Supergirl S3 Ep. 7 Thoughts & Easter Eggs

"Wake Up"

This week's episode of Supergirl was one of those TV episodes that left me somewhere down the middle of being intrigued without any feelings of excitement or disappointment. There are a couple of huge eye popping reveals that take place yet none of them seemed like it fitted in the right episode for the right impact. Let's dive into what makes Episode 7 of Supergirl one that definitely shouldn't be missed for its significant storytelling but also one that needed a little bit of a readjustment.

Mon-El Returns...Yay? Yes, Yay!

After the secret alien ship that was previously teased kickstarted the episode, I started to get excited for a Doomsday-like moment where some monstrosity would break loose and wreck havoc on the city. Alright, obviously this was a terrible mentality to have given this season's allusions to who our big bad would be, but I couldn't help but get giddy with imagination only to find that it was inhabited by none other than a bearded Mon-El. Mon-El, for those of you who've read my previous reviews, is a character that I've always been a bit mixed on given some of the weak writing that plagued him for a while. However, despite not feeling as emotional as I was probably intended to with his surprise reveal, they did give him quite a bit to do here.

First, I loved the idea of him seeming completely distant from Kara after she essentially pours out all of her "I miss you" feels over him. Throughout the episode, there was something off about him coming across as someone who had possibly underwent a previous traumatic experience. This piled onto the fact that he attacks a couple of DEO agents to find some tech gave the character an interesting layer of mystery that I honestly quite enjoyed. This also created some heated tension between him and Kara almost presenting him as sort of this episode's "conflict of the week" at times. I couldn't help but get excited at the notion that Mon-El had his own secret mission that even the DEO couldn't know about that involved the Legion of Superheroes.

Well, it turns out that Mon-El returned from the future (the 31st century to be exact) and has been living there for 7 years as opposed to 7 months in our time. In this future, L Corp develops a cure for the whole lead poisoning fiasco hence why he's able to breathe. Now, regarding the Legion, we're not given any details about him being a member of the team but one would assume given that none other than Saturn Girl makes her not so grand debut to the show. As Mon-El attempts to save his fellow passengers in their stasis chambers, after nearly losing Imra (Saturn Girl) in the process, Supergirl ends up rescuing her. The irony? You guessed it. It so happens that Mon-El's seven years in the future led him to being married to Imra.

Ah yes, the love triangle drama is essentially writing itself right now...or is it? I know. This is the CW and everyone and their grandma who looks remotely attractive needs to be thrown into some unnecessary romantic drama. However, perhaps Supergirl has the opportunity here to break free of said curse by showing that Kara can transcend weak writing becoming a strong character that not only understands but accepts someone else's fate. Yes, we do see Kara looking as if she's seconds away from crying after Mon-El's marriage reveal, but their conversation about the fact that he kept her necklace as a reminder of her teachings shows us something more mature. There's a great discussion scene prior to Imra's recovery detailing that Mon-El never forgot about Kara despite their spectacular distance through time and space.

So, what does this have to do with Mon-El being part of a team of superheroes fighting injustice in the future? Patience, my friend. The fact that we're physically seeing Saturn Girl (understandably not showing any signs of her telepathic abilities just yet) as well as being able to assume who the other hidden passengers are, think of this as a nice tease to a hopefully well handled story arc. How will the Legion be used? Were they sent to take care of the upcoming threat teased through Sammantha? There are 100s of questions to be asked here which will be answered hopefully next week as we kick start our newest crossover event. As for now, let's just soak in the fact that Mon-El is finally given something interesting to do. Baby steps.

Ah, There's Our Season Villain

Remember when I said that I felt a little mixed about the big reveals taking place during this episode? It's all about effective timing when presenting a major twist to the audience and this is exactly where I felt this week's episode faltered a slight bit. We already knew that Samantha was destined to become an obstacle for the girl of steel considering the several cliffhangers leading up to this point. Where the excitement comes in was the question of how this villain debut would take place. During the episode, Sam decides to confront her mysteriously inhuman traits by visiting her adopted mother for answers. Here we get our "Whoops, sorry for not telling you that you're actually an alien" moment as Sam is shown the pod that she arrived in as a child. The performances here are a little weak, but the imagery is great.

It's that classic Superman image of a covered up alien ship laying dormant inside of a shed and I loved every second of it. The Season 2 finale nicely teased said ship as it shot off into space during Krypton's end, so it's nice to see it make a return here. Personally, I would have liked to see her interact with the ship more perhaps having the ship insert Kryptonian knowledge into her brain alongside a mental map leading to the fortress. Fortunately, they did a satisfying enough job at making the moment be more about her and her mother reuniting digging up details about her past decisions as a young adult which caused them to separate. This is where I would have preferred that everything regarding Sam to have its own separate episode from Mon-El's return as we could have dived into her background a lot more deeply.

The Samantha character hasn't been the strongest this season as we've usually been treated with either scenes of her just being an average single mom dealing with a kid and trying to run a business accompanied by glimpses of a supernatural allusion. An episode that was 80%+ dedicated to her development would have resulted in a much more richer and fleshed out character leading up to the big moment that we have towards the end here. Even though we do get to see Samantha embark on a journey to discover her mysterious alien roots, this personal adventure would have been tons more impactful had it not been for an arguably equally interesting story taking place within the same episode.

