This week’s Supergirl on The CW was all about intense feels. It was also about Kara being the very worst. Thankfully, we had other characters to root for this week, like the amazing Maggie. Like Alex herself who, despite being the victim of a kidnapping never stopped being badass. And, like Lena, whom I think most of us hope will eventually wise up and realize that Rhea is bad news. Welcome to Season 2, Episode 19, “Alex!”
**THIS IS A RECAP – SPOILERS ARE PART OF THE TERRITORY.**
image: Dean Buscher/The CW
S2, EP. 19 – THE RECAP
- The episode opens on Maggie in the middle of negotiating with a bank robber who’s holding people hostage. Just as she’s starting to make progress, Supergirl swoops in and “saves the day” in an unnecessarily grand way. Maggie is annoyed.
- Later, over dinner, Alex and Maggie have a double-date with Kara and Mon-El. As they dig into some pizza, Maggie can barely contain her annoyance with Kara. Kara, meanwhile, becomes a super-snot about being Supergirl, and even as she says that “all that matters” is that she got everyone out safely, she and Mon-El totally demean Maggie’s job. Meanwhile, Maggie points out that yes, Supergirl did save people, but she also broke a dude’s arm and broke a hole through a building. Kara leaves in a huff as if Maggie’s the one with the problem. (UGH!) Alex asks Maggie to try and get along with Kara, then leaves to go after Kara and tell her the same thing. She ends up getting in an elevator with a shady-looking dude.
- At L Corp, Lena is meeting with Rhea, who’s arrived looking all businesswomanesque. Rhea says that she has the design for a transmatter portal, and that she wants to partner with L Corp (and their resources) to build it. Lena is impressed by both the design and by Rhea, whom she starts to like immediately.
- At CatCo, Maggie arrives to ask Kara if she’s seen Alex, saying that Alex never returned home after going after Kara. Kara says that Alex never spoke with her after she left. Suddenly, Kara gets a call from Alex’s phone. It’s a creepy kidnapper voice who not only tells her that he has Alex, but that he knows she’s Supergirl! In exchange for releasing Alex, he wants Supergirl to free a prisoner named Peter Thompson (Gregg Henry).
- Alex wakes up and has no idea where she is, as she comes to, she realizes that she’s imprisoned in a big-ass tank.
image: Dean Buscher/The CW
- At the DEO, Team Supergirl-Plus-Maggie are trying to figure out how to find Alex. After everyone makes guesses and freaks out, Maggie the, you know, detective, says that they’re asking the wrong questions. Rather than focus on the identity of the kidnapper, they should be focusing on this prisoner, Peter Thompson: who he is and who would stand to benefit from his release.
- Lena and Rhea are out at dinner talking business, and becoming better friends. Lena tells her how impressed she is with the design for the transporter. Rhea compliments Lena on her brilliance. Then they stop being polite and start getting real, and vulnerable. Lena talks about her tumultuous relationship with her mother, and seems to see Rhea as a mom alternative (Lena! Don’t do it!). Meanwhile, Rhea talks about her son who “betrayed her” by starting a relationship with an “awful” girl. Then, just as they’re becoming friends, Rhea betrays herself by saying “Thank the Gods for new friends.” Lena notices.
- J’onn, Maggie, and Kara go to visit Peter Thompson in prison. He has no idea who might want to break him out of prison, but he is nonetheless sarcastic and braggadocious. This pisses a worried Kara off immensely and she goes from zero to threatening in 0.5 seconds. Maggie tries to be the voice of reason and calm her down to no avail. J’onn has to order Kara to step back, and as the guards take Thompson away, J’onn tells Kara that he was reading Thompson’s mind and he was telling the truth. He has no idea who would do this, or why.
- Meanwhile, Winn manages to track the identity of the kidnapper. It’s a guy named Rick Malerne (David Hoflin), someone who grew up in Midvale with Kara and Alex!
image: Dean Buscher/The CW
- Supergirl speeds to what they discovered is Rick’s location, but cannot find Alex. She is then prepared to beat Alex’s location out of him, but she realizes she’s on the clock, and as he points out, if she ends up killing him, they’ll never know where Alex is before she’s killed.
- As Maggie interrogates Rick, he reveals that not only did he go to school with them, but he was there the day that young Kara saved a baby from a burning car without a scratch. He knew there was something special about her then, and once he heard about Supergirl in National City, he put two and two together. He then reveals that the reason why he wants to free Peter Thompson is because Thompson is his biological father, who came back into his life just in time to rescue him from an abusive mother.
