Supergirl S01 E12 – I doomed the ship.

Previously: A surprisingly feelsy episode.
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Bizzaro

Samantha: This episode begins Three Months Ago at Lord Technologies. Carlisle Lord enters his creepy room where he’s creepily keeping the Jane Doe. A doctor is looking her over and Carlisle Maxwell strokes her hair, like a creep. Did you know that I find this creepy? (M: Only because I’m good at subtext.) He hits a button and black liquid flows through her IV, while anxious espionage music plays. She starts coughing and seizing and then her eyes open, black, as we’ve seen them before.  Then Maxwell Carlisle does the “She’s alive!” Dr. Frankenstein bit.

Marines: I groaned so hard they heard it in the Phantom Zone.

Catherine: Is it just me or has Peter Facinelli’s acting gotten worse and worse over the past few episodes? I mean, I don’t blame him, I just think he’s starting to give up. 

Samantha: Next up is Yesterday. The girl is strapped to a high tech chair and we cannot see her face. Maxwell is waxing poetic about life and death or some shit by quoting Shelley and touching her hair and omfg I’m so uncomfortable. Maxwell Carlisle is a bad dude. (M: I don’t believe for a second he’s only drinking animal blood.) He kisses her hand and calls her his most perfect creation. We pan to her and it is, of course, the Supergirl Look a Like. She calls him “My Lord.” I mistakenly brought some blueberry scones with me to munch while I recap, but this opening has killed my ability to eat sweet treats.

DEO. We pick up with our heroes, just after the magical news footage that ended last episode. They’re all watching it at headquarters and Alex is saying that they scanned the area and there was no sign of aliens. Alex and Supergirl almost immediately wonder about the girl that Maxy had at his lab, but Hank shoots it down.

Mari: I see very little reason for them to suspect that and slightly more reason but still not a ton for Hank to shoot it down so quickly. But you know. #plot

Samantha: This is true. I so badly want the episode to be over, so I jumped straight to “FIGURE IT OUT GUYS.”

CatCo. Kara walks over to Winn to tell him about a meeting and also, oh yeah, there’s a clone of her doing bad shit. Winn is not interested, except he actually is. Kara is grinning happily at Winn talking to her, when the elevator chimes and she realizes that she forgot Ms. Grant’s latte. To her surprise, Cat comes in with her own latte and one for Kara. Hey, she didn’t know that Kara forgot. If it were a normal day there would be a lot of lattes in this joint. Anyway, it’s Kara’s go to perfect latte so she’s obviously weirded out.

CatCo Meeting. Cat is asking for headlines and how they are going to pitch the new Supergirl is Bad thing. After a few bad ideas, Kara mumbles that maybe it isn’t even Supergirl. Everyone turns to look at her and Cat decides that this is interesting. It shows that they are giving Supergirl the benefit of the doubt. She kicks everyone out of her office, but Kara stays to ask Cat if she’s just being nice because she has a date with Adam. Cat feigns innocence, so the answer is yes.

Catherine: Whatever, Kara. Cat never wants to think that Supergirl might’ve done something bad. Remember when there was a big earthquake and Supergirl disappeared and Cat was like ‘I’m sure she’s just busy?? Chill down, peasants.’

Samantha: Cat’s ultimate belief in Supergirl is wonderful.

Kara and Winn and Jimmy are heading to their special secret office headquarters. Kara is talking about how it’s like Cat was taken over by body snatchers (get it, this episode is called Bizarro?) Kara fills them in on Maxwell’s hostage coma lady and I am grateful that she is still pursuing this even though Hank said nah. As they are talking, Kara gets a text from Adam saying he’s excited for their date.

  

Kara cute giggles and Jimmy asks who the text was from. She does her awkward Kara thing before telling the boys about her date. Jimmy is too “That’s great!” about it.

Lord Technologies and oh god I cannot emphasize how uncomfortable I am. I am probably supposed to be but man, I don’t even want to watch these scenes. (C: Seconded. It’s super creepy.) Fake Supergirl is in her tech chair with wires attached to her head, that seem to shock her as she watches footage of real Supergirl. She doesn’t have much of an expression. Carlisle Holy Creep Lord comes in and evil scientists that Supergirl is bad and needs to be replaced with his Supergirl. She’s kind of in a trance and giving fragmented sentence responses and it’s just weird.