Either way, what eventually takes place on Sam's journey is quite extraordinary. After traveling through the dessert on foot due to an overheated car, we get what is probably one of the most incredible visual spectacles on the show thus far. As the alien pod crystal begins glowing, giant spike-like structures begin emerging out of the ground creating a fortress of solitude-like setting. The sequence on its own is absolutely breathtaking and took me completely by surprise as I was honestly expecting something much more simple and cliched like a giant crater or something similiar. Kudos to the producers for raising the bar of geek out worthy shock value every now and then.

Bonus points for the "Fortress of Sanctuary" to look like a much more evil version of the Fortress of Solitude

As Sam walks into the fortress, the setting and mood of the episode completely changes bringing forth something much darker and supernatural in nature. The Kryptonian insignia that we saw from the Season 2 finale representing what appeared to be a cult is spotlighted here. As Sam places the crystal inside of the room's dashboard, a hologram of the woman shown previously during one of Sam's nightmares appears as a guiding figure. This is where the episode shifts from "Oh, Mon-El's back. That's interesting." to "We need more Reign development stat!". The hologram tells Sam that this "Fortress of Sanctuary" is made from pieces of her home world, Krypton. It's by far one of the coolest settings on the show as we're literally seeing fragments of a dead planet crafted to form a villain's lair.

It's also here where we learn that Sam (or Reign) was a culmination of centuries of work by what we can assume to be a secret Kryptonian cult of scientists. Her soul purpose was to exact justice which Sam interprets as her being a superhero like Supergirl in nature. This is where the hologram turns to her stating that she is more than that and that they (meaning Earth) will instead consider her as a "world killer" while failing to contain her power. It's a great tease as far as season villains go as we're basically being told that Reign will become an unstoppable dominant force of nature without actually seeing any indications. We've gotten visual hints of her abilities and now we have the most crucial person of information (one of her creators assumably) telling the audience that there's no hope for the planet to survive. Yep, I'm hyped.

What follows is a pretty twisted reveal for a mother to hear which is that her daughter's birth was an "unfortunate error" that delayed her power when she became of age. When Sam began to reject the idea that this whole situation was possible, I was expecting a much stronger performance by Odette Annable. I don't normally nitpick on the acting on the show as I've come to expect a certain bar of quality now performance-wise, but this was a scene that should have felt a lot more impactful dramatically speaking. However, I can't place all of the blame on Odette here as she is a more than capable actor simply given a less than stellar string of character development due to the episode's structure. Like I said before, the Sam character/Reign debut definitely needed its own episode.

When the hologram tells her that she will essentially forget her life and sensibilities as a human during the transformation process, I was expecting something visually compelling to happen. The fact that we just witnessed a giant fortress emerge from the ground, I was surprised that her transformation sequence comprised of Sam looking like she was reacting to food poisoning then losing her mind over it. No imagery of bodily mutations or alien symbols surrounding her. Nope, just poor Sam yelling out with a bombastic score in the background. Creatively speaking, it's a pretty weak scene as this would have been an ideal moment to inject flashes of her daughter, Lena, Kara, and her childhood fading away. Fortunately, the red eyes and alien language in the end with the line "I have awaken" gave us something to get excited for.

Overall Thoughts

With such a jam packed episode regarding reveals and revelations, I was surprised that there were a few emotionally touching interaction scenes implimented. These are mostly centered around J'onn and his father as he attempts to help him adjust to a new planet while also being confronted about his lack of a personal life due to the DEO. It's a great couple of scenes showing a side to the Martian Manhunter character that we normally don't get to explore. This week's episode gives us a fascinating character return with Mon-El bringing along a questionably significant carry-on of superheroes. This is unfrotunately squeezed in with a profoundly large step taken into the season villain's debut. Although everything wasn't as smoothly laid out as I would have liked, there's still enough in here worthy of getting hyped for.

 Bonus Thoughts

Easter Eggs

1. Brainiac 5 Easter Egg

During his conversation with Kara about his experience venturing through the wormhole that led him to the future, Mon-El mentions someone by the name of Querl that calls the wormhole a disruption. Querl Dox is a member of the Legion of Superheroes whose ancestor is none other than Braniac. Keep in mind that we saw a version of Braniac during Season 1.

2. J'onn J'onzz Abilities

One of the most fun and random moments of the episode shows us J'onn using his phasing abilities to transport both Kara and Winn underground to the hidden alien ship. It's a bit ridiculous, but it's the kind of fun ridiculous to where you say "Oh yeah, I'm watching a comic book TV show about a girl from an alien planet fighting crime with a cape. This works just fine." 

3. Superman's Drill Ability

After discovering the underground alien ship's location, Kara decides to use her invulnerable body to drill underground before being stopped by J'onn who suggests something more subtle. She mentions that she saw Clark do it once which is a nice nod to the first Superman film and/or the comics where Superman spins around in order to dig underground to find Lex Luthor's lair.

Episode Rating: 8/10