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Samantha: Hello and welcome to the second season! We really appreciate those of you that have stuck with us this far!
Marines: I like this grand announcement as if we didn’t finish season one last week. But, like, yeah. Welcome back!
Catherine: How are you guys? It’s been SO long…
Samantha: This episode begins with Kara doing the recap thing, and it’s a slightly altered new recap. Also, The CW website lets you really customize your closed captioning options. I’m currently watching while magenta helvetica scrolls along the bottom. We pick up where I believe we left off (we just did those recaps how has it already gotten murky?), Kara, Alex, Hank, James, Winn, and Eliza popping the champagne. The pod thing falls to earth and Supergirl and J’onn fly out after it. They go through a level 2 obstacle course of the city before it lands harmlessly. Supergirl pops the lid and inside is, omg A SLEEPING HANDSOME MAN. Kiss him without consent, Kara. Fairytales say you’re supposed to.
Mari: A SLEEPING HANDSOME MAN? That was completely unexpected and truly a cliffhanger worthy of a season break.
Samantha: SUPER TITLE PAGE
Supergirl and Hank land in a shiny new building, with fragile looking glass windows and above ground views. Supergirl is like “wtf is this place” and Hank informs her it’s that other DEO location no one ever mentioned last season. (M: Mmmhmm.) Supergirl is fairly pumped at the new digs because it’s not a cave and fair. Alex gets in a, “It’s kind of like the old place. Maybe better.” I read recently that CBS is the parent company of the CW so this seems like exactly the right statement.
Catherine: I’m still not sure if them acting like this wasn’t a new set was funny or annoying. Both? Funnoying?
Samantha: I like it.
They all go to look in on the handsome pod guy. He’s unconscious but healthy. Supergirl thinks he has to be from Krypton, especially since our puny earth needles won’t pierce his skin. Hank thinks it just means he definitely isn’t human. Alex randomly requests that Winn help analyze the the pod and stuff, because the CW is trying to make his character less useless, I guess. He even looks taller to me? Maybe it’s just the better haircut.
Mari: I’m really kind of enjoying picking up on all the things The CW immediately wanted to fix: get them out of the cave and for God’s sake, give Winn a better haircut and something to do!
Samantha: Hank tells Winn to prove himself by finding something none of the other experts can.
Alex expositionally slips in that there’s a spacecraft Venture launch that night. Kara says that she can’t watch because her and James are having their first real date. She babble talks it up until Alex is like, “Yeah, you’re trying to convince yourself to be excited.” Kara denies it before getting a text from Cat and heading out.
TVs all over town helpfully further let us know about this Venture launch. Kara meets Cat at the elevator and Cat wants an answer on her “Pick any job you want” offer. Kara protests that she needs more time to decide. Cat is derisive and also tells us that she only sleeps 2 hours at night and as someone who just woke up from a nap, I’m horrified. I’m also distracted by the weird spiky top part of Cat’s outfit. (C: Omg right? It’s like a necklace but it’s attached to her dress?)
Kara says she took an online vocation quiz and she tries to make it sound sophisticated but we all know it was a Buzzfeed Quiz. Anyway, Kara got Marketing but Cat is less than impressed. She gives Kara 48 hours to decide. Then she bellows for her new assistant, “Ms. Tessmacher” and it’s a strange enough name that I’m forced to ask Katy if she’s a comic character?
Catherine: Correct! Ish! She is a Superman character although she was invented for the 1978 Superman movie. Ms. Tessmacher was Lex Luthor’s assistant who was very ditzy and inexplicably in love with him but later helped Superman because she realized that Lex was gonna for real destroy the world. She is an interesting choice for an addition to this show. I assume they just did it because they needed an assistant character and wanted to pull someone from canon.
Samantha: Kara’s Very Huge And She Affords it By Herself Apartment. She getting ready for her date with James. Usual outfit changing/music plays sequence. (M: Here! Have a terrible YouTube video of how Lois & Clark did it better…) (C: Always.) James arrives with pizza and potstickers, which makes me like him more. As Kara starts taking out the food he wonders why she doesn’t have the Venture launch on when she’s gaga for space. This makes me remember the “she can’t breathe in space!” thing and I get irrationally annoyed. Kara turns it on and it blasts off and once it’s in space, something goes wrong and it starts to crash back to earth.
