makes things worse!


Influences

It's A Wonderful Life (title and basic theme of rewriting the past only to realize you're better off with the present.)


Goofs

The alternate timelines are largely based around events that should probably have played out differently in the post-Crisis reality. There is no reason, for instance, for Mercy Graves to attack LuthorCorp or for the Children of Liberty to be established in a world where Lex Luthor has never been a convicted criminal. (It's probably best to assume that Mxy is playing around with the pre-Crisis world given that he seems to regard Kara's past as episodes of a popular TV show.)

There's no explanation for why Winn, in his Legion uniform, is around when Lena is kidnapped by the Children of Liberty in the third alternate timeline.

There's no explanation for why Winn and Mon-El are present in their Legion uniforms in the timeline where Lena and Supergirl never met.


Performances

Thomas Lennon is an instantly engaging presence as Mister Mxyzptlk and you almost wish he hadn't turned over a new leaf so we could see him in action against Kara and Clark in the future. Still, if this is the last time we see Mixy in the Arrowverse, it's a solid final appearance.


Artistry

Props to the design team for the flawlessly designed "Mxyflyx" website we briefly see on Kara's laptop Mister Mxyzptlk starts streaming her life like a TV show.


Super Trivia

When Mister Mxyzptlk returns after being sent away, he says "Thank Zook you changed your mind!" 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.

Curiously, in 315, M'yrnn J'onzz said that J'onn's imaginary friend as a child was a 5th Dimensional being named Zook, who did mischievous things and blamed J'onn for them. This may suggest that Zook is a real person in the Arrowverse, as Zook was also mentioned in 213 (along with a Zook Uprising on Mars) and J'onn made reference to fighting a 5th Dimensional being once.

The BetaMyx tapes detailing Kara and Lena's friendship are labeled with titles that parody the format of the titles of Friends episodes. (i.e. The One Where It All Began, The One With The Lesbian Wedding, The One Where Ross Finds Out.). Some of the episodes we see are titled The One Where Lena Moves To National City, The One Where Supergirl and Lena Fight The Nanobot Lady and The One Where Lillian Admits She Loves Lena.

This episode confirms a fan theory that the magical hat utilized by The Hat from The Elite belonged to Mister Mxyzptlk, who normally has a hat in the comics. The Hat claimed to have been told where to find the Fortress of Solitude by someone he called "Mixy" in 414 and Mister Mxyzptlk confirms that The Hat was an old drinking buddy and he lost the hat to him in a poker game.


Technobabble

In the second alternate timeline, Lena creates an electric device that seems to shock Sam's Reign personality into dormancy.


Dialogue Triumphs

Mister Mxyzptlk: I am offering you a do-over. Hmm? I could send you back in time. Wouldn't you like to be able to tell Lena that you're Supergirl on your own terms? Wouldn't you like to see what the world would look like if you controlled the narrative?
(Suddenly Mister Mxyzptlk is standing behind Kara and Alex. They both jump as he speaks again.)
Mister Mxyzptlk: Haven't you hurt enough? Hmm?
(Kara just glares at Mister Mxyzptlk)
Mister Mxyzptlk: I get it. You don't trust me. Okay. But how's this? Ready?
(Mister Mxyzptlk pulls out a recorder, which he hands to Kara. She inspects the recorder as he keeps talkling.) 
Mister Mxyzptlk: Now, by Fifth Dimensional law, I am required to give you this recording of me saying my name backwards, in case you ever need to banish me to my Fifth Dimension, which I know that you-
(Kara pushes the play button on the recorder.)
Mister Mxyzptlk: (on recorder) Kltpzyxm.
(Mister Mxyzptlk makes a face and poofs into a cloud of glowing blue smoke.)

Lena: When you were Reign, and I made Kryptonite to stop you You know, in response, Supergirl was so horrible. And then, Kara was the same. She was so kind and supportive. But it made me think, which was the real Kara? And if the real Kara thought I was a villain then maybe that's all I really am.
Sam: No, Lena, no. How could you ever think that? Lena, you made Kryptonite to split me from Reign and to save my life. You were never the villain. You were always the hero.

Supergirl: You once told me Kara Danvers was your hero.
Lena: I never told you that. I told
Supergirl: It's me, Lena. I've always been Kara.
Lena: Kara, how could you?
Supergirl: I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner.
Lena: Three weeks ago, I found out that Sam, one of my closest friends, was a homicidal Kryptonian. I went through that terror alone. I risked my life day after day for weeks because I believed that I was the only one who could be trusted to protect her, to save her. I could have used your help. I would have used your help if you'd bothered to tell me the truth before now. If you'd trusted me then, I wouldn't have had to go through that danger alone!
Supergirl: I'm so sorry, but I thought I was protecting you. But now, we can... we can move past it and work as partners.
Lena: (angrily) You expect me to be your partner after this?! When all you've done is prove to me that you can't be trusted at all?

(Mister Mxyzptlk is fast fowarding through a lot of the fight with Reign and Supergirl.)
Kara: Wait. You're skipping a lot!
Mister Mxyzptlk: This is all exposition, so much exposition.

Mon-El: You know, Lena and I have a lot in common. We've both been betrayed by our own families. And when the people who are supposed to love you the most let you down, it just makes you feel so so vulnerable, you know? But my mother and the Luthors, they betrayed Lena for their own selfish reasons. They They wanted to take advantage of her. You lied to to protect her. Because she's your friend. Now, I know Lena's hurting right now, but once she understands that she'll forgive you.
Supergirl: I hope you're right. But I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself.
Mon-El: You know it's okay to mess up, right? No matter how many mistakes I've made, you've always forgiven me. You should, uh, know that you deserve the same compassion that you show others.

Lena: I didn't come here to make friends.
Kara: I wanna show you something.
Lena:Listen, I'm really busy, so, if we could just-
(Kara flies out the window at super-speed. She is standing there a moment later. Lena is stunned.)
Lena: It's you! Kara Danvers is Supergirl.
Kara: Yeah.
Lena: Can't believe I was fooled by a pair of glasses.
Kara: Don't worry, a lot people are.
Lena: Oh, God, (chuckling) I have to recall all those alien detection devices 'cause they clearly don't work.
Kara: You're not angry?
Lena: No, it's incredible. I mean, you're incredible! But... why are you trusting me with such a big secret? You barely know me.
Kara: Because I know that what you want more than anything is to do good. And I know it's hard for you to trust people, but I need you to know now, without a doubt, I trust you. My cousin, your brother, they got it wrong.  Imagine what we could do together. A Luthor and a Super, working together as a team.
Lena: If we were partners, we could change the world.
(Kara smiles and offers her hand. Lena shakes it. Suddenly, we see a number of spinning newspapers talking about the amazing things Supergirl and Lena Luthor have done together.)
Mister Mxyzptlk: (in an old time radio announcer voice) Only months after publicly declaring their partnership, the formidable duo of Supergirl and Lena Luthor has already cleaned up National City's criminal element. This pair is literally unstoppable! Not to mention, fashionable after Lena convinced Supergirl to cut the hair of steel, and gave her a new suit to boot. But their next adversary is Lillian Luthor herself, and this time, their battleground is a courtroom. Emotions. Drama. Will they persevere?!
(Cut to Kara's living room where she's hitting the side of the TV trying to get the picture to unstuck. Mister Mxyzptlk is standing there dressed as a 1930s Newsie, talking into an old-fashioned microphone.)
Kara: Mxy, can you please take this seriously?
Mister Mxyzptlk: (still talking in an old time radio announcer voice) Take it seriously, because every party needs a pooper, and that's why we invited Kara!

(Supergirl looks around the CatCo offices that are now Lena's base of operations.)
Supergirl: Lena? It's me. It's Supergirl. It's Kara.
Lena: (coldly) Who's Kara?


