Supergirl S02 E14 – Layers.

Previously: Mxzyptlk tried to force Kara to marry him.
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Homecoming

Marines: Mon-El wakes up in Kara’s bed, but she isn’t there. He wonders out loud if the night before was that bad… or was it that good? Mon-El gets up and the TV is already on in the living room? I mean, how else would we get our exposition. The news is covering the fact that Supergirl has already stopped five armed robberies (how many armed robberies happen per minute in National City??), delivered a litter of puppies and helped a tug boat haul a tanker.

Samantha: Is this episode going to be about his fragile masculinity?

Catherine: Every episode is. 

Mari: Supergirl herself flies back into the apartment with two cups of coffee and some roses. She gives them to Mon-El, and it’s actually rather cute. Kara super-changes into a really cute outfit and then shyly says that she had a really nice time. Mon-El pulls her into a hug and says that he did too, but one note: he would like to wake up next to her. Armed robberies and puppies be damned. They kiss and Kara notes how nice it is to do that without breaking a guy’s nose. Mon-El asks how many times that’s happened. Kara covers her face in slight shame as she says “less than five?” So, four, Mon-El guesses. “Exactly four times.” They kiss more.

Catherine: Okay but Lois Lane never gives Superman shit for having to fly off in the early morning to literally save lives because it’s his entire job. Do I just hate Mon-El and am looking for reasons to tear him apart? Maybe so. But consider this: He sucks. 

Mari: Mon-El says that since she got her “little superheroing” out of the way (dick) (S: I fucking hate him.), maybe they can just stay in today. Kara says they can’t, because they have to be at the DEO in 20 minutes. Speaking of which, maybe they can keep their relationship quiet? Mon-El is a little uncomfortable with the idea that Kara doesn’t want anyone to know. Kara says it’s just for now because the last time she liked someone, everyone watched and commented and she doesn’t want that to happen. Mon-El agrees to keep it quiet.

Cut to Mon-El walking into the DEO and announcing to everyone that he and Kara are in a relationship and they should all be jealous. Kara takes it waaaay better than I would. (S: IS HE FUCKING SERIOUS WHY ARE THEY WORKING SO HARD TO MAKE ME WANT TO DESTROY HIM?!) (C: IT’S LIKE THEY ARE BEGGING US TO HATE HIM LIKE I GENUINELY AM SEETHING THIS ISN’T CUTE DID THEY THINK THIS WAS CUUUUUTEEEE?) She asks J’onn if maybe he could just ignore what just happened, but J’onn says that, as her supervisor, he can’t. She has to report to HR and report that she’s dating a co-worker. Kara is surprised they even have an HR. Alex teases that Kara’s gonna have to go to a mandatory sexual harassment training, too. Mon-El guesses it’s gonna be a real tough sparring session for him. Kara is like, you bet, so Mon-El runs off to warm up.

Meanwhile, Winn is actually working or something. “Holy Cadmus creme egg,” he yells. Wow.

Anyway, he’s spotted some sudden activity at a suspected Cadmus facility. Kara tells Winn to tell Alex and Mon-El to set up back-up teams. Winn asks if she’s going alone, but she says she’s taking the other fly guy.

Cadmus Convoy. Supergirl and Martian Manhunter find it, but Supergirl can’t see inside the truck. Cadmus starts shooting at the heroes. Supergirl uses her heat vision to seperate the convoy from the truck. Supergirl lands on the truck and detaches the cab, while Martian Manhunter takes care of the other cars and drivers. Supergirl breaks open the doors and inside is Dean Cain (!) chained up and unconscious. (S: Dean!!!! Make this show better!!!!)

Supergirl and J’onn help Dean Cain inside the DEO. Alex runs up and gives her dad a hug and everyone just starts clapping. (S: I know that everyone clapped but this felt SO anticlimatic to me.) In the med area, Dean Cain reminds us that Cadmus kept him alive so he could modify the real Hank Henshaw. And he supposes that he did such a good job with that, they kept him around for more projects. He tried to escape a bunch of times, but that was hazardous to his health, as was helping Kara and Mon-El escape from Cadmus in that one episode I most certainly forgot. They tortured him after that, and his hand has extensive damage. Mon-El points out that it’s real suspect that they got this alert that Cadmus was moving a weapon. Kara thinks they caught Cadmus red-handed, and Mon-El says they were actually waving their red hands in the air like they literally didn’t care. I really hate when he says things that make me chuckle. Admittedly, it’s a low bar on this show.

Dean Cain says that Mon-El is right, especially becase Cadmus does actually have a weapon- a nuclear fusion bomb they are going to use to destroy National City and blame it on hostile aliens. They built the bomb using the radiation they mined from Supergirl’s heat vision while she was in their custody.