Catherine: Can someone for the love of god tell me what it is that Carlisle Maxwell does at his company? He built a train but now he’s building an evil girl? Like? Wtf? What is this company? Why does he know how to do this shit? 

Samantha: Listen, I’m still only vaguely sure I know what Lois and Jimmy do. I can’t be responsible for understanding his giant weird company!

That one restaurant in National City, where Adam and Kara are beginning their date. He says that his mom got them reservations at some fancy restaurant but Kara clarifies that Cat told her to, but she didn’t because it wasn’t their style. Adam grins big and tells her that she’s amazing. It’s sweet. If I have to ship something, I’ll ship this. For now.

Mari: I think by just saying that you’ve doomed this ship. Nothing good can last.

Samantha: He tells her that it was super sweet how she totally crossed the line and sent him that letter pretending to be his mom. He wants to do something super nice for her too. They grin at each other some more until that pesky news report butts in. The news report is so needy. It tells Kara that a tramway is dangling above a steep fall or something and so Kara HASTOGOIMSOSORRY. Adam is confused and I am not surprised that this happened. She pretends that her grandma fell and she has to get to the hospital. Adam offers to go with her but of course, no. This shit is totally going to sink my newly christened ship in favor of a ship that is in on the secret. (M: SEE?) (C: Boooo! I want her dating someone not Winn.) 

Supergirl arrives at the scene just as Fake Supergirl gets there. They just stare at each other for a beat too long. Real Supergirl tries to talk to fakie but she just says “We kill Supergirl” and they start fighting on top of the dangling tram car. Hold up. What the heck is Maxie’s plan? He wants to replace Supergirl but the news crew and public are obviously going to see these two fighting and know that there’s an imposter? If he wants to replace her wouldn’t it be smarter to do it covertly?

Catherine: NONE OF YOUR PLAN MAKE SENSE, MAXWELL CARLISLE! 

Samantha: Anyhoodle, they fight until the tram goes flying towards the water and then the real Supergirl saves everyone while the fake Supergirl looks on in confusion.

DEO. Supergirl is telling Hank and Alex that fake Supergirl is definitely a person, with a soul, and not an android. Alex says, “Hey yo, we have kryptonite!”

CatCo. Cat and Adam are walking into the offices and Adam is trying to figure out if he did something wrong. Cat assures him that Kara is just skittish. You know what would be cool here? If Cat knew that Kara was Supergirl and could help her cover. (M: A moments of silence for those 5 seconds she did know.) (C: Ssh no, that would be good writing. Where are you two right now? Come back to me.) Cat tells Adam that she hopes she wasn’t a disappointing dinner substitute and Adam says she wasn’t because it’s been nice spending time together. Kara runs up with the latte and her and Adam are cute. They reschedule and hug and Cat makes a hilarious face in the background at the awkward.

  

Catherine: New favorite gif. 

Samantha: Adam leaves and Cat comes over to be weirded out that they haven’t had their first kiss yet. “Kira, you are like a character from a Jane Austen novel: Bizzaro.” Okay Cat, take the thing.

Catherine: The ‘you said the thing in the thing’ thing? 

Samantha: Yes.

Kara protests that it’s not that weird, but Cat clarifies that the Bizzaro remark was directed at the TV, because she named Supergirl’s evil twin Bizzaro. Katy, is this a comics thing?

Catherine: Thank you for asking and giving me a chance to butt in with a comics lesson: Yep! It’s a comics thing. Bizarro is a villain from the Silver Age that first appeared in the 50’s. He’s basically supposed to be Superman on opposite day. If Superman had been hit in the head a few times. He has the opposite powers of Superman (freeze vision instead of heat vision, flame breath instead of freeze breath, etc.), speaks in opposites and is strengthened by Kryptonite instead of weakened by it (although, in the comics he is vulnerable to blue kryptonite.) He was originally created as a  clone of Superman but the clone came out wrong and as a result, Bizarro has chalky white skin and talks like a Speak and Spell. The character has been around for a while and many, many adaptations of him have been done in different continuities. There is now a whole Bizarro family (like the Super Family but… bizarre) including Bizarro Lois Lane. 

