Tonight’s episode is called, “Red
Faced”. The episode begins with Kara
intervening in a vehicle altercation. Before the two cars can hit an incoming
flux of children, Supergirl stops them. However, she ends up (accidentally, of
course) breaking one of the men’s arm. Maxwell Lord, after his “talk” with
Supergirl last episode, takes it upon himself to publicly advocate for body
cameras on Supergirl.
Cat’s mother is in town and this is something I’ve been
looking forward to, personally. Within a second, you can already see how
disapproving she is of Cat’s lifestyle. I do like that she echoed Kara’s
sentiments about Supergirl being called Superwoman. Though, all of that was lessened slightly by her preferring
a male superhero (she’s based in Metropolis).
We get some more story about Alex’s father. Remember in
the Thanksgiving episode (damn airing episodes out of order…!) when we learned
that Jeremiah Danvers worked for the DEO and Eliza believed Henshaw had
something to do with it? Well, Alex wants to follow up on that by asking Winn
to break into the DEO’s files to find out what really happened to him. After some
prodding, he finally agrees.
Lucy’s father is in town and he’s one of those military
guys who doesn’t like aliens. He needs Supergirl to help with the testing of a
new machine. He lets slip that we have a female president. So you know, no freaking
out or anything. Anyway, when Henshaw hesitates, Lucy shows up handing over an
executive order. That was a tad shocking, and Kara looked none too pleased but
she agreed.
We get our first introduction to Red Tornado, the robot
that Supergirl will help test.
Cat’s mother is a work of art, it has to be
said. She’s incredibly condescending to her daughter, ignoring all of her very
real achievements as well as the fact that she had canceled her evening just to
spend time with her. At the last minute, her mother decides that an intimate
night with a famous author is more important and cancels. I think it's her way of trying to be more important than she really is.
So Winn, Kara, James, and Lucy play charades and it’s
obvious that James and Lucy are a good team. Lucy mentions meeting Supergirl
and not being impressed. Getting the sense that this episode’s theme is about emotions
and how to control them, which Kara is struggling with. So, Supergirl and Red
Tornado have their fight and while the robot seems to get some good shots in
early, it really wasn’t much of a fight for Supergirl. However, all her pent up
anger releases onto the robot and it eventually flees, in stealth mode. Now it’s
free to mess up National City and General Lane blames Supergirl, because that’s
what they all do.
Marrow, the creator of the Red Tornado, is subsequently
fired (somehow, I have a feeling General Lane is going to regret that). Cat,
who I think lashes out on everyone else because of the way her mother treats
her, starts belittling Kara as usual. Kara has been seething most of the
episode and it was only a matter of time before she blow up at Cat. Well, tonight
she finally did it. Cat, reacted differently than I or Kara expected. She didn’t
seem angry.
Alex, meanwhile, goes to Maxwell Lord to try and get his
help in finding the missing Red Tornado. He refuses. James, Lucy, and General
Lane are all out to dinner. It’s very tense. When Lucy leaves for the restroom,
we get down to the bottom of the hostility. James believes it has to do with
him knowing “aliens”, but the truth is, General Lane doesn’t think James is
good enough for his daughter. He refers to him as a “glorified paparazzo”.
Elsewhere, we find out where Kara and Cat went to: a bar.
Cat, in her on unique way, is more of a mentor to Kara than anyone else on the
show. She’s sort of Kara’s moral compass, even if she can’t see it. Kara wasn’t
really angry at Cat; she’s been angry the whole episode.
Red Tornado makes its appearance and starts attacking
civilians, Lucy being one of them. General Lane foolishly believes he can get
Red Tornado to stand down. Luckily, James had more sense and alerted Supergirl
who arrived in the nick of time. Red Tornado unleashes a real tornado on
National City. Supergirl saves the day by spinning fast enough to stop it. However,
Red Tornado gets away. Supergirl thinks that it learned from the last time they
fought and knew she would chose to save the people as opposed to fighting it.
It turns out, the Red Tornado was designed purely to
fight Kryptonians. I don’t like General Lane, by the way. So, Maxwell Lord, who
totally has a thing for Alex, decides he does want to help after all. Alex lets
it slip about her father’s death, but covers it up nicely. Lord tells her that
Red Tornado wasn’t acting alone; there was a GPS on the arm she had shown him. Basically,
like I said earlier. Marrow, the creator, is the one they need to go after.
Cat had suggested that Kara release her anger somehow, and
she finally figures out a way. James joins her. They have a nice little
conversation about sexism and racism. It’s those little things that Supergirl manages to write into each
episode that really makes it worth watching. Both Kara and James are boxing. James,
with a boxing bag and Kara with a car (cute). We finally get to the bottom of
what’s making Kara so angry. She wants a normal life and seeing James and Lucy
together forces her to come to the realization that it’s not going to happen. This
is a really good scene for Kara’s character. We’re seeing the woman behind the
suit, behind the dorky glasses and smile. We’re really getting to the bottom of
her and I’m so glad that the series didn’t waste time.
Alex finds Marrow and it turns out that the only way to
stop Red Tornado is to kill him. After a nasty fight, Alex kills Marrow, but
the Red Tornado no longer needs Marrow; it’s sentient. Kara channels all the
anger that she feels (at her parents for making her leave) and users her laser
eyes to destroy Red Tornado. Oh, what an amazing scene. The music really did
wonders!
After some digging, Winn is able to find out a little of
what happened to Alex’s father. There was an issue with an alien and Henshaw
and Jeremiah were MIA and presumed dead until Henshaw returned and claimed he
had no idea what happened. However, he was the one who deleted the files and
now Alex is determined to find out the truth.
Meanwhile, Cat’s mother is on her way out and talks down
to Kara, to which Cat takes great offense. She finally calls her mother out on
her BS, and Kara speechless, but happy. Kara cuts herself and starts bleeding;
she’s normal, just like she wanted. But I have a feeling it’s going to come at
a price if next week’s previews are anything to go by.
Supergirl airs Mondays at 8pm
Eastern Standard Time.