Samantha: I feel like we already did the nuclear bomb thing…?

Catherine: Probably. I don’t retain anything about this show when we’re done watching.

Mari: I feel like “we’ve done this before” is still a safe assumption to make when watching this show, though.

Cadmus. Lillian Luther asks Cyborg Hank when the device will be ready. In great dramatic timing, Cyborg Hank says right now, as he clicks a final piece into a nefarious sphere thing. Lillian smugly says that the DEO and Supergirl won’t be able to stop them this time. Yeah, lady, my money is on they will stop you this time. Sorry.

After a not!commercial, Winn gives us a snarky recap of the last 10 minutes of episode we just watched. Dean Cain tells him to maybe trace the radiation signature from Kara’s heat vision to find the bomb. Winn gets on it. Eliza Danvers arrives and has a reunion with Dean Cain. Kara and Alex look on with smiles. Mon-El is pensive.

Mon-El asks if he can talk to Kara in private, and we’ve reached the someone-warns-Kara-about-something-that-she-ignores portion of the episode. Mon-El warns Kara about the weirdness of this whole situation. It didn’t seem like Cadmus was trying to collect her heat vision, just short her out. Kara tells him he’s not a scientist. Mon-El says that Jeremiah has been living with the enemy for along time and Cadmus could be forcing him to do something. Kara’s like, “but he needs us!” And that’s basically the end of that conversation. Kara invites Mon-El to the family dinner to celebrate this totally non-suspicious return.

Samantha:

Mari: Super Pad. The Danvers all small quip with each other while setting the table. A knock on the door. Kara answers and it’s Maggie. Alex runs over and nervously kisses her. Maggie hugs Eliza and then Alex takes a big breath and introduces Dean Cain to her girlfriend. Dean Cain is a little shocked and jokes that things have certainly changed. He then says that no man on Earth could be good enough for Alex, so she would have to date someone like Maggie. IDK, there something super awkward about that as a compliment, (S: Keeps it man-centric, maybe?) but Maggie takes it as flattery. She’s also brought tequila, so Dean Cain and Eliza head off to make margaritas for all.

Alex and Kara share a moment about how happy they are and how they cannot even. Another knock, and this time it’s Mon-El. In the kitchen, Dean Cain apologizes for leaving Eliza to raise the girls alone and says they are going to make up for lost time. Eliza says it doesn’t work that way. She loves him and she missed him, but they don’t know each other anymore. They are going to have to start something new. Dean Cain smiles and says that they can start with dinner.

Samantha: I….was sorta waiting for him to stab her, idk.

Catherine: I appreciated this little fleeting bit of someone having some fucking common sense in this episode. Four for you, Eliza. Way to have some agency. 

Mari: Would’ve been better if she’d stabbed him, but alas. 

J’onn walks in and Dean Cain hugs him and grandly thanks him for saving his life and watching over his girls. They cheers to coming home, and Dean Cain asks them all to be patient with him. He’s seen and done things he wishes he hadn’t. Kara interrupts him, but Dean Cain says he can’t ignore his past. Cadmus tried to break him, but in the process also made him dangerous. He knows their weak spots. So, he wants to work with the DEO to protect the world. J’onn says pending a psych eval and field readiness exam, he can start tomorrow. Mon-El just quietly drinks his alcohol like hokay I guess.

Samantha: Stop making me side with one of the worst characters, show.

Mari: Mon-El points out that he was at the DEO for two months before he could pee alone and Dean Cain is just waltzing in. In response, Kara forces Mon-El to say something nice. He can’t quite manage to, and keeps pointing out how fortunate it is that Dean Cain has returned at this exact time, when a fusion bomb is out there and no one has seen it but him, and now he’s being let into the DEO, no questions asked. Alex gets worked up, so Kara grabs Mon-El and pushes him into her room.

Mon-El can’t believe that no one is questioning this. Kara is over his shit, specifically because he won’t listen to her. She asked for time and privacy, and he announced their relationship. She asked him to be nice to Jeremiah, and now this. Mon-El says it’s two strikes against him. Kara is like I’M NOT BASEBALL. This relationship won’t work if he won’t listen. Dean Cain appears and offers to see Mon-El out. Mon-El says he was leaving anyway.

Samantha: I hate Mon-El and his attitude towards Kara so much but also it IS weird so. Ick.