Sometimes Bizarro is done quite well, and actually comes off as scary. Most of the time (like here) not so much. Now lesson am over. 

Samantha: Cut to the Super Crew in their secret hideout. Winn says that he found records of a Jane Doe matching Kara’s height and weight that was in a coma from a car accident. She was transferred to a private facility called Prometheus Genetics, owned by the illustrious Carlisle Maxwell. Winn also tells us that it’s actually a total of 7 girls that have been claimed by Prometheus. He hypothesizes that it’s taken him 7 tries to create the perfect doppelganger. EW. (M: +1)

Lord Technologies of Why Are There So Many Scenes Here. Maxwell asks why she didn’t kill Supergirl. Bizzaro woodenly says that Supergirl helps people and isn’t bad. Okay, I know it’s supposed to be wooden and Frankenstein’s monster esque but god this is reminding me of that episode of Buffy, “Beer Bad.” Ugh. Maxwell says that it’s natural that she wants to trust Supergirl since they share DNA but she should trust him. “Who do you love? Supergirl, or me?” Yuck. He pets her hair some more and says that Supergirl is def bad.

Later, Alex shows up at Lord Technologies to talk to the reigning creep champion. She straight up tells him that she knows about the girls he treated like guinea pigs and he says that they were completely brain dead and he gave them a chance to live. You go ahead and try to justify your creep, buddy. She demands to know how he got Supergirl’s DNA and he reminds her and me of the time she gave him Red Tornado’s arm. It had Supergirl’s DNA on it from their fights.

  

He rambles about survival of the fittest and her having no proof and that maybe her and Supergirl are close.

DEO. Alex fills in Hank and Supergirl. The plan is to arm the agents with kryptonite darts and take her down. Kara protests, saying that Bizzaro is the victim not the perpetrator and they should go after Carlisle. Hank reminds her that they are the DEO and since they don’t technically exist, they can’t arrest people. Hank walks away and Alex tells Supergirl that Max mentioned something that sounded like he knew they were related. They decide that there’s no way he can know and Kara starts texting Adam to cancel their date, but Alex insits that she go.

CatCo. Jimmy pours him and Winn a drink, because it’s cool to drink on the job. I don’t even know if it’s office hours or why they’re there or what time is. Winn asks what his sorrows are but Jimmy just chuckles. Winn asks what he’s doing telling Kara that he’s happy for her and Adam. Uh, because Jimmy is supposedly in a long term committed relationship? Actually, he just says that he knows she likes Adam and that’s what he’s supposed to say.

Then Winn does it. He drops the f word. The FRIENDZONE word. It’s amazing how quickly that shoots up my blood pressure. “Look, I have been stuck in the friendzone for so long that I’m just thinking about buying some investent property here. But you, you could be with her and you know it.”

Catherine: 

Samantha: Jimmy mentions his, you know, girlfriend but Winn insists that it’s not cool to be with someone when you’re into someone else.

Mari: I would like to reach into the screen and grab that alcohol for myself. How else are we supposed to bear that scene?

Catherine: I like that you guys are back around to hating Winn with me now. Welcome back, friends. Please warm your cold hands on the burning furnace of hatred deep within my heart. 

Samantha: Kara and Adam are walking around downtown on their date. Adam asks about her parents and Kara tells him that they died. She talks about the Danvers and not being able to feel normal. Adam leans in and whispers in her ear that no one feels normal and then they kiss. I dunno, I ship it, which means it shall crash and burn soon. Also, can Kryptonians and humans procreate? Are we the same species?

Mari: Seeing as how most of my Superman knowledge comes from Lois and Clark, I’ll just go ahead and say that they tackled this question after Lois and Clark get married. They can’t have babies together.

