In the Supergirl recap, Kara finds out that being a superhero is hard work before coming face to face with her greatest enemy….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Being a superhero isn’t as easy as it looks as Kara Danvers aka Kara Zor-El aka Supergirl found out the hard way this week.
Supergirl started out with such a bang — she helped her Earth-bound sister Alex and her team from the DEO lead by Hank Henshaw, take down a dangerous alien fugitive that came out of the Phantom Zone at the same time she escaped and made her way down to the planet where her red and blue clad cousin had already been saving lives for a few decades.
Following that big win, Supergirl was being put through a series of tests to find out if she was truly ready for the field, but rather than get an ‘A’ for effort, she ditched it all together in favor of stopping a fire at an oil tanker down by the pier.
Well, Supergirl got the fire put out but in the process of dragging the tanker away from the docks, she managed to rip it in half, causing a major ecological disaster as oil leaked directly into the sea while thousands of onlookers gasped in horror.
Kara needed some much needed help to get ready for this superhero gig so this week she spent a lot of time in training under her sister, under her new boss and with a little help from her friends.
With that, let’s recap the latest episode of Supergirl titled ‘Stronger Together’…
Starting Small
Following the oil tanker disaster where Kara went from hero to ecoterrorist in a matter of days, she’s disheartened with her current place when compared to her ultra famous cousin, who everyone seems to talk about non-stop. To make matters worse, her boss Cat Grant is decided on Supergirl’s fate and whether to build her up under the guise of superhero growing pains or tear her down as a failure to live up to the work Superman has been doing for years.
To make matters worse, Cat is demanding James use his super connections to land an interview with Supergirl so their newspaper can trump the Daily Planet and all those damn exclusives Clark Kent and Lois Lane seem to grab each day.
Even National City billionaires like Maxwell Lord (played by Peter Facinelli) are beginning to turn the town against Supergirl by mentioning the money this latest fracas will cost the city with oil getting dumped into the harbor.
Kara’s day goes even further down the drain when she returns to the DEO to train with her sister Alex, who puts her in a locked room lined with kryptonite that she turns on just enough to bring her super powered sibling down to human strength. Alex essentially kicks Kara’s butt, while humbling her enough to know that she needs to take baby steps before leaping over a tall building in a single bound. She might be the strongest and most unstoppable person while going up against a human, but what happens when she faces another alien like the one that nearly axed her in half last week?
Following the humbling lesson, Kara returns to work and sees the headline Cat chose for her paper — Supergirl: Failure to Launch.
The story just sinks Kara deeper into her depression as she really needs to figure out what kind of hero she’s going to be since things are just getting worse by the day right now. Kara tries to defend Supergirl to her powerful boss by explaining that even Superman made mistakes when he first arrived, but she’s having none of it.
“Every woman worth her salt knows that we have to work twice as hard as a man to be thought of as a half as good.”
Cat then explains to Kara how she got her start as Perry White’s assistant before working her way up the ranks to the point where she’s now the head of her own media conglomerate. The point being — she didn’t start at the top and neither should Supergirl.
So Kara enlists James and Winn (who find out simultaneously that they know her big secret) to help her track down a few lesser crimes before she jumps into the big leagues. Kara stops robberies, saves an ambulance locked in rush hour traffic and even rescues a snake from a tree.
It’s all going so well until a creature kills a guard at a plastics factory and Kara is called back into the DEO for help. She identifies a Hellgrammite — an insect like creature that can morph into any shape or form while feeding on large amounts of chlorine for survival.
It seems the Hellgrammite has survived on Earth for years just feasting on chlorine supplies from around the country, but only now are they noticing a pattern while also realizing that this thing isn’t attacking — it’s eating for survival.
Unfortunately, Kara’s evil Aunt Astra gets wind of this creature and after capturing it with some help from her fellow Phantom Zoners, they force the Hellgrammite to serve as bait to draw Supergirl out into the open where they can catch her.
It’s a Trap!