Continuity

Mister Mxyzptlk looks quite different from how he appeared in 213. He explains that this is because he adopted a form he thought Kara would find more pleasing when he was trying to romance her.

Mister Mxyzptlk says that he was put on trial for abusing his powers to torment people, including Kara. His sentence was to lose his powers except in so far as he used them to do one good deed for every person he wronged. Kara is the last person on his list.

Mister Mxyzptlk suggests that Kara can use her free wish to rewrite time so that she gets to choose when Lena found out about her secret identity.

In addition to being magically unable to use his powers except to help people he wronged, Fifth Dimensional Law also requires that Mister Mxyzptlk give a recording of himself saying his name backwards to the person he is trying to help so that they can get rid of him at any time.

Mister Mxyzptlk is also court-ordered to restore things to normal should Kara not be happy with the results of her wish and is happy to walk her through her life and find the perfect point to change everything.

Kara decides to take Mister Mxyzptlk's help, purely because Lex and Lena are planning something together, they have no idea what and restoring Kara's presence in her life may be the only way to stop her.

Alex and J'onn are sent away to play paintball while Kara and Mister Mxyzptlk work together.

The first alternate reality is viewed on a movie screen and projector which Mister Mxyzptlk conjures into Kara's living room. He also makes popcorn.

Kara and Mister Mxyzptlk rewatch the scene where Kara pretended to be helpless while secretly saving her and Lena from a jet crash in 420.

The first alternate reality Mister Mxyzptlk creates is based around 402 and Kara revealing her secret identity to Lena shortly after President Marsdin resigned after being outed as an alien, but just before Mercy Graves attacked LuthorCorp. When Kara returns after repelling the attack, Lena is gone. We discover that Lena flew to Metropolis to pour out her heart to Samantha Arias. This meant that Lena was not close-by when Mercy seeded Earth's atmosphere with Kryptonite and was not there to develop the super-suit that kept Kara alive until the atmosphere could be cleaned.

This reality makes Kara think the problem is her hypocrisy in treating Lena differently in both her identities.

The second alternate reality is viewed through Kara's laptop on a movie-streaming site called Mxyflyx. (This is clearly a parody of Netflix.)

Kara and rewatch the scene from 317 where Kara asks James Olsen to break into Lena's lab and search for Kryptonite - an action Kara now agrees was wrong.

The second alternate reality Mister Mxyzptlk makes is based around 317 and 318 and has Kara revealing herself to Lena just after she reveals that she discovered that Samantha Arias is Reign three weeks early and had begun synthesizing Kryponite as part of a treatment. Having spent most of the past month agonizing over one of her best friends being a Kryptonian doomsday weapon, Lena turns on Kara when she reveals that she is Supergirl. This means that Lena doesn't work with the DEO to fight the World-Killers at first, which means they fail to stop the eclipse triggered by the World-Killers working together. This also means that Mon-El remains in the past, due to Pestilence not dying. In the end, Lena joins Mon-El and Kara in the fight against Reign at the Arias Farm, but she, Samantha and Mon-El die in the process.

This reality makes Kara think the problem wasn't the hypocrisy - it was her lying to Lena in the first place.

The third alternate reality is watched on Kara's TV on video tapes (aka Betamyx) after the inter-dimensional WiFi begins buffering.

The third alternate reality starts off with a flashback sequence from 506 and Kara revealing her secret identity to Lena shortly after they first met, sometime during Season 2. The two agree to become partners in making National City a better place. This leads to an alternate take on Lillian Luthor's trial from 212, with Lena refusing to reveal Kara's secret identity under oath while testifying against her mother. This causes Lena to experience a level of public popularity that she never did in the original timeline, and people see her as more than a supervillain in training. It also has the side effect of turning the Cult of Rao from 304 into a more benign religion and less of a doomsday cult. This new Cult of Rao wins over all of the Lockwood family except Ben Lockwood (aka Agent Liberty), who forms the Children of Liberty after his father, son and wife all jump off a roof expecting Supergirl to save them. In a mirror of his confrontation with Lena in 403, Agent Liberty kidnaps Lena and Coville and threatens to kill them both if Supergirl doesn't reveal her secret identity to the world. Kara does so, and Agent Liberty is true to his word and releases Lena and Coville. Unfortunately, the Children of Liberty kill everyone who is close to Kara immediately after that.

This reality makes Kara think Lena would be better off if they'd never become friends at all.

The fourth and final alternate reality is a world where Kara and Lena never met in 201. In this reality, Supergirl isn't there to stop Lena's helicopter from being shot down. She survives the crash, but is spirited away to Cadmus by Lillian Luthor and becomes a rest subject for her Metallo program.  Two years later Lena escapes, kills Lillian and Lex, and destroys half of National City in the process. She rules what is left of the city with an iron fist and turns the Lexo-Suits into robots under her control running the Hope AI.  All of her technology is powered by tapping into the energy of the Fifth Dimension, which leaves Mister Mxyzptlk powerless until they recover his hat.

J'onn wields the Staff of Kolar, last seen in 415, during his fight with Reign.

Kara decides that she can't change the past and that she'll always have to face the consequences of her actions, but she says that Mister Mxyzptlk helped her to get over her guilt regarding Lena, so she frees him from his obligation.

Mister Mxyzptlk apologizes for being a creep before and thanking Kara for letting him feel like a hero in the bad reality.

Kara tells Lena that she's done feeling guilty over the past and that whatever happens between them in the future is on her.


Untelevised Adventures

Mister Mxyzptlk was put on trial for his crimes against Kara and other people he mistreated sometime after the events of 213. He has spent the last three years using his powers to make amends for his crimes, having saved Kara for last.


The Bottom Line

A fun anniversary special and look back at the show's history that may not hold up logically but it's a serviceable tribute to what came before.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 23 - Battles Lost and Won

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




Plot

With Reign reborn and free of Samantha's body, Supergirl and her allies must face their greatest challenge ever in a battle to save the Earth!


Influences

Superman: The Movie (Supergirl turning back time to saved a loved one), Star Wars (Kara quotes Han Solo to Brainiac-5 as they are beating down a tsunami wave.), Man of Steel (The Kryptonian witches plot to terraform Earth mirrors Zod's plan from this movie.), the film Ghost (the scene of the Kryptonian demons dragging Reign away resembles the shadowy things that come for bad people when they die in this film) and the Superman: New Krypton arc from the Superman comics. (Kryptonians who survived the destruction of their world attempt to conquer/destroy Earth.)


Goofs

How exactly does Thomas Coville know how to activate the distress signal on a Martian spaceship?

So... stabbing Reign with a sword violates Kara's "no killing" rule but dragging her into a mindscape and force-feeding her poisonous water that leaves her helpless as demons drag her away doesn't?


Performances

Honestly, the entire cast is on fire here and it's hard to single anyone out as especially great.


Artistry

You can tell they saved the special effects budget for this episode. There's some truly amazing visuals in the first part of the episode, particularly the sequence with Saturn Girl stopping a tsunami wave from hitting National City.  It is topped, however, between the final fight between Supergirl and Reign.

The sequence in which Reign loses control of her powers and dies is magnificently shot.


Super Trivia

When J'onn slaps a pair of Kryptonite-empowered handcuffs on one of the Daughters of Juru, he describes it as "a little piece of home."  A Little Piece Of Home was also the name of the episode of Superman: The Animated Series which introduced Kryptonite into the DC Animated Universe.

Kara's traveling back in time to redo her fight with Reign is a nod to Superman: The Movie, where Superman does the same thing in order to save Lois Lane.

