On this week’s Supergirl, not only did Alex and Kara have to work (sometimes at cross purposes) to prevent Cadmus from pulling off a forced alien deportation (topical much?), but they also each apparently had to re-learn how to do their jobs properly, with varying degrees of success. Oh, and since Dean Cain and Helen Slater aren’t enough, the episode ended with two new blasts from the past! Welcome to Episode 15 of the season, “Exodus.”
**THIS IS A RECAP – SPOILERS ARE PART OF THE TERRITORY.**
image via Dean Buscher/The CW
S2, EP. 15 – THE RECAP
- An average-looking family are on a road trip in a minivan. As the parents sing along to Bruno Mars’ “24K Magic” and annoy their daughter, they’re stopped by a cop. The cop warns them of a busted tail light, then offers to help them fix it with “special tape.” However, when the husband gets out of the car, he’s apprehended. Then, so are his wife and daughter by dudes that jump out of a big, black van. It’s Cadmus, and this family is a family of aliens.
- At the DEO, Team Supergirl talks about the fact that Cadmus is rounding up aliens off the registry for unknown reasons to an unknown location. J’onn clarifies that since Jeremiah is now helping Cadmus with this, he’s considered an enemy combatant and should be arrested on site. He asks Alex if she has a problem with this. She says she doesn’t, but it’s clear she does. Meanwhile, Supergirl wants to warn aliens somehow. The DEO can’t make a statement without revealing themselves, so Supergirl decides to pitch a story to CatCo.
- However, when Kara pitches the idea to Snapper, he asks her for her sources. When she cites Supergirl, again, he asks if she has another source because, in this era of “fake news,” they need to be doubly sure to verify their stories. Kara then offers to get Snapper an exclusive interview with Supergirl so that he can satisfy himself that she’s a reliable source.
- Alex and Maggie play pool at the alien dive bar. As Maggie gloats over her win, Alex is distracted thinking about Jeremiah. She tells Maggie that she still believes in her dad, in spite of everything. Maggie reassures her that she’ll be there to protect Jeremiah from the DEO when the time comes. Meanwhile, Winn, Lyra, and James sit at a table as the nauseatingly adorable couple talk about watching the film adaptation of Dune. When Lyra steps away from the table for a second, James marvels at how into each other they are. Winn, however, seems to have learned from his mistakes and is determined to take things slow with Lyra and not become immediately obsessed the way he has with women in the past. Suddenly, there’s a RAID! Cadmus fights everyone and apprehends all the aliens in the bar, including Lyra! Guardian helps Alex apprehend one of the Cadmus operatives.
image via Dean Buscher/The CW
- Tensions are high at the DEO, with Winn furious about what happened to Lyra (so furious that he starts speaking negatively about Jeremiah directly to Alex), and Alex preoccupied with getting to Cadmus before the DEO can get to her enemy combatant father. She’s so desperate to find Cadmus first that she bursts into the Cadmus operative’s cell and tries to punch Cadmus’ location out of him. When J’onn pulls her off him, he tells her that her judgement is compromised (he’s right), but Alex insists she can stay on the case (she really shouldn’t).
- Over at CatCo, Snapper has his interview with Supergirl, but as she can’t seem to tell him where she’s getting her information, he informs Kara that she’s not a good enough source on her own.
- Later that night, Alex is visited by Jeremiah, who tells her that he needs her help to protect the aliens in Cadmus’ custody and asks her to retrieve a magnetic field disruptor from the DEO. When she agrees, Jeremiah changes. It was J’onn testing her to see if she would put Jeremiah before the DEO, and she totally would. So, he suspends her from work until further notice.
- At Cadmus, Lillian and Jeremiah talk about Project Exodus. Lillian quotes Nietzsche, and informs Jeremiah that his “Superman” was about humanity looking to itself rather than waiting for help from above. Then she says to Jeremiah that he’s “the only Superman we need.” (I’ve been waiting for them to reference the fact that he used to play Superman! Finally!) So, remember that mysterious big, black ship Cadmus has? Well, Cadmus is using it to send all the aliens on Earth out into space to get them to other planets.
image via Dean Buscher/The CW
- Kara comes over to see Alex, who has Maggie over at her place. Alex begs Kara to talk to J’onn on her behalf to get her reinstated and back on the case, because J’onn shouldn’t have tested her the way he did (um, YES HE SHOULD HAVE). While Kara doesn’t agree with J’onn’s methods (why the hell not?), she does agree that Alex’s judgement is compromised on this case. She promises to protect Jeremiah before leaving. When Alex asks Maggie if she sides with Kara, Maggie says no. She sides with Alex (what is wrong with you people?), and agrees to help her get to her father. (Look, I know she’s your girlfriend, but really?)
