‘Supergirl’ Recap: Cadmus Leader’s Identity Revealed
Warning: This recap of the “Crossfire” episode of Supergirl contains spoilers.
A well-paced episode that deftly balanced its emotional stories with action. There is a great juxtaposition of the super man trying to be normal (Mon-el) with the normal man trying to be super (James) as well as Alex trying to deal with her love life more gracefully than Kara has managed with hers so far. The reveal of Lena Luthor’s mother raises the stakes on the entire season as we hurtle towards the big four-show crossover later this month.
The Plot
Kara tries to acclimate Mon-el to Earth by getting him a job at CatCo, which goes wrong fast. Alex finds out Maggie has broken up with her girlfriend and admits to her that she may have feelings for her. A gang led by Chet Miner (Alexander Cendese) terrorize the city with advanced offworld tech provided by Cadmus, who hope to use that chaos to promote fear and resentment towards aliens. James puts on a ski mask and tries to play vigilante; he mostly fails, but he convinces Winn to help him by designing a suit to help him fight crime. Lena asks Supergirl for help protecting a charity ball she’s throwing, knowing that it will be a target of this gang. In actuality, Lena uses the ball as a trap to lure the gang in and disables their weapons with advanced tech of her own. Miner is killed by Cadmus before he can rat out the leader. That leader, it turns out, is Lena’s mother.
Mom
It’s a hell of a reveal that opens lots of doors. Though the character is still unnamed, let’s call her Lillian for the sake of argument. In the comics, she’s more notable for her absence: The loss of his mother shapes the way Lex Luthor views the world. Here though, she’s not only a threat, she’s put the possibility of Lena betraying Supergirl back on the table. The mother/daughter relationship seems chilly from the few seconds we’ve seen, but if it’s all a ruse, they may be aware of her secret identity and are toying with her as we build towards the finale.
An even more interesting take would be if Kara is genuinely changing Lena’s attitude towards aliens, which means a war is coming for the soul of Lena. Will she learn to love and support Kara and her kind? Or will her family ties win out and drag her to the dark side? This friend/rival/friend relationship between Lena and Kara is a thousand times more interesting than Kara/James ever was.
Operation Doubtfire
Are there any viewers left who aren’t in love with the Three’s Company, sitcom-style romance elements of the show? In season 1, there may have been some who were waiting for the show to “get serious” and become less girlie, but if anything, it’s become even moreso. The show knows it can do a silly switcheroo bit where Kara convinces Lena that both she and Supergirl are at the party with super-speed costume changes in between fistfights with guys carrying ray guns. When the producers said that Season 2 would be embracing its comic book roots, we all assumed they meant more superheroics — we forgot that, for decades, romance comics were huge.
Inside Comics Moment
The boom era for romance comics lasted from the late ’40s to the mid-’70s. Care to guess who spearheaded the genre? Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Yes, that Joe Simon — co-creator of Captain America — and that Jack Kirby, co-creator of Cap, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. They created Young Romance because there was a glut of comics and it was pretty much the only genre left untapped. Not entirely unlike the situation with comics properties in movies and TV today…
Kryptobites
*Hopefully, we can come together as a nation and agree with Mon-el that Red Vines are amazing and Twizzlers are the worst? Please direct all arguments and complaints to the Daxamite government.
*Kara can’t dance with with Mon-el because she’s double-fisting appetizers at the party. Don’t let anybody tell you that this show doesn’t accurately depict journalists, because that moment is spot on.
*Winn says that both he and James are destined to fight evil with knowledge, but he fails to take into account Mehcad Brooks’s abs. With abs like that, he is also destined to fight evil with his shirt off (see Stephen Amell, Arrow).
*Line of the Night: “Not everyone can rock argyle like you do.” Alex is right: Not everyone can rock argyle like Kara. But also, it’s very, very fun to see Mon-el try to rock that look, so maybe a few more episodes with the bow tie and glasses before you give up on it?
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