Mon-El seems to mix up the Ancient Greek myths of Persephone, Orpheus and Hercules when trying to complement Kara. He talks about entering the underworld, slaying the three-headed monster and rescuing Persephone. As Kara points out, Persephone was the one who ate the pomegranate seeds and became trapped in Hades' realm. Hercules fought the three-headed dog Cerberus, but did not slay it. Orpheus went into the underworld to save his true love, but he ultimately failed because he looked back to make sure she was behind him.

Mon-El gives Kara a Legion ring of her own before returning to the future. In the comics, depending on the reality, Kara traveled to the future and worked with The Legion for a time, was declared an honorary Legion member and/or permanently settled in the 31st Century.


Technobabble

Alex's new body armor is revealed to have the capacity to generate an electric blue force-field that can disintegrate small boulders before they can hit her.

The Legion Flight Rings allow the wearer to breathe in space.

Kara says she can use the electricity contained in the Harun-El to take her to the Fountain of Lillith if she can find a disruption in space-time.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Supergirl and Alura have just finished wearing down a wave that Saturn Girl was holding in check. Brainiac-5 is flying behind them in The Legion ship.)
Supergirl: You're all clear, kid! Now let's blow this thing and go home!
Brainiac-5: (testily) I assume that's some sort of film reference?
Supergirl (aghast): We never showed you Star Wars? Not a single Star War?

M'yrnn: I am sorry I could not give you the rest.
J'onn: (tearing up) Don't apologize... don't...
M'yrnn: (smiles) I had a good life.
J'onn: I'm not ready.
M'yrnn: You are. You looked into the flame and you had no fear!
J'onn: (sighs) That's because you were with me.
(M'yrnn places a hand on J'onn's shoulder.)
M'yrnn: That will never change, J'onn. Never.

(J'onn slaps a pair of Kryptonian power-dampening cuffs on one of the Daughters of Juru.)
Witch: What is this devilry?!
J'onn: A little piece of home.

(Reign is strangling Supergirl.)
Reign: You cannot win. There is no prison you can build that can contain me. There is no one on this planet of equal power that can kill me!
(We pan over to see Samantha, now holding The Sword of Juru.)
Samantha: That's what you think.
(Samantha stabs Reign in the back.)

Kara: Before we went to Argo, I just had this thought. I... could be Kara Zor-El, Ordinary Citizen. (laughs) That I would feel like I was home. But when we were fighting Reign and the witches, I...had this moment... this realization that ...Argo City isn't my home anymore. National City is. Earth is. And my mission is to protect it. I mean, my whole life is here.
Mon-El: Yeah.
Kara: Messy. Complex. Balancing Kara and being a hero... (sighs) That's who I am.


Continuity

A TV report briefly mentions that Superman is dealing with the damage in Madagascar, which was mentioned in passing in 322.

J'onn receives one final memory from his father - an image of the first Martian priestess to receive the sacred scrolls at the dawn of The Martian Race. They were given to her by a being with glowing eyes whose face erupted from the Martian soil.

James reveals his face to a woman whose son he saves from a burning building.

Brainiac-5 has not seen Star Wars.

M'yrnn merges himself with the Earth to counter the destruction wrought by The Daughters of Juru.

Saturn Girl claims to have gotten a message from Mon-El's time beacon. Mon-El said, in 322. that the Time Beacon broke but was later revealed to have been lying. When confronted about this, he says that it must have had a fail-safe so that it would send a message even if it powered down.

Thomas Coville - presumed dead in the last episode - is revealed to be barely alive in The Fortress of Sanctuary.

Saturn Girl says that she realized - during her separation from Mon-El - that their marriage was never what it should have been and she should have realized that when she lied about the real reason they traveled back to the past.

Samantha has visions of her adoptive mother apologizing to her for abandoning her.  Sam does not believe she is real at first, but the figure is later revealed to be "all that remains of Patricia Arias and her lover for Samantha."

Brainiac-5 reveals that millions of people were saved by The Blight never coming into existence, thanks to the death of Pestilence in the 21st century... including a distant relative of his, who has developed a viral plague to wipe out all other artificial intelligences. This means that Brainiac-5 must remain in the past until someone else cures the plague.

Brainiac-5 reveals that Winn's design for his force-field belt goes on to lay the foundation for some of the most advanced technology of the 31st century. To that end, he asks for Winn to go to the future to replace him on The Legion of Superheroes and combat the AI Plague. He claims that the piece of paper on which Winn scribbled his design while trying to explain it to Demos is now a treasured historical artifact in the National Archives in the future.

Brainiac-5 also says that the future needs heroes and leaders and pleads for Mon-El to return to the future.

Thomas Coville activates a distress beacon in J'onn's ship to signal the DEO as to the location of The Fortress of Sanctuary.

James refers to 320 and how Lena figured out she could kill Reign with a lethal dose of Kryptonite. Kara refuses to consider this as an option at first, but finally relents after Alura and J'onn say there may be no other option.

When Samantha awakens, she has full Kryptonian powers.

Samantha stabs Reign and Kara throws her into The Daughters of Juru's cauldron. This leads to Samantha and Alura being killed by Reign's heat vision. Mon-El also dies taking a heat-vision blast trying to save J'onn.

As Kara flies back in time she remembers things that were said to her in the past about Alex thinking Kara Danvers saved her more than Supergirl and J'onn saying that Kara saved his life and her mother saying that she would go on to do great things. (301)

In the new timeline, Kara stops Sam from stabbing Reign and instead uses the Harun-El to shock herself, Samantha and Reign into The Valley of Juru. From there, they force-feed Reign the weakening waters of the Fountain of Lillith and she is dragged away by Kryptonian demons.

Mon-El decides that he has to go back to the future because he is needed there.

Mon-El gives Kara a Legion ring of her own.

Samantha is 100% human following the latest round of tests by Lena.

Winn decides to return to the future with Mon-El.

James reveals himself to the world as The Guardian.

Alex tries to resign from the DEO so she can start a family.

J'onn refuses, saying he wants to promote Alex, placing her in charge of the DEO.

J'onn steps down as DEO director so he can  go out and focus on helping others directly in the Martian tradition rather than hiding behind walls.

Alura plans to return to Argo City, taking Selena and the other Daughters of Juru with her so they can stand trial for their crimes.

Lena gives Alura a case full of Harun-El that she synthesized as well as the recipe to make more.

Winn leaves Braniac-5 his original sketch of his design for the force-field belt, along with a note saying it is guaranteed to appreciate in value more than a jar of dirt, in reference to his gift of future dirt from 318.

There is no pizza on Argo.

Lena is revealed to have kept some of the Harun-El and is experimenting on it with Eve Teschmacher.

Kara's use of the Harun-El to stop Reign seems to have created a clone of Kara in Russia.


Location

Wherever J'onn and M'yrrn go so M'yrnn can merge with the Earth.

The Fortress of Sanctuary

The Siberian Border.


Untelevised Adventures

Superman is said to be dealing with the natural disasters threatening to rip the world apart in Madagascar.


The Bottom Line

Far more than the sum of its parts. Part of me wants to scream bloody murder about the sheer insanity of the Valley of the Juru, the mixing of science and fantasy and the logistics of human ghosts going to a quasi-Kryptonian after-life/dreamscape. The other part of me says "Screw it. We give Sam closure and Betty Buckley gets another paycheck."

Lots of big changes in this episode, yet the pace is quite leisurely and the epic battle is almost an after thought. We already have Jeremy Jordan and Chris Wood confirmed as leaving the series and only coming back as guest stars, if at all. I hope the same isn't true of David Harewood, who is one of the rocks of this show. James revealing himself to the world as Guardian is... well, as muted as everything else relating to Guardian this season.

