SPOILER ALERT!!!!
This episode of Supergirl, titled “We Can Be Heroes”, saw the return of Livewire, a familiar villain for fans of the show. I thought this episode was pretty strong, although once again I feel it was due to the side stories rather than the main plot. This seems like it is becoming a trend for the show, and while I appreciate intriguing side stories, I do hope the main plots begin to carry their weight.
The bulk of the episode this week dealt with Livewire being abducted from prison by a generic evil scientist type so that he could duplicate her electricity powers and create an army with those same abilities. Pretty formulaic as far as motivations go, and there was nothing memorable about the scientist himself. Mon-El continues training with Supergirl throughout the episode, but his affection for Kara causes him to not follow her instructions while in the field. After they eventually defeat the mad scientist at the end of the episode, Kara makes a deal with Livewire. Supergirl tells her that if agrees to not kill the scientist, that she won’t chase her and put her back in prison, today. Livewire agrees, letting the man live, and escaping.
Now on to the subplots of the episode. There were two secondary stories this week, the first one dealing with Kara finally finding out about James being Guardian. Supergirl and Mon-El go head to head with a couple of the lightning infused drones, and instead of guarding the civilians like Supergirl tells him to do, Mon-El tries to save her, and in turn leaves the civilians unprotected. Luckily for them, Guardian is there to protect them, but one of them still gets hit by some lightning, knocking him unconscious. Guardian also gets knocked out, and that’s when Kara unmasks him to find out that he is James. Of course, she does her best to talk him and Wynn out of what they are doing, even going so far as to tell James that if he doesn’t stop, that she will stop him herself. The tension in these scenes between James and Kara is well executed and you really believe that she will stop him forcibly if need be. The acting is very good from both actors in this episode, adding to the believability of their conflict. By the end of the episode, Kara tells James and Wynn that she won’t stop them from doing what they believe they must do, but that she also doesn’t support it and won’t be a party to it. You can tell that this is going to put a strain on their friendship going forward, and it will be interesting to see how that plays out over the rest of the season.
The second subplot deals with M’Gann coming under psychic attack by her White Martian brethren, and going into a comatose like state at the DEO. After running all kinds of tests on her, Alex tells J’onn that the only chance they have to save her life is if he bonds with her to see what exactly is happening. At first J’onn refuses to do this, quite adamantly, as he doesn’t want to share the memories of his people, the Green Martians, with a White Martian. However, after a pretty good speech from Alex later in the episode, J’onn ultimately decides to try the bonding in order to save her life. He finds that she has locked herself inside her own mind, which is focusing on Mars during the war between the two Martian races. J’onn tells M’Gann that he forgives her for everything that happened, and he knows that she tried to help his people in the end. This successfully draws her out of her harrowing state, and saves her life. However, she reveals to him that the White Martians now know where she is, and will be coming for her. This is pretty exciting news, and I can’t wait to see what those episodes will be like. David Harewood is a great actor, and I love the gravitas he brings to Martian Manhunter. I expect some very emotional scenes from him once the White Martians finally show up.
Lastly, we got one step closer to the eventual Kara/Mon-El romance this week, as Mon-El revealed to Kara that he does have feeling for her. She didn’t reciprocate those feelings, but this is a CW show, so I don’t think anyone expected her to yet. The romance has to be long and drawn out, to squeeze every bit of blood from that particular stone. I do like those two together, but I just am not a fan of the constant cat and mouse type thing that shows always do with relationships.
Overall this was a pretty strong episode, with the subplots once again overshadowing the main story as far as quality goes. Hopefully we will get an episode soon that blends the two together as well as I know the show is capable of doing.
Score: 8.5/10
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