We cut to a newspaper stand selling copies of the Daily Planet. An awkward man in glasses stammers on the phone to Mr. White.
CatCo and the DEO watch with worried faces as the giant TV hopes that “he” is seeing this. The Glasses Man runs down an alley and tears open his shirt, throws his glasses aside (I hope he can find them later), and oh my god! It’s Superman! You guys, the nerdy glasses guy is Superman!!!!!! (M: You are really selling this experience.) (C: ACTING) He takes off.
In National City the reporter here is hoping that “she” is watching and James tells the TV reporter that she is. Supergirl painfully dramatic walks to the window and heads out.
The pilot of the Venture is calling mayday when Supergirl shows up and steadys the aircraft. Superman arrives and asks if she needs a hand. Their exchange is actually rather cute, short as it is. Kara also says, “Hey, cuz” so…cousin shots? (M: The judges will allow it.) Superman goes and freeze breaths the fire and helps Supergirl land the craft safely. Kara is all gleeful because they have never saved anything together before. Girl, forget saving things together, cousin here couldn’t even be bothered to do more than IM you once in awhile. They go over to say hi to a nearby family who is super pumped to be meeting them. Supergirl tells the little girl that she used to change Superman’s diapers. It’s fairly cheesy cute but I’m wondering if it’s common knowledge to the general public that Kara was older than him on Krypton? To the casual observer they are the same age, ish.
Mari: Good question. Because if you don’t know that piece of the story, “I used to change his diapers” just got weirder.
Samantha: DEO. Supergirl arrives with Superman in tow. Kara goes to introduce him but everyone has already sorta parted down the middle, like for a General inspecting his troops. Everyone seems pretty awestruck, even though he’s just the male form of Kara. I’m probably being unjustly bitter right now, in the current political climate I’m defensive and tired.
Catherine: SAME. And your point about the crowd parting for him is SO on point because earlier in the episode when Kara was leaving the new DEO digs people just walked by her like she was the UPS guy. No one at the DEO seems to be in awe of her. I wonder if that is a specific point that the writers are trying to make with those two shots or I’m just weird for noticing. (S: Definitely not weird.)
Look, Superman was the first super hero and alien that this particular world had ever seen. They probably do think of Kara as kind of a sidekick to him even without the “girl” part of her name but she’s still a superpowered alien being? So? I mean, I would be g darn impressed if it were me. Even if I did work with her every day.
Samantha: Hank seems a little grumpy that he’s there. Winn super fangirls. (C: I actually enjoyed Winn in this scene? WTF is happening to me someone call a doctor.) (S: Doo wee oooo.) Alex and Superman hug??? Which. No way these two are on hugging terms, they never even spend a holiday together.
Catherine: RIGHT? So fake. Not buying it.
Samantha: He offers to help with the search for Dean Cain and Alex calls him Clark right there in the DEO. (M: I KNOW. These people suck at secret identities.) (C: RIGHT AGAIN YOU’RE SO RIGHT SAMANTHA ALL THE TIME.) (S: The power of Jeff is with me.) J’onn and Superman exchange icy greetings. Supergirl wants Superman to visit the unconscious man.
Superman asks if she scanned him for foreign objects with her xray vision. There’s a funny, “…of course I did that” moment with Kara. She scans him and there’s nothing. Winn comes in ’cause his magic decoder got into the pods transmitter or something and found that he passed through the Well of Stars. My soul soars at how pretty that sounds. Kara says that time doesn’t pass there. Winn then tells us that, here on Earth, Supes is 12 years older than Kara. Clark is at least 36??? But then Superman says that Kryptonians age slower here on Earth and what? Katy Fact Check? Wouldn’t people notice if a child was aging at a slower rate? Won’t this impact their personal relationships if they are aging slower than their human partners and friends? Is this dumb or am I thinking too hard?
Mari: I’m Not Katy, but I Have Watched A Shit-Ton of Lois & Clark™. They dealt with Clark’s slow aging on that show, too. Lois was super bummed that one day she would be old and wrinkly and Clark would still be young and lovely. Slow aging is always kind of a weird concept anyway because it only hits when people are adults in fiction. Like, you reached puberty at a normal age, but after your 20’s, you are just going to look like a hot CW star forever, basically. Anyway, Clark does get exposed to some aging contrivance machine on Lois & Clark and it sucks years out of him so then he’s going to age normally and one day just be AARP Superman, or whatever.
