In the Supergirl recap, Kara deals with a real life shock jock and navigates some family drama during Thanksgiving….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It’s time to celebrate Thanksgiving (a little earlier than expected) on this week’s episode of Supergirl. The series adjusted the episode order after the tragedy in Paris this past week, but never fear the show that we got may have been one of the best all season.
Kara deals with some family drama as her mother Eliza comes to town, which immediately causes a conflict with her sister Alex because ever since they were children, she’s been a little tougher on her actual daughter than her adopted one.
And the villain this week actually originated in the animated series on TV rather than the comic books, but if only Brit Morgan’s Livewire could have somehow taken the place of Jamie Foxx’s Electro in the second Amazing Spider-Man movie because on a television budget, this version of an electrified bad guy was far, far more effective than the one we saw on the big screen.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of Supergirl titled ‘Livewire’….
Shock Jock
Despite a ton of love from all of National City, shock jock Leslie Willis isn’t a fan of Supergirl and that goes from her dated outfit to her questionable sexuality and she’s unloading on the new heroine as part of her popular radio show.
Unfortunately for Leslie, her show is owned by Cat Grant and she’s not a fan of the radio disc jockey going after National City’s only superhero, especially when her paper has been getting all the exclusives on her ever since she arrived in town. Cat tells Leslie to tone it down on the Supergirl hate, but she says this is all part of her job and the media queen never had a problem whenever she targeted anybody else on the radio.
Cat decides that Leslie is becoming more trouble than what she’s worth but thanks to a two-year contract, she has to keep her employed or pay out a huge chunk of money. So Cat moves Leslie from the DJ booth into the Cat-copter where she will now be the highest paid traffic reporter in history.
She’s got a busy first night on the job with storms overhead in National City and when her helicopter is struck and sent spinning, this becomes a job for Supergirl.
Supergirl saves the pilot after he’s launched out of the helicopter and she reaches Leslie just in time, but a bolt of lightning strikes the superhero and surges through her skin into the shock jock she was holding onto at the time. Leslie’s hair turns a ghastly white but the good news is she’s alive and that’s more than what she’d have if Supergirl didn’t show up.
Mother Knows Best
Dr. Eliza Danvers shows up for Thanksgiving to spend some time with her daughters, but Alex is super stressed after her sister came out as Supergirl because ever since she’s been a child her parents have been much tougher on her — especially when it comes to protecting ‘little sister’ despite the fact that Kara’s the one who should be protecting all of them.
Thanksgiving turns into a disaster after Eliza learns that Alex has not only been helping Kara since she became Supergirl, but she’s been secretly working for the DEO for years while lying to her mother about her actual job. Alex is fed up with the fact that she’s looked down upon as some kind of failure for not keeping a better eye on Kara while in all actuality she took a job with an alien watching agency for the purpose of making sure her sister was safe at all times.
Unfortunately, Eliza has a whole other reason for disliking this situation as it turns out.
Back when Kara first arrived and was living with the Danvers, Hank Henshaw showed up ready to claim her for the DEO but rather than give up their daughter, Dr. Jeremiah Danvers agreed to work for them and share all of his information and research that he’d been collecting on Superman. Henshaw agreed and Dr. Danvers went to work for them and eventually died working for them.
Now Kara and Alex understand why working for the DEO may be much more dangerous than they expected not to mention that Hank Henshaw may have had something to do with their father’s death.
It’s Electric
Kara will do pretty much anything to avoid dealing with her family on Thanksgiving or the holiday in general after seeing James trot off to wine country with his on again/off again girlfriend Lucy Lane.
This holiday Kara will be busy at work because Supergirl’s duties are needed after Leslie Willis comes out of her coma and suddenly becomes a living, breathing electricity bomb just waiting to go off and the only target on her mind is Cat Grant.
Her first attempt to kill the Cat Co. president fails thanks to Supergirl, but when she refuses to leave her building and go to a safe house, the FBI is forced to do their best to safeguard her from further harm.
Thankfully, Cat has her trusted assistant to order around but this time instead of just barking orders at Kara, the two actually share a meaningful conversation. Cat admits that part of what made Leslie feel so entitled to say whatever she wanted was the way she rewarded her each time she took things to a riskier and riskier level all for the sake of ratings. Meanwhile, Kara shares with her boss that she lost her parents when she was 13 although she says it was a fire and not the fact that her home planet exploded like Alderaan.
As much as Cara likes her bonding moment with Kara, she’s much more concerned about drawing Leslie aka Livewire out and finishing this before anyone else (particularly herself) gets hurt.
The DEO helps design a containment unit to capture Livewire once she materializes again and Kara gets massive bonus points for making the Ghostbusters reference so I don’t have to in my recap.
Finally, Cat makes a public announcement over the radio to name a time and place to finish things with Livewire and like every comic book villain, she actually shows up.
Supergirl appears as well and they begin to battle it out, but Livewire gets the upper hand when the containment unit fails and gets kicked away mid fight. Livewire starts charging as much electricity into Supergirl as possible, hoping to stop her heart, but the Kryptonian hero has other plans.
Supergirl digs through the street and finds a water pipe and immediately rips it open and sprays down Livewire because electricity and water do not mix. Livewire gets drowned out and the day is saved.
The next day with Livewire in stasis back at DEO headquarters, Kara returns to work and immediately shoots down Winn, who once again tries to make a pass at her but even in her sympathetic state after finding out that his father is in prison, she’s not attracted to him at all. Not even a little bit.
She is definitely into James, but he’s way into his girlfriend at the moment.
Thankfully, there’s Cat Grant who is happy she got the chance to know Kara a little bit better and her experience with Leslie has made her rethink the way she’s doing business. Instead of printing more gossip trash on the cover of the paper, Cat decides to take a look at the people who did good things during Thanksgiving like working at soup kitchens and volunteering their time to help others. Of course sales plummet and Cat Co. goes out of business — just kidding — but Cat feels much better doing something good for a chance.
Of course, Supergirl and her sister and mostly concerned with finding out more about their father’s death and what Hank Henshaw has been hiding for all these years. Considering he still looks the same today as he did 12 years ago should probably be a good starting point.
