"Ahimsa"
Following what was an absolutely captivating and, dare I say, masterfully done villain origin episode, Supergirl delivers yet again with a phenomenal continuation of this season's anti-alien xenophobia arc. Where last week's entry gave us a much needed deep dive into Agent Liberty's backstory and evolution, this week presents us with several interesting character progressions taking place at once. With Agent Liberty still on the path of stealthily constructing anarchy amongst the people, our star hero struggles to adjust to a temporarily confined suit of survival. What makes this situation interesting is that Kara is limited in how she can help with current battles forcing some of the side characters to step into bigger roles. As a result, you have an episode that perfectly places a spotlight on the majority of the cast allowing everyone's current stories to shine.
You have a series of dramatically moving scenes between characters trying to adjust to the unrelentingly high pressured environment via Agent Liberty's attacks. This comes in the form of J'onn's struggle to live up to his father's passive direction as a spiritual leader while holding back his constant rage on the anti-alien racist conflict. Through J'onn's story, we have Alex trying to emotionally and mentally keep things together as the DEO's captain following the rules under the president's watchful eye. Seeing these two, given their history, attempt to comfort one another during troubling times has always been a gem of the series and this episode is no exception. It goes without saying that the writing and performances are exceptional here with both characters truly coming across as seasoned soldiers in a profoundly new and difficult place in their lives.
This carries over to Supergirl's conflict of being benched as a hero temporarily under life support which was a pretty risky idea for the show to take on. However, what's great about this survival suit concept, aside from the visually impressive presentation, is that it can also act as battle armor if dangerously pushed to its multi-tasking limits. Our naturally impenetrable hero is now forced to fight under shielding from the same suit that is struggling to keep her alive from the Kryptonite atmosphere. It's a refreshing dilemma that the episode does a solid enough job at delivering with Kara's traditionally impatient bursts to action putting her at risk while Alex has to scold her as her boss that's being stretched too thin herself. Supergirl here is shown as a threat to Alex's law abiding investigation while also being a threat to her very own health. So again, it's not just a new costume with a badass design for fans to drool over (which I did a little), it actually serves an essential and legitimately intriguing purpose to the story.
Speaking of the suit, despite me hardly praising the show's many action scenes as I would with other genre properties, I did quite enjoy the direction of Kara's first person POV fight scene. The visual style immediately reminded me of modern day action films like Hardcore Henry, while also nodding to an earlier episode in Season 3 where we saw Kara's viewpoint of Krypton's destruction. It's a stylistic choice that we normally don't get on the CW DC properties and one that I'd love to see implimented more on Supergirl specifically giving the series a new element to its entertainment value that allows its stand out above the rest.
Action scenes aside, we have to talk about what is already slowly becoming my favorite new side character introduced since Season 1's Martian Manhunter debut. I'm of course talking about Manchester Black played incredibly by David Ajala who almost steals every scene that he's in. Manchester was a new character that could have easily been overshadowed by the dramatic weight of our central cast sorting out their own issues, yet he still manages to make a strong enough impression. His mission to find his wife Fiona with the help of J'onn was a nice way of intertwining a new "hero" with an already established subplot. Seeing these two partner up was easily one of the high points of the episode due to their sensibilities. J'onn's telepathic and questionably patient direction to find Fiona alongside Manchester's more "take action" approach made for one fascinating onscreen dynamic.
Now that I've talked so highly about the heroic side of the spectrum, let's take a brief moment to emphasize on how great the Agent Liberty character has been so far. Whether it's Sam Witwer's magnetic performance as the equally charismatic and sinister villain or last week's fantastically structured origin story building up his motivation, I'm excitingly optimistic about his future on the show. Agent Liberty continues to show his threat level legitimacy in surprising ways. For example, I loved the idea of him actually utilizing DEO captured aliens as tools for his paranoia spreading agenda by controlling their minds with an alien parasite. The hypocrisy of him relying on aliens is interesting when you realize what this once caring and understanding family man is willing to do for his cause. It's also interesting seeing how impressively resourceful, psychologically manipulative, and tactical Benjamin appears to be.
With a satisfying climax interweaving everyone's stories within a carnival set climax battle, we get to see Irongirl, I mean Supergirl, shine in the suit once more at the risk of overloading her life support. It's a serviceably entertaining fight scene that keeps the tension going between Kara constantly getting reminded of the air's toxin levels while trying to fight off a mind controlled Helgramite. This is also where J'onn and Manchester finds Fiona in her final moments encouraging her husband not to be filled with anger over her death. With J'onn being present at this time, it's an emotional but also clever statement towards his rage over the racism conflict which in turn binds these characters together further progressing their stories in dramatically meaningful ways.