Catherine: Yep. In the comics Clark ages until he reaches his twenties and then either slows down or sometimes even stops completely depending on the continuity. The idea is that his cells constantly regenerate because of his exposure to our yellow sun. This is why he is invulnerable and also why he ages slower. And for some reason this only kicks in when he is in his twenties. Because plot reasons. There are a lot of canon stories that deal with Superman and Lois coming to terms with the fact that he will most likely outlive her by hundreds of years. If you wanna be fucking depressed. Although if you look at it from our perspective technically no one in the Supes universe has aged since 1938 and now that they’re on the CW they never shall.
Samantha: Hank crankily interrupts to say that they need to talk about the Venture. He tells them that the thing that went wrong, shouldn’t have. The spacecraft was of course built here, in National City, so they need to investigate. Clark offers to make some inquiries as a reporter. Kara tells him that he can work out of CatCo, but to steer clear of Ms. Grant. Clark says that he has some sway with Cat. Alex wants to know what’s up with Hank and Clark but Hank shrugs her off. Guys, are we calling him Hank or J’onn? I’ve been really inconsistent this recap.
Mari: Yep, I was my last recap too. I tried going for Hank J’onn whenever we were seeing J’onn in Hank skin, but that’s double the work. As an aside, I always try to call Kara Supergirl when she’s actually in her Supergirl outfit, but that doesn’t always work out either.
Catherine: I go with Hank and Kara because they’re easier to type and spellcheck recognizes them. That’s my scientific process.
Samantha: CatCo. The elevator opens and Clark has knocked all the stuff out of someone’s hands. As they exit, Kara loudly says “You really have that klutzy thing down, don’t you?” Clark assures her it’s all real. James comes over and greets Clark with a sort of elaborate handshake. I can’t decide if it’s endearing or weird. (M: The judges will allow it.) (C: Also, why is Jimmy taller than Clark? WTF?) While they catch up, Cat makes faces at Kara from her office.
Cat can’t believe Kara never told her that she knew Clark Kent, and let’s be real, last season Kara basically didn’t. Cat frantically tries to pull herself together while Kara eyerolls. Cat heads out and greets Clark, fairly fluttery. She asks if he’s still dating Lois or if it fizzled out like she predicted. What’s that? Oh, just Katy screaming all the way from Maine. (C: AHHHHHH! Lois!) Clark says that they’re still going strong and Cat wonders if Lois still has the hots for Superman. Clark says that there’s room for both of them and Cat eyebrow waggles at the implications. Clark flusters. It’s fairly funny. Would Cat have been cohorts of Lois and Clark, in this version? Probably not right? She’d have always been ahead of them. It’s just that the way Cat talks about Lois, they seem like rivals. IDK.
Catherine: If she worked with him at the Daily Planet like in the comics than it would’ve have been years earlier right? So she would surely have noticed that he hasn’t aged? This shows Cat timeline is really weird.
Samantha: I could not stop thinking about the timeline. To a distracting degree.
She takes him off on a tour and Kara asks Jimmy wtf is up with Cat. Jimmy says she’s always had a thing for Clark, even sent him a drunk text once. She overly insists to him that they are going to make up their date and it’s going to be great even if it kills them. Or something. Kara’s phone rings.
She runs over to Clark because Alex did some digging and one person wasn’t on the Venture that was supposed to be: Lena Luthor. Hey! I didn’t know Lex had a sister! Kara says that since Lex is in prison, he can’t be behind this but Lena just moved to National City.
Catherine: There are so many new comic characters in this episode I can already tell I’m gonna add too much. Okay, Lena Luthor was Lex’s sister in the old school silver age comics. She was unaware that her brother was a super villain because her parents changed her name and told her that Lex died in a car accident. Ya know, perfectly normal stuff. I guess she never watched the news and saw her dead brother in giant ass robot suits attacking the city. Anyway, Post-Crisis, she was actually Lex’s daughter that he named after his foster sister.