Catherine: Okay. Here’s the thing. One of Superman/girl’s canon weaknesses is their implicit trust in people. They like to take things at face value. They like to trust that people are as good as them and this especially applies to friends and loved ones. I am okay with an episode where Kara’s inherent faith in the world gets used against her. It happens and it’s usually an interesting look at the character. But this? Is so like? Lazy? SPOILER ALERT: Dean Cain is SO CLEARLY up to something. Watching Alex and Kara blunder along after him like he’s totally the same guy he was and there’s no way anything has changed about him after 15 YEARS OF CAPTIVITY just makes them look like morons. And I’m uncomfortable with the fact that Mon-El’s jaded view of the world is obviously gonna be proven right over Kara’s faith in humanity. Did I mention that I hate them as a couple? I can’t remember if I mentioned that. 

Mari: Dean Cain walks Mon-El to the door and says that he knows who Mon-El is. Really. And he doesn’t think Kara would like the truth.

Alien Bar. Winn meets Mon-El for a drink and asks what’s so secret they couldn’t talk about it at the DEO. Mon-El repeats his spiel, about how convenient it is to suddenly find Jeremiah after 15 years. Winn kind of sees the logic there and promises to keep his guard up until they figure out what’s going on with Jeremiah. In return, Winn has a favor to ask of Mon-El: be good to Kara. Mon-El sadly says that he will. Lyra, Winn’s new girlfriend, saunters over, surprised to see Winn there since they aren’t meeting until later. They canoodle a bit and, when Lyra leaves, Mon-El congratulates Winn and they cheers to him also treating Lyra well.

DEO. Dean Cain and J’onn share yet another SO HAPPY YOU’RE BACK moment. Dean Cain says he’s ready to work, so J’onn hands over a security badge and tells him to get familiar with the med bay. J’onn leaves and Dean Cain immediately gives the camera a shifty look and lets himself into the mainframe. Winn sees him.

Kara walks into a room, thinking she’s there to talk to Winn, but Mon-El is there as well. Kara really doesn’t want to listen, but Winn tells her this is big. Dean Cain hacked into the DEO’s mainframe.

Out in the main room, Kara, with Winn and Mon-El in tow, asks Dean Cain if they can talk for a minute. Alex asks if everything is okay. Kara question/states that earlier, Dean Cain accessed the DEO mainframe. Dean Cain says he did. He tried to access some old case files, but the access codes had been changed (in 15 years no duh) so he did a “workaround.” AKA HACKING. J’onn asks what he was looking at and… is J’onn psychic? I feel like this would be solved by him listening in for a hot second, no?

Samantha: Genuinely can’t remember. Katy?

Catherine: He 100% can literally read minds. Does the bitch ever use it tho? No.

Mari: Powers are wasted on the fictional.

Dean Cain says he was innocently hacking into the system to look at case files from the last 24 months to see what his daughters were up to, checking in on the crisises they had faced and the people they had saved. Dean Cain sads that he was gone for so long that it was a way for him to feel like he was there. Winn looks at his tablet and says, kind of hesitantly, that yep it looks like it was just a bunch of old case files. Alex tells Winn and Mon-El they are unbelievable (for flagging some hacking? I feel like this episode is making me question my sanity) and Kara that she is something else.

Kara finds Alex to talk things out. Kara says she’s just as hurt and scared, but she can see clearly now. Cadmus is their enemy and they should just be looking at this from every angle. Alex tells her she sounds just like Mon-El, but Kara says it has nothing to do with him. It has to do with how weird it is for Dean Cain to hack into the DEO and not, like, ask since he was spending a lot of time with them. Alex yells a lot about choosing sides and FAMILY. She’s very upset people are saying Dean Cain hacked into the system even though he totally hacked into the system.

Samantha:

Catherine: This scene truly takes Alex from being understandably glad that her dad is back to being in some weird creepy Dean Cain cult (a cult many of us would gladly join for different reasons). Again, OF COURSE he’s changed after being prisoner for 15 years. Alex is set up as this brilliant character who has a degree in alien genitals or whatever but she’s so often shown as being stubborn to the point of stupidity. 

Mari: And we get to watch it all.

Alien Bar. Lyra and Winn flirt and play darts. Mon-El walks in and comments on how good Winn is doing at boyfriend-ing. Mon-El would like to not be terrible at it. Winn says that Kara doesn’t need a protector or someone to show her off. She can do that all by herself. Mon-El asks what’s left for him then. Winn says he should asks Kara, since she is the one he’s dating. Winn’s phone pings, and he gets super excited because they’ve tracked Supergirl’s radiation signature. Cadmus is moving the fusion bomb.

Supergirl and a DEO team lead by Alex move into position to disarm the fusion bomb. From HQ, Dean Cain tells them to be careful and not let the bomb go off. Thanks, bro. J’onn gives them the signal and Supergirl uses her heat vision to break them into a warehouse. The warehouse is empty.

