In the Supergirl recap, Kara faces trouble from all sides including a Kryptonian threat, Maxwell Lord looming and Cat Grant digging into her secret …
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Just in case you need a quick reminder from the mid-season finale a few weeks back — Supergirl ended in December with a throw down between Kara and her aunt Astra’s husband Non after the Kryptonian leader was captured and held prisoner at the DEO. Non attacked Lord Industries and Kara along with the DEO showed up to stop him. When last we left, Supergirl was engaged in a full on charge and attack with Non and that’s where we pick up now.
She ends up fighting a lot of battles this week including Non as well as trying to figure out what Maxwell Lord is really up to at his facility not to mention Cat Grant’s prying eyes following her revelation that she knows Kara is really Supergirl.
How many fires was Kara able to extinguish in one week?
Let’s recap the latest episode of Supergirl titled ‘Blood Bonds’ to find out….
Hostage Negotiations
On the heels of the last episode, Supergirl and Non continue their battle high up in the sky all the way until they come crashing to the ground. Just when it looked like Non was gaining the upper hand, Hank Henshaw trained his sights on the Kryptonian lieutenant and that’s when his strategy changed. Non ends up kidnapping Henshaw and immediately makes a call to the DEO instructing them that if they want their leader back they will need to exchange General Astra to get him back safely.
Alex is made acting director but before she can really enact any plans to get her boss back, the President signs off on an emergency order putting General Sam “I hate aliens” Lane in charge of the DEO instead. General Lane doesn’t negotiate with terrorists so he won’t be making any exchanges to get Henshaw back but his orders are to find the DEO leader by any means necessary.
Kara is determined to talk her way through this situation so she tries her best to appeal to Astra, family member to family member but she falls short. So General Lane tries his methods instead — which includes pumping Astra full of a liquid Kryptonite that flows through her veins like some kind of truth agent that burns her from the inside out.
Astra gives up the location of Hank Henshaw and Kara insists on tagging along to the extraction. When they arrive at the site, Kara and the rest of the soldiers run into lead-lined storage containers, which means she can’t see inside, and they will have to check each one individually. It turns out that was exactly Non’s plan because each one is loaded with a bomb that goes off when the doors are opened.
Only Kara is able to save one soldier and her sister but the rest of the group is killed in the explosions. It’s clear Astra isn’t giving up her husband or their hostage whether it’s torture or family feelings that are being used to manipulate her.
Finally, Kara sucks it up and talks to Astra one more time to find out the ‘secret’ that she’s been keeping about her aunt’s relationship with her mother back on Krypton before she was sentenced to the Phantom Zone. It seems Alura had no problem sentencing Astra, Non and the rest of their eco-terrorist group to maximum sentences but just before she sent her sister away she confessed that she never stopped believing in her and she would follow through on her plans to save Krypton but in a safer, legal way.
Kara believes what Astra is telling her so she decides to take charge of the situation and make the exchange as requested. She will turn over Astra to get back Hank Henshaw and let the bloodshed between aliens and humans stop for at least one day.
Secrets and Lies
Another big event that closed out Supergirl from the previous episode was Cat Grant’s realization that her assistant was actually the flying heroine that’s been buzzing around the city saving people for the past few months.
Cat is so convinced that she keeps calling Kara (or Kira as she calls her) out on the not so secret identity she’s been hiding .
Finally, Cat makes her big power move and decides that since Kara really is Supergirl, she probably shouldn’t be working as an assistant during the day when she could be out saving people from all kinds of peril. So Cat says unless Kara can convince her she’s not Supergirl within 24 hours, she’s fired.
Fed up with the accusations, Kara decides to quit on her own. Cat is taken back a bit by her declaration but gives her until the end of the day to finish her shift. It looks like Cat will need a new assistant soon enough. Or will she?
Playing God
Following the events that unfolded in the last episode and this week where Non and the other Kryptonians broke into Lord Industries, Maxwell Lord is forced to show his hand a bit when the news reporters show up asking questions about the massive fight that broke out at his complex. Lord lies and says it was a case of industrial espionage and that the criminals were thwarted.
For someone who hates aliens and the dependency citizens have on them, Lord failed to take a golden opportunity to make them look bad, but why?
James and Winn team up to break into his facility to find out what Lord is hiding, and it looks like everything is going well until it doesn’t. Lord knocks James out and reveals that his state of the art security system is hack proof and he wasn’t fooling anybody with his intrusion.
Maxwell gives James a very stern warning — along with a vicious beat down — to stop snooping into his business or a few fists in his face will be the least of the photographer’s problems the next time around.
When Kara finds out, she’s furious and wants to exact revenge but James and Winn convince her that attacking Lord would only prove his point about the alien threat.
Finally at the end of the episode, we find out what Lord has been hiding away — he’s found a candidate with severe brain trauma with no family or friends looking for her and it looks like she’s become his test subject. Lord has a hologram of the Red Tornado’s cyborg arm and when the girl wakes up, her eyes are as black as soot. Is this Maxwell Lord’s secret weapon?
The Exchange
Kara and Alex arrive at the planned destination to exchange Astra for Hank Henshaw and Non shows up as agreed with his prisoner in tow. Both parties release their hostages and they return to their people. Henshaw is happy to be back with the DEO although he admits he’ll have to talk to Kara and Alex about his ‘don’t negotiate with terrorists’ policy that they clearly didn’t adhere to this time.
But just as the exchange is finished, a cavalcade of Kryptonian soldiers arrive in the sky, surrounding Kara, Hank and the others. Alex tells Hank he needs to ‘transform’ but just before the situation turns bloody, Astra demands that her troops stand down. The two sides are still at war, but there will be peace for today. Astra and Non fly away and live to fight another day.
As for Henshaw, when he gets back to the DEO and takes the reins away from General Lane, he’s got one more problem on his hands — mainly that Kara overheard her sister telling him to ‘transform’. So Hank and Alex have to come clean and explain to Kara that he’s really The Martian Manhunter aka J’onn J’onzz in disguise as Hank Henshaw.
Kara now knows the secret and she puts it to good use right away.
Back at Cat Co., Supergirl arrives to meet with Cat Grant but at the same time, Kara walks in for a final time before she quits. What? Kara and Supergirl in one place?!?
Well Cat Grant is convinced they aren’t the same person any longer but obviously it was J’onn using his transformative powers to look like Supergirl just enough so Kara’s boss would drop her pursuit of the truth and they could all go back to their normal lives. Hank’s a little bummed that Kara didn’t actually quit because he could use her full time at the DEO but she explains that her job working for Cat Grant gives her some sense of normalcy not to mention the friends she’s found there that not only have her back but also helped talk her down today after she nearly raged out and went after Maxwell Lord.
Something tells me, Supergirl will be just as angry when Lord finally unleashes his secret on the people of National City.
Supergirl is off next week with the college football national championship game airing on Monday night so the show will return in two weeks time!