Samantha: Villainy Place for Villains. A British man is being shown how to fly and shoot weapons from an advanced drone thing. He fires up the gun and murders the guy who was showing him how it worked. Then he gets on his villain phone and tells someone that since the Venture didn’t explode, he’s switching to plan B.
Mari: If your day job is showing murders how to use weapons, I hope you have good life insurance…?
Samantha: LexCorp. Clark and Kara are talking to Lena. She says that there is a totally valid reason she wasn’t on the Venture: there was a party planning emergency. A Renaming the Family Company to Distance From Scummy Brother Party. Kara introduces herself and explains that she’s just tagging along today. Lena cuts to the chase and says she didn’t have anything to do with the explosion. She says that if her name was Smith he wouldn’t even be asking. Clark says, that it’s not though, it’s definitely Luthor. “There’s some steel under that Kansas wheat,” says Lena and I know Mari and I were in the “this is so bad it’s good” category on this. (M: ‘CAUSE HE’S THE MAN OF STEEL, GEDDIT?) (C: Puns are his kryptonite.) Lena explains that she was adopted as a child and Lex was the one who made her feel welcome. Clark and Kara XRay the room while she monologues. Then Lex went off the deep end and declared war on Superman and Metropolis. She’s trying to distance herself and the company from that, become L Corp, and do good. Kara says that she understands but Clark doesn’t look convinced. She gives Clark a flashdrive containing all the information she has on the oscillator, the part that a subsidiary of her company made for the Venture.
Out on the street, Clark says that he learned the hard way not to trust a Luthor. Kara says that even though she isn’t a reporter, she believed Lena. Clark gets a phone call and he calls the person “sweetie” so we know it’s Lois. Catherine, you breathing?
Catherine:
Samantha: Basic I miss you, I love you chit chat and then he says goodbye. Yo, did my other snark ladies also assume that Lois knows Clark is Superman? That’s what we were to infer, yeah?
Mari: Lois definitely always finds out that Clark is Superman and I’m guessing that if they have been together for a while in this world, she knows. Plus that whole “there is room for both of us” thing he said earlier.
Catherine: I’d say she definitely knows. Also, can we talk about how important Lois Lane is as a character that the writers felt like they had to include this many references to her if they were gonna bring Clark in? Do you know how many superhero girlfriends get that kind of fucking acknowledgement? Is this where you guys want me to include my essay on why Lois is the best DC comics character or should I attach it at the end…?
Samantha: Kara wants to know how he does it all, when she can’t even figure out what she wants. He asks if she means Jimmy and she is shocked that he knows. He tells her that it’s super telepathy and she’ll develop it too someday. She gives an adorably funny, “really???” and he tells her no, he’s just bffs with James and they talk. It’s a really good exchange, I think maybe Clark is going to help this show feel more genuine and less forced.
Samantha: Definitely
He tells her that it isn’t always easy, but being Kara is just as important as being Supergirl. If things are right with James, she’ll know.
DEO. Alex confronts Hank with Operation Emerald: AKA the reason Supes and he are not friends. Back when Superman still worked with the DEO they got a call of a meteorite coming down. They both went to investigate and it ended up being the first kryptonite! Hank got to name it after how sick it made Superman and everything! Hank decided to not destroy it, but keep it, and Superman was not pleased. I’m with Hank here. Sure the Supers are on our side now, but if they ever went rogue it’s probably good to have a way to bring them down. (C: The comics would agree. But why didn’t they use it when Kara was on Red K a few episodes ago?) Winn comes in to let them know that the bomb was being held under the seat that Lena was supposed to be sitting in. She was the target.
On top of a building, Lena gets into a helicopter. Just as it lifts off, two of the drone things from earlier arrive. They start firing on the helicopter but suddenly the Super Company are there, blocking the bullets. British guy says that he thought they would show up and so he also planted drones throughout the city. Now they have to choose between the helicopter or civilians. Except they don’t because there’s two of them? Duh? Superman goes off to find the ones in the city while Supergirl takes the ones here. Superman destroys two of them no problem and Kara gets one of the ones by the helicopter. Sorry everyone, it was a weird scene to watch and I’m struggling recapping it. As a drone explodes it takes Kara down with it because seriously I have no idea how indestructible she’s supposed to be. (M: It depends how far we are into the episode…) Superman saves a family from being blown up and the kid is very impressed. His dad mutters that they’re moving back to Gotham and wow, I don’t even know what to do with that.
