Holy shit, they did it. They finally did it. Supergirl finally had a character driven episode that both avoided the writing crutch they’ve been using every single episode and drops one hell of a nice bombshell.
After her fight with Red Tornado, Supergirl completely blew out her powers, making her just as vulnerable as anyone else on Earth. Her lack of powers forms the crux of the episode’s drama. Even the most basic and utilitarian uses for some of her powers are sorely missed. Doubly so when a massive earthquake hits L.A. National City, and Maxwell Lord does his usual dickish shit. The best thing is that they treat him as a non-combat antagonist for Supergirl; he talks plenty of smack about her in this episode, and it’s treated as the sort of thing he just seems to leak out all the time.
As a matter of fact, Kara’s loss of her powers is something of an injury conga line. From getting sick for the first time on Earth to getting a broken arm, she gets to realize how sucktastic it is to not have super invulnerability.To make matters worse, she should’ve gotten her powers back after 48 hours like her cousin does, but she doesn’t. I’d personally chalk that up to his having spent his entire life on Earth learning to use his powers versus Kara burying hers. The realization that she can’t do the things she usually could hits her pretty hard, especially in the face of possibly never being able to do them again.
That being said, she does make a pretty bad choice in stopping a convenience store robbery without her powers. Jimmy even reminds her that bullets really hurt when they don’t just bounce off of you.To be fair, she uses her wits to convince the robber that pulling the trigger on her won’t do anything, and that if she had wanted to, she could’ve easily stomped a new mudhole in his ass. Honestly, her being depowered really helps to make the episode with situations like this, as well as the one man who could’ve easily been saved if she had her abiluity to fly or her X-ray vision. It really helps address something that always bothered me about the Super-books; namely that the danger of any situation is cut by a large margin when your hero characters aren’t in any real danger.
Either way, Winn figures out that what she needs to jumpstart her powers again is a jolt of adrenaline, thanks to Alex’s DEO files.This finally happens when Jimmy decides to help a bunch of people on a higher floor. he gets them to safety, but when an aftershock hits, he just barely manages to grab on to a frayed elevator wire. Which snaps, predictably. The immediacy of the situation gives Kara the Jolt she needs, and she then goes on a tour of National City, fixing problems left and right.
The best part of the episode, in my opinion, dealt with the DEO. When the earthquake hits, they were transporting a psionic alien named Jemm between cells. Once the lights come back on, Jemm is free, and Hank rounds all of the agents into the Alura room, since the walls there are thick enough to protect against Jemm’s telepathy. Hank deliberately takes two lesser qualified agents than Alex to go confront Jemm, since they only have three devices capable of blocking his mind attacks. She already doesn’t trust him, and when the party goes belly up other than Hank, she’s stopped by Hank at the door to the room. Hank tells her the neutralizers were broken and heads back out.
She decides to break orders, and heads out with another agent. They find the neutralizers unbroken, but only Alex gets her on before Jemm gets the redshirt she brought with her. When she meets with Hank, she disarms him, chews him out, and cuffs him to a pipe. She then calls out Jemm, and sets the place of their showdown. Her attack plan would’ve worked, too, if bullets could really stop him (to be fair, she did blow the psychic gem off his forehead). Just as she realizes that she was punching above her weight class, Hank drops from the rafters and snaps Jemm’s neck like a boss.
The conversation Alex and Hank have afterwards is absolutely the best. Hank explains that he isn’t, in fact, the real Hank Henshaw. Hank Died on the South America mission, fighting with Jeremiah Danvers. Alex’s father realized that the alien they were hunting was benign; a refugee, rather than an escapee. While the details aren’t provided, Danvers and Henshaw killed each other, with Danvers passing on his dying wish for the alien to protect his daughter; an easy task, as the alien was a shape shifter. The Hank Alex knows is that alien. The last son of Mars, J’onn J’onzz.
Also, Astra shows up to set up a cliffhanger. Like this episode needed one.
Final Thoughts:
- You know what else helped this one? Minimal interaction between Kara and Cat.
- Why were there problems on a higher floor of that building, as opposed to a lower floor? Drama?
- Yeah, no one saw Martian Manhunter coming either. Good show, writers.
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