Supergirl S03E06 Review: Smallville

Supergirl, Season 3, Episode 6: Midvale

So after the Alex/Maggie breakup last episode (and a well-deserved 'shut up Kara you shut down for a month when you broke up' rant from Alex) this episode brings the Danvers sisters back to Smallville Midvale to take a break and, well, to wind down from Alex's emotional ordeal. And it's honestly just a long-winded excuse to get an episode-long flashback sequence to how Kara and Alex become best-buddy-sisters as kids. I did think the show was overplaying Alex's DESPAIRUUUU at the beginning of the episode especially since it's honestly handwaved away after a good night's sleep, a dream-memory and a conversation, but it does make the payoff at the end, where Alex and Kara act like fun sisters again arguing about how Kara's driving is shit "gimme the keys, now." "That possum came out of nowhere!" is such a hilarious, fun exchange.

The flashback to Kara and Alex as kids, being catty little teenagers that fight over bathroom rights, with Alex being the cool girl in school and Kara being the socially-awkward near-friendless geek, is definitely well done. It's just an absolute delight for the episode to break away from its normal routine and just tell a story about these two characters I care about, and them solving murder mysteries when Kara's almost-boyfriend Kenny Lee was found murdered, Kara and Alex ended up teaming up to find out just who would kill a high schooler in a small town. A subplot goes through a history teacher who's fucking Alex's best friend (ew ew ew ew) and the two are convinced that they're in love, Kara strong-arms the pot-smoking football douche, and eventually they find out that the sheriff, who's been taking bribes or drug money or something, is the one that kills Kenny. Alex's trust in Kara is amazingly developed throughout the episode, from the pretty awesome moment of Kara holding on to Alex as they avoided being run over, to Alex basically calling out for her sister while the Sheriff brings her to kill her under the sports stadium...

I did also like the fact that one big part of Kara's refusal to use her powers prior to Season One was due to a conscious decision to not put Alex in danger. It does make some problems, though -- J'onn showing up as a CIA agent with Kara's mother's face is blatant emotional manipulation and the huge snarl in writing for the episode, and it makes Kara's insistence that she wants to be something more but can't because of Clark feel a bit strange in retrospect to this reveal, as is the reveal that Alex became a secret agent without Kara knowing. But eh, season one was a mess in retrospect, I'm just glad that the talented actors and actresses came out okay. Alex and Kara's relationship is displayed well in this episode, and I did like to see that they actually fought a fair bit before warming up to each other. It's perhaps in slight contradiction to what we know from earlier episodes, but eh, I'll shrug it off. 

Speaking of talented actresses... the teen actors they found that look so much like Alex and Kara's actresses and act so much like them? That had got to take a lot of effort in doing. I genuinely thought that they did some really good makeup team to turn Melissa Benoist and Chyler Leigh into teens, and am far more impressed that they found lookalikes that pass as the two characters themselves. 

So yeah, it's an episode that I enjoyed far more than I expected it to. I did feel the J'onn-as-Alura scene was hella strange and completely un-necessary, but overall it's definitely an episode I liked a fair bit, and I, for one, am glad that we're not getting like three or four episodes straight of Sad Alex after we had just been through three or four episodes of Sad Kara. Definitely didn't think I'd enjoy the episode as much as I did. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The reference to 'Clark's friend Chloe' that's good with computers is a reference to a character original to the Smallville TV series Chloe Sullivan. I've never watched Smallville, so, um... yeah, I'm taking the internet's word at it. 
• Supergirl having problem in fitting in to Earthen culture compared to Superman is similar to how the post-Crisis version of Kara Zor-El, who remembered 17 years of growing up in Krypton, has a long way to go to fit on Earth, as opposed to Superman, who arrived as an infant. 
• The episode makes a reference to Superman stopping Lex Luthor and his suit of powered armour, which is definitely a plotline that we've seen many, many times in Superman stories. 
• The jock also makes references to Superman wearing his underwear on the outside, meaning that early in his career, CW's Superman wore the proper, classic suit with the red underwear as opposed to the New 52 version that is all blue from the chest down.