- Lena arrives at CatCo, because she and Kara had plans, but Kara has completely forgotten, having become preoccupied with her alien warning story. Lena understands, and when Kara tells her that Snapper has refused her story, she suggests that Kara become a “Citizen Journalist” instead and publish her story on the Internet. She then offers to look into Lillian on her end and see if she can’t become a second source for Kara. After all, what are friends (and people with mothers who head shady organizations) for?
- As an alien gambler is about to get rounded up by Cadmus, Alex and Maggie show up to thwart the proceedings. After dispatching with the Cadmus operatives, Alex collects the information from the Cadmus truck’s GPS to track down their headquarters.
- At L Corp, Lena discovers that a metal shipment has gone to a site of Lexcorp’s that was supposed to have been shuttered. She asks her assistant to get her some records that she wants to check, but as the assistant leaves, she calls Lillian to tell her that Lena is on to the Cadmus site. Lillian authorizes that she should “deal with” Lena, but not in a permanent way.
image via Dean Buscher/The CW
- Alex has followed the information off the GPS to Cadmus’ site, and is immediately stopped by Jeremiah, who explains that Lillian originally wanted to kill all the aliens, but that he convinced her to send them off-world instead. However, Alex reminds him that 1) forcibly getting rid of them is still not okay, and 2) that many of them left behind war, famine, or genocide and possibly have nowhere to go “home” to anymore. Jeremiah says that he cooperated with Lillian because she threatened Alex and Kara, and he wanted to protect them. Alex: “How could you think we’d want you to hurt others to protect us?” Jeremiah lays on some BS about how she couldn’t possibly understand, because she’s not a parent.
- At Kara’s apartment, she’s debating whether or not to press “Publish” on her article-as-blog-post. Mon-El arrives and convinces her to do it (after “mishearing” blog twice). She presses “Publish.” Suddenly, Lena calls to tell Kara that she’s figured out where Cadmus is located. As she’s about to give Kara more info, Cadmus operatives show up to her office to stop her investigation. They accidentally knock her off her balcony. Thankfully, Kara heard the beginnings of the commotion over Lena’s dropped phone, and she rushed over as Supergirl just in time to catch Lena mid-air and put a stop to the Cadmus dudes. Grateful, Lena tells Supergirl what she was about to tell Kara: Cadmus’ location.
- At Cadmus, Lillian is moving the ship launch up after having seen Kara’s article about their plan, satisfied to get at least the couple hundred aliens they already got into space. (Way to go, Kara) Alex tries to convince her and Jeremiah to stop the launch, eventually revealing that she’s planted some remote controlled bombs all over the site. She sets some off when Lillian thinks she’s bluffing, but then the rest are on a dead man’s switch, and she will set them all off unless Lillian stops the launch. Lillian, however, says she can’t stop the launch. Alex, however, has gotten Jeremiah to be willing to help her again.
- Now, in a race to stop the ship from taking off, Alex runs to the ship to see if there’s a way for her to stop the launch from on the ship, while Jeremiah works on stopping the launch from where he is. Once the ship breaks the atmosphere, it’s programmed to go to light speed. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
image via Dean Buscher/The CW
- At the DEO, Winn receives a call from Alex on the ship once it launches, asking him to help her slow it down long enough for him to talk her through piloting it. He can’t slow the ship from where he is…but Supergirl can! Supergirl arrives and slows the ship, drawing inspiration from Alex. The ship is landed safely.
- Lyra and Winn reunite at the alien dive bar, and despite wanting to “take things slow,” it’s clear that he adores her. (Hell, I adore her.) They kiss as James looks on.
- At CatCo, Snapper fires Kara for posting her article online, which was both ethically questionable (she used CatCo resources to then publish the story on her own) and a breach of contract. As Kara leaves, Snapper tells her that the sad part is that he was rooting for her.