Catherine: This helicopter save very closely resembles the iconic first rescue of Lois Lane by Superman in the (again) 1978 Superman movie. When she gets into the helicopter, Lena even mentions that she hates flying even though “statistically it is the safest way to travel” which is a direct reference to a line in the movie that has been used in a lot of different adaptations:
Samantha: Love it, love you guys.
Kara gets up from being dazed or whatever and destroys the last drone and safely lands the helicopter. Supergirl tells Lena that someone is trying to kill her.
Mari: Wow, Captain Obvious. Way to go.
Samantha: CatCo. Kara apologizes to James for being so distracted and starts rambling about their next date. James stops her and says that he can tell something has changed for her but he thought this was what she wanted. Kara says that it was but now she’s not sure. Jimmy walks away hurt.
Mari: This story line is hurting my feelings too, Jimmy.
Catherine: Something changed for her…overnight? It’s been like, a day.
Samantha: Cat’s new assistant runs out of her office crying while Kara heads in. She asks why Cat hasn’t fired her yet, usually she goes through assistants like Emily Gilmore goes through maids. Cat says she doesn’t know and Kara wants to know what’s wrong. Cat has already followed all of her passions and achieved all of her goals, why can’t Kara pull it together when she has the world at her feet? She goes on a long water metaphor that boils down to Kara being afraid to leave her comfort zone and afraid to become a new version of herself. “But in order to live we must keep daring. Keep diving,” Cat finishes. I start thinking too hard about my own life. (C: Quick! Watch more TV in a dark room!)
Kara thanks her and Cat says that she has 12 hours to go.
DEO. Everyone is looking over the drone wreckage. They’ve somehow identified the British bad guy as Corben, an international hitman. Kara isn’t at this meeting because she’s trying to convince Lena not to go through with the ceremony. Hank says that he’s sending Alex to the event, and Superman says that he and Kara will be there too. Alex whispers to Hank that he and Supes should talk.
Hank goes over to give the talking a try and Superman tells him that he’s still not cool with kryptonite being held here. Hank J’one tells him he would never let it be used to hurt Clark or Kara. Superman believes him but what if he’s ordered to from someone higher up, or he’s not in charge anymore? Hey, speaking of in charge, wasn’t Lucy supposed to be working here with Hank? Co-captaining?
Mari: Ugh, stop calling her. She might appear.
Catherine: I can’t believe I completely forgot about her. That probably says a lot.
Samantha: Renaming Ceremony. Lena says that since Lex is serving 32 life sentences it’s not surprising more people haven’t turned up for the event. Kara says that she’s taking a huge risk going through with this ceremony, but Lena thinks that she has to begin to fix what Lex did. Alex surveys the area and Jimmy strolls into the scene. Lena begins her speech and then there is, of course, an explosion behind her. Everything erupts into chaos. Jimmy goes to help a fallen woman and Supergirl blocks debris from falling on them with her body. It’s actually a cool shot.
Winn tells Supergirl that one of the retaining columns got knocked out in the explosion, and it’s the main thing holding the building up. She needs to repair it. She grabs some nearby metal (?) (M: The judges will allow “nearby metal.”) (S: The judges are nice to me today.) and heads off to do that while Superman holds the building.
Alex and Corben continue to fight.
Supergirl quickly builds a support beam and welds it together with her heat vision. Have we ever talked about how it’s weird that her heat vision is blue, when traditionally blue is cold? Confuses me every time.
Mari: The hottest part of a flame is typically blue. Thanks bunsen burner in chem lab for that knowledge!
Catherine: Cute how you’re pretending your welding knowledge doesn’t come from Flashdance, Mari. Real cute.
Samantha: Building saved. Superman smiles proudly, and it’s cute.
Alex and Corben fight until she lets him rolls close to his gun and get the upper hand? You’re better than that, Alex.(C: Mmm. Is she though?) He holds the gun to her head as Supergirl lands in front of them. She accuses Lex of hiring Corben to kill Lena and Corben confirms. Woof, that’s cold, Lex. Shots ring out as Lena shoots Corben from behind. Atta girl.