Catherine: 4 points for Super knowledge, Mari! They cannot have the babies. Most of the time. Continuity over 80 years is a confusing thing and for every ‘NO SUPERMAN CAN’T DO THIS’ thing there’s a ‘BUT HE DID IT IN ACTION COMICS #748374 YOU SHITLORD’ thing. There are continuities where Superman and Lois have a baby or babies. They actually had one in ‘Superman Returns’ if anyone else saw that you remember. But usually these questions are answered by taking the consensus of all the comics and most of the time when the subjects of kids comes up between Lois and Superman it’s reveled that he can’t get her pregnant because of their different biology. Or he’s just been lying this whole time because he doesn’t want the responsibility. Who knows? 

Samantha: Bizzaro Supergirl swoops into the date and snatches Kara and flies away with her. Rude. I bet the News Report TV put her up to this. Adam screams “Kara!” at the sky.

    

Catherine: This was so abrupt that I actually laughed really loud. One second she was kissing him and the next POOF! She was gone! 

Samantha: Supergirl tells Bizzaro that she’s making a mistake (much like Aaron Burr) and then they shoot laser eyes at each other (also much like Hamilton and Burr). (C: Hmm, Samantha sure does know a lot about history all of the sudden. These kids and their internets.)

After the commercial break the fight continues and they are pretty evenly matched. Bizzaro has flame breath instead of Supergirl’s cold breath.

The DEO show up and fill her with kryptonite bullets. It degrades her Supergirl form so that she looks like her skin is peeling and cracking and her eyes go black again. She shrieks that she hates them and flies off.

Mari: They ruined her aesthetic.

Samantha: DEO. Kara is telling Alex that Maxie definitely knows she is Supergirl because he came after her as Kara. This is bad bad bad. They go to talk to Hank and somehow come to the conclusion that instead of weakening her, the kryptonite made her stronger. Which… is not what I got from that scene but okay. (M: Nothing about crackle face said, “much power” to me.) She’s a mirror image of Supergirl so reversing the ionic charge of the kryptonite she work. They don’t tell him that Maxwell knows Kara’s identity and Hank leaves. Kara insists that they have to take down Max, because she can’t eventually face down Alura and Max at the same time.

CatCo. Adam and Cat are pacing around, worried about Kara. Kara walks in and asks for a moment alone with Adam. Guys. This feels like my ship has sprung a leak. “Ooohhh. Well. I guess I’ll go roam the hallways of my building,” Cat says, heading out. He looks really sad and asks if she’s breaking up with him before they even start dating. Kara says the universe is sending them a sign, but he insists that not everyone is going to leave her. She tells him that she has too much baggage and he’s sad and leaves and she cries. If this was just so the Jimmy ship could have more room at sea…

Mari: Kara should get better at lying. Like, walk in with your clothes ruffled and some hair out of place and maybe a tear or two after you got “kidnapped.” 

Samantha: Lord Technologies. Bizzaro is chilling, looking all zombie and creepy. Carlisle Maxwell tells her that Supergirl made her a monster and she should be pissed and go after who Supergirl loves.

Kara is out on the balcony of CatCo, being sad, when Jimmy comes out. He asks what happened and she says that she broke up with Adam. He starts to tell her that she can talk to him if she wants, but she half snaps that nothing he says will help so to just leave her alone. He looks taken aback and I laugh for some reason.

Lord Technologies. Alex shows up with some agents and arrests Maxwell. He asks what the charges are and she’s like “I’m outside the law, bitch!” He threatens to expose Kara as Supergirl and she slams his head onto the table. It’s kind of satisfying.

Mari: Gif staring! 

Samantha: CatCo. Jimmy is brooding on the balcony when Bizzaro shows up and kidnaps him. I don’t really know why he’s the person she thinks Kara loves or how she even knows about their relationship.

Catherine: But she runs off with him super fast, too! She loves doing that! It’s rapidly becoming her thing. 

They bring Maxwell to the DEO, and it just seems like a mistake that they take his hood off before he’s in a cell or interrogation room, especially when he looks so gleeful at seeing HQ. Hank reprimands her harshly at how she’s compromising the organization, but Alex doesn’t care because Carlisle came after Kara.

