Supergirl recap: Crazy Lex girlfriend
Oh, buddy, did Supergirl walk into a trap this week, and because of it, the White House is burning and she’s become public enemy No. 1. Gotta say, that’s a well-designed supervillain plan!
We open with Alex leading the DEO into Lena’s office, where she’s been drugged and tied to her chair. She wakes up and starts to apologize, but Alex stops her and plucks Lex’s letter from the desk. In it, he brags about how easy it was to plant Eve in Lena’s orbit and blames his sister for betraying him first. He closes with a threat to kill Lena if she pursues him, as all good sibling letters do.
As they hover above the city, Kara tells J’onn that she blames herself for allowing her cousin’s greatest enemy to slip through her fingers. But when J’onn tries to scan for Lex, he hears his father’s voice and plummets from the sky.
Kara catches him and delivers him safely to his apartment, where he admits that he no longer knows who he is. Kara insists that he not focus on finding Lex and instead work through his identity crisis.
He meditates in the hope of summoning his father for guidance, and the next thing you know, Myr’nn’s knocking on his door. J’onn is overjoyed to see his father, but Myr’nn brusquely says he’s actually there to take the sacred symbols back because J’onn has failed as their keeper. Even though it means they’ll disappear forever, Myr’nn transfers the symbols from J’onn’s head to a physical vessel, leaving J’onn immobilized by pain.
When J’onn comes to, he asks his father for help. Since he’s the last Green Martian, he knows that if he loses the symbols along with his memory, as shape-shifters often do, that means the end of all Martian religion, history, culture, even the memory of his children. He then lashes out at his father for letting Mars burn, and Myr’nn responds with the criticism that J’onn hasn’t exactly protected this world. “I’m not a man of peace,” J’onn finally roars. “I’m the Martian Manhunter!”
Having provoked this realization, Myr’nn tells him that he didn’t want J’onn to change his nature, but to help the world in the best way that he can. “I failed to impart my unconditional love for you,” Myr’nn says.
Of course, Myr’nn is actually an extension of J’onn’s own memory, but it still provides guidance and comfort. When he recalls that H’ronmeer first handed down the sacred symbols in an alien desert, he heads off-world to return them there, where they can lay dormant until someone worthy comes to claim them.
Okay, to the A-plot. Supergirl sets off the DEO’s perimeter alarms when she arrives with donuts and an offer to help find Lex. Haley tells them that President Baker wants the DEO patrolling D.C. in the lead-up to the Alien Amnesty Act repeal vote. However, she agrees to let Alex and Brainy work with Supergirl on tracking Lex down. She leaves to coordinate the D.C. team, taking the donuts with her.
Supergirl’s ready to jump in and talk to Lena, but Alex reminds her of their rocky history and suggests she sit this one out. Supergirl agrees but gives Alex the watch to summon her, if necessary
Never one to be idle, Lena visits her mother in prison, and the conversation isn’t cordial. Lillian asks what Lena’s friends James and the Danvers sisters would think if they knew she’d worked with her brother on the Harun-El project. “They would hate you, and then you’d find yourself utterly alone. Again.” Um, I’d like to make a motion that somebody give Lena a hug? At least Lillian lets it slip that Eve Teschmacher’s in love with Lex.
When Lena finds Alex sifting through the mess in her office, she immediately assumes that Alex thinks the worst of her now. But no, Alex wants to work with Lena and Supergirl on tracking Eve, the “crazy Lex girlfriend,” as Supergirl puts it.
The trio starts with Eve’s family and finds her cousin Bitsie, who insists that Eve’s a good person. But she gives herself away by pulling a blood orange cake out of the oven with her bare hands and punching a hole in the granite countertop when she gets angry. Yep, it’s Eve’s cousin with cancer, and Eve risked getting caught in order to heal her with Lena’s serum before she went on the lam. Thankfully, Bitsie mentions Eve’s secret lab at National City University.
In the lab, Supergirl’s horrified to discover a sample of Harun-El, which Lena admits she knows how to make. Supergirl realizes that this is how Lex got his superpowers and gets angry. Lena again defends her plan to allow humans to protect themselves from the more powerful aliens and points out Supergirl’s tendency to get enraged the instant she feels vulnerable. Alex takes Lena’s side and points out all the good she did in saving Argo, Sam, James, etc.