- At the DEO, J’onn apologizes for having tested Alex, and Alex asks if they can both “stop doing the wrong things for the right reasons.” She then goes out to a waiting Maggie to tell her that she’s gotten her job back.
- Mon-El arrives at Kara’s apartment with pot stickers to cheer her up after losing her job. She expresses how sad she is about having lost her job because journalism “is her calling.” (Really?) Mon-El comforts her and reminds her that she already has a job through which she helps people: Supergirl. Kara, however, says that Supergirl is “what she does,” but that Kara is “who she is,” and that writing allowed her to express her true self. Then, she says, “Maybe being Supergirl and having you is enough.” They kiss.
- Then, on a spaceship headed for Earth, a royal couple (played by TERI HATCHER and KEVIN SORBO!) seems all geared up for a shady plan.
image via Dean Buscher/The CW
S2, Ep. 15 – THE REVIEW
“Exodus” was an action-packed, emotional episode that was mostly successful in spite of several instances of awkwardly making characters less intelligent to make plot happen.
I know that the writers likely think that Mon-El constantly screwing words up makes him funny and endearing, but it’s gone too far now. The scene where he calls Kara’s “blog” a “blob” was painfully unfunny and made even more so when Kara corrects him and he says, “That’s what I said. Blob,” doubling-down despite having just heard her say the word with a “g” on the end. He’s been on Earth for a while now. I’d understand him getting certain things wrong, but not things like that.
Another victim of this kind of treatment was Maggie, who for some reason, sides with Alex even though Alex is clearly emotionally compromised. You’d think that a competent detective would know better than to advocate for a person in Alex’s state of mind to stay on a case. You’d think that maybe she’d find a way to help Kara and the DEO on Alex’s behalf, which is sort of what I thought might happen to make Maggie more a part of the gang. Instead, she’s just the blindly supportive girlfriend this week.
I don’t understand why this episode, the characters closest to Alex (other than Kara) insisted on coddling her when she was clearly in the wrong. She was emotionally compromised and not able to handle this case. J’onn had every right to test her and then sideline her. And yet, he apologized to her. For what? Doing his job?
It seems that both Danvers kids needed a lesson in how to do their jobs properly this week. Alex needed a lesson in not letting her emotions cloud her judgment (a lesson no one seemed truly willing to give her), and Kara needed to learn that journalism is not her calling. She’s actually really bad at it, and totally deserved to lose her job.
What’s frustrating about Kara/Supergirl to me at the moment is that she keeps treating Supergirl as something outside herself, whereas in Season One, she asserted Supergirl, because she wanted to be her full self. So, which is it? Is Supergirl a part of who Kara is, or isn’t she? I understand wanting a bit of normal in her life, but she doesn’t have to latch onto a job to have that. Especially since several of the friends that made CatCo the home it was for Kara have since left, and both Winn and James have joined her on the crime-fighting side of things. I was glad when she said that “maybe being Supergirl and having [Mon-El] is enough.” She helps people every single day as Supergirl, and she is building a (somewhat) normal relationship with Mon-El, as well as still has Alex, Eliza, Winn, and James to keep her grounded.
So yeah, I had a couple of character complaints this episode. However, the plot of the episode was great. I loved how topical this story of forcibly removing aliens was, as well as the way it depicted how something like that would affect people: the average family, a couple like Winn and Lyra, etc. The episode was paced well, and found something for almost every character to do (except for Maggie and James, who were wasted this episode). I love that Mon-El is basically the Supportive Boyfriend now, playing the role that usually goes to actresses.
And shout-out to the always-brilliant Melissa Benoist and Chyler Leigh for another week of great performances. The scene where Supergirl is stopping the ship while looking at Alex through the window was harrowing and emotional. I loved how “in it” the two of them were.
Yay for the introduction of Teri Hatcher and Kevin Sorbo to the show! And lastly, I want a Winn and Lyra Talk About Dune spin-off show RIGHT NOW.
“Exodus” was a decent episode, but unfortunately it got bogged down by some really poor character work. What did you think? Let’s chat about it in the comments below!
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8PM ET/PT on The CW.
(featured image via Robert Falconer/The CW)
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