Recap: SUPERGIRL Takes Off the Kid Gloves

Episode 110 “Childish Things”
Teleplay by Anna Musky-Goldwyn & James DeWille, story by Yahlin Chang
Directed by Jamie Babbit

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

This week, we finally get a glimpse at Winn’s childhood, along with a deeper understanding of Cat’s indifference to her employees.

And more J’onn J’onzz, which is always a good thing, right? Until it’s not.

The upshot of this episode: Winslow Schott (guest star Henry Czerny), better known as “The Toyman” after murdering a bunch of people with an exploding doll, has escaped prison. The FBI is all over Winslow Schott, Jr. (Jeremy Jordan) in the hopes that Papa’s made contact.

So while Winn is dealing with the angst of having grown up with a murdering psychopath for a father, forcing him to grow up a little too quickly, the B-plot involves the Sisters Danvers (Melissa Benoist & Chyler Leigh) trying to convince Hank Henshaw (David Harewood) to let his hair down a little more and be open to his real identity as J’onn J’onzz.

Both are going to have consequences.

It’s a pretty straightforward episode, as far as the Schott Plot goes — Papa Schott escapes, uses a doll of Super Friends era Toyman to send a message to his boy. But when they reunite in the amusement park arcade, it doesn’t go quite as well as Toyman would like — not only does the FBI burst in, but Winn rejects the notion of any “father-son” bonding with his father.

Despite this, Winslow still wants to get his son into the “family business” — revenge on an old boss who stole Toyman’s ideas and profited off the designs. Winn, in the meantime, worries that he’s just like his father, and could snap at any moment. What if he’s a psychopathic genius in waiting? What if there’s that one little thing that could set him on a path of murder and mayhem?

To be honest, when we first heard that a “Winslow Schott” character was going to be part of this show, I expected that very turn of events. Rejected suitor turns villain. It’s nice to see that didn’t play out. And while this plot has been played out quite a bit over time, too, it allows Winn to have a little say in his destiny. He’s not just part of the Scooby Gang this time.

When he’s forced to take a special gun to a toy convention, with the choice of shooting Idea Thief Boss in the face or have bombs go off all over the convention center, Winn takes the third choice: he shoots into the air, warning people of the danger and helping evacuate the crowd while Supergirl uses the sprinkler system and her freeze breath to create a barrier of super-thick ice between the fleeing citizens and the explosions.

(Yes, it’s a little not-quite-believable, but we’re in Superman ’78 mode here…)

And in the end, Winn realizes that if he’s to avoid being just like his father, he’s got to take some risks, and that includes telling Kara how he feels about her — which he already revealed with an awkward kiss while she was trying to reassure him earlier in the hour.

What does this do to their relationship? Too soon to tell, but it very much feels like we’re going to be in “It didn’t happen, maybe it did” mode for a week or two.

Speaking of relationships, Jimmy and Lucy (Mehcad Brooks and Jenna Tatum) have a hiccup over Lucy’s getting a job offer from Cat (Calista Flockhart). At first, my worry was that Team Scooby was going to have an awkward time explaining why they’re in that empty office. Didn’t it belong to the last general counsel for CatCo?

But Lucy gets a different office, apparently. And in the hemming and hawing between the two lovebirds(?), Jimmy comes to realize that he’s not quite happy with being an art director. He’s a photographer, and he wants to be in the trenches getting the pictures.

And Hank? Well… Alex convinces him to sneak into Room 52 and try to find out what’s what. Which he does while Alex dolls up and takes Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli) up on his offer of dinner. So she allows the industrialist to wine and dine her while Hank morphs into Lookalike-Lord and infiltrates the Sekrit Room, finding Bizarro Girl just before the security chief finds him.

Having been discovered, Hank opts for the non-lethal item on the menu: wiping the guy’s memory rather than kill him. Only he doesn’t just wipe the memory of the break-in. He wipes this guy’s memory clean through, making him a blank slate.

Sorry, but J’onn J’onzz has more control than that. If he wants to excise one particular thing, he can. The fact that he hit such an extreme level with this particular power means maybe he can’t control it from not using it? Hank does tell Alex that he tried being J’onn J’onzz on Earth once, with disastrous results.

Will that give us this as a flashback?

I hope so. Because that would be boss.

We end this hour with Lord, having sneaked a mini-camera onto hotshot federal agent Alex’s purse, finding out the secret of the Sisters Danvers, this after seeing security footage of an alien infiltrating his lab while he was out. So now Lord knows Kara Danvers is Supergirl, and that there’s another alien working against him. It’s only a matter of time before he goes full supervillain on us.