Alex asks J’onn what they should do. Dean Cain turns on his heels and gets out of the room. J’onn follows him, but can’t read his mind. Dean Cain heads back down to the mainframe and starts more hacking. J’onn catches up to him, grabs his arm, and we hear a metallic clunk. Wow, what a shock. We spent the whole episode talking about how sus Dean Cain was and indeed. He is sus.

Samantha: I honestly wasn’t sure if it was gonna go the “fake Dean Cain” route or the “Kara is right to always believe in people” route. So. Woo.

Catherine: Oh, trust, that she will never get to be right about anything on her own damn show. 

Mari: Cyborg Dean Cain throws J’onn around. Winn runs in and gets throw around, too. Dean Cain uses a bug shaped bug to copy the DEO’s data. J’onn gets up, turns into Martian Manhunter, and engages in a fight with Dean Cain, who is yelling about doing what he had to do. J’onn doesn’t know the whole story. There are layers to his betrayal, apparently.

Samantha: Oh wait, shit, this is real Dean Cain? I thought it was just gonna be a fake.

Mari: It might still be? Honestly, anything is possible.

In the warehouse, Supergirl says they have to get back to DEO. Alex looks shocked!! by this turn of events.

Dean Cain bests Martian Manhunter, grabs his bug, and takes a gun to the mainframe.

After a not!break, J’onn and Winn are at the med bay, getting patched up. Alex, Mon-El and Supergirl arrive, inexplicably late, since at least two of those people are faster than a speeding bullet. Alex can’t believe that Dean Cain was able to take J’onn down, so he tells them about his enhanced arm. Alex says Cadmus is going to be sorry about this, but no sorry from her yet for yelling at Kara about FAMILY (C: RIGHT?). Winn tells everyone that he did an actually useful thing and hid a tracker on Dean Cain.

Woods. Cyborg Hank and Lilian wait. Cyborg Dean Cain appears and hands over the DEO files. Supergirl and Alex aren’t far behind. Of course, they waste like a billion seconds doing nothing and just staring each other down, and Lillian has planted a bomb on a train bridge. Supergirl has to take off to save the train. Cyborg Hank super punches a tree, cutting Alex off from her targets. Though Dean Cain does yell, “Alex!” so see? He cares. Layers. 

Catherine: Like an ogre or an onion.  

Marines: Supergirl saves the train.

Alex runs down her dad and confronts him. Dean Cain says he did it for her. Alex says she’s bringing him in, but he says she won’t. Not alive, at least. Alex powers up her gun, but Dean Cain lays on the emotional manipulation thick and Alex can’t shoot. Dean Cain gets away and Alex sobs.

Samantha: Bummer.

Catherine: Dean Cain was all, ‘You’re not gonna shoot me’ and I was like of course she’s not. That would be interesting. 

Mari: And we can’t have that.

DEO. Winn has to work on the mainframe before he can figure out what Cadmus stole. Eliza arrives and Alex goes off to talk to her. J’onn asks Supergirl how she’s doing and she says she’s worried about Alex, about Eliza, about Cadmus and about how Dean Cain’s betrayal will change them. J’onn says it will all make them stronger.

Alex’s apartment. She’s drinking alone before Maggie visits her. Alex cries and Maggie hugs her. 

Catherine: Remember last week when their entire plot was some stupid shit about Valentine’s Day? I’ve never seen the difference between filler episodes and main plot episodes so explicitly spelled out as they are with this show. 

Mari: Super Pad. Kara is crying on her couch when Mon-El arrives. He starts to say something, but when he sees Kara’s crying face, he says he isn’t going to talk. He’s going to listen.

What does she need? Kara tells him to just be there for her and they cuddle. That lasts a second and then Winn calls. He’s figured out that Cadmus stole the national alien registry. Kara tells Mon-El. He asks what they do and she says, “we get up.” He says yea they do.

Samantha: I mean he was fine here but I still hate him?

Catherine: Same.

Mari: He was definitely right about Dean Cain, but wrong about everything else. Sorry, Boy Wonder Bread.

Cadmus. Lillian thanks Dean Cain for his good work, even though it must’ve been difficult. Dean Cain says they have a deal. Lillian says they do and soon the Earth will be free forever. They both are looking at a giant spaceship? I’m not sure if I should recognize it more than that, but there you go.

I was vaguely enjoying this episode for a bit, but I’m upset that it hinged on very intelligent, highly trained people being stupid. I also am getting progressively more annoyed at how they temper Kara’s superpowers with slow reactions and contrivance. Nothing new, to be fair, but it still annoys me like it’s new every episode.

Samantha: Hopefully we weren’t meant to understand Dean Cain’s motives yet, ’cause I do not.

 

Next time on Supergirl – Is Kara still a reporter? Maybe in S02 E15 – Exodus.