Supergirl admits that she feels the weight of the world on her shoulders with Superman gone and Lex free. “If my enemies are strengthened, and I’m weakened in the slightest bit, then I lose. And I just can’t lose,” she said, apologizing to Lena. Lena accepts, and the women all agree to let bygones be bygones. Yes! Let the powerful lady alliance commence!
Their good feelings are cut short when they realize that Eve brought Otis back to life using Cadmus’s Metallo heart after five failed test subjects. Then one of those failed experiments, rocking malformed metal arms bursts and a Kryptonite cannon on his chest, burst through the wall to attack them.
Supergirl holds him off as best as she can while Lena gathers the supplies for a beaker full of explosives, which she tosses and Alex shoots at the perfect moment to destroy their assailant. It. Is. Awesome.
They bring the Kryptonite heart to the DEO, where they put the pieces together: Lex leads to Eve, who leads to Otis, who leads to Ben Lockwood. Dun!! Also, they found a gun in Eve’s labs, and ballistics match it to the bullet that shot James, which means Lex, not Manchester Black, is to blame. Lena feigns surprise about this connection, and wow, am I not looking forward to that lie getting exposed.
Kara breaks this news to James, who’s not having a great week. Sure, he’s out of the hospital, but he’s ignoring his psychologist sister’s advice that he seek out post-trauma therapy, even though Kelly points out that he’s exhibiting signs of PTSD and has turned off all the TVs in his office so he won’t have to see Lex. He lashes back that Kelly only comes around when he’s injured and she can boss him around.
And now he has to deal with the knowledge that the person who shot him is not, in fact, dead. Then he and Kara are interrupted by a news alert that the Senate just voted to repeal the Alien Amnesty Act. Footage of Sen. Granberry shows one of her aids dealing with a faulty image inducer, which briefly reveals her to be Eve Teschmacher. Looks like Alex is headed to D.C. after all!
Supergirl patrols the skies outside the White House, looking for Eve among the protesters. She spots a car protected by an x-ray scatter field and zips down to take Eve into custody. But curses! It’s a hologram Eve, and Supergirl soon finds herself encased in a Kryptonite-laced Lexosuit, unable to move.
Inside the White House, Ben Lockwood and his son George are in the Oval Office, where Ben is shocked that the repeal passed when Sen. Granberry had just made it clear to him that she and her voting block of eight were against the repeal for fear of angering any powerful aliens. When he asks her what happened, she quietly says, “Just take the win.” Gee, I wonder if Eve-in-disguise had something to do with that?
When the media are admitted, James tracks down Ben to ask about not-dead Otis and his connection with Lex Luthor. Ben denies knowledge of any of it.
Then the whole White House shakes and the lights go out, and Red Daughter, dressed as Supergirl, crashes in and starts eye-lasering the assembled senators and journalists. James hustles George Lockwood to safety, but he freezes when the Secret Service starts firing their guns.
Red-Supergirl turns her attention to Ben, cowering on the floor with a gun, and quotes Caligula at him: “Let them hate, so long as they fear.” She offers him a small smile before flying outside to set the White House roof on fire.
President Baker immediately addresses the country from a secure location, denouncing Supergirl and her “alien brute form of justice,” enacting martial law, and declaring Supergirl public enemy No. 1.
Ben and George both watch, shaken, as is everyone at the DEO. But when Alex says she doesn’t believe that Supergirl would do this, Haley agrees. Haley: queen of donuts and queen of my heart.
It gets better, though. Alex and Lena summon Supergirl, who shows up ready to be arrested. But Lena assures her, “We’re on your side, Supergirl. We’re going to find out the truth, together.”
Look, I know that Kara/Supergirl, Lena, and Alex all are keeping various secrets from and about one another, and it’s going to be explosive if and when they finally come to light. But for now, let’s just enjoy this powerhouse triumvirate working together to take down Lex and Co.
Snaps of the cape
A few things to note: J’onn gave Brainy his Legion ring back. Eve’s password is (gag) ILoveLex. Lex’s handwriting is gorgeous.
So now we have an idea of why Kelly sticks around next season: James finally asks for her help with his trauma, and she gladly offers it. I’m enjoying this Olsen dynamic, aren’t you?
So Lena showed Lillian a prison blueprint and convinced her that Lex wanted to kill her, not free her. What intel do you suppose Lillian offered in return?
It’s always, always, always a pleasure to see Carl Lumbly. Come back any time, Myr’nn.
Did, uh, Red-Supergirl kill all those people in the Oval? And seriously, what did go down with Sen. Granberry? Hit up the comments with your best guesses!
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