Still, the low-key conclusion seems oddly appropriate and after the breakneck conclusions of Arrow and The Flash that failed to be thrilling, it's kind of nice that this episode ends with Kara and Alex having a sisters' night in. Can't wait for Season Four!

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 20 - Dark Side Of The Moon

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



Plot

Seeking another piece of The Rock of Yudal Kal, Mon-El and Kara discover that an entire Kryptonian city has survived within a force-field in space and Kara's mother Alura Zor-El is among the survivors! Meanwhile, back on Earth, someone is attempting to kill Alex, prompting Winn to babysit Ruby as J'onn and Alex start laying a trap for the killer and Lena considers just how far she will go to put a stop to Reign.


Influences

The Supergirl comics of Al Plastino and Otto Binder (Argo City) and Michael Green and Mike Johnson's run on Supergirl (character of Reign)


Goofs

It seems a little out of character for Kara and Mon-El - noble heroes that they are - to resort to shoplifting clothes without even making a token effort at offering payment. What's even stranger is that they don't really make an effort to conceal what they are doing and nobody in a crowded marketplace notices or objects to it! (At least Mon-El goes back later to pay for the clothes and tries to return them and makes an effort to compensate the merchant.)

So Kara didn't recognize any of the architecture, clothing or anything else about Argo as Kryptonian until she saw the writing on the memorial?  Shouldn't she have recognized the language the people were speaking as Kryptonian?


Artistry

The design for Argo City as seen from space is perfect.

The Kryptonian costumes are interesting.


Super Trivia

The title of this episode comes from the title of the eighth studio album released by the band Pink Floyd.

In the original Action Comics which introduced Supergirl, Argo City was Supergirl's home town on Krypton. It was introduced, along with Supergirl, in Action Comics #252 (May 1959). One of the three largest cities on Krypton (second only to Kandor and Kryptonopolis) it was spared from the destruction of Krypton thanks to a force-shield built by Zor-El, brother of Jor-El. Argo City would go on to survive, until the ground underneath the city was transformed into Kryptonite. Though the people were able to delay the inevitable by lining the ground with lead, eventually this protective layer was breached, forcing Zor-El to try and save his daughter by sending her to space in a rocket, where she eventually arrived on Earth and became Supergirl.

A later story, in Action Comics #316 (September 1964) said that Argo City's dome had already existed even before Jor-El warned his brother of Krypton's impending destruction and that Zor-El had built the dome as part of a measure to control the city's weather. Thankfully, it proved just as handy at providing an artificial climate when the entire city drifted into space.

The Post-Crisis origin of Supergirl changed this story slightly, with the shield Zor-El and Alura used being a piece of re-appropriated Brainiac technology rather than their own creation. When Braniac detected his technology being used, he discovered Argo City and abducted its inhabitants, shrinking them and transplanting them into the Bottled City of Kandor.

The DCTVU Version of Argo City also survived the destruction of Krypton within a giant force dome constructed by Zor-El.

It is worth noting that the name Argo City takes its inspiration from Argo - the name of the sailing ship built by Argus, which carried the Argonauts on the quest for The Golden Fleece. Some versions of the story claim that The Argo was the first ship in history. In any case, it is a fitting name for a city set adrift.

The Dark Priestess who has been guiding Reign and the other Worldkillers is revealed to be an Argo City Councilor named Selena. The main villain of the 1984 Supergirl movie was a witch named Selena.


Technobabble

Winn retasked six military satellites to scan the airspace around the meteorite Kara and Mon-El traveled to.

Argo City is protected by caretaker robots who resemble the robots in The Fortress of Solitude.

Argo City is also equipped with a tractor beam that holds approaching ships.

Zor-El created a force shield that protected Argo City when Krypton exploded, after Kara had been sent into space.

The Black Rock of Yuda Kal is also known as Harun-El.

Zor-El found a way to use Harun-El in conjunction with his domed force-field to shield Argo City from outside detection while purifying the air and generating heat.

A Dar Essa is a Kryptonian flower.

Thalonite Lung is a Kryptonian/Daxamite disease. It was nearly eradicated before Krypton's destruction, but reemerged in the children of Argo City. It requires the patient be hooked up to an oxygen tank at all times.

Mon-El has a device, built by Brainiac-5, which acts as both a vaccine and booster for multiple diseases. It automatically detects hostile cells and deploys antibodies. It can cure any condition within one week and then be used on another person safely.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Winn is reassuring J'onn that he is listening for any word from Kara and Mon-El)
Winn: And yet you seem... uh more stoic and grave than usual. Which, if we're being honest, is making me, like a little bit queasy. (stammers) What haven't you told me?
J'onn: Reign is becoming immune to Ms. Luthor's synthetic Kryptonite faster than we expected. 
Winn: ...oh.
J'onn: To be on the safe side, I've evacuated L-Corp and I have a strike-team standing by with sound guns, body boots and red sun grenades.
Winn: (fliply) Because that's worked approximately zero times before.
J'onn: (sarcastically) Do I seem appropriately stoic and grave to you now, Mr. Schott?

Alex: You want me to feel sorry for you?
Ronald Collins: Why would you!? I don't even feel sorry for me!

Kara: Your point is well made - that Krypton is dead. But it's legacy lives on. For good and ill. My own mother sentenced prisoners to Fort Rozz. Prisoners who broke free and took their anger out on Earth. Many of whom we're still trying to apprehend. There are people on Earth who work every day to solve the mistakes of Krypton's past. People who are trying to make Earth fairer. Or just better. These people dedicate their lives to this work. And some have even given their lives to it. This planet... these people... they took me in. An alien immigrant from a world they knew nothing about. A world whose legacy threatened their way of life and their safety again and again and again. And now, they deserve it in kind. Because their very existence is threatened by this World Killer of Kryptonian making. My mother tells me Argo City has changed. That it has learned from the mistakes of Krypton's past. So I beg you... give us the gift of Harun-El. We don't need very much. And this bit of charity... it will save Earth.


Continuity

Ruby is considering becoming an astronaut. Alex teases her about how she gets motion sickness too easily for that but Ruby counters that only happens when Alex is driving.

Someone attempts to kill Alex with a grenade while she's taking Ruby out for ice cream.

Reign is now able to see and hear through the refractive scatter field in her cell from 319.

According to Mon-El, The Legion of Superheroes don't bother with secret identities.

Alex got Ruby a book on Ada Lovelace - the first computer programmer in history.

Winn runs through a list of people with a grudge against Alex. This includes Griggs (215), The Hellgrammite (102) and Hannibal (217). Alex responds that Griggs and Hellgrammite are still locked up and Hannibal was deported after the Daxamite invasion.

Winn guesses it might be Rick from 219, until J'onn reminds Winn that he mind-wipped Rick.

Alex guesses that the assassin might be Ronald Collins - the murderous sheriff from 306.  He is said to now be 56 years old and was let out on parole after six failed attempts.

By a strange coincidence, Ronald Collins moved to an apartment six blocks away from Alex's upon being release from prison.

Kara realizes that the strange city she and Mon-El discovered is Argo City.

Argo City was mentioned in 119 as the site where Astra attempted to test Myriad.

Alura explains that the last she saw of Kara as a child was her pod being knocked into The Phantom Zone. Kara explains that she was there for a time but that she eventually made her way to Earth along with Fort Rozz.

Alura recognizes Mon-El as The Prince of Daxam.

Mon-El says there is no more Daxam. Alura says all that remains of Krypton is Argo.

Following the destruction of Krypton, ashes and destruction poisoned the air within Argo's dome. The young and the elderly became sick because of the new atmosphere.

Kara recognizes the structure they track The Rock of Yudal Kal to as a Kryptonian memorial.

Alura tells Kara that her father died in his efforts to save Argo City.

Argo City is ruled over by a High Council. Alura is one of the councilors.