Ending things off on a promising note for future episodes, we see the Russian Supergirl clone being freed from a special airtight capsule eager to train which rises up my anticipation levels for this character more. Benjamin is then shown encouraging Jensen to undergo an alien related transformation for the cause with the Mercy siblings now being out of the way [thank you writers] and Manchester Black is shown sporting the comic book adapted Union Jack T-shirt gearing up for war. If this episode's final montage of teases is of any indication, this may end up being the best season of Supergirl yet as far as entertainment value and storytelling goes.
I haven't been this excited for Supergirl in quite some time, but I'll try to stay cautiously optimistic here. I'm having flashbacks to Season 3 with Reign's unremarkable Party City costume debut after an entire episode masterfully laid out her religious Kryptonian mythology setting her up as a hype worthy season villain. Fool me once right?
Bonus Content
Easter Eggs
1. The Guardian of Liberty
James Olsen has been placed in a pretty interesting situation this season continuing his role as the boss of a media conglomerate with his vigilante persona always being put into question. At the end of this episode, after deciding to aid Supergirl during the final fight (in a terribly presented action scene on his end), James is surprised to learn that he wouldn't be taken in by the authorities but instead publicly praised. The twist however comes later on when his heroism gets displayed on the news as someone fighting for human kind to take on the alien threat which pins him as the anti-alien groups' symbolic hero. Talk about a cleverly written twist for a character who not only heads a news outlet himself, but has also been wrestling with his hero persona for the past couple of years. This was foreshadowed in last week's episode when Benjamin had a bad encounter with James in the past but later stated that he admired his Guardian ventures.
2. These Are Tears of Logic!
One of the most refreshing things that a series that centers around a large cast can do is pair up certain individuals that viewers have either been eagerly waiting for or simply never thought of seeing. What this week's episode did was create one of my favorite new duos that I personally never imagined seeing being Lena and Brainy. Having these two intellects from different eras in time was brilliant as you get to see Brianiac-5 finally have someone he can bounce off of to some extent knowledge-wise. What surprised me however is the extra insert of having Lena teach the techno-organic hero how to box in his emotions allowing him to think more clearly. For fans who haven't been noticing, this is a very crucial moment for the character considering his recent emotional encounters with both racism from the public and personal guilt when seeing Supergirl in danger.
3. What Can Manchester Black Do?
As far as abilities go, in the comics and animated adaptations, Manchester Black has powerful psychic abilities ranging from telepathy and telekinesis. He has even faced the likes of Superman before surprisingly managing to hold his own to some extent. On the show however, or at least in this specific episode, Manchester is only shown during physical combat situations taking a hit from a baton with no reaction and effortlessly dodging his attacker afterwards. It's never flat out explained on the show what his actual power set is, but he obviously knows his way around a fight and is apparently knowledgable about guns as shown in the end. Perhaps his fighting awareness comes from being able to psychically read his attackers move? We'll just have to wait and see.
4. Who is Copy?
One of the aliens that Agent Liberty forcefully recruits is a character known as "Copy" who has the ability to clone himself on the fly. Being that I couldn't find a straightforward reference to this character, I'll take a guess and say that he's either the character known as "Carbon Copy" in the comics or just Supergirl's version of "Multiplex". Multiplex was a meta-human villain of the week during Season 1 of The Flash utilizing the same ability of multiplying his self to overpower his enemy during a fight. It'll be interesting to see what other super powered beings Agent Liberty will use to take on the DEO in the future.
5. Beebo Easter Egg
In what is by far the most shocking reveal of the entire season so far, Beebo shows up as a toy in a carnival. Alright, perhaps not the most jaw dropping of reveals, but I did think it was pretty neat seeing a pop culture item that was created and popularized in Legends of Tomorrow and shown on The Flash pop up on Supergirl. Much like the fictional restaurant Big Belly Burger, it's always fun getting to see more connective tissues within the different shows confirming the shared universe component to this franchise.
6. The Things We Don't Think About
This isn't an easter egg necessarily, but an observation that I had after thinking about the scene where the kid encounters the Helgramite. Now, as a viewer watching, we see this as simply just a forgettable tiny drop of Sci-Fi/Horror being inserted in order to rank up the Helgramite's presence as a scary side villain in the episode. However, if one were to take a deeper look at this brief moment, they'd see that kid getting traumatized for arguably the rest of his life. As a comics nerd, this is where my head canon starts to get imaginitive and that kid becomes some sort of soldier in the future fighting against alien threats or perhaps being a significant figure in the anti-alien movement specifically because of this scene. Just a interesting "what if?" thought...
Episode Rating: 9/10
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