- Back at L Corp, Lena invites Rhea to place her thumbprint into a machine so that she can get a security badge for the office, but when the machine lights up red, Lena confirms what she suspected, that Rhea is an alien. Having been lied to, Lena changes her mind about working with Rhea, and asks her to leave.
- At the DEO, J’onn tries to trick Rick into giving up Alex’s location by posing as Thompkins, but Rick doesn’t fall for it, reminding J’onn and Maggie that he’s been planning for all this for a year, so yes, he knows about the Martian.
image: Dean Buscher/The CW
- Alex continues to be badass even when imprisoned. She cuts her not-working DEO tracker out of her own shoulder with a credit card she’s cut in half and connects it to the camera to get her signal out to the DEO, which they receive.
- Supergirl races over to find Alex, but when she arrives, she realizes that Rick has remained one step ahead and sent her to the wrong location, setting off a timer that shortens Alex’s time to be alive to four hours, and begins filling her cell with water.
- Maggie communicates with Alex via laptop, and Alex sounds about ready to say goodbyes, but Maggie won’t let her. She will find her! Maggie then yells at Kara for making the situation worse by rushing in after Alex.
- Rhea arrives at L Corp as herself for once, and at first, Lena is skeptical of her. However, Rhea insists that her alien status was her only lie, and that considering who Lena’s mother is, she wasn’t sure if Lena herself would like aliens or not, so she had reason to protect herself. She then says that the transmatter portal can both help her get home, and help Earth solve some of its greatest challenges.
- Kara stands on the DEO balcony feeling super-guilty (as well she should!). J’onn comforts her, saying that she was only doing all this to save Alex, and that “no one would blame you for that.” (I WOULD! SHE’S SMARTER AND BETTER THAN THAT!)
image: Dean Buscher/The CW
- Maggie goes back into the interrogation room with Rick, who appeals directly to her love of Alex to release his father…
- …and she agrees. She breaks into the prison and gets Thompson out, but before she can get him to Rick, Supergirl rushes in. This time, however, she’s not looking to punch her way out. She appeals to Thompson’s fatherhood to get him to convince his son to stop short of killing someone.
- Supergirl and Maggie then swoop in and save Alex just as she had started to drown. Back at the DEO, Maggie and Alex tell each other that they love each other and talk about all the wonderful “firsts” they’re going to share in their time together. Alex reveals that she always knew Maggie was coming for her, and she says, “I never want to stop having firsts with you.” AWWWWW!
- Alex insists on getting out of bed, and Maggie walks her out into the bullpen as J’onn is escorting Rick to a mind wipe. Before they do that, however, Alex punches Rick in the face and asks J’onn to please let him remember that. He agrees.
- Maggie and Kara make up, realizing that they both love Alex more than anyone in the world.
- Oh, and Lena’s decided to continue working with Rhea. This is not going to go well.
image: Dean Buscher/The CW
S2, EP. 19 – THE REVIEW
There were some wonderful things in this episode, and there were some things that weren’t so great. We can’t talk about the wonderful without talking about Maggie and Alex, who absolutely lit up this episode. Each of them was badass and vulnerable, stubborn and willing to compromise. Honestly, watching them be brilliant this week, I kinda want them to eventually have their own spin-off. They were amazing individually, and when they came together and you could see the deep love between them? #SANVERSFOREVER
Equally fascinating this week is the budding partnership between Lena and Rhea. It’s interesting to see what they provide for each other: Lena seeing Rhea as a mother surrogate, and Rhea seeing Lena as the daughter she wishes she had. It was also really nice to see Teri Hatcher not wearing Daxumite garb and giving a less stylized performance. In another time and place (one where Rhea wasn’t responsible for the murder of her own husband), she and Lena really could have been friends. Alas, this relationship is basically just a time bomb about to go off.
It’s disappointing then, that the thing I think the episode got wrong was Kara. Her attitude from the beginning of the episode where she saves those hostages is horrific, and while there is an element of brashness to Kara Zor-El as a character, her behavior this week seemed wildly out of character for her. I was glad that Maggie was calling her on it, but I was wondering why no one else was.
Still, I loved that there was an episode where Maggie and Kara were basically competing for the top spot in Alex’s life, as I think that was a long time coming. It was very real.
“Alex” was a completely enthralling episode, despite Kara being ridiculous. What did you think? Let’s chat about it in the comments below!
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8PM ET/PT on The CW.
(images: Dean Buscher/The CW)
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