Synopsis: James confronts Kara about her wavering ethics since working with the DEO, Cat gets a competitive new assistant, and alien serial killers are hanging out in National City, killing Fort Rozz prisoners.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
“I’ve wanted to catch a corrupt cop ever since we binge-watched The Wire“.
One of Kara’s best lines to date, and actually a great summation of the themes at play. Struggling at work in lieu of all the alien nonsense going on and her grief over Astra, Kara is on something of a tear with this whole “hero” thing. Not to mention, the public – namely, Cat Grant – is beginning to notice that Max Lord is missing.
Apparently, his company’s new smartphone has a glitch that allows someone to listen in on the next call of someone they’ve called. And Lord is nowhere to be reached for any kind of fix, or PR damage control, which has Cat suspicious – rightly so. Obviously, on a show built around secrets, this little detail is bound to come into play. More importantly though, with all the media attention on it, James is concerned. He knows the DEO has Max and he confronts Kara about the fact that it’s, you know, unconstitutional.
He says it’s bad enough that they are holding prisoners without trial, due process, or any kind of accountability, but Max is human, and a very public figure. He knows Max is a bad guy, but he tells Kara that he can’t be okay with this, and he’s beginning to question her morals and heroism. She’s doesn’t take it well.
I LOVE this. Too often shows of this ilk do exactly what James described – rogue or ex-agents just grabbing people off the street to interrogate or threaten and we’re not supposed to question it because they’re the “good guys” who are just trying to save other, innocent people. The fact that it’s one hundred percent a felony, and against everything democracy is supposed to stand for never even comes up.
So I’m really glad that Supergirl is tackling it, and even more glad that it WASN’T Kara who brought it up. It’s excellent that Kara sided with the DEO. That she’s angry, and biased, and James was the one to take a stand. It’s so often the other way around.
In the meantime, Kara and Alex discover a former guard from Fort Rozz is capturing and killing former prisoners – in a dark parallel to Kara’s position at the DEO. He’s been posing as a cop for access to leads on the escaped prisoners, and when he realizes that Kara’s onto him, he snatches her up. Alex arrives in the nick of time to stop the man from interrogating a kindly professor before a powerless Kara’s eyes. With renewed perspective, Kara grudgingly concedes James’ point, and releases Max.
It’s all very frustrating for Kara though, especially since she believes Hank killed Astra, and she decides to take some time off from working with the DEO.
Which is unfortunate, because there’s now a hacker on the loose causing chaos in the streets, after Cat refused to publish a story she sent in about a cheater website because it was boring. Winn, being a computer guy, tries to contain the damage and track her down, but she finds him first, showing up on the screen, and then somehow managing to climb out of it – Samara style – going from a pretty blonde, to fully-suited Indigo – a DC vigilante turned supervillain.
She’s basically a living, breathing Internet. She knows everything. She’s prepared to kill James and Winn, before Alex and Hank bust up the party and she absorbs back into the computer. Later, she touches base with Non, and tells him she’s already set a plan in motion to kill all humans, to prove to Non that Astra’s dream of coexisting with humans is impossible and pointless.
After a super-cool jaunt into the Fortress of Solitude, and with a little help from Lucy, the gang discovers that Indigo was causing so much chaos to cover up the fact that she was trying to expose and declassify everything she could about a military general who has access to nuclear launch sites, and use him to get in and launch a missile on National City.
She launches the missile, but Kara is able to stop it, with Hank’s help, and Winn uses a computer virus to kill Indigo. Before she dies though, she tells Kara that she’s the one who got her to earth. Indigo explains that she’d spent her time in Fort Rozz searching for a way out, and when Kara’s pod drifted in, she was able to access the computer to link it to the prison and fly it out of the Phantom Zone, crashing it on earth so she could escape. She tells Kara that if it hadn’t been for her, she’d still be floating alone out there, and she never would have become Supergirl. Which is pretty big, story wise, and it fits well. I liked it.
Back at Catco, Kara gives James permission to tell Lucy the truth about everything, but before he gets a chance, she breaks up with him. She says she’s finally realized that he’s love with Kara. Poor Lucy just can’t catch a break. (I’d watch the hell out of a spin-off with human vigilante/lawyer/ex-military Lucy conning criminals and sidestepping the superheroes messes, though. Something a la Burn Notice. @ CBS I just handed you gold please tweet me.)
In the end, Kara returns to the DEO and makes nice with everyone. It’s emotional and adorable, which is why Bad Things must be brewing somewhere else. Like Non putting Indigo back together. Although they clearly established hatred for each other’s plans and ideals so I’m not really sure why.
I guess we’re gonna find out.