L Corp. Lena thanks Clark for writing a good story about her and the company. Clark apologizes for doubting her. She’s especially glad he included the fact that she shot the hitman, because it’ll teach Lex to send assasins. I think I like Lena. She wonders why Kara’s name isn’t on the byline of the story but Kara insists she isn’t a reporter. (M: Gee, I wonder where this is going.)
CatCo. Kara is in Cat’s office 43 minutes before the deadline because she made her decision: she wants to be a reporter. Well, yeah. The episode was holding our hand and dragging us to this moment. Is it weird she’s going to have the same career as Superman? (M: Yes.) (C: Weird and lazy.) Cat smiles and pulls Kara’s resume out of a drawer. It has the word reporter written on it because when Cat interviewed her for the assistant job she knew Kara had it in her. She has integrity, and she inspires Cat. Listen, I might be alone here but I really like the relationship between these two and how it has developed. (C: Still shipping it tbh.) Kara says that Cat has good instincts about people and helping them figure their shit out. Cat scoffs but then looks thoughtful.
Balcony of Seriously Always Brooding. Kara finds Jimmy out there. She says that on Krypton, by her age, she’d be a spinster. And I’m just not sure what she means. Her real age, if she had never been in the pod? Or her current age wherein Krypton has some shitty standards? IDK. (C: IalsoDK.) She says that she needs to figure out who she is as Kara and her heart tells her that they should just be friends. He tells her that they will always be friends and looks sorta maybe sad as she leaves.
This is weird. I’m torn. I felt that these two had no chemistry and didn’t care at all about them being together. It makes me laugh a little that someone at the CW felt the same and took some drastic measures. On the other hand this feels completely out of left field and nonsensical. I’m sure my fellow snark ladies have thoughts.
Mari: I’m with you. I don’t actually care about Kara being with Jimmy. I mean we’ve shipped her harder with Flash, Cat’s son and Cat for god sakes. However, Kara and Jimmy were forced down our throats for an entire season so being all JK JK JK the first episode in feels totally graceless and even more forced than then together. There is literally no reason that 24 hours after they had that cute little make-up in her apartment, she should suddenly feel like this is not what she wants. If there is a reason, they haven’t explained it or shown it to us. I mean, yes, she can change her mind if she wants, but that doesn’t mean it’s good storytelling and this is NOT good storytelling. Finally, if they pulled the plug on this so fast and so hard, it better be OVER. Don’t you tell me next episode that they are looking at each other longing. I will KICK THINGS.
Catherine: Seconded to all of the above. This came totally out of the blue. I guess the CW thought that her dating someone would be boring? Is that how TV shows work? I don’t know. I don’t really care though, because I did actually find it pretty boring.
Samantha: DEO. Hank welcomes Winn officially to the DEO cause I guess he’s working here now. That’s probably a better fit? Winn, funny enough, is also unsure of what to call Hank J’onn, who tells him that “sir” works. Not really for our recaps, though.
Mari: Better fit! Stupid in the grand scheme of why Winn would suddenly be offered this job, but The CW is apparently taking the fast route to fixing CBS’s mistakes.
Samantha: Supergirl asks if it hurts Superman’s ego that she got top credit for the save and he tells her that he’s proud to just work with her. He’s actually going to stick around National City for awhile. He calls her his family and I can hear Team Powerpuff cackle collectively. (C: Guess you’ll be seeing her on Thanksgiving finally then, Clark?) Alex interrupts their moment with an armored car robbery and up up and away they go.
In a really sketchy creepy warehouse, Corben is hooked up to ventilators. A woman comes in and tells him that he’s not in a hospital and he has a choice to make. Either shut off the ventilator and die or she presses the green button and lives. He chooses life and she welcomes him to CADMUS. Tubes start to pump something into him and his veins go white as his eyes go silver. She calls him Metallo. So. That’s cool, I guess. (M: I had to remind myself that Bane is Batman for a second.) (C: I have a whole thing about Metallo but I’m saving it for next episode because I’ve already done too many comics facts in this one!)
I didn’t hate this, you guys. I actually mostly enjoyed this. It felt less lazy to me and more sincere. It wasn’t perfect but it makes me hopeful.
Catherine: Same. It could just be the Lois references though.