Alex goes to see her sister to reprimand her for pulling hero duty lately with her latest exploits, but then discovers that Kara told her secret to both Winn and James. Alex is furious but Kara explains that if she’s going to make it as a hero, she’s going to need help and surrounding herself with people she can trust is the best way to do it.
She needs her own Scooby Gang!
Alex leaves and goes back to work where she’s pulled into a detail with her boss Hank Henshaw and several other DEO agents in a plot to draw out the Hellgrammite with a large quantity of chlorine.
The plan works to perfection except for the part where Supergirl isn’t there to back them up and the Hellgrammite not only beats them up, but he kidnaps Alex as a way to lure his real target out of hiding.
When Henshaw calls Kara to tell her what happened to her sister, Supergirl rushes back into the fray unaware that a family reunion is about to really ruin her day.
It’s a Family Affair
When Kara arrives to save Alex, she runs into her Aunt Astra, who tells her all the ways she’s disappointed to know her sister’s daughter has teamed up with the humans and how she should really join her in a plan to ‘save’ this planet from itself. When Kara refuses to join, she ends up in a wall shattering battle with her aunt, who quickly gains the upper hand until Supergirl remembers some of the tricks her sister taught her earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, Alex is able to defeat the Hellgrammite as the cavalry arrives to help save Kara as well.
Just when it looks like Astra is about to pluck Henshaw’s head off his shoulders when he tries to stop her assault on Kara, he pulls out a kryptonite blade and shoves it into her thigh. Astra crumbles to the ground and makes a quick getaway while Henshaw, Kara and Alex live to fight another day.
Astra gets back to home base as her team of scientists begin to analyze the shard of metal that not only stopped her dead in her tracks but still manages to weaken her even after she has the blade pulled from her leg. She doesn’t know about kryptonite, but Astra sure got a crash course today.
With a Little Help from My Friends
Kara returns to the DEO where her sister Alex promises to be by her side while also realizing that she must miss home after all these years. Remember, Kara didn’t leave Krypton as a baby like her cousin. She had 13-years on her home planet before being shipped off to Earth so Alex sets up a ‘fortress of solitude’ inside the DEO that only Kara has access to with a room dedicated to a hologram image of her mother that will help guide her journey on this planet. The first question Kara asks is about her Aunt Astra.
Outside, Henshaw finally calls his new compatriot Supergirl instead of referring to her as Kara but before he leaves, the director of the DEO’s eye flashes bright red, which is a huge revelation just two episodes into the series.
In the comic book, Hank Henshaw is the evil creature also known as Cyborg Superman, who is a robotic recreation of the red and blue hero with all his same powers and abilities but encased in a metal shell. Henshaw has been a life long enemy of Superman and while his recreation in the series will undoubtedly deviate from the comics, it looks like at least one aspect will stay the same — Hank Henshaw might be more machine than man.
Finally, Kara returns home where she agrees to help James out and give an interview to Cat Grant to save his job. James nearly turns down the offer because for most of his adult life he’s gotten opportunities solely based on being friends with Superman, not necessarily because of his own merits. Kara explains that depending on friends is what life is all about, just like she discovered today that she can’t go at this thing alone and she needs him, Winn, Alex and everybody else if she’s going to be a real hero. Just like the ‘S’ on her chest — it’s not just a symbol of House El. It also holds the family motto.
“Stronger together”
James finally concedes and the episode ends with a call to Cat Grant telling her she’s earned an audience with Supergirl.
Out of nowhere, Kara lifts Cat’s car into the air and flies them both to a hilltop outside of National City where they will conduct their interview one on one. Kara’s biggest concern in doing the interview was fear that Cat would see right through her disguise and recognize that this is the same girl who brings her coffee every morning.
James puts all her worries to rest, however, when he explains that the way Superman stayed hidden as Clark Kent for all those years wasn’t because people were dumb enough not to recognize him behind a pair of glasses. It’s because deep down inside no one believed that someone as innocuous as Clark Kent could actually be Superman and this will be no different.
Supergirl will save lives and Kara will remain anonymous for all the same reasons as her famous cousin.
Supergirl returns to CBS next Monday night at 8pm ET with a brand new episode!