Alex confronts Ronald Collins. He claims to be innocent of trying to kill Alex, saying that he deeply regrets what he did.

Alex's new motorcycle from the last episode is blown up by her would-be assassin.

A Dar Essa is a Kryptonian flower. Kara had one in her bedroom when she was young - a gift from her grandmother for her first birthday. Her father used it as a guide for measuring her height.

Kara was tall for her age and quickly outgrew her Dar Essa.

Alura describes Fort Rozz as her deepest shame.

Kara tells Alura about the events of Season One, her battles with the Fort Rozz escapees, her aunt Astra and her Uncle Non.

Alura says the people of Argo now look to their past for edification - not a blueprint for how to do things.

Mon-El gives a vaccine device to the merchant from whom he stole clothing upon first arriving in Argo City, testing it on her ill son and apparently curing his lung disease.

James talks to Lena about how she can kill Reign with a Kryptonite overdose now, but that would kill Sam as well. James asks what Sam would want and Lena says that she'd want her daughter and the world saved, no matter what.

Winn talks to Ruby about his murderous father and how he shares her fears about there being something bad inside him just waiting to come out.

Alex and J'onn set a trap for her assasssin, with J'onn posing as Alex.

The Worldkillers are figures of legend to the people of Argo.

Alex's assassin is revealed to be the identical twin brother of an alien criminal she brought to justice once. He was a Fort Rozz escapee who killed 12 people. Their species is not identified by name, but they are from Naja Falk 7. They have a strong sense of smell which allowed him to distinguish between J'onn and Alex from a distance.

The High Council of Argo City agree to give Kara some Harun-El.

Alura gives Kara a box before she returns to Earth. We do not learn what is inside it.

Alex talks with J'onn about how she can reconcile her inner adrenaline junkie and her nurturing side.

Alex refers to the flashback in 117 and how J'onn approached her about joining The DEO at a time in her life when she was a bit of a mess.

Selena - the councilor who broke the tie to give Kara The Rock of Yudal Kal - is revealed to be The Dark Kryptonian Priestess who has been influencing Reign and the other World Killers.

Lena attempts to use her kill-switch to destroy Reign. It doesn't work.

The episode ends with Kara and Mon-El arriving just as Reign breaks free of her prison, and Kara engaging Reign as Mon-El runs to Lena with the Harun-El.


Location

Argo City


Untelevised Adventures

Zor-El is revealed to have sacrificed himself in some manner in order to provide for the people of Argo City with his research.


The Bottom Line

Generally good, but it feels like there's a bit too much going on or, at least, that there should be more focus on the fact that a whole Kryptonian city is still intact and Kara's mother is still alive. The Kryptonians, in turn, don't seem at all phased by two strangers entering into their city who turn out to be a Daxamite and a Kryptonian from another world. It's all very muted and it doesn't help that we keep cutting away to Alex dealing with a mystery assassin, Lena wondering if she should try to kill Reign now and Winn babysitting Ruby. Ignoring that, the performances are all top-notch and the cliff-hanger is one of the show's best.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 19 - The Fanatical

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




Plot

A former disciple of The Cult of Rao named Tanya escapes from what remains of the fanatical group, with a journal that may hold the key to freeing Sam from Reign's influence.As Kara and Mon-El start to investigate the cult, James tries to protect Tanya, only to have his identity as The Guardian exposed. Meanwhile, Alex and J'onn try to get Ruby and M'yrnn out of their respective shells with a day out.


Influences

The movie Ransom (Winn refers to the plot in discussing James' plan to out himself before The Cult of Rao does.)


Goofs

Kara's hypocrisy about being upset that James would chose to not lie to his girlfriend over indulging her paranoia is horribly out of character. Her justification that she's protecting Lena by denying her that knowledge doesn't hold water either, given how Lena is already at risk as the outspoken leader of a major company and scion of a family of famous criminals. Mon-El somehow manages to top this with his line (which Chris Wood doesn't sound like he believes either) about how lying to Lena is noble because it is meant to protect her.

It defies all the laws of ballistics for Olivia to shoot The Guardian in the face and to have his helmet just open up and bounce off his head in the manner we see.

James' justification for revealing himself to the world is nearly as nonsensical as Kara's reason for hiding who she is from Lena. Granting that representation is important, James would be put in a lot more danger by revealing his secret identity than Kara would. And the idea that Kara is somehow protecting her friends doesn't really wash given that all her friends are, with the exception of James and Lena, government agents who are continually risking their lives and at risk from their association with Supergirl anyway.


Performances

While the Guardian subplot of this episode feels entirely tacked-on and far too preachy, Mehcad Brooks still does a fantastic job delivering his speeches.

While it's totally unbelievable that Ruby just accepts M'yrnn's talk about what Mars is like with no cynicism at all, Carl Lumbly does a fantastic job with the dialogue.


Super Trivia

The two books on child psychology that Alex is reading in an effort to relate to Ruby are Kids & Trauma by Emmet Falconer and Coping With Emotional Childhood Trauma by Agnes Debinska. These are not real books, but they are clever nods to two members of the Supergirl production team. Emmet Falconer is a boom microphone operator on both Supergirl. Agnes Debinska is a set designer on Supergirl.


Technobabble

Lena's latest plan to cure Sam utilizes a biolistic delivery system, usually used for overwriting genes in crops.

Kryptonian cels are closer to plant cells than one might think, due to how they process sunlight.

Lena's process takes particles of heavy metals, coats them in DNA, and then uses that to overwrite the Reign DNA with Sam's. It doesn't work, but Lena insists it should with the right metals and the right vectors.

The cell Lena put Reign in has a refractive scatter field. This prevents anyone from seeing into the cell or being able to see out of it, even with X-Ray vision. The wavelength interference of the force-field hurts any Kryptonian who looks at it.

The ashes and wall-markings Mon-El finds in the Cult of Rao hide-out resemble the remains of a body caught in a nuclear bomb. As Kara notes, there is nothing on Earth that could destroy a body in that manner without also destroying the building around it.

Tanya's father and brothers were all shot by the police.

J'onn says that the brain of a Martian wearing a psychic inhibitor is basically identical to that of an ordinary human.

J'onn says he read about a study which said that playing three-dimensional video games can reverse the decline of dementia.

As M'yrnn points out, the word Arcade originally referred to a series of arches carried by columns or piers, a passageway between arches and a solid wall, or a covered walkway that provides access to adjacent shops in Ancient Rome.

The woman whose ashes Mon-El found was not killed by a nuclear bomb. After Lena identifies the reside, she determines that it was generated by a heavy metal reaction. The heavy metal in question is not one found on Earth.

Kara recognizes the formula for the otherworldly metal from Coville's Journal. It is the chemical composition for the stone used to make The Rock of Yuda Kal.

Kara guesses that The Cult of Rao was using The Rock of Yuda Kal to make a new Worldkiller.

The Cult of Rao van has some kind of scrambler on it that keeps it from being tracked by The DEO.

The recipe for making a Worldkilelr includes one oronc of Sedenach dust and seven lak-mar of nitrogen.

Mon-El is able to generate a frequency only Kara can hear using a Kryptonian Sunstone.

The Rock of Yuda Kal was drained of all its power. Luckily, Lena and Winn copied its charged radiation signature and found a sample of the same rock five light years away from Earth.

Reign's Pestilence powers act like an anti-virus scanner to Kryptonite, slowly allowing Reign to develop an immunity to it.


