Spoilers
While it’s clear some time has passed since the last episode, it hasn’t been much. Kara is still struggling with the death of her aunt Astra. She had felt like she was getting through to her. Also struggling with Astra’s death is Alex, the person actually responsible. At his wishes, she is still letting Hank take the blame for Astra’s death, but twice now (once last episode and now) Alex has been on the verge of telling Kara. Last time she changed her mind, this time she was only stopped by Non breaking into Kara’s apartment.
Non wanted Kara to attend, or rather lead, the funeral for Astra. It’s Kryptonian tradition for a surviving female from the victim’s family to lead. I actually felt like this showed honor on Non’s part, respecting what he knew would have been Astra’s wishes. He tells Kara he will respect the two week mourning period, and then will be coming for her.
At the DEO Supergirl tells Alex and Hank about this mourning period, but makes it known she hasn’t forgiven Hank over Astra’s death. While there Max Lord threatens Supergirl, which feels a bit hollow at the time as he is still captive.
When Kara arrives at work she finds that Cat has hired a second assistant, Siobhan Smythe. This is clearly meant to be a dig at Kara. Cat has been getting increasingly annoyed with Kara since she broke it off with Adam (Cat’s son) and all the time she has missed work (most recently, due to the effects of the Black Mercy). Interestingly, Kara notices right away that Cat has no problem prouncing Siobhan’s name (I don’t think think Cat has prounced “Kara” correctly one time). Siobhan in the comics is known as the Silver Banshee; a frequent foe for the Super-family. While I’m not sure what her status is lately, at least for a time she was portrayed as Supergirl’s closest friend and roommate. I’m very interested to find out if on the show they develop a friendship. For now, however, she is doing everything in her power to belittle Kara in Cat’s eyes. And so far it seems to be working.
While at CatCo, Cat Makes it known that she believes Max Lord is missing, and wants Lucy and James to look into it. This created an interesting dilemma for James, as he knows exactly where Max is. It was great to see him struggle with that knowledge and ultimately take Kara to task for making what he feels are the wrong decisions, and telling her that the “S” has to stand for a higher level of values. At first I questioned the need for that, but I liked it the more I thought about it. James is partly in National City specifically to help guide Kara after all, and this is really the first time in awhile we’ve seen that.
Something I question is the DEO sending a team after a Fort Rozz escapee without bringing in Supergirl. I realize they were operating before she was in the hero game, but it seems like since she is more or less a member of the DEO anyway she should be included. Even more so when their target is from Fort Rozz. Turns out that he was already captured by a third party however, and it’s at this point we meet this week’s villain, The Master Jailer. I’m not familiar with him in the comics but I liked him. He is a guard that survived Fort Rozz and is attempting to round up the escapees to exscute them. I thought they did a good job with his suit and especially liked the way he used his chains offensively. What wasn’t clear to me is if he was Kryptonian or not, but my hunch is no. When he fought we didn’t see any Kryptonian powers with the exception of flight, which could easily be explained by his armor.
Back at the DEO Alex and Hank, before realizing he was a guard, theorize that he might be some sort of extrateresstial bounty hunter. This leads them to say something like “If it were ‘him’ though we would know it.” Now, it’s never stated who the “him” they were talking about was, but it can easily be inferred that it’s Lobo. Hopefully this is a bit of forshadowing and we actually get to see Lobo at some point. At the start of the season I wouldn’t have thought that possible, but I would have said the same thing about the Martian Manhunter.
Supergirl and Alex figured out that the Master Jailer was posing as a police detective, so that he could use his resources from the department to track down the other aliens. After confronting him, Supergirl is captured. The Jailer tells her that her fate has not been decided yet, as he prepares to execture the Rozz escapee (whom, it turns out had served his sentence and was clearly not a danger to Earth.) Before he executes the prisoner, Alex and the DEO track them down and free Supergirl. We were treated to a couple fight scenes between Supergirl and the Master Jailer, and I thought they were really well done. I especially liked the way both combatants used the chains. With Supergirl victorious they let the Fort Rozz escapee go.
In that same spirit Supergirl decides they need to let Max go as well. Clearly she has taken what James told her to heart. Alex and Max make a tentaitve deal not to out each other to the public, “mutually assured destruction” as Max put it.
All in all I really enjoyed this episode.
Random Thoughts:
- While I understand why Kara is so bitter towards Hank, I hope it comes out sooner than later that Alex actually killed Astra. It seems like we will have to deal with this for too long, if overtime Supergirl forgives Hank, only to go through it all over again when she learns the truth. I’m hoping it’s in the next episode or two.
- While I can appreciate the leader of the DEO not going into the field, it’s a little hard to reconcile that knowing he is actually the Martian Manhunter, especially when Supergirl was taken prisoner.
- James and Cat had a great moment where she told a story involving her writing a “puff piece” instead of the truth, which basically lead to a woman’s death. This helped convince James to stand up to Kara regarding Max, and once again Cat shows this amazing depth to her character.
