Previously on SUPERGIRL…
SUPERGIRL‘s opening salvo this season has been pretty uneven, teetering between really strong, character-driven episodes and much weaker ones that tend to preach the message rather than deliver it. With its return from a month off, the show provided a strong episode that really changes the status quo for the Maid of Might, and sets up a really intriguing back half of the season.
After getting fired from the DEO by the President for refusing to divulge her secret identity, Supergirl is now off on her own. And she has more ground to cover, now that Superman and Lois Lane are off-world while Lois gives birth. And yet, she still gets caught up in DEO missions. Kara tries to save a Navy ship in distress from an alien attack, which leads to a conspiracy about the DEO training aliens known as Morae as covert killers. When the military gives a kill order on the Morae, the aliens fight back, and Kara, Alex and Brainiac 5 get involved in trying to stop them.
Despite Supergirl doing what she can to help the DEO, Col. Lauren Haley continues to follow the President’s orders in seeking Supergirl’s secret identity, causing more of a rift between her and Alex. And even though Alex got the DEO agents who knew Kara’s secret to pledge some loyalty, Haley gets one of them to spill the beans. Haley capitalized on this by telling Kara that she would be conscripted back into service for the DEO lest her loved ones all be put in danger.
So, of course, Alex knocks her out and gets J’onn to mindwipe Haley so that she forgets Kara’s secret. Problem solved, right? Come on, it’s not that easy.
Sure, Haley no longer remembers that Supergirl is actually Kara Danvers, sister to DEO Director Alex Danvers, but J’onn’s mindwipe did nothing to make Haley forget her desire to find Supergirl’s alter ego! If the comic books of the mid-2000s taught us anything, it’s that wiping MINDS is never the answer.
As Haley continues her inquisition into Supergirl’s secret, Alex comes up with a plan – wiping the minds of everyone at the DEO that knows Supergirl’s secret.
Unfortunately, that means Alex needs to forget that her sister is Supergirl as well, forcing Kara to lie to her sister in the future and lose one of the few sounding boards she has. At least we know where the melodrama will come in over the next few episodes, I guess.
Elsewhere (not ELSEWORLDS) this episode, J’onn is opening up his own private detective agency and Brainiac 5 is looking for someone to watch out for Supergirl, now that she’s not part of the DEO. He first hits up J’onn, offering to pay him. When J’onn says he’ll always be willing to help Kara when she asks, Brainy takes that as a no and moves on to CatCo cub reporter Nia Nal, who mistakes Brainy’s invitation to talk as a date. The Legion member then offers her some superhero costume suggestions.
But the most intriguing part of the episode came in the opening tease, which brings us back to Russia, where someone who looks a lot like Supergirl is breaking stuff in a war games exercise.
When we first saw this alt-Kara, I thought she would play into the ELSEWORLDS crossover, which would have been cool if they did a SUPERMAN: RED SON take during the crossover. Now… who knows… But I really want to see where this is going.