Dialogue Triumphs

Supergirl: I don't - I don't like this tension between us, Lena. And I know it's my fault. I know James told you what I asked him to do and... look, I feel terrible about it. I made a huge mistake. And I'm sorry.
Lena: (cooly) Well, it's easy to admit your mistake when you've been exposed.
Supergirl: (quietly, taken aback) That's fair. (pauses) I just don't want one mistake to ruin our friendship, that's all.
Lena: It won't.
Supergirl: (smiling in relief) Good.
Lena: We don't have a friendship, Supergirl.
(Supergirl's face drops.)
Lena: All this time we've been working together, it's been about work. We have a mission to complete. And I'm not about to let any tension between you and I get in the way of that. Are you?
Supergirl: Of course not.
(Lena moves past Supergirl, who bites her lips and turns to follow her.)
Supergirl: I - I - I just hope, um, when we solve this, we can work to rebuild our trust.
Lena: Why is it so important to you that we're friends? I have friends, Supergirl. Friends that don't scheme behind my back or lie. Given my family history, they know how painful that would be. They also know I would never enter into a friendship with anyone who's already breached that trust.
Supergirl: ... understood.

(The cultist puts handcuffs on Mon-El.)
Mon-El: Owie.
Cultist: We'll deal with you after the ceremony's done.
(The cultist turns his back on Mon-El.)
Mon-El: Just one question.
(There is a noise of handcuffs clanking. The cultist turns around to see Mon-El standing there, now in his costume.)
Mon-El: Do you, by chance, know where I can find the Rock of Yuda Kal?
(The cultist draws his gun. Mon-El snags the man's gun hand with his cape and pulls the man close, placing him in a sleeper hold.)
Mon-El: Soooo... no?


Dialogue Disasters

Kara: I'm supposed to stand for Truth! How am I supposed to be truthful? Really truthful? 
Mon-El: Well, if you tell Lena the truth, you'd be doing it to make yourself feel better, not her. So maybe, in this case, it's uh...not telling her the truth that is the noble thing. It's a sacrifice you're making to protect her.


Continuity

Kara refers to what Lillian Luthor said in 221 about how Lena would never forgive Kara for lying to her if she ever found out Kara was Supergirl.

Tanya, a former member of the Cult of Rao, steals Thomas Coville's journal, and takes it to James Olsen. She says that she thinks The Cult is using it to build another bomb, like in 304.

Tanya was a linguistics and semiotics teacher, who helped Thomas Coville to learn Kryptonian. She was the only person who knew how to read Kryptonian besides him in The Cult of Rao.

Tanya says that Thomas Coville just disappeared and it was believed that he died serving Reign. Coville was last seen in The Fortress of Sanctuary in 312.

In his last communication with The Cult of Rao, Thomas Coville said that they had been worshipping the wrong god and that Reign, not Supergirl, would be their salvation.

Alex buys a 1962 Item - a vintage bike she always wanted.

Sam is allergic to cats.

Mon-El finds evidence of The Cult of Rao building an advanced nuclear weapon that destroys bodies but leaves inanimate objects intact.

Olivia - one of the cultists from 304 - is seen again as she leads the raid on CatCo to recapture Tanya. She apparently took over the cult after Thomas Coville disappeared.

James had Cat Grant's private elevator altered to hide a storage space for his Guardian armor.

James's face is revealed when The Cult of Rao break his helmet and the police show up.

Tanya recognizes the jewelry Mon-El found in the ashes as belonging to a woman named Liza who was her friend. 

M'yrnn has a PTSD panic attack watching a video game that involves shooting aliens.

The Rock of Yuda Kal is a statue of the ancient Kryptonian goddess of life, which Coville found in Addis Ababa.

Lena says the Kryptonian mineral used to make The Rock of Yuda Kal is what she needs to cure Sam.'

James says he was seven years old the first time he was put in handcuffs. He and his cousins were arrested at a resort while playing hide and seek. James was the youngest at 7. The oldest cousin was 11.

There are no cork trees on Mars.

Mon-El goes with Tanya when she turns herself into The Cult Of Rao, pretending to be some random guy who thought their van was an ride-share vehicle.

One of the ingredients to make a Worldkiller is Sedenach dust. The planet Sedenach was mentioned in 209 as home of The Bismuth Mountains - a place of great beauty with natural crystal staircases.

Olivia transforms herself into a new Worldkiller.

When Supergirl touches The Rock of Yuda Kal, it causes her to lose control of her powers, as her heat vision turns on and she cannot shut it off. Mon-El is able to handle it just fine.

Supergirl is able to remove The Rock of Yudal Kal from Olivia's hand with a focused heat vision blast.

James tells Kara that he intends to reveal his identity as The Guardian to the world someday, on his terms.

Ruby dyes her hair with blue tips.

Reign is becoming immune to Kryponite. Lena guesses that she can only keep her contained for a few more days at most.

Mon-El tells J'onn that he wants to admit that he still has feelings for Kara, but that telling her will only serve to make him feel better. J'onn agrees it is best to keep it quiet.

Kara and Mon-El borrow J'onn's spaceship to retrieve the charged Rock of Yuda Kal.

The end of the episode reveals that Thomas Coville is still alive, as he arrives at the site of the ritual to turn Olivia into a Worldkiller.


The Kryptonite Factor

Why can't Kara reveal her secret identity to Lena? Well, because that would solve all her problems immediately. And her justification that confessing the truth now would cause Lena to abandon her completely does not excuse the original lie.


The Bottom Line

A series of poorly written scenes are saved by some fantastic acting. I know it's a running gag about how the heroes of The Arrowverse never seem to remember the lessons about how much trouble keeping secrets from the team causes in the long run, but it is taken to truly ludicrous extremes in this episode as everyone justifies everyone else's lies with some incredibly flimsy logic.

The most vexing thing is that every moment of this episode feels like filler, even the bits that nominally tie into the main plot! The revelation that more Worldkillers can be made is never treated with the gravity it deserves and the grand irony is that the best performances involve the least necessary parts of the story (i.e. Carl Lumby's speech about Mars, James' talk about how rough is is for black superheroes, etc.).

The main problem in all of this is that James' story as Guardian has been so deeply buried by the events of Season 3 and the Cult of Rao hasn't been referred to in so long that there's no sense of urgency like there is with Ruby's life being threatened and Sam slowly becoming more and more like Reign. At least Kara finally realized the hypocrisy of her refusal to share her secret identity with Lena but it's likely too late to do anything but be another source of drama as we wait for the day Lena inevitably goes "full Luthor" in response to Kara's betrayal of her trust.

Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 18 - Shelter From The Storm

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




Plot

When Reign begins to hunt for Ruby in an effort to destroy what remains of Sam's personality within her, Alex will take up the role of Ruby's guardian. Meanwhile, as Kara and J'onn seek out Sam's mother in search of any information that might help them reach Sam within Reign, The Legion of Super-Heroes prepare to return to the future.


Influences

Superman: The Movie (elements of Lex's panic room under his mansion in this episode resemble Lex Luthor's lair in the movie)


Goofs

In 307, it was said that there were six total Legionaries in suspended animation on the Legion ship including Mon-El.  This episode, Imra says that there were seven Legionaries who were infected by The Blight and put into suspended animation, not counting herself, Mon-El and Brainiac-5. While nothing says that all of the infected Legionaries had to be on the ship, why put any of them on the ship at all? (It enabled Brainiac-5 to check and make sure The Blight was defeated in the future, as none of them would have shown signs of infection if they succeeded.)

Again, the question of the paradox caused by The Legion going back in time to prevent the incident that inspired them to go back in time in the first place, is completely ignored.

Brainiac-5 claims that there have been 783 uninterrupted Major League Baseball seasons since before the current year of his time. This is impossible, unless The Legion came from the year 3238, as the date given for the disaster that uprooted all civilization on Earth back in 310 was 2455. Even then, that assumes that the MLB got regular games up and running again within a year of society collapsing. (Maybe Earth had started colonizing space by that point, and the MLB continued playing on colony worlds?)

