Remember how I’ve been praising Supergirl and The Flash for letting dramatic moments ripen a bit before resolving them? Well, that was misplaced praise as far as this episode was concerned. I get the feeling that I should really frame through the credits to figure out which writers are the ones that do this.
So I’ll start with the crossover content. Why? Because it’s shorter than Donald’s pinkie finger, that’s why. It literally amounts to several instances of a wormhole popping up, usually while people are fighting. It isn’t until the last minute of the episode that it even pays off. It’s mostly characters noting how weird it is, then getting along with what they were doing to begin with. They literally have Cisco and Barry show up in Kara’s apartment right at the end and ask her for help. Personally, was expecting a little more than that for the start of a big multi-night crossover. Still, they had to actually start the crossover somewhere, and Supergirl is the first of the week.
The real Hank Henshaw got his hands on Medusa, and immediately uses it on the alien bar. It’s a virus which kills all (non-kryptonian) aliens exposed to it in a matter of seconds. Mon-El, who happened to be there at the time, tries to stop him once he realizes Hank isn’t J’onn, but gets sucker punched. He then winds up exposing himself to the virus by walking back into the bar. J’onn sticks him in quarantine, since they need him exposing them to this thing like another hole in his head. Thanks to the fact that he’s a Daxamite, he’s resistant to it, but even he begins to succumb to the virus.
And that’s about where the bullshit begins. They bring Eliza Danvers in to help them figure out a way to cure Mon-El and put the breaks on Cadmus’ plan to use it. The problem is that this is the sort of thing that seems a bit unnecessary. The DEO employs agents from scientific backgrounds; it’s part of why Alex joined. So it stands out more as a reason to justify having Helen Slater show up. But the best of it is yet to come.
Supergirl decides to ply Lena for information about her mother. More directly, after Mon-El falls ill. Lena winds up taking exception at the suggestion that Lillian is involved, based on Lex’s crimes. She sends Supergirl away, hurt that Supergirl would imply that her mother was running Cadmus. The thing is that this was unnecessary; she’s exactly the sort to believe that Lillian would do it. Especially since she tricks Lillian into believing that she would go along with the plan, only to sabotage it. She replaces the isotope with something that renders the virus inert, ultimately saving the day better than any other character.
Hank ha his big revenge fight with J’onn, which had to be fun for David Harewood. He really got to ham it up declaring himself Cyborg Superman and going on a mid-fight anti alien screed. Hank has J’onn mostly beat most of the time. it isn’t until J’onn embraces the changes happening from the White Martian blood that he starts knocking Hank around. Hank does get away in the confusion of the missile explosion over the city though.
This does bring me to the one of the worst parts of the episode, though. Eliza’s able to use Cadmus’s files on Medusa to cure Mon-El. Fine, that’s a reasonable return to status quo; it was the drama for the episode. But they also use this to resolve J’onn’s transformation. They don’t use it to generate more drama with M’gann, or really anything other than overpowering Hank. They literally cure him off screen! No joke, they have the characters mention, after the fact, that Eliza was able to use the Kryptonian murder virus to selectively kill the White Martian cells.
I almost feel, all things considered, they could’ve chosen a better episode of Supergirl to start the crossover. This feels like an early season 1 episode, only it has less excuse to be so. Thank God the rest of the crossover episodes don’t seem to follow this trend.
Final Thoughts:
- The only reason I can think of that Lena would act that way is out of fear of being watched.
- Seriously, the Alex scenes are turning into this season’s “Kara and Cat argue about thing they fundamentally agree on”.
- I didn’t even mention the drama caused by Kara’s Father creating Medusa in the first place. I did that with a lot of the episode, because the stupid was blinding.
- You can identify bad writing by the fact that intelligent characters turn into magical dumbasses. That works for comedy far better than drama.
“The crossover content in Supergirl is shorter than Donald’s pinkie finger”
2.5/5
“Not Good”
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