Recap: Seeing Double on SUPERGIRL

Episode 109 “Blood Bonds”
Written by Ted Sullivan & Derek Simon
Directed by Steve Shill

[Photos: Darren Michaels/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.]

Deception! Dismay! Doppelgangers!

When it comes to two-part episodes, the expectation is that the stakes are raised right up to the last minute, leading to the cliff-hanger in part one, to be escalated in the first half of part two, with a resolution that matches the intensity of what’s gone before. We didn’t quite get that in this episode.

Not that it was bad or anything, but it felt like the show took a couple of steps back on certain fronts while trying to move forward in the grand season story arc. The result was a little bit of an awkward two-step.

 

Plenty of deceptions this go-around, with the battle at Lord Technologies pretty much a front so Non can grab Henshaw. The goal: a straight-up trade, leader for leader. Non is willing to give Henshaw back in return for Astra, who’s still sequestered away in a kryptonite-laced cell at the DEO.

Which is now being run by Acting Director Alex Danvers, whose competency is questioned by General Sam Lane. He shows up with a written order from the President and takes over the operation, convinced that Alex is emotionally compromised and Supergirl is just one more unwanted complication to his rescue plan.

His suspicions are only slightly borne out when the DEO/Army rescue team hits the waterfront to retrieve Henshaw, only to have Supergirl figure out it’s a trap just short of too late. She’s able to protect a couple of soldiers, but the resulting explosion catches a lot of the redshirts.

Furious, Supergirl charges in to confront Astra, only to have everything sort of blow up in her face when Astra decides that Kara’s chosen sides, and that there won’t be much of a chance for reconciliation, just as it was with Alura before Krypton exploded.

The dismay for Astra is that even though Alura had to carry out a sentence, she actually believed Astra’s dire warnings about the planetary peril. But as a judge, she had a sworn duty to punish Astra because so many people died. It’s not that Astra was factually wrong, but it was her methods that moved so many against her — to the point where any opportunity to persuade was lost.

Kara’s despair feeds off that, as she fights to maintain control of at least one aspect of her life, but no matter what she does, it all seems to be coming apart at the seams. Cat is convinced Kara is Supergirl, and decides that unless she’s convinced otherwise, she should fire “Kara” so Supergirl can do her hero work full-time. Fetching coffee is a distraction, even though Kara — and Supergirl — need the ability to feel normal. Kara tells Cat that the job, and Cat’s advice, are valuable to her. Without admitting that she’s Supergirl, she essentially acknowledges Cat’s influence in how both personas have started dealing with things.

But in her agitated state, Kara’s not much good to anyone, and she’s about to let her temper get the better of her when her friends step in. Maxwell Lord is covering up the attack on his facility, and before Kara can go off half cocked, Jimmy and Winn — especially Winn — talk her down from her rage.

Of course, they don’t tell her that Jimmy is about to sneak into Lord’s facility, using Winn’s tech genius to move around the alarms and cameras, coming up to a door — number 52, of course — but before Winn can figure out the super-LexCorp-level biometric lock, Lord gets the drop on Jimmy and takes him to a warehouse, bound and at Lord’s mercy. Giving him a beat-down, Lord lets Jimmy off with a warning — and a dead camera.

So Lord has something to hide, of course, and we get a peek at his pet project at the very end of the episode: She am Bizarro Supergirl!

Kara, meantime, talked down from the ledge, realizes that her “blood bond” with Astra isn’t enough to keep her from doing what’s right. Family ties don’t trump right and wrong, but she feels that Astra could use her powers for good, given a chance. And while the two reach a rapprochement of sorts, it’s not quite enough to put them in anything resembling a comfortable relationship. Although Kara makes enough headway for Astra to keep Non from breaking his word when the trade is finally made for real — to the dismay of General Lane.

One deception that’s over is Henshaw’s keeping his true identity from Kara. A slip of the tongue from Alex has Kara wondering what “you should transform” means, leading to the admission from Hank.

And that leads to another deception: Supergirl showing up at Cat’s office at the same time Kara walks in from the bullpen. Which really is cute and a nice stunt and all, but it feels like a cheat for the show to pull back from that. Having Cat know Kara’s secret would have put a different spin on the dynamic between a hero and the boss, and I would have liked to see that play out more. Of course, Cat could just be playing along. We’ll get a better sense of that as more episodes play out. But it feels like a lost opportunity.

At least Cat didn’t jump off Niagara Falls…