Alex's gloved finger doesn't quite hit all the buttons as she is keying in the code to reveal Luthor's mansion.

Patricia Arias must have been storing oily rags, gasoline cans and surplus US Army napalm in her attic for it to explode as quickly as it did after Reign was thrown into it.

I know Superman is once again off-limits to DC Comics Television shows, but you'd think Kara would remember there's ONE other person on Earth who might want to have a say in what is happening to what Kryptonite still exists?

Kara's suddenly losing all trust in Lena because of the Kryptonite issue is even more annoying and illogical than last week. (At least this time she apologizes and admits she was wrong.)

Give Lex Luthor's notorious paranoia and the security precautions we've seen at his other secret facilities, it seems highly unlikely his private mansion would only be protected by one keypad and a hologram with nothing to prevent him from being overheard. His arch-enemy does have super-hearing, after all. Never mind that the panel being destroyed shuts off the hologram...


Performances

Betty Buckley is quite frankly wasted in her role as Patricia Arias.


Super Trivia

Imra says that the first Legionnaire to fall prey to The Blight was Chameleon. This is a reference to Reep Dagle aka Chameleon Boy/Chameleon - a shape-changing alien from the planet Durla in the classic Legion of Super-Heroes comics. 

Brainiac-5 makes mention of his being a 12th level intellect. By way of a comparison, the average Coluan of the 31st Century in the original Legion of Super-Hero comics has a Level 8 intelligence. The average Earthling of the 31st Century has a Level 6 intelligence. Winn is said to have an Intellect of 1.42, making him nearly half-again as smart as the average human of the 21st Century.  (It may be worth mentioning that Lex Luthor, in the DC Animated Universe, was also a Level 12 Intellect.)

Mon-El makes a reference to seeing J'onn in 1000 years. In the DC Comics Universe, Martians are longer-lived than humans but the exact extent of this is unknown. Differing accounts have said that they live on average for hundreds of years, thousands of years or millions of years. In the DC One Million future, J'onn would achieve oneness with his home planet and became an immortal guardian spirit of sorts.

M'yrnn makes reference to something called The Eradicator Project. In the original DC Comics, there are several beings called The Eradicator, all but one of whom had ties to Superman. (The unrelated one was a Flash villain - a vigilante with a touch that could melt anyone into protoplasm.)

The first Eradicator was the product of the technology of a dying race, who sent a number of containment devices into space in an effort to preserve their culture. One of these devices landed on Krypton, where it was found by the militant and xenophogic Kem-L. Following his example, the artificial intelligence within the device became devoted to preserving Kryptonian culture and eradicating anything that might bring danger to it. In time, it wound up in the hands of Superman, and would eventually evolve into a replacement during the time when Superman was presumed dead.

The second Eradicator was a robotic probe created by Supergirl's Fortress of Solitude in the New 52 Supergirl series to destroy Power Girl, as it sensed her to be an impostor of Kara Zor-El.

The third Eradiactor was a villain introduced into the Superman comics in 2017. It was a robotic probe with the same purpose as the original - protecting Kryptonian culture - but it attempted to kill Jonathan Kent, aka Superboy, seeing his half-human/half-Kryptonian biology as an abomination.

M'yrnn makes reference to someone named Kemler when discussing The Eradicator Project. This could be a nod to Kem-L, the Kryptonian responsible for creating The Eradicator in the comics.

M'yrnn also mistakes Kara for someone named Ursula. While this is a common Earth name, the way he pauses as he says it (Ur-su-la) suggests that maybe he meant Ursa La.  Ursa was a notable Kryptonian criminal, most famous as Zod's right-hand woman and lover in Superman: The Movie and Superman 2 and the Superman comics written by Richard Donner and Geoff Johns. 

The sequence in which Reign storms Lex Luthor's panic room is a tribute to the scene in Superman: The Movie where Superman enters Lex Luthor's hideout. Reign reaches the entrance the same way - spinning around very quickly to drill down to it. She then faces machine guns, flame throwers, and cryonic cannons, much as Superman faced machine guns, flame throwers and some kind of ice trap meant to freeze him to death. Even the panic room interior is something of a tribute to Lex's "home" in the movie, featuring a library and a private gallery of apparently stolen artwork.


Technobabble

Lena developed a Kryptonite aerosol weapon, which she uses against Reign.

Lex Luthor had a mansion that was hidden from satellites and passersby by an advanced hologram.

Lena says she was able to use high voltages of electricity to wake Sam up and force Reign back down.

Winn develops some kind of electrical net gun with enough force to knock Reign back several dozen feet. She is able to break free of the net, however.

One of the projectiles for Alex's new gun creates a net of fire.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Brainiac-5 has just said that Winn has 1.42 Intellect instead of a mere Level 1.)
Winn: Wow. Thank you.
Brainiac-5: Hmm. It is I who is expressing gratitude for all of your help. With this gift.
(Brainiac-5 pulls out a jar of what appears to be dirt.)
Winn: What's this? Space dirt?
Brainiac-5: Earth dirt. But it is from the 31st Century.
Winn: Are you serious? (stammering) This is - this is... future dirt?
Brainiac-5: Yes!
Winn: How did you - did Mon-El tell you about my dirt collection?
Brainiac-5: No, I ran a diagnostic of your personality, and calculated with a 98.7% certainty that you either collected dirt or New York Mets baseball cards. And judging by the last 783 uninterrupted Major League seasons, I figured dirt was more likely to hold its value.

Mon-El: Well, you would think that we would be experts at goodbyes now.
(Mon-El laughs nervously, warranting a backwards glance from Imra as she's leaving the room.)
Kara: It's no secret that I struggled when you got here.
Mon-El: Yeah, you weren't the only one.
Kara: But I can honestly say now, truthfully... I'm really happy I got to see you again. Witness the... the man that you've become.
Mon-El: It meant the world to me. To be back here with you. (speaking a bit faster) And uh-with, with everyone. To fight by your side.
Kara: I'm really going to miss your friendship.
(Mon-El makes the exact same face you'd imagine a man making when the woman he loves tells him she only thinks of him as a friend.)

(Imra asks Mon-El to go back and help Kara.)
Mon-El: You must know that I would never do anything to dishonor you.
Imra: I know. But I need a man - a partner - who will choose me with a full heart. Go back. Help her fight Reign. If you stay, then that's your destiny. If you return, I'll know you have no doubts.

(Supergirl freaks out when Lena tells her that she figured out how to make Kryptonite and created a super-charged batch to fight Reign.)
Lena: You know, I knew this is how you'd react. But James Olsen convinced me that we were on the same side. He thought you'd actually  that you'd be grateful.
Supergirl: (scoffs) You think I should be grateful that you learned how to make the one substance on this planet that can kill me?
Lena: Thousands of things can kill me, Supergirl. And everyone else on this planet. Fire, but we don't go around banning bonfires or candles. Cars kill people every day, and yet we still have the courage to get in one every morning and drive ourselves to work. There is one element on the planet that kills a Kryptonian and you can't tolerate its existence.

Supergirl: You know, even if I did trust you, even if we were on the same side, this substance is so lethal to me that I can't risk encountering it by mistake.
Lena: Trust is hard for me too, Supergirl. But since we seem to need each other, we're just going to have to figure it out.

Supergirl: I owe you an apology. For being so hard on you. Without your Kryptonite, we wouldn't have stopped her. You just have to understand that when it's Kryptonite,...to me that's more than a gun or any of the other dangers you were talking about. It's personal.
Lena: It's personal for me too.  It was a way to help my friend.
Supergirl: I do trust you Lena.
Lena: Good.