An Empty Warehouse That Looks Like The One Jimmy and Supergirl Practiced Punching In. Jimmy is duct taped to a pole. He tries to get his panic button, which is laying on the ground, while Bizzaro’s back is turned. She turns around before he can get it and they start chatting. Bizzaro says she took him because Supergirl loves him and she knows because she and Supergirl are the same. Huh? I know they’re the same genetically, but at no point was it implied that she had Kara’s memories or personality. I guess I’ll just assume that somehow Max found out the weird details of Kara and Jimmy’s non relationship and passed it on? And Bizzaro thought that Jimmy was a better bet than her sister or bff?

Mari: This was 100% stupid.

Catherine: Yep. Although picturing Maxwell Carlisle gossiping with his kidnap victim about Kara love life is hilarious. 

Samantha: Bizzaro calls herself ugly and Jimmy goes on this weird speech about how we all feel ugly sometimes and there’s a part of her that really is Supergirl. “People don’t love her because of what she looks like on the outside. I love her because of who she is.”

It’s weird because the implication here, I think, is romantic love and sheesh that was fast. Jimmy romantic loves Kara? I was feeling that he cared about her and admired her and like liked her, but full on declarations of love feel weird. I don’t know, I’m sorry, this isn’t working for me. He keeps appealing to Bizzaro and she turns away. He hits the panic button with his heel and Bizzaro gets pissed and shoots fire breath near him.

DEO. Supergirl hears the panic button signal and luckily the bizzaro kryptonite is ready. Her and Alex head out.

Empty Warehouse. Bizzaro and Supergirl start fighting and keep fighting until Alex gets into position. She hits Bizzaro with the kryptonite. Sorry guys, the fight was boring and not really easy to recap.

DEO. Alex and Supergirl go into the hospital-like room that Bizzaro is in. The girls apologize to each other and Hank says that they’re going to put her into a coma and try to help her. Kara holds her hand until she falls asleep. Everyone looks sad and pissed at what Maxwell Cullen did to her.

Maxwell’s holding cell. Supergirl goes in to talk to him and he smarms about how his girl must have come in second. Then he mentions that she’s not that different than her cousin so that I can get my drink on.

Kara insists that he won’t hurt anyone ever again, which of course he will, as this is a comics show. He smugly name drops Eliza and the house she grew up in. Listen, Carlisle, don’t mess with cinnamon roll Eliza or Angelica will kick your ass.

Kara is pissed and her laser eyes start to glow. Alex comes in and tell her that he’s not worth it.

Mari: IDK, if anyone is worth lazering for at least a couple of seconds, it’s him.

Catherine: This is sort of out of nowhere but I’ve been meaning to bring it up for a few episodes now. The cell that they have for aliens, the one that they put Max in here… does it have a toilet? Because it’s looks like a plexiglass room with a bench. I can’t see a toilet. I get that it was built for aliens but aliens pee too, surely. 

Samantha: Uh… well… you see… the way it works… oh gosh my cookies are burning, I’ll explain when I come back! (Also, there’s a similar conundrum on The Flash so in comics maybe no one pees.)

CatCo. Cat is working in her office when Kara comes in to talk about what happened with Adam. Cat says that he’s going back to Opal City since there’s nothing keeping him here. They’ll visit of course. Cat goes on to say that she thought Kara understood that you have to put people first in order to build a life. Kara tries to explain but Cat tells her that she doesn’t want to know and that their relationship should stay professional, only. No more special lattes for Kara. On her way out of the office, she bumps into Jimmy and asks if he wants to go get some food. He can’t, because he’s picking Lucy up from the airport. It’s vaguely feelsy on Jimmy’s part.

Kara’s apartment. She flies in through the window and goes to the fridge, when there’s a skittering noise. She walks into the living room and there’s a weird plant on the coffee table. We see, on the ceiling above her, a creepy ass plant thing creeping around. The episode ends with it jumping out at her.

I know that last episode was better, but this episode didn’t work for me. Sorry, everyone.

Catherine: Don’t be sorry. This episode was pretty dumb. 

Mari: Dopplegangers don’t always work, you know?

Next time on Supergirl: Supergirl battles the plant from Little Shop of Horrors, apparently in S01- E13 For The Girl Who Has Everything.