‘Supergirl’ Recap: Dad’s Back, But Is He the Jeremiah They Remember?
Warning: This recap for the “Homecoming” episode of Supergirl contains spoilers.
“Homecoming” starts as bright as any episode of Supergirl has started, but ends as dark as any to date. If emotional roller coasters are your thing, step right up! We’ve got the reunion of a family! We’ve got betrayal! We’ve got secrets threatened and secrets revealed. There are joyous group hugs and consoling group hugs. There’s the threat of nuclear annihilation and also, Winn reveals that he accidentally stuck a dart in the fishfaced alien’s head (his name is Kevin). Whatever you’re looking for, this one’s got it.
The Plot
Kara and Mon-El’s honeymoon period is short-lived; the team rescues Jeremiah (Dean Cain) from Cadmus, and he warns that they have a fusion bomb ready to blow up National City. Alex and Kara are anxious to reunite their family, but Mon-El suspects that Jeremiah is working for Cadmus. He convinces Winn to keep an eye on him and, eventually, they convince Kara too. They confront Jeremiah when he accesses classified files, but he says it’s just to catch up on his daughters’ activities over the 15 years he’s been imprisoned, convincing Alex that he’s turned against the family. J’onn believes Jeremiah too — until Kara and Alex go to retrieve the fusion bomb and the deception is uncovered. Jeremiah’s arm is cybernetically enhanced, and he’s there to steal the DEO’s list of every alien in the U.S. The sisters try to capture him, but Cadmus blows up a train track to distract Supergirl and Alex finds she’s unwilling to shoot her father. A giant ship hints at Lillian Luthor’s plan for the aliens.
Related: Catch Up on ‘Supergirl’ With Our Recaps
On Relationships
This is an excruciating episode in the best possible way. It’s a hallmark of Andrew Kreisberg, one of Supergirl‘s showrunners: situations where characters are both wrong and right at the same time. Mon-El is right: Jeremiah’s appearance is too good to be true. But also, he’s dead wrong and dead wrong in the way that kept Kara away from him in the first place. He tries to be her savior rather than her partner and sabotages himself even as we, the audience, can tell that something’s clearly wrong with Papa Danvers.
There are two schools of thought on the romances of Supergirl. One is that the approach is sexist: Why can’t she just be a kickass vigilante like her male counterparts? Of course, a cursory examination reveals that her male counterparts also have romantic subplots — Arrow’s got Felicity, Flash has Iris, Gordon has a string of angry and/or psychotic exes. The other school is that it’s a new perspective in a genre that’s grown moribund with angry white dudes grimly punching everything that doesn’t remind them of their mother.
This episode plays well into that latter view. Every superhero has issues about wanting daddy to be proud of them. Here we see that, but also we have the story of how Kara’s adoption changes that equation, of how a new relationship threatens the father/daughter bond, of Alex’s worry that her happiness is undeserved and a word from any of her loved ones could destroy it in an instant. If it were any less weighty and real, we’d probably laugh at the absurdity of fusion bombs and enormous alien spaceships. As it is, it strikes an ideal balance.
DEO vs. CatCo
Does Kara even need to work at CatCo anymore? The DEO has Mon-El to replace James; it has Winn for comic relief. The only element that the journalism side of her life offers is the surly mentor, but without Calista Flockhart’s sheer force of will — Ian Gomez is very good, but Snapper is no Cat Grant — the CatCo offices are starting to feel redundant. The job of reporter speaks to both her and Superman’s idealism about truth being an integral part of their heroism, but it feels lost of late. Would the show be better if it doubled down and focused on the human side of her life, or can Supergirl answer the same questions without taking off the big red “S”?
Kryptobites
Please, please, please let us see Mon-El squirming in a three-hour sexual harassment class. He’d probably beg to have Kara turn him black and blue in one of their sparring sessions instead.
Alex lets her dad go, but couldn’t she have just shot him in the leg? Or Tased him? Maybe the DEO could borrow some ICERs from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?
It’s hard to see, but it kind of looks like Kara’s drinking cheap Costco bourbon neat, which is considered torture under the Geneva Conventions. Or at least, it should be.
Winn is at his entertaining, funniest best when he’s barely keeping up with what’s going around him. The move to the DEO was good for him, but his new girlfriend, Lyra (Tamzin Merchant), is next level great.
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
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