Supergirl: Why did you come back?
Mon-El: Uh. (laughs) Well, it seems that, ah, Brainy might have put a nanny-cam in Winn's dirt.
Supergirl: That's... upsetting.
Mon-El: So Brainy ran some calculations and mathematically the odds of you beating Reign in her new form exponentially increased if one member of The Legion comes back to help.
Supergirl: (smiling) Well, as always, I am thankful for Brainy's calculations.


Continuity

James and Lena's relationship is confirmed to have become physical.

Lena has been living in a hotel penthouse for most of the last two years, having been uncertain that she would stay in National City.

James and Lena agree to hide no more secrets from each other.

M'yrnn likes Sidamo Guji coffee beans.

M'yrnn mistakes J'onn for someone named Rokar.

J'onn offers to help his father perform the Ta'ar Ka'riq (last seen in 315), but M'yrnn says he does not have the energy.

Imra says that Chameleon was the first Legionnaire to fall to The Blight, with six more following. They were placed in cryogenic suspension until a cure could be found. This was why Imra, Mon-El and Brainiac-5 did not wake the other Legionaries on their ship after they woke up.

Mon-El determines that the Legionaries in suspended animation are free of The Blight and they can now return home, their mission accomplished.

Braniac-5 says they have to return to their time soon, as with Imra away, there is no way of knowing The Titan Alliance (first mentioned in 313) has held in the revised timeline.

Kara makes reference to the cape-fighting tricks that Mon-El taught her in 315.

According to Braniac-5, Winn has a Level 1.42 Inellect, compared to his Level 12. (Braniac-5 is later revealed to have been lying about Winn being a 1.42.)

Winn has a dirt collection. Calculating this, Brainiac-5 gives him a sample of Earth dirt from the 31st Century as a thank you present for his help.

Coluan embraces in the 31st century are quite different from human hugs in the 21st Century. Either that or Brainiac-5 is unfamiliar with how embraces of any kind are meant to work.

Mon-El tells Winn to tell J'onn that he will see him in one thousand years. Winn thinks Mon-El is joking but Mon-El's expression says otherwise.

Patrica Arias is revealed to live on a farm outside National City. This location was first seen in 307.

Lena reveals that she hid Ruby in a secret mansion that only she and Lex knew about.

The code to reveal The Luthor Mansion is 052627.

Patricia Arias has had issues with a neighbor named Francis Pierce trying to steal her medication.

When she was 10, Sam began doodling the same design over and over on her books. When she was punished for this, she drew it onto the wall of her bedroom.  The design is revealed to be Reign symbol.

Patricia Arias admits that she was a terrible mother, kicking Sam out of the house when she got pregnant as a teenager. She tells Supergirl and J'onn that she knows about having a granddaughter, but has never met Ruby.

Mrs. Queller was a neighbor of Sam's who helped her out by picking Ruby up from school and taking care of her. She was mentioned in several earlier episode but makes her first physical appearance here, being revealed to have been staying with Ruby in The Luthor Mansion.

The are 5,000 steps from wing to wing in The Luthor Mansion. It has an indoor pool.

The dining room of the Luthor Mansion has a rather severe looking portrait of Lillian Luthor. Mrs. Queller says the eyes follow you like The Mona Lisa, but not in a good way.

Alex lies to Ruby about not knowing what is wrong with her mom.

J'onn say that he has been preparing Martian medications for M'yrnn, but that his father still feels depressed and useless with his telepathy dampened. He notes that M'yrnn's memories of the past are clear but his present thoughts are chaotic.

Reign's presence is now foretold by the immediate withering and death of nearby plants, as it was with Pestilence.

Despite not having met Ruby, Patricia still has a picture of her and Sam on her mantle.

Reign is also confirmed to have Purity's sonic scream power, which is strong enough to cause J'onn's ears to bleed at close range. While it doesn't make Kara bleed, it does cause her intense discomfort and leaves her deafened for a short time.

Reign mortally wounds Patricia Arias.

Brainiac-5 planted a bug in the dirt that he gave Winn, so that he could keep tabs on Supergirl and her allies in The DEO.

Brainiac-5 says that Supergirl and The DEO only have a 51% chance of defeating Reign now that she has the powers of all three Worldkillers. He says their odds jump to 88.8% if just one Legionnaire remains in the past to help them.

Brainiac-5 says that Supergirl is stronger than any single Legionnaire.

Patricia Arias dies, begging Supergirl to tell Ruby that her grandmother loved her and to tell Sam that she's sorry for everything.

James tells Lena about Patricia's death and tries to persuade her to tell Supergirl that she figured out how to synthesize Kryptonite, despite Lena's fears that it will kill what little trust remains between them.

Young Frankenstein is one of Alex's favorite movies of all time.

Ruby figures out that Alex is lying to her.

J'onn says that Reign is as soulless and merciless as a White Martian. He admits, however, that some White Martians, like M'Gann, proved capable of mercy and compassion. He then remembers that M'yrnn survived only because he was able to talk the White Martians into sparing him.

M'yrnn makes reference to something called The Eradiactor Project and mistakes Kara for someone named Ursula and refers to someone named Kemler.

M'yrnn recalls that he did not really persuade The White Martians of anything. He knew that they held a certain series of scrolls as sacred. As the only person who had knowledge of the secrets of those scrolls, M'yrnn forced the White Martians to spare him lest that knowledge be lost forever. In short, he abandoned his beliefs to appeal to theirs.

Imra tells Mon-El to stay in the 21st Century, saying that she knows he has done nothing wrong or behaved dishonorably but that she wants a partner who will chose her with a full heart - for love, not duty.

Lena reveals that she can make Kryptonite to Supergirl. It goes as badly as she predicted, with Supergirl saying she no longer trusts Lena at all and sees her as an enemy.

Reign overhears Ruby's voice when she uses Alex's phone outside the Luthor Mansion to try and call her mom.

Supergirl tries to appeal to Reign by reminding her that her purpose is to punish sin but that Ruby is an innocent who does not deserve to die.

Mon-El crushes the Kryptonite into shards and uses them as make-shift ammunition to take down Reign.

Reign is moved back to Lena's private lab so Lena can work on a cure, with Mon-El putting a futuristic power inhibitor on her.

Mon-El says that he intends to stay in the present until Reign is defeated, one way or the other.

M'yrnn's memory loss is getting worse, not remembering his conversation with Kara and J'onn about The White Martians or that he told J'onn earlier about his discovery of mocha.

Alex admits that she lied to Ruby and promises to protect her and be honest in the future.

Lena tells Kara that the only reason she is working with Supergirl to save Sam and that she's lost all reason to trust or respect Supergirl after she had James break into her private lab. 

The final scene of the episode shows a woman named Tanya stealing a journal filled with images of Reign, being told to stop "In the name of Coville" by another man. This is likely a reference to Thomas Coville - leader of The Cult of Rao - last seein in 312.


Location

Patricia Arias' farm outside of National City.

Lex Luthor's Mansion.


Untelevised Adventures

Supergirl apparently keeps her promise to Patricia and tells Ruby about her grandmother off-camera.


The Bottom Line

Good acting salvages an otherwise annoyingly written episode. It's clear the writers intend to drive a wedge between Kara and Lena because there is no reason why Lena should not have realized Kara is Supergirl at this point unless Lena is playing dumb to make Kara feel guilty about lying to her. The performances suggest this to a degree, but it doesn't excuse how horribly out of character it was for Kara to ask James to betray his girlfriend last week and I fear the lesson Kara will take from this is that she can't trust James anymore. Still, between Carl Lumbly's frightening accurate portrayal of an Alzheimer's patient, Chris Wood's silent suffering as he is torn between love and duty and Melissa Benoist managing to portray everything except Kara's anger convincingly, this is